Razoric said:
I think the survivors of this MMORPG meltdown will be:
World of Warcraft (mainstream success)
Everquest 2 (mainstream success)
Ultima X, Matrix Online (successful for a bit)
City of Heroes (successful but never mainstream due to revolving customers)
Guild Wars, Middle Earth Online (limited success, possible cancellation, possible death within first or second year)
WoW and EQ2 are no brainers. They'll be huge and leading the market without a doubt.
Its a very huge possibility Ultima X will be canned. Its already haulted/slowed production because they dont have enough people working on it from when they moved Origin Studios. The best thing they had was a lead on the competition, but now they've lost that. By the time UXO comes out(if it even does) WoW and the others will have already have dropped and secured a large number of the MMO players.
Matrix Online and Middle Earth are tough calls. The names and fanbase alone are enough to suggest a pretty decent user base right out of the gate, but you never know. The games might end up sucking. Especially Middle Earth, I dont have any confidence in the development team.
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Matrix, whatever, the concept doesnt sound very interesting. I dont think they are really all they could with the license. The Matrix world could have been a really really fantastic MMO if they use it to the best of its ability, but it will probably average or below IMO. It doesnt sound very good.
Guild Wars is fantastic and its going to be huge IMO. Its going to get great reviews and be pimped like no other. Word of mouth alone will bring thousands upon thousands of players. Its awesome.