WRUP: Let's hear it for shock safety orange edition

Ladies and gentlemen, do you know what we're missing in our games? That's right — we're missing things that are colored bright orange that may be seen clearly through a blindfold. Yes, you can argue that it does make it a little harder to take the game seriously when everyone is colored so brightly, but to that I say that you're missing the central part of that shocking color. Namely, it looks awesome. We don't need everyone decked out in it, but every time I see the option, I cheer a little.

Moving on from my love of things with day-glo coloration, it's time for this week's installment of WRUP. Past the break, we here on the Massively staff will talk about what we plan to do over the course of the weekend as well as whether or not we think that next year is going to be the end of the world for MMOs and not just for the Mayan calendar. So jump on past the break, and let us know what you'll be up to in the comments.

@Beau_Hindman: I will be switching to a cool browser-based game called Kultan this weekend. I'm also going to be all about Glitch. I couldn't sleep last night and ended up playing it for way too long. I'm completely charmed by the game! I'll be searching for some more browser-based goodies as well as preparing for my four days in Anarchy Online over the next week! Wish me space luck!

I have heard doom and gloom about MMOs since I first started playing in '99. Do I think that there are people who see Star Wars: The Old Republic as our last hope, as well as a few others like The Secret World and Guild Wars 2? I think so, but I think those games will not cause more of a stir than many others did in the past. I think, if anything, next year will mark the end of the subscription and the end of completely original massive-budget MMOs. The time has passed when developers are on the edge of a "new" type of game. We've gotten used to MMOs, and now it seems that the major developers are so concerned with profiting that they don't want to take much of a chance on daring, unique design. The last major budget releases didn't try to do much of anything new, they just wrapped the systems in newer skins. On the other hand, releases like RIFT were very high-quality and downright beautiful. Will they stand the test of time, or last as long as games like EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest, Ryzom, or many others? I doubt it. 2012 might mark the official end of gamers with any sort of attention span. I just think they get bored too fast to stay charmed for long. At the least, 2012 will be amazing for independent games and interesting for major releases.

@bfelczer: I am dubbing this weekend "Magic: The Gathering Extravaganza Weekend!" On Saturday, I am going to be attending a pre-release event for a new card set coming out and will be attending a tournament. The cool thing about this is none of the participants has ever played with the cards before, so we'll have to make a theme and strategy on the fly. Everyone gets six 15-card booster packs, opens them, and creates a 40 card deck from them. It's going to be epic. I also continue the MTG extravaganza by livestreaming Magic: The Gathering Online for Massively on Sunday morning at noon EDT.

The only reason that I think 2012 would be the "last chance" for MMOs would be if the world is still going to be ending in December. OK, OK... I don't believe any of that. I think that MMOs are the future of gaming, and we will only see more and more as time goes on. As social networking continues to become a standard of life, I believe that many gamers are going to be looking for games that provide some sort of social aspect.

@nyphur: I'm at eurogamer this weekend, where Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and tons of other upcoming titles are available to play. It is absolutely freaking awesome!

It would only make sense to predict that 2012 is a make-it-or-break-it year for the MMO industry if the genre were facing declining income and shrinking interest from gamers. The past two years have seen new payment models bring in record income and the number of players has grown steadily. It does look like 2012 will be a great year for MMOs, though, with some fantastic new games being released and what looks to be some successful iteration on current MMO design ideas that are long past their sell-by dates.

@nbrianna: City of Heroes for me. If I ignore Incarnate grinding, the game is fitting my random 20-minute chunks of free time perfectly.

I do think we're on the cusp of a turn-around for MMOs, but I don't think it'll be an overnight revolution. The last few years have felt like duds in terms of effort and quality, even though the number of games and gamers is larger than ever. Still, Blizzard has left the door open for serious competition in our relatively niche genre. Bring it. No really, bring it, please. I'm tired of waiting for the next big thing to actually "wow" me, pun intended, and I shudder to think that a few more blockbuster snoozers means we'll have nothing but FarmVille clones in a few years.

Some signature arcs on City of Heroes and my usual activities in Final Fantasy XIV, probably also while dealing with the fallout from some car troubles this week. I've also been adoring the whole PSP/PS3 cross-compatibility with some classic titles off the PlayStation store, although I'm sad to say that Xenogears hasn't held up as well as I had hoped, at least not in the early game.

