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.

It’s been an amazing year in MMOGs. I think 2008 is going to be just as big a deal, though … and in some ways maybe even bigger. As I did last year (relatively well, I might add) I’m going to try to call some shots. Again, I’m just a guy and this is all in good fun. But I’ll keep myself honest: we’ll see how I did this time next year.

So then:

1. Is It Cold In Here or Is It Just Me? – Wrath of the Lich King won’t come out in 2008. We’ll have a firm release date (of early 2009) for the expansion by late summer, and there are as-yet-unannounced features slated for the content update. Blizzard has Hydralisks to fry this year.
2. Nickel and Dime – The concept of RMT and microtransactions will continue to gain acceptance with North American gamers. This will be reflected commercially by further successes for MapleStory and Nexon’s other games in the US. Other companies will begin to consider alternatives to the flat subscription fee, even if outright RMT/microtransactions aren’t yet on the table. At least one newly announced game this year will feature a non-subscription schema.
3. Call Me Agent Smith – The Agency is going to go over like gangbusters. A flat box fee with only microtransactions for further goodies is going to make a big impression … if it can make it out this year. Sometime mid-to-late summer would be perfect. This could even be one of the killer apps for the PS3 this year. Which is good, because it needs it. FreeRealms, on the other hand, is going to have a rough go of it. Without clear player understanding of what exactly this humor/fantasy MMOG thingie is, it’s going to take some time for it to take off.
4. WAAAAUGH For the Win – Warhammer is also going to be a big hit … though it perhaps won’t be everything that EA is hoping for. Long-term MMOG fans are going to fall in love all over again just the same. By the end of the year the house that Jacobs built is going to be very happy for all the extra hard work they put in. Conan will be a much less resounding success. It’s not going to fail, but Funcom is going to end 2008 more than a little bit frustrated.
5. Sunglasses At Night – The CCP/White Wolf game is going to be big news this year, as they announce the scope of the world. It’s not going to be everything that World of Darkness fans would have hoped for, but there will still be a lot of happy gothsicles.
6. Out of Left Field – One of the newbie studios (Carbine, Red 5) is going to announce a project that will really excite and surprise Massive fans. 38 Studios will announce what they’re doing, and it won’t surprise anyone … but it will be somewhat interesting.
7. Pushback – There’s going to be yet another major AAA title whose release date is pushed back to late in the year. One of the big games that we think is going to come out in 2008, won’t.
8. The Age Gets Darker – WAR’s release will be a very dark day for the already dimly-lit Ages of Camelot. Their emulation of Mythic’s older game’s defining feature, coupled with a better PvE experience in essentially every way, will see a lot of players heading for the hills.
9. The Legacy of McQuaid – At some point, Vanguard players are going to get tired of waiting around for ‘the good’ to show up in their game. Expect to see some of Vanguard’s best features showing up in EverQuest 2.
10. With the Brim Pulled Way Down Low – We’re going to see another live game close up shop this year, and an in-development title will slip into the unseen depths as well.
11. Way To Cast – Another MMO dev or publisher will join Blizzard and SOE in making an official podcast.
12. Coming of Age – Tabula Rasa is going to maintain a steady playerbase throughout the year as folks enjoy the new and exciting flavour. Turbine will continue to not report LOTRO’s subscription numbers, for a reason.
13. Okay For Serious This Time – BioWare will announce what they’re making in Austin. For reals, guys. C’mon! :)

2008’s Winners: Warhammer Online, The Agency, MapleStory, New Studios

2008’s Losers: Dark Age of Camelot, Vanguard, Age of Conan

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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Herein, the promised interview with EA Mythic’s Mark Jacobs.

I tried to approach this interview with a bit more of a ‘high level’ approach than most other folks probably did for interviews with Mr. Jacobs that week. I’d really enjoyed the MMO’s Past, Present, and Future talk the night before, and we spent some time touching on the subjects that event brought up. We do, of course, talk Warhammer as well, but there’s lots of ‘other’ stuff in there too. Specifically, Mr. Jacobs opines about being a small developer in the modern MMOG market, the RMT business and the SOE White Paper, and the role of viral marketing.

