The Digital Dozen: 24 September 2013

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 22 September 2013.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	41.4	17,218	+0.3
2	2	Guild Wars 2	16.1	6,678	-1.2
3	3	Final Fantasy XIV	14.5	6,046	-6.5
4	4	Star Wars: The Old Republic	7.4	3,063	-0.3
5	5	Aion	4.7	1,949	-11.3
6	6	EVE Online	4.2	1,747	-0.3
7	7	Tera	2.8	1,165	-5.4
8	8	Lord of the Rings Online	2.1	892	+1.1
9	9	Planetside 2	2.0	835	-4.0
10	--	Metin 2	1.7	717	+18.3
11	10	Neverwinter	1.7	687	-9.1
12	--	RIFT	1.4	594	-9.6

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 42,517

A three-week string of increased time spent at the keyboard was snapped by the Xfire community this weekend, at least where MMORPGs were concerned.   On Sunday, players spent 2.2% less time playing games in the genre compared to the previous week.  Metin 2's gain of 18.3% more time was more than offset by big declines in Runescape (-21.1%), Need For Speed World (-16.7%) and Aion (-11.3%).

A Kick And A Miss - Unlike most companies, Square Enix is attempting to get players to not stay logged into their game.  During the past week, the company added an automatic AFK feature shortly after reopening digital sales.  But amid reports that the feature doesn't really work the Xfire community is still averaging 7 hours a day logged into the game.  Is the game just that good or do players still doubt the ability to log back into the game?

New Content For Metin 2 - I'll admit that I find Metin 2's site hard to understand, but the game leaped back into The Digital Dozen with the release of Blazing Purgatory.  I think the level cap increased to 105 and introduced end game content.

Beyond Infinity - Last week Trion also released a patch for its top game, RIFT.  Called Beyond Infinity, patch 2.4 added new PvE content, rank 90 PvP gear and cross-shard instant adventures (whatever those are).  But unlike Metin 2, RIFT saw a 9.6% drop in play and only made the list because of the steeper drops experienced by Runescape and Need For Speed World.  Normally I'd say this drop was a bad sign, but considering how closely Trion has tied itself to Raptr I'm not sure how good an indicator Xfire is for judging RIFT.