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The Firefly MMO may actually happen, somehow, which brings me to a completely different point: the next golden age of MMOs has begun. What do the two have in common? Well the simple fact that there is a complete and total crazy amount of MMOs coming out in the near and far future. We’ve gone through a very long and tedious drought of MMOs the past two years or so thanks to a lot of factors, but as it stands now we’ve got a ton of AAA and AA titles coming out.

Truly, 2014 is the year of the MMO. Not since the launch of WoW and the few years after that have we seen so much M MO activity. We have The Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar coming out almost any day now. In addition, the Firefly MMO is actually going to be a thing and will be released sometime this year. ArcheAge isn’t far off and there is a ton of other titles waiting to be released this year.

The fun thing about all of these titles is the fact that they’re innovative and any one of them could in fact alter the course of MMO development. Games like Everquest Next are aiming to turn worlds into living breathing entities with voxels and procedurally generated content. While ESO is aiming to bring phasing and exploration into the genre to make customizable experiences where the world evolves around you.

ESO Final Beta - Imperial armor style

Our very own Gunky looking good as an Imperial.

When WoW came out it was a huge innovation over the previous EQ based games and it started to a ton of copycats, but before long players were tired of WoW clone after WoW clone and the industry stagnated, especially with the recession cutting off funding for “new and bold ideas.”

With the recession over and crowdfunding a thing, we’re seeing more activity than ever in the MMOsphere and that’s a good thing. I’m excited for once to start stockpiling on MMOs, considering just how many there are right now and how much fun there is to be had with all of them coming up. I’m not sure my wallet can handle it.

I’m very excited to see what the industry has in store with us for the next few years, but for now there is just so much coming up that I’m really actually genuinely excited for what’s going on in the industry. There are so many different ways MMOs can come out now and innovation is hitting its stride. What if EQN takes off and voxel based MMOs where you edit the world is a thing? What if every MMO is like that from now on?

Even cooler - what if MMO is something different and something new. Something that you can actually bite into and be different. No more just another WoW game where you login, take your first quest, and follow through until the end of the game. Well, by no more, I mean, a lot less hopefully. Even a lot of the free-to-play and crowdfunded games coming up all have something new and neat inside of them.

Even though we’re a quarter through the year, here is to 2014 being the next golden age of MMOs and to the successful launches of both Wildstar and ESO (along with EQN and EQN: Landmark!). In addition, best of luck to the Firefly MMO in bringing an MMO to so many platforms and basing it on an IP where expectations are insanely high for a quality product (or new episodes :P ).


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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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