Read on for my transcript of our discussion, or feel free to download the whole thing and give a listen yourself.

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As of just a little while ago, the last 2006 chapter in the MMOG Nation Citizen Spotlight series should have gone up on GameSetWatch.  Today we’ve got a look at The Cesspit, a hive of MMOG design scum and villainy if ever there was one. Abalieno has an extremely enthusiastic muse, and thus when you ask him a ’simple’ question like ‘What games are you looking forward to?’, he has a tendency to respond in detail. In the interests of readability, the GameSetWatch post has an edited version of our interview; here, I have no such restrictions. For the complete and unedited word from the man, please feel free to read on.
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The fine folks at Kohnke Communications set up a teleconference to pass on some information about Warhammer Online. It was … an experience. On the Kohnke end, things were run by the ever-friendly Eddiemae Jukes. EA-Mythic offered up Senior Producer Jeff Hickman and Design Manager Paul Barnett to answer the questions submitted in advance by the press folks.

They’ve worked together before, and it was very obvious. Jeff referred to himself as the ‘fun’, while Paul is the ‘fact’. That was … pretty much the way of things, though I wouldn’t call Jeff’s presentation boring. Between the two of them, they talked extensively about the Realm vs. Realm combat, and got into a little bit of what makes Warhammer very much *not* World of Warcraft.

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Brent, buddy, you know I love what you do. But jeezus … your top ten list suuucked.
The Virgin Worlds podcast is a happy part of my week, every week, and at first I was enthused when a ‘Top 10 MMOGs’ list began back on the 12th. Instead of listening to the first back at the start of the month, I waited until the second half was released to start listening.

My biggest beef was the assertion that the higher numbered MMOGs were somehow ‘better’ than the lower numbered ones. I realize it’s less interesing when a top ten list doesn’t imply ranking, but in this case I think that’s the way I would have gone. Otherwise, it seems somewhat offset to compare almost decade-old work to brand new stuff. Likewise, games built on a shoestring compared to juggernauts like WoW? Blah.

I don’t care that WoW was #7. It’s iteratively better, not evolutionarily. Totally agree. You guys are obviously approaching the games from the POV of MMOG snobs, and I respect that at least. No problem.

But Jeezus. The fucking Warden? You’re complaining about the Warden? You’re complaining about their bad Customer Service? “Hi, this is 2003, I want my complaints back.” You then go on to discuss how Asherons Call is better than WoW, because some of its shitty content was hidden from most of the players. That is the most ass backwards thing I’ve ever heard. It’s a game, guys, not a scavenger hunt or geocaching. The point is to have fun, not spend time searching for content. (Subtle glares at Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest.)

On top of that, you then ranked Everquest 2 above WoW on your list. The hell? I’d love to know what alternate reality you folks are living in where EQ2 is a ‘better’ game than World of Warcraft. EQ2 is just like the majority of SOE’s games: lots of promise, plenty of potential, flawed execution. The traditional SOE recipe for failure has kept the greatness of EverQuest 2 from dominating the MMOG conciousness, and positioning it higher than WoW on the list is not going to change that.

Other crankiness elicited by your list:

• Guild Wars is Multiplayer, and it’s Online, but it ain’t Massive by most definitions.
• You should be ashamed of yourselves, making us Westerners remember that Lineage II exists. You gave children nightmares and made our crops blight!
• Ryzom’s big ticket to fame is it Frenchness. Okay, the Ring is really good. I’d like it more if the game the Ring was built on wasn’t so damn boring.

Since it’s my blog and I’ll second guess if I want to, my list would have looked more like this:

1. Everquest – teh Winner!
2. World of Warcraft – your new lord and master
3. FFXI – the much overlooked asskicker
4. City of Heroes/Villains – tights make everyone happy
5. Dark Age of Camelot – PvP’s home turf
6. Everquest 2 – so much potential
7. Ultima Online – Grandpa
8. Eve Online – funnest screensaver ever
9. Puzzle Pirates – puzzles are the future
10. Star Wars Galaxies – what not to do

All whining aside, I liked the obvious effort you put into the feature. Nice work, gents. Just, less ganja next time you working on the Science.