The Digital Dozen: 28 October 2014

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 26 October 2014.  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	55.0	8,742	-2.5
2	2	Star Wars: The Old Republic	10.3	1,633	+6.4
3	3	Guild Wars 2	9.7	1,548	+15.1
4	4	EVE Online	5.0	801	+14.6
5	6	Final Fantasy XIV	4.6	730	+33.0
6	5	ArcheAge	4.0	634	+6.6
7	7	Aion	2.7	426	-17.1
8	10	Tera	2.3	361	+26.2
9	8	Runescape	2.0	313	-13.8
10	9	Lord of the Rings Online	1.6	248	-21.0
11	11	APB: Reloaded	1.5	239	+3.9
12	--	RIFT	1.3	207	+111.2

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 15,882

Sunday saw another uptick in the amount of time the Xfire community spent logged into its favorite MMORPGs.  The 1.9% increase in hours played compared to the previous Sunday was led by Guild Wars 2 (+203 hour) while World of Warcraft (-227 hours) led all games that experienced a decline in game play.

A Holiday Event - Guild Wars 2 experienced the largest increase in hours played Sunday following the release of Blood and Madness on 21 October.  The Mad King returns for two weeks in the annual autumn event along with Bloody Prince Edrick.

A Pre-Patch Scramble - Square Enix' latest patch for Final Fantasy XIV, 2.4, was scheduled to take 25 hours to deploy on Monday.  I just have to wonder if that helped increase activity on Sunday as players knew they couldn't play on Monday.

A Nightmare of an Expansion - RIFT made its first appearance on the list since late July based on its latest expansion, Nightmare Tide.  The expansion, released 22 October, raises the level cap to 65, adds three new zones and allows players to visit the Plane of Water, adds 6 new dungeons and a raid, plus adds a minion system and an expanded mentoring system.