Want proof that the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game industry is in a state of extreme flux? Look no further than ostensible World of WarCraft-challenger Star Wars: The Old Republic, which lasted all of seven months before going free-to-play. The times are certainly changing.

Profound disruption, however, can have its advantages. More than ever, underdog MMORPGs and other online games are finding niches in which they can survive and thrives for years. Even apparent busts can right the ship with some smart content and a good free-to-play model.

With that in mind, here are five great MMOs from 2012.

Planetside 2

Welcome to the future. That’s pretty much all we need to say about Sony Online Entertainment’s Planetside 2, which marries a free-to-play model with a full-scale shooter that’s nearly on par with big-budget games like Call of Duty. Sony Online obviously spent a lot of money on this game. That it’s free-to-play says a lot about where online gaming is headed.

More impressively, Planetside 2 really is free, which is more than can be said for many F2P titles. Free players and premium players are more or less on equal footing, with the main differences being in weapon efficiency. It’s a smart move on the part of Sony Online, since skewed balance tends to be felt rather keenly in games such as these.

Apart from being a free-to-play shooter, Planetside 2 is worth experiencing simply because it’s so huge. True, it’s bewildering at first. You’ll spend your first few minutes flailing around, desperately trying to figure out what all the icons mean and what you’re supposed to even being doing. But once you get your feet under you, the firefights that form and dissipate across the massive battlefield are consistently impressive.

At this early juncture, Planetside 2 is certainly still experiencing its share of growing pains, and it feels a touch floaty compared to other shooters. But nevertheless, Sony Online has found a standard-bearer for both its own offerings and free-to-play at large.

World of WarCraft: Mists of Pandaria

The decision to add in the Pandaren race is a transparent attempt to bring in new players and perhaps appeal to a younger demographic. But in practice, Mists of Pandaria has turned out to be very much for longtime fans of the series.

Mists of Pandaria’s feature list is familiar — a new continent, a new race, and a new class. But Pandaria seems less interested in introducing a world-destroying bad guy like Cataclysm’s Deathwing than reigniting the spark of what made the World of WarCraft so appealing in the first place. The continent of Pandaria is everything we’ve come to expect from the series over the years — lavishly detailed and full of nods to games of the past, all rendered with a winking sense of humor.

The actual content is likewise meant to recapture the attention of the old-guard. Aside from a host of challenging new dungeons, Mists of Pandaria brings with it a pet battling system much like that of Pokémon. For longtime players, it’s a great opportunity to dust off all those pets from BlizzCons gone by.

In general, you can say the same for the rest of the game. It’s not an expansion that’s apt to win many new fans, but World of WarCraft seems to be past that point. For those players who have been collecting pets and following the lore from the beginning, Mists of Pandaria is delightful.

The Secret World

At first blush, The Secret World seems like a pretty traditional MMORPG with a modern setting. In this case, it’s set in a world where every myth is essentially true — Lovecraftian demons, vampires, the Illuminati, and all the rest of it. But from there, it goes in some very interesting directions.

One way in which The Secret World shakes things up is in its open-ended battle system. In essence, The Secret World is something of a card game, with your deck of skills determining your role in a party. The goal is to allow players to avoid being pigeonholed into one role, and it’s rather successful in that regard.

The other way The Secret World stands apart is in its approach to its world. Some of have called it a “puzzle MMO,” and that description isn’t far off. Even before The Secret World came out, its marketing was placing riddles around the Internet. The resulting collaboration has been rather interesting to watch.

Unfortunately, like many Funcom titles such as The Age of Conan, The Secret World has been dogged by issues of content and various bugs. Having recently dropped its subscription requirement, however, the hope is that The Secret World will soon be able to reach its considerable potential.

Rift: Storm Legion

Along with World of WarCraft, Rift is one of the very few subscription-based MMORPGs still kicking around. Newcomers Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World shifted away to new models rather quickly, while Rift has managed to hold on. Storm Legion offers a hint as to why.

Simply put, Storm Legion is more proof that Rift is run by one of the best teams in the business. Extremely polished for an MMORPG release, it roughly doubles the size of the world while further building upon the dynamic content that helped define the game early on. Events take place on a grand scale, occasionally overwhelming entire zones. It’s a spectacle certainly worth seeing for yourself.

Also worth noting is the way in which Storm Legion addresses replayabiilty, which was an issue in the original game. Storm Legion’s expansion areas include a rather substantial route split, meaning a whole different set of content depending on which you choose. For those who aren’t extremely interested in traditional raids, the added replayability is a nice plus.

Like Mists of Pandaria, Storm Legion has flown under the radar a bit. The very fact that Rift has managed to last this long as a subscription-based MMO, however, suggests that Trion is doing something very right. The high quality content of Storm Legion is proof.

Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet intended Guild Wars to be the embodiment of disruption in the MMO space — an RPG that broke all the rules and redefined the genre. You can argue whether they have succeeded; but either way, Guild Wars 2 is still a terrific MMORPG.

Pretty much everything Guild Wars 2 has done has been to thumb its nose at the likes of World of WarCraft. Dedicated healers? Gone. Traditional loot distribution? That’s gone, too. Guild Wars 2 ends up sacrificing some depth for being as free and organic as possible; but in that, it ends up being far more welcoming to new players than many of its ilk.

Thanks in no small part to these changes, a vigorous marketing campaign, and strong word-of-mouth, Guild Wars 2 has arguably received more attention than even Mists of Pandeira. Though perhaps not the revolution that ArenaNet was hoping for — it’s still very much a classical MMORPG in form and substance if not in style — it is still strikingly beautiful and well executed. It is the perfect MMO for a genre in flux.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Here are some of the stories that ran on GamesBeat this week. We’re running more articles exclusively in the GamesBeat section of VentureBeat, particularly when they’re mainly of interest to our game readers. The broader-interest posts will continue to run on VentureBeat as well. Please visit the GamesBeat section to catch up on the latest game news. We’re ramping up our game coverage, so you’ll find a larger amount of deeper news at GamesBeat.