2012 is going to pretty much be 2011 with a slightly bigger budget. Seriously, the trend in games in general is to incorporate an online component with greater regularity, not to segregate them further. What's going to continue happening is that the line between MMOs and other games will keep blurring, we're going to see more expansions in viable business models, some games will launch and some will shut down. There will be alarmists who insist that the end is nigh and decry the simplification of our immensely complicated and often counterintuitive games, and some of them will leave the genre. The rest of us should have another interesting year to watch out for.

I'll probably log a couple of hours with the Global Agenda expansion, and I might also ignore my better judgment and check in with my daevas courtesy of Aion's reactivation shindig. Other than that, it's liable to be an MMO-free weekend.

I don't think 2012 is the last chance for MMOs, but I think we'll see many more game closings. The future will probably look about like the present: hundreds of feature-deficient knock-offs fighting over the MMO-lite crowd, and a small selection of actual MMORPGs for the die-hards.

@Sypster: To be honest, I have no idea what I'll be playing. I'm on standby for Lord of the Rings Online's Rise of Isengard, so I don't feel like playing much before that launches. I do want to check out the Fallen Earth second anniversary stuff while continuing to build my ATV, and I'm super-psyched I just hit 18 points on my Hall of Monuments quest in Guild Wars.

I don't think 2012 will be "it" for MMOs, I just think we've lived under the shadow of SWTOR and GW2 and these other imminent titles for so long that we've forgotten just how many other titles are in the works for 2013 and beyond, such as Warhammer 40K. 2012 may be a terrific year for new titles, sure, but it's just a part of the ebb and flow of the industry, not the be-all, end-all.

While I have generally settled into a regular routine of Aion and EverQuest II, this weekend will see me hitting the instances in Aion harder than usual to take advantage of the increased drop rate! I may get my Stormwing gear yet!! OK, let's be realistic... I will get a piece! Maybe two! Not to mention, now is a great time to help friends take advantage of increased XP; hopefully a new 'Chanter will be joining our runs as well.

I am an optimist at heart, so I don't think the year will spell any doom-and-gloom game-wise. I do hope the tide of clones ebbs and we see more creativity break out. If nothing else, give it a few more years and I will just have my son make a game I like, so I know there is hope on the horizon.

@mackeypb: I'm playing... Rusty Hearts and uh... World of Tanks, with a little Champions Online. A friend bought me The Longest Journey too and it's kind of tiding me over while I dream fondly of The Secret World.

I don't even understand the question, like will MMOs cease to innovate in 2012? Will TOR and GW2 be the next big thing? No. I have a pretty good idea what the genre won't be like in the future; it won't be like it is now. I think we'll see a huge divergence between themeparks (which will always be something people want) and more dynamic experiences, and we'll see greater immersion and better storytelling in themepark games. For more sandboxy games, I think that we'll eventually gravitate more toward social interaction (eg. EVE), but hopefully in more meaningful and dynamic ways. Will the traditional subscription MMO model die? Yeah, probably — it's not as profitable as freemium/F2P models, and publishers are learning that the hard way. It's especially true because of the large number of F2P — it is becoming harder and harder to get someone to make an initial purchase when people can try another quality game out for zero monetary investment. Either way, I think that GW2 and TOR will be at least reasonably successful and the genre will continue to innovate.

@Rubi_: I'm hoping to play some Guild Wars with Massively Overpowered. I've got a full Zaishen quest log to clear and plenty of elites to cap! I'm hurrying to wrap up the last few Winds of Change quests on my main account as well — killing afflicted gets pretty boring, so I've been procrastinating. I'll be indulging my League of Legends obsession this weekend too, hopefully branching out some. I've been focused on Sivir for weeks, so it's time to check out some new champions!

I hope 2012 isn't the last chance, but it's impossible to say. I think the market and customer base is evolving so rapidly right now that there's no telling where we'll wind up at this point. I think a good chunk of the longtime MMO playerbase is focused more heavily on school, careers, and family these days as they get older, and things have to keep changing to accommodate the changing priorities in both time and finances. If they don't change quickly enough or in the right way, we could see a lot of longtime MMO standards dwindle away.

At the start of every weekend, we catch up with the Massively staff members and ask them, "What are you playing this week?" (Otherwise known as: WRUP!) Join us to see what we're up to in and out of game — and catch us in the comments to let us know what you're playing, too!