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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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.

One of the most surprising experiences I had at PAX was my funfun happy time with Fury. I mentioned it in the PAX Massive, but it’d be understandable if you didn’t fully understand what it’s about. Here’s an attempt at a brief description of the game:

Fury is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game that attempts to bridge the gap between the RPG and FPS genres, leaning more towards the FPS side of the equation. Players take on a character-less avatar who participates in purely PvP confrontations. There are several different spheres of powers, each tied to a particular color. Each color roughly corresponds to an RPG trope (Red = Fire, Green = Nature). Within these colors, you can specialize into any of the standard MMOG roles (Blaster, Melee, Healer). Characters are not tied to a particular color or role at any point in the game; simply by loading a saved template of combined abilities and equipment, an entirely new role can be adopted with the same character. It will be purchasable in stores, but once you bring the box home it will be free to play. A fee service is available for additional conveniences and access to more ‘ranking’ elements.

There it is, in as tight a nutshell as I can manage. So, what’s it like to play?

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