Here are the best stories that appeared exclusively on GamesBeat this week:

Survive the real zombie apocalypse, in an abandoned UK shopping mall

Darksiders II is a competent blend of Prince of Persia, Devil May Cry, and Castlevania (preview)

Blizzard launches World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria beta

4JStudios readying Minecraft for May 9 release on XBox 360

Free-to-play games catching MMO subscribers’ attention (and wallets)

Gamers held the line: Mass Effect 3 ending is being addressed

Waveform proves you don’t need guns to save the galaxy (review)

EA server shutdowns another example of why online passes are a bad idea (editorial)

Street Fighter X Tekken on-disc content will reportedly cost over $100 to unlock

Pre-Mortem: King’s Bounty project lead introduces new race and units (exclusive)

And here are some of the big game stories of the week:

No Angry Birds Space on Windows Phone is a troubling sign for Nokia

Are casino games hot? Mobile Deluxe thinks so (exclusive)

With 6,000 followers, Zipline launches Moai game-dev platform

Digital game sales reach $3.3B in U.S. and Europe in Q4

Nvidia reclaims title of world’s fastest graphics chip with Kepler launch

After 35 draws, OMGPOP finally got it right (interview)

OMGPOP chief revenue officer talks turkey on numbers and scaling [exclusive video]

Zynga buys OMGPOP for a reported $200M

Zoosk integrates gamification into its online dating community (interview)

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Annual Pass holders, the media, fansites, friends and family, and opt-in beta testers will all get a chance to experience the new content during the course of the beta, according to a post on Battle.net. Testing will first focus on the starting levels for the game’s new playable race, the Pandaren.

High-level content, as well as template characters, will become available in future beta updates, Blizzard says. However, players can still copy over high-level characters now if they’d like to test WoW’s new talent system, which will replace the current 41-point talent trees with tiered talents awarded every 15 levels.

Mists of Pandaria is the fourth expansion for the 8-year-old massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It will raise the level cap from 85 to 90 and will introduce the new Monk class along with the new Pandaren race.

Blizzard says there is no Non-Disclosure Agreement for this beta test. Those selected to participate will receive an email invitation with instructions on how to download the beta client directly from their Battle.net account. If you’re interested in getting in, you can visit the Mists of Pandaria Beta Opt-in Announcement and FAQ page.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

That means millions of Chinese World of Warcraft fans can breathe a sigh of relief. World of Warcraft was down for months in China the last time Blizzard made a change. At that time, Blizzard ended its relationship with The9 and switched to NetEase.com, but Chinese regulators didn’t approve the change.

Regulations matter a lot in China. American game companies cannot publish their own titles but have to work with a Chinese partner. Blizzard used The9 to publish WoW in China until 2009 and then switched to NetEase.com, another Chinese firm. That has helped turn NetEase.com into a major Chinese online gaming company.

But NetEase.com is still behind in publishing add-on content for the game. So far, NetEase.com has published the Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. It also publishes Warcraft III and StarCraft II in China. And now it will also publish Mists of Pandaria, an upcoming add-on for the game influenced by Asian culture.

World of Warcraft is the world’s largest subscription online game with more than 10 million users.

“We’re grateful for the tremendous enthusiasm Chinese gamers have shown for World of Warcraft over the years, and we’re pleased to be renewing our agreement for the game in China,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We look forward to working with NetEase to deliver all of the new features and content of Mists of Pandaria to Chinese players as soon as possible.”

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Speaking today at the sold-out BlizzCon fan event in Anaheim, Calif., Blizzard’s vice president of creative development Chris Metzen revealed the upcoming expansion set to deafening applause. Each new expansion is financially a big deal for Blizzard, which generates a billion dollars a year in World of Warcraft revenues.

Whenever the company starts to lose subscribers, it pumps up the user base with a new expansion. In a recent earnings call, Blizzard said such changes would happen more frequently than in the past. It didn’t say why it would move faster, but presumably it is because it has to fend off competition from new rivals such as Trion Worlds’ Rift as well as a horde of new free-to-play games, where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods. Blizzard responded earlier this year by making the first set of levels free in World of Warcraft, and now it is responding again with a new expansion.

As longtime Warcraft fans already know, the pandaren race of panda-like warriors originally began as an April Fool’s Joke inspired by Blizzard artist Samwise Didier’s fascination with drawing pandas, according to Metzen. Due to an impressive response from fans, a pandaren character appeared in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, technically making the “joke characters” part of the official Warcraft lore.

Long-rumored to be a playable race in World of Warcraft (and confirmed by Metzen as originally planned for the second expansion, The Burning Crusade), the pandaren now have an entire expansion set based around them.

The pandaren will be unique to World of Warcraft’s roster of playable races in that they are faction neutral, at first. Players will eventually be able to decide if their pandaren character will join the Horde or Alliance. The Mists of Pandaria expansion takes place in the lost continent of Pandaria, the pandaren’s mystical homeland.

Other notable features include a level cap increase to 90, a new Monk class, and a pet battle system that seems eerily reminiscent of Nintendo’s Pokemon.

From the official press release:

The World of Warcraft Annual Pass was also announced, and includes a free copy of Diablo III for all subscribers.

It’s interesting to note that Mists of Pandaria is the first World of Warcraft expansion to not focus on a main antagonist. In fact, Deathwing the Destroyer, the primary villain responsible for the events of previous expansion, Cataclysm, has yet to be included as a boss character, though that opportunity will finally be included in the upcoming Patch 4.3.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is expected to be released during holiday 2012.

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---