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.

This week on MMOG Nation Broadcast, Michael is joined by veteran podcaster Shawn Schuster to talk about the possibilities and pitfalls of Guild Wars 2. Though it’s a game still far off on the horizon, it’s still something in the back of MMO players’ minds – lurking. Join us as we discuss the elements of Guild Wars that we really want to see moved forward to the sequel, and what some of the problems facing Arena.net might me.

Reference posts:
Guild Wars 2 – Too Soon?
Guild Wars 2 Confirmed and Explained
Guild Wars 2 – Too Soon!
Face the Nation: Guild Wars 2 with Mike O’Brien and Jeff Strain

Music:
Selections from the Guild Wars: Nightfall, Prophecies, and Eye of the North soundtracks. By Jeremy Soule, used without permission.

It’s becoming a running trend for me not to note MMOG Nation’s birthday (Jan 9th) as it goes past. I was either sick or on the road in early 2007, and this year I was both. I have had the creeping crud lodged in my chest since I got back from CES, regrettably. That’s been really good for MMOG playing, and really bad for things like working. Which, as you may have noticed, is something I enjoy doing.

In any case, to commemorate the site’s second anniversary I thought I’d drop a headpat on few personal favorites things from the past year. I’m not going to even tongue-in-cheek call them ‘awards’ like I did last year; these are just the things that made me well pleased in the past twelve months.

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Almost exactly a year ago I put down some predictions for the year in Massive games. It’d be cheating if I didn’t grade myself, so that’s what I’m going to do here, looking back at my 2006 MMOGnostications. This will be a pass/fail test, class … pens at the ready!

Burning Problems – The launch of the expansion to World of Warcraft is going to cause Blizzard bigtime headaches.

Buzz! Bigtime wrong. The launch went almost flawlessly, and despite the huge impact it has had on the life of raiders WoW rolls along unbowed and unbroken. I always thought the expansion was going to be good, but I expected Blizzard to have problems similar to the game’s initial launch. Instead, big blue learned its lessons and scored a customer relations coup.

That Not So Fresh Feeling – At least one of the MMOGs slated to launch this year is going to end up being kind of a stinker.

Ding! This was kind of one of my ’safety’ options, but it came very much true nonetheless. Vanguard was a huge letdown for expectant fans, and the SOE team is still doing overtime work to make the ship sail in a straight line.

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Christmas is mostly about family and giving and all that stuff, but when it comes down to it we all have our eyes open for loot. It’s the time of year when we hope that the wrapped presents under the tree are exactly what we want. When miracles might just come true. Last year I sat down and worked out my list for Santa, and I think it would be a shame if I didn’t do the same this year. Here’s what I want for my 2008 year in MMOGs:

• Something on the Firefly MMOG … anything!
• To find out what some of those new MMOG startups are doing, and (of course) more Metaplace news.
• A late-in-the-year launch of Lich King. I’ve still got lots of stuff to do before then.
• The dedication to keep playing EQ2 until my fellow adventurers tire of Norrath. I’d really like to get to the Kunark content at some point, too.
• A spectacular launch for Warhammer Online and a Beta invite early in the new year. (Please, Mythic? I promise to play nice.)
• Further success for my newest gig: Massively!
• A successful (first annual) Worlds in Motion Summit.
• Even *more* acceptance of MMOGs by mainstream society. I’ve gotten my Toyota commercial and Mr. T’s night elf mohawk already. Top that.
• I’m still waiting for the second episode of Illegal Danish, and now I’m waiting on MMOvie also. I could use some more of Snacky’s Journal, too.
• Announcements for the new games from Square/Enix and Blizzard … and for the love of all that is holy, just cop to KOTORO, BioWare!
• A sense of what Guild Wars 2 will bring us; 2007 made me a huge fan of Arena.net’s original.
• The dedication to keep the RSS feed smoking here on MMOG Nation.

This has been a crappy, crappy year.

• Blizzard releases an expansion that’s great – and I’ve barely played it.
• Vanguard flops
• Cryptic sells CoH, and now is completely silent.
• WAR and Conan are delayed until 2008.
• Ryzom goes under, again.
• Perpetual explodes, sending shards of two unreleased games flying.
• My EQII experience has gotten kind of crappy.
• Auto Assault closes.
• LOTRO releases to relatively positive reviews – and I’ve barely played it.

Most distressing for me, personally, is that in the last two weeks I’ve killed both of my gaming PCs. I now have no way of playing even World of Warcraft, let alone something like AoC or Pirates. You wouldn’t believe how much you want to play a MMOG when you can’t.

About the only thing I have fully appreciated this year is Eye of the North, which I’m now really enjoying on my wife’s PC.  I’m almost done with the Norn quest line … more about that later.

The thing that prompted this post was Fury’s demise. I said publicly in a few different places that I thought it had potential, and that I was hopeful for the little Aussie game studio. Just embarrassing. Maybe I thought that they’d take a little more time to get it right before releasing?

Whatever. Burning Crusade is obviously an unqualified success for Blizzard and the Massive industry as a whole. In fact, this year could be considered the year that Massive games went mainstream. Truck commercials, South Park appearances, Mr. T and Shatner … the only problem is that one game in the genre has gone mainstream. As a whole, new ventures this year have floundered or been delayed, while several existing titles have sunk beneath the waves. For better or worse, most of my MMOGnostication predictions have come true. That makes me bloody sad.

So: screw you 2007. Hopefully ‘08 will offer bigger, better things.

Normally I’d have a log here of last week’s hilarious hijinks in EverQuest 2, but we didn’t play last week because our Necromancer was at about 50,000 feet during playtime.

The time off gave me an opportunity to reconnect with Nightfall, my current chosen path along Guild Wars’ magical trail. I’ve never run a character through it, so I’m at about level 12 – my last major landmark was beating the Jokanur Diggings mission on Master.

It involved me killing a bunch of zombies, and then taking on something that sort of looked like a form-shifting two-ton lawn ornament.

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