As 2007 draws to a close, we are left to reflect on what happened in the MMO space, and what lies ahead. Back at the start of the year, it looked like 2007 was going to be a great year for MMOs, with major titles set for release. Almost all of these are still in development, with a release date of 2008.

Those that were released, or are now close, have been somewhat of a letdown. Pirates of the Burning Sea has it’s many faults, and overall has not delivered on the promise of a fun casual game. Tabula Rasa encountered a rough beta period, and while some opinions of it are turning around, it would still be tough to consider it a clear winner. Hellgate:London has its share of issues, and does not really qualify as a true MMO.

This leaves Warhammer Online and Age of Conan as the major titles set for release. At least for me, the recent failures of the latest MMOs to deliver a solid product have placed more pressure (if that’s the right word) on these titles to deliver. Having recently gone back to WoW, I realized how different your gaming experience is playing something new rather than revisiting old content, even if you are going through it with friends and having a good time.

I hope WAR and/or AoC deliver the goods, giving us a great MMO experience, at launch. Hopefully we don’t get a PotBS scenario, where we see a nice game under all that gunk still attached to it. I hope they hit the ground running, giving MMO gamers something to sink their teeth into from day one, and giving us a game we can envision playing 6 months+ after we created our character, finally getting out of that ‘waiting mode’ rut I believe many of us are in.