Just as with last year, I jotted off a few quick thoughts on the year in MMO trends. The result is up on Gamasutra, again as with year. Simon’s insistence on the ‘MMO expert’ title makes me feel a bit like a talking head, but still …

For one more special bonus, guest MMO expert Michael Zenke takes a look at the year’s five most compelling trends in online gaming. The world of MMOs is an enormous business and huge opportunity for the game development community at large. As a fast-growing and influential part of the industry, ripples in MMO development will have serious consequences in the rest of the pond down the line.

Here are the biggest stories of 2008 in online gaming, so you can know what to look out for next year.

Seeing as I actually got a lot of the presents I asked for this year, I can’t help but pitch in and ask Santa for some more goodies next year. Every year, around the world, we secularly ask ‘Saint Nick’ for loot under the Christmas tree. I’ll try not to buck the trend. As I’ve put out for the last two years, here is what I want to see under the MMO industry tree figuratively for the next twelve months. Come on, MMO industry: gimme some pretty packages!

Here’s what I want for my 2009 year in MMOs:

• Mega-quantities of awesome from SOE. Agency, Free Realms, and DC Universe Online are all very near the top of my awesomedar. I am really looking forward to the Free Realms Beta, and my hope is that Agency will go into Beta at some point near the end of the year. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing much of DCUO publicly, but at least one more chance to play that kickass demo would be much appreciated.
• An ongoing stream of content from BioWare about The Old Republic. Not only am I personally really thrilled that we’re finally getting something, professionally I can’t get enough of that SWTOR.
• The lads at 38 have told us that we should see real news on Copernicus sometime in early summer. I want their kickoff to be a huge splash, their content to be incredibly well-received, and their design to be absolutely inspired. I’ll be straight: I think they’ve got a long haul ahead of them. The fantasy genre is going to be hell and a half to enter as a direct competitor to WoW. But if they want to give it a try, who am I to stand in their way or do anything but cheerlead from the sidelines?
• After one of my favorite interviews of the year with two gents from Red 5, I have been obsessed about getting more details on their game. I would absolutely love to know what the hell they’re doing down there. More than any other ‘dark’ company right now, Red 5 is making the game that I’m desperate to explore. Here’s hoping they give us a bit more insight on their plans thiscoming year.
• I’m greedy, I know, but I really want a look at Guild Wars 2 as well. It’s been more than a year since Arena.net put out Eye of the North, and GW2 was well along in development back in that point. While I completely understand why it’s not out yet, the tomb-like silence that we’ve seen from the company on the topic of their sequel to their groundbreaking title has been a bit unnerving. I really hope Arena will finally be able to throw back the curtain and give us a look at the goods.
• Tons of success to my fellow MMO bloggers and podcasters, be they industry paragons like Scott or enthusiast juggernauts like Tim (Van Hemlock). While I know I don’t contribute a lot from this domain much any more, I’d like to think that the MMOblogosphere is a pretty darn special place to be hanging your hat. Here’s hoping it continues in 2009.
• Continued good gaming vibes and personal connections between myself and my guilds! A year ago I was a boring-as-hell soloer, and now I have a community in all three of my primary MMOs! I hope that 2009 finds me growing even closer to the Podcasters of Bree, Revelry and Honor, and What Would Thrall Do.
• The will, intelligence, writing skill, and patience required to run Massively.com. I’ll be honest, a year ago I never in a million years would have imagined I’d be running an MMO news site. It’s exactly, precisely what I’ve been working towards for the last few years and I feel incredibly lucky to be here. It’s hard, it’s challenging, it’s stressful, and to be honest it doesn’t pay that well. But it’s Massively, and I’ve got lots and lots of love.
• The energy to recommit to doing the MMOG Nation Broadcast … a podcast that should be returning soon!
• And, of course, the dedication to keep the feed alive here at MMOG Nation.

Feel free to drop in what presents you want from the industry next year in the comments.

I’ve written before about the frustrations players have finding and following content in MMOs. Specifically I think it’d be helpful to have guides or aides that specifically connect players with level-appropriate content. In my discussion of ‘the Personal NPC’, I brush against the problem that players face when they return to a character after an extended absence. Back in the day Brent dropped all of his quests when we left World of Warcraft so that he could come back fresh, and I’ve been reflecting on that ‘coming back fresh’ element. More on that in a sec.

In some ways I think the bewilderment of a returning player is almost equal to the transition from a new player to a veteran. In games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars there isn’t a lot in the way of a problem there. Point A to Point B, no problem. What about a game like EverQuest 2, though? Or Dungeons and Dragons Online? If you’ve never tried to make your way through that content without a signpost, you’ll know: it’s hard. My thought is that there are ways to solve the issues of contextless gaming and confusing leveling paths. Ways that involve cool instanced visitor centers! Read on.

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This past weekend I sat with John (TAGN), Darren, and Karen for the fourtieth episode of Shut Up We’re Talking. It highlighted – again – for me how much I enjoy these chats amongst friends and cohorts. I definitely think we had a good conversation, and I invite you to check out what we had to say in a summation/end of year show.

From John’s writeup:

• Introductions – As if you did not know
• What We’re Playing – You can probably predict most of the answers
• The Ghosts of Predictions Past – Darren, Karen, Michael and myself talk about our predictions for 2008 and how far off we were.  Darren and I scored ourselves in posts already, but you can look back at and see how well we did.
• The Ghosts of MMOs Present – We take up the Massively categories and pick our “bests” for the 2008 MMORPG scene.
• The Ghosts of Predictions Future – We each make one prediction about what will happen with MMORPGs in 2009.
• Blog of the Week – There was NO blog of the week.  But Darren has an angle to this.
• Out Takes – What could beat Mr. Zenke’s Bartle rant during the show?  How about Darren’s wife?

Or rather, how I finally ‘got’ LotRO. As I’ve said elsewhere I honestly think Lich King is a better expansion. Moria and the two new classes are incredibly impressive, but WoW’s newest offerings are (in my opinion) some of the best content ever added to an existing online game. What the last few weeks have proven to me, though, is that when I keep saying ‘the fantasy MMO is a solved problem’, I’m not giving enough credit to the other fantasy games that are already out there.

Let me be clear: new fantasy MMOs are almost certainly a losing proposition at this point. That’s just the way the market looks. But my viewpoint that WoW’s success had completely overshadowed other company’s work is oversimplifying things. Turbine’s hard work on LotRO – which I’ve long tried to highlight at Massively and elsewhere – is not wasted effort. Nor, I think, is SOE’s work on EQ2 – but that’s another blog entry. Read on for some thoughts on why Turbine’s work should be lauded so.
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I’m working through my Flickr feed updating and cataloguing content from the last few months. I put up my photos from my visit to Mythic Entertainment’s offices; whereas the lengthy Massively Goes to WAR series covered the game content I saw, these are just some random photos from behind the scenes. I particularly found the inspirational/development posters really interesting. Check em out.

Josh Drescher put this up on his personal site a while ago, and I keep meaning to put it up here. It’s the cinematic from the killed-in-development roman/sci-fi MMO Imperator. Good stuff.