As we enter the new year, it’s worthwhile to talk about where we came from, and how it will affect things moving forward.

In many ways, 2006 was good for me, at least personally. I got married, which I should definitely mention in the ‘good’ category. Also, I got the best job I’ve ever had, and am in the midst now of developing some of the core gameplay systems for a very cool game. It’s always a pleasure to wake up looking forward to work.

I wish I could say that the industry as a whole had great success in 2006. New MMOs that weren’t WoW struggled last year. Dungeons and Dragons has struggled. Auto Assault has as well. Dark and Light has already retreated to the free play model, as has Shadowbane. Even Second Life has struggled in its own way – while it’s enjoying unsurpassed success in media presence (read: hype), it had a rough year storied with hacks, abuses, credit card issues, the copybot fiasco and, of course, flying penii during CNet interviews.

It seems my prediction that new MMOs would enjoy a renaissance on the heels of WoW’s success was off, based on me forgetting one thing: these new MMOs would need to be better than WoW to actually hold those players past a free trial or first free month.

That being said, 2006 was a surprisingly quiet year for MMO releases. 2007 is shaping to be much bigger, with Vanguard, Conan, Warhammer, and Lord of the Rings Online all hoping to provide a fresh turn on the fantasy genre MMO, while Tabula Rasa and Huxley hope to offer their new twist. Meanwhile, all of them will be competing with each other as well as with World of Warcraft’s expansion pack. It’s tragic that all of their release dates have clumped together so much, but I suspect that release date drift will help correct that to some degree.

Ignoring, for the moment, Burning Crusade, which should refill Blizzard’s swimming pools with cash currency, I’ll have to give the inside track to Warhammer Online, with Conan nipping closely at their heels – WHO’s success will depend a lot on whether or not EA’s marriage to Mythic is a good one, or a bad one. Still, I’m curious as to what projects other people are watching for. This should be a good year for fans of the MMOs.