Daily Blogroll 1/19 — Game of Mass Destruction edition


I absolutely would love to know how many people people are REALLY playing World of Warcraft vs Lord of the Rings Online vs Warhammer Online vs Total Global Annihilation (Online) and so on. Heaven knows its not in the interest of gaming companies to tell us. To me, it means they have something to hide. Every company is all so excited to reveal their numbers when they are trending up. When they are silent, that can only be bad news.
So I’m a big fan of Openedge’s “XFire Game” that he runs most Mondays. By tracking a game’s performance week to week, you can get a sense for how well its doing. But there’s a LOT of variables! XFire doesn’t track every online game — if it did, Farmville and Scrabulous would be knocking the gnome out of World of Warcraft. Most players don’t have XFire installed. Competing game time trackers like Raptr could be draining numbers from XFire across the board. Some players could decide XFire really isn’t doing much for them and abandon it. Games with both an Asian and Western presence could find their true numbers under-reported. Games that are popular on non-PC platforms, such as DCUO for the PS3, might find their numbers VASTLY under-represented.
We really need a better metric for this. Something like a Nielsen ratings for MMOs, with a bit of code attached to each game that “phones home” when run.
I’m sorry, did I say that DCUO is doing well? It’s going gangbusters! Check it out after the break!

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The Magic 8 Ball predicts the losers and winners of 2011.


I suck at predictions, but everyone else is doing them. Luckily, I have a Magic 8 Ball. I’m just gonna list some games, and ask the Magic 8 Ball what it thinks of them. Question to the 8 Ball for all of these games: Will this game have a good year in 2011?

Age of Conan: “Outlook Not So Good”. AoC released its first expansion, “Ride of the Godslayer”, last summer, and that’s pretty much the last I’ve heard of the game. I don’t think the Magic 8 Ball is correct; I think Funcom is content to support their current player base without feeling the need to go F2P. Their massively hyped launch should have helped them recoup their development costs years ago.

Aion: “Concentrate and Ask Again”. November saw Aion publish a massive revamp which added more loot to the game. December brought with it a rebalancing of the world PvP via rifts. Perhaps the Magic 8 Ball’s confusion stemmed from the game’s more Asian market?

Allods Online: “Better Not Tell You Now”. This Russian import stunned the MMO world with its innovative gameplay and Soviet art. It’s famously expensive cash shop instantly dampened the enthusiasm, and it seemed like only a couple of months before the crowds had vanished entirely. We gamers are a fickle folk. What is it, though, that the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t want to tell me? Perhaps a relaunch of the game in the guise of an expansion or a sequel? Only time will tell.

Black Prophecy: “Concentrate and Ask Again”. This space-based dogfighting MMO dropped its beta NDA the same day Rift dropped theirs. And hardly a word was said. Nonetheless, the MMO genre has been waiting for a space dogfighter ever since “Earth & Beyond” went under these many years ago. I expect the game to launch small but experience steady growth as word catches on.

Champions Online: “Very Doubtful”. The Magic 8 Ball clearly feels that going free to play next month won’t be enough to save the struggling superhero MMO. With DC Universe Online launching almost to the day that CO goes F2P, it’s clear there’s going to be an epic battle above the skies of Metropolis and Millennium City. Who will win? The 8 Ball seems to have its money on the SOE offering.

City of Heroes: “Cannot Predict Now”. With DCUO and CO duking it out in January, I have to go along with the Magic 8 Ball. There’s going to be too much mayhem from the two newer titles to have any way to predict how their battle will affect the elder game.

Darkfall: “Cannot Predict Now”. After a stunning six weeks featured on Massively, and Syncaine’s constant recaps, my gut feeling is that Darkfall has found its home with the fantasy PvP sandbox crowd, a niche it dominates. There are lots of fantasy PvP games out there, but few were built to cater to a Western audience. Still, the Magic 8 Ball seems to have its doubts.

DC Universe Online: “It Is Certain”. The 8 Ball is nothing if not consistent. After dissing Champions Online, it’s giving the clear nod to its latest competitor. Will the PlayStation 3 crowd take to the game? DCUO is a game that will live or die on the console.

Dungeons & Dragons Online: “Ask Again Later”. The Magic 8 Ball doesn’t have a strong opinion, and why should it? Since going F2P, Turbine has supported DDO with a steady stream of new content. A reliable money maker like DDO could last for years. However, there are at least two new online games coming based on the D&D license, Neverwinter and Daggerdale. 2011 should be safe for DDO, but come 2012, the story might end a little differently.

Earth Eternal: “Reply Hazy, Try Again”. A spot-on prediction for a troubled game. Earth Eternal joins APB, Gods & Heroes and Mythos as MMOs that either launched and failed, or never launched at all, that have been given new life with new publishers, new developers or both. Last we heard, EE was in the process of finding new hosting and was expected back online any day.

