I’d like to welcome Blizzard to the fraternity of studios that have actually managed to get an MMO all the way to ship. Congratulations. I… uh… hope you weren’t planning on spending Thanksgiving with your families. Or, for that matter, Christmas

Terranova thinks that maybe WoW could be the big one – i.e. the first North American 1 Million simultaneous subscriber name. I don’t know if they’ll do it, but they’ve got as good a hope as any other MMO title on the horizon. I think they’ll hit 300K-400K pretty easily. Whether they take it to the next level will depend on how sticky the game is, and whether or not the community hits critical mass. Doing that could easily double or triple their early numbers.

I would love nothing more than to see WoW hit those numbers, and I think most of my colleagues in my industry would agree with me. If they hit it, then expect a lot of people to throw a lot of money into the online space – some on copycat products, but expect some innovation in there. If WoW (and yes, EQ2) enjoys only lukewarm success, those of us trying to come up with wacky new ideas will have a hell of a time convincing those not already in the space that it’s worth the massive cost and risk these projects invoke. This would lead to a massive chilling effect of MMO design.

So, uh, guys, try not to fuck this one up.