There’s been a bit of a meme going around where people share the sixth screenshot from their sixth screenshot subdirectory. Unfortunately, I don’t order screenshots quite like that. Instead, I thought I’d just go through my big old FRAPs folder (which contains the last 5 months or so of screenies from me) and show you my personal favorites. Here you go (with a key after the cut):

It looks like we have a sense now of what the year is going to look like for MMO gamers. Free Realms is dropping later this spring, with what sounds like a twofer following in June. Champions and Jumpgate letting loose at the start of the summer is sure to give younger MMO gamers with some downtime plenty to do. Then capping off the year we’ll be seeing Aion on this side of the world. That’s about all the MMOs I expected to see release this year, with a pretty good spread. You have to sort of worry about two games hitting live service in the same month.

That said, it’s questionable how much overlap the JGE and Champs audiences will have. And, as Massively points out, Eurogamer’s announcement of Champions’ release date hasn’t been confirmed by Cryptic yet.

Just in case you need some background:

Free Realms: SOE’s first free-to-play title, a whimsical fantasy game aimed at tweens and families.
Champions Online: Cryptic’s second go at a superhero MMO, based on the tabletop RPG license. Will build on City of Heroes innovations and feature more physicality in the world.
Jumpgate Evolution: Netdevil’s long-in-development space shooter, a persistent online successor to games like Wing Commander.
Aion: A fantasy game from NCsoft featuring a unique background story and playable characters with the ability to fly.

I’d say it’s a busy year for MMOs, but the genre’s become something altogether different in the last few years. I expect most years we’re going to be looking at a number of big-picture releases, along with numerous smaller entries into the field. These AAA titles are going to be joined in 2009 by numerous free-to-play games and indie offerings; already this year we’re seeing the relaunch of Three Rings’ Bang! Howdy.

It’s awesome, and highly encouraging, to see the genre explode like this. I can’t wait to see what the industry looks like at the end of the year (thought I’m pumped that Free Realms is going live so soon!)

There’s a lot I could say, enough to fill many additional posts and bore the crap out of you. Suffice it to say, my life is changing and it’s all a bit surprising.

This month will mark the end of my tenure as managing editor for Massively.com, and a conclusion to my career as a games journalist. I have been offered, and accepted, a position as a game designer at the SOE-Austin studio. I’ll be working on the DC Universe Online project.

As a result of this new position my wife and I will be moving to Austin, Texas at the end of the month. We’ll be there in about two weeks, actually.

I sat in on the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call for this week, and talked a bit about this newness there too. Feel free to listen in.

Please be aware: Massively is not closing. This isn’t the result of a cutback, I haven’t been fired, the site is 100% awesome. In fact, Shawn Schuster is going to be taking over as the Managing Editor of the site. As a reader of the site as well as a blogger there, I’m super pumped about Shawn running the show. He’s a top-notch professional and a fantastic writer. I’m really looking forward to see what he does for the site.

So what does this mean? Well, I’m going to be stepping away from MMOG Nation for a few months while I completely reorient my life. There’s no reason I can’t keep blogging here, just have to aim for a civil tone and probably not do a lot of talking about specific games. Though I offer no guarantees I’m not going to gush over Free Realms.

And of course, I won’t be done podcasting. I won’t be on Massively Speaking every week, but I’ll try to drop in on SUWT and GWJCC if they’ll have me.

Feel free to drop questions in the comments, I’ll try to answer as best I can. And thanks, as always, for reading.

SOE welcomes the POX Nora crew to the family … with a naked chick.

What is it with half-dressed women representing MMOs? Are guys just not representative of MMO players? That doesn’t seem to really jive with what I know about the online gaming scene … maybe it’s just the group I run with, though.

A while back Steve Danuser put up a post weighing in on the fate of Tabula Rasa. His was but one of many, with Scott, Damion, Eric, and Adam all putting in their two cents as well. I can’t hope to add anything to this discussion that hasn’t already been mulled by these guys, but I do want to clarify something that Steve links into. He says, “So if these guys are so smart, and if making a AAA epic fantasy MMO is a solved problem, then why did so many games have a rough year in 2008?”

“Making a AAA fantasy game is a solved problem” is something I said in my 2008 MMO wrapup on Gamasutra, and it’s something I’ve said frequently in the past. And I mean it. AAA fantasy games are ‘solved’, the formulae is complete, development and iteration on that particular niche of the niche market can stop now.

I never said anything about making one being easy.

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Instead of the usual enormous blog post (which I used both in 2007 and 2006) I decided to take a different tack this year. Below are embedded a pair of videos running down my thoughts on the upcoming year. Enjoy!

A year ago, at the close of 2007, I threw out some prognostications about the coming 12 months. Those months have now passed and it’s time to pay the piper. Just as with last year I’m going to grade my predictions on a straight pass/fail basis; percentages are for actuarials.
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