I put on my prediction hat to look at the MMO wasteland and see what is in the gaming future for these time sucking titles…

WoW still is going strong and with the upcoming expansion this game will continue to grow. But for hardcore gamers this game has been dumbed down to such epic levels that there’s no interest anymore. Will the expansion suck people back in? Most definitely.
Prediction: Wow’s expansion will be a huge success…but won’t solve the problem that WoW is now the dummies guide equivalent to MMO’s and hardcores will steer well clear with other options now out there and a lackluster PvP system never going to change.

Age of Conan has had such a rollercoaster ride since the release. Some great content, a ton of bugs and lack of speed by their developers has made people grow tired of this game. Try and remember every MMO has 2 months after release to lock people in and AoC did not do this well at all. However, the game has some very cool potential that one day could be realized.
Prediction: Shadowbaned. Hard. A few large guilds will suck up all the PvPer’s for siege warfare and end game content, people will continue to play casually for the PvP aspects but the player populace declines at a very high rate, with the game pretty much dead as new MMO’s get released.

Warhammer is now on the schedule with a release date of September 18th. I haven’t had a chance to play the beta at all so I can’t comment on gameplay but from what I have read there’s nothing overly revolutionary when it comes to MMO’s and follows some WoW/DaoC/EQ rulesets. Well, this means one thing. Instant boredom. Been there, done that. MMO players are voracious gamers and have played all of these. But Realm vs Realm with different classes is interesting, even if over one third of the game has been nerfed out already.
Prediction: AoC syndrome, everyone rushes out to level up and hits end-game and finds out there’s still plenty left to implement and not much to do…again. Bugs, zerg guilds, crappy itemization, class balancing all play into making this just another MMO to waste time on with no real satisfaction garnered.

Darkfall is an MMO on the Hostile’s radar for over a year now because of the feature set they have been enticing the general public with. However, all of these features are overly ambitious and as someone who works in game development building a game like this without a proven team is virtually impossible. While we have heard this game will be released in Europe first maybe they will be the guinea pigs for all the bugs and other crap that will be in here. Or, maybe we’ll be sitting over here all jealous they get to play.
Prediction: Until a release date is set, this game is vaporware.