Will H

Our economic slowdown could take years. Companies know that and are trying to find a way to succeed in this environment. NC Soft will be riding Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 through this; and EA will do the same with Star Wars. Hopefully they'll adopt a version of the Guild Wars model. It's great value for up-front money. People find paying more than one monthly annuity to a video game company difficult in good times. RMT is a good way to survive in bad times while competing with WoW and WAR, and probably Star Trek Online as another major player.

Not having a monthly subscription fee is a really smart move. Time and again we've seen new MMO's fail, in part to people not being able or willing to subscribe to more than just WoW. It's timely too because of the recession. A couple of my guildmates are now unemployed or underemployed and are giving Guild Wars a second look because it doesn't have a monthly sub.

Even keeping 15 staff to work on a game is very, very expensive. Assume the average coh dev costs the company $250k a year in salary, benefits, office space, equipment, etc. (That's a lowball number considering they're in Mountain View, CA.) That's 3.75 million a year. CoH would need to make more than that to cover the cost. If NC Soft nets $13 per month per subscriber (there are transaction costs remember), that's $156 per player per year. They'd need over 24 thousand subscribers every month just to break even. Does CoH have that many anymore? Perhaps. But I am skeptical that TR or AA did before their demise was announced.

The game was very fun in its simplicity in early closed beta. But it got progressively complicated and buggy late in beta and after release. The designers also missed great opportunities to create beautiful design. Even a gritty war-torn world could be beautiful. But Foreas was needlessly drab. I never felt the pull of the game after release. So I reluctantly went back to WoW. (Currently I've dumped WoW for WAR. I've grown to dislike WoW intensely.)

I too am hoping Jumpgate Evolution will be good enough and popular enough to provide a viable alternative to orcs and elves.

Aion could be described as high fantasy. But it's definitely not the same kind of fantasy as WoW, LotR, or WAR.

I think it also qualifies as highly anticipated. If it does really well in the Korean market, NC Soft will have the capital to continually refine it, a similar advantage Blizzard has built on with WoW.

I cancelled my WoW account last month. I just can't see myself spending hours and hours grinding through PvE quests or trying to obtain sufficient gear for their implementation of PvP. I'm having more fun in WAR and am also greatly enjoying revisiting Guild Wars in anticipation of the sequel. (Hint: Turn off the chat window to screen out the wee ones.)

I've already cancelled WoW. WAR is super-fun for me. I anticipate playing it for quite some time. I'm interested in both Champions and Jumpgate Evolution. I plan to purchase Champions. But I'm taking a wait and see attitutde with Jumpgate. Netdevil's track record is such that I won't buy that one until I can weight the post-launch feedback. Putting together a compelling story and an extensive (more extensive than what Mytic made for WAR) website together will help.

I doubt there will be a single WoW killer. But economic factors like the price of energy will make it hard for people to afford more than one $15 a month subscription. Maybe Guild Wars 2 (whenever that comes out.. 2011?) will be able to expand the MMO market a bit.

Spacetime's Blackstar is picked up by a good publisher.

The majority of the regular players in my guild (Lions Tigers & Bears) met up for a week at Disneyworld last December. We had a great time.