EVE Online: “Don’t Count On It”. Well, we never really expected the “walk around in stations” expansion, Incarna, to ship in 2010, and it didn’t. Magic 8 Ball thinks it won’t ship in 2011 either. Making predictions AGAINST ambulation is an easy win.

EverQuest: “You May Rely On It”. As far as we know, EQ remains the stalwart in SOE’s stable of MMOs, the reliable performer that just keeps chugging along, year after year. The 8 Ball predicts another year of stability, and I see nothing happening this year to prove it wrong. EQ Next? Not happening in 2011.

EverQuest II: “It Is Decidedly So”. The Magic 8 Ball predicts a smashing year for EQ2, but from my vantage point, it’s hard to see that coming true. Maybe EQ2 has found its home with the F2P crowd who are used to spending money on fluff items. The shattered realm still teams with adventure, after all…

Fallen Earth: “Cannot Predict Now”. It’s been a turbulent year for Icarus Studios, and for awhile it looked like they might have downsized too much to keep the game running. Nonetheless, they seem to have found their level and might be positioned such that steady growth could keep them running for a good long time. The 8 Ball can’t call it one way or the other.

Final Fantasy XIV: “It Is Certain”. Um, what are you THINKING, Magic 8 Ball? FFXIV had one of the most disastrous launches of any MMO EVER and heads are STILL rolling! My prediction is that the game is relaunched in Japan only for at least a year before being reintroduced to the West.

Lucent Heart: “It Is Decidedly So”. I dunno why people are always covering games like Tera and consistently ignoring the sleeper import to beat them all, Lucent Heart. The dating sim/MMO is going to definitely be the leader in its niche. Here’s a Chinese spokesmodel in a French maid uniform to explain how Lucent Heart will stop her from being lonely in love: (Video was deleted)

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Daily Blogroll 12/14 — Take my game, PLEASE! edition


FFXIV opens with a fantastic character generator, shows you a wonderful cinematic that soon includes you and segues smoothly into the tutorial. You soon are dropped into a crowded inn with quest givers that you will come to know very well. They give out your “guildleves” — kill quests, and your “local leves” — crafting quests, and finally your “field leves” — harvesting quests. Your remaining days in FFXIV will consist of filling up on leves, going to the place they tell you to go, killing trash mobs, making items you won’t be able to keep, and whacking away at harvest nodes.
Once in a very, very long while, you will get to continue the story for a short time — and then it’s back to the leves, hoping for the next bit of the story. Or perhaps to rise high enough in level to see anything but the forest. In a game that almost begs for exploration, it keeps such things as the ferry to other cities, riding chocobos and even travel deep into the forest outside Gridania locked away.
FFXI had its issues — a lot of them — but for the most part, I had fun. Nothing stopped me from exploring (and dodging high level monsters). FFXIV, on the other hand, constantly teases with the fun stuff just over the next horizon. Except over the next horizon are more badgers, bees, animate fungus and so on to slaughter, mindlessly.
If a MMO player had to choose between FFXIV and WoW, I can’t think of anything that would compel them to choose FFXIV. They’d miss questing, an explorable world, any goals, dungeons, etc. They would gain a limited ability to mix and match class abilities to form a custom class of their own choosing, but then, with Rift coming out which goes crazy with customizability (and includes leveling by quests or rift chasing or PvP), it’s not easy by any means to build the case for the game.
Now they’re tossing the game’s director and producer, taking the game back to the workshop for a complete overhaul, and not charging for a subscription until sometime next spring. That puts it just after Rift’s launch, and just before SWTOR’s expected launch in April. I have no idea what they could possibly do to fix the game. It is SO BEAUTIFUL! I guess my only suggestion would be to put some of the fun stuff closer to the start of the game.
On to the blogroll.

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Daily Blogroll 12/8 — Holy NDA, Batman! edition


Superhero comics have to be the most consistently grim form of literature imaginable. Here you have people with cosmic supernatural powers, and those powers bring them no joy. Instead, they are crushed by tragedy after unthinkable tragedy. Their lives are living nightmares, and for most heroes, there is no peace even in death. Satan once bet God that he could shake the faith of his most pious worshiper, a rich man named Job. God said sure, go for it, and Job was robbed of his wealth and his family. Satan went on to wrack Job with terrible illnesses, but Job struggled on, never losing faith. We see that in the Book of Job was written the very first superhero story.
I guess this is a sort of roundabout way of celebrating the lifting of the DC Universe Online NDA. But what of The Agency, the other SOE Action-MMO property? News of both, and more, after the break.

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