As the dust (and the hangovers!) from 2017 has settled, it’s time once again for an annual MBS tradition: Annual Predictions! I have some great ones for 2018, but before we can get to that let’s take a look at how accurate my predictions for 2017 were!

Stephan’s Aquan Oannes Heavy Carrier

Scoring

As is customary, I will be scoring my predictions using the following system:

• Prediction Completely Accurate: 2 Points
• Prediction Partially Accurate: 1 Point
• Prediction was WRONG!: 0 Points

Now, granted, since I’m also the one doing the grading there is room for all manner of shenanigans to creep in! However, I’d like to think that I’m relatively honest when I take a look at my predictions from previous years. To give you an idea, I typically get a score of around 50%-66%. If I were inclined to cheat, you’d think that my scores would be a lot higher, right?!

The Predictions

I had a total of 6 predictions last year, meaning a theoretical maximum score of 12 using my scoring system above. Lets get to it!

1. The Dystopian Wars Kickstarter Will Fulfill On Time, and Rejuvenate the DW Community.

Result: WRONG! (0 points)

Hooboy. Not starting off strong, are we? Even when I made this prediction in January 2017, I was figuring that it wouldn’t fully come true; if you remember, at the time the DW Kickstarter was scheduled to fulfill in March 2017, a bare three months from the date of the prediction. To be honest, my thought process when writing this prediction was one of maintaining a positive mindset. The most likely scenario, in my mind, was that the DW KS probably wouldn’t ship in March as originally planned, but would be out within a few months of that time frame. To my dismay, and I’m sure the dismay of many other Spartan Games fans, the company instead went out of business in the August time frame, before the DW KS had fully shipped.

So, that leaves me with a bit of a quandary with  how to score this one. The KS, the shut-down of Spartan, and the subsequent purchase of the IP by Warcradle have arguably accomplished the second part of this prediction, which was a rejuvenation of the DW community. Whether it be here  on MBS, on the Facebook groups, or on the Warcradle forums, I think its safe to say there has been a big up-welling of interest and support from DW gamers. However, I think this should be a “0,” since not only did the KS not ship on time, but it didn’t fully ship at all.

2. After the Success of the DW Kickstarter, Spartan will launch a Kickstarter Campaign for At Least One of its Other Games in 2017.

Result: Completely Accurate (2 pts)

I have to give myself credit for this one, though I almost wish I didn’t. While there were a lot of folks expressing concerns about Spartan’s use of KS at the time of the DW KS Campaign, such as how a turn to KS was a sign of financial weakness and not a good thing for the game or  the company. This all seemed to be a matter of interpretation and not fact to me, a point on which I was later proven to be wrong. However, the fact remains that the DW KS was, on the surface at least, successful. It exceeded its funding goals by a healthy amount, and appeared to be setting the stage for a DW renaissance with new models, campaigns, and the like. It was from that perspective that I made this prediction; if Spartan had some success at a KS campaign for one game, what was to stop them from trying the same thing again with another? I proved to be right on this in that a KS campaign for Firestorm Armada was launched in August 2017, just weeks before Spartan officially went out of business. I’m giving myself full credit here, given the wording I used for the prediction. However, the underlying assumption behind the prediction is that a new FSA KS would do Great Things for the game and community, and that sadly didn’t come to be.

3. Dropfleet Commander Will Receive Continued Support and Grow in Popularity

Result: Partially Accurate (1 pt)

I think that 2017 has to be reckoned as a good year for DFC; the game largely seems to have overcome its initial stumbles out of the gate caused by the rough fulfillment of the KS pledges, and has seen quite a few new releases over the year to round out the fleets of the various factions. So why do I only score this prediction for 1 point? That largely has to do with the second part of the prediction, regarding the growth of DFC’s popularity. In general I get the sense that DFC has lost some of its momentum as 2017 draws to a close. The sale of Hawk to TTCombat came as a surprise to many, and while this event may turn out to be a positive development in the long run it does seem to have cast some uncertainty on the future direction of both DFC and DZC in the short term. I’ve also not seen a lot of DFC events popping up, though there does appear to be DFC event games and a tournament on the 2018 Adepticon event list, so that’s certainly encouraging! It is possible that my impression that enthusiasm for DFC is waning could simply be due to the particular bubble I live in; if that’s the case, I would be happy to be corrected!

4. Games Workshop Will Make a Detailed Announcement About a Battlefleet Gothic Re-release by the End of 2017.

Result: WRONG! (0 pts)

Another year has gone by, and we still don’t know much about GW’s plans for a future re-release of BFG. I was so hopeful after we got not one but two video game renditions of BFG in 2016! However, that enthusiasm has waned over 2017; GW was pretty quite on this topic, and of the video games, one is no longer available and the other seems to be getting little if any attention from its developer. A few morsels of information have been put out by GW staff at various events, and seems to boil down to this:

• A BFG re-launch will happen after the forthcoming re-launch of Titan Legions.
• The setting will be rolled back to the Heresy era.
• The scale of the models will be changed, with models getting larger.

We still lack a lot of important details, such as an exact time frame, how the game will play, what factions will be involved, etc. Seeing as that is the case, I can only give myself 1 point on that one!

5. 2017 Will see the Release of a New Class “A” Historical Game

Result: WRONG! (o points)

As I admitted at the time I made this prediction, this was more wishful thinking  on my part than anything else. I made this prediction with the thought that there is a hole in the market that was left there by the end of the Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures CMG. I still believe that to be the case, but sadly no major games companies stepped up to the plate in 2017. Maybe this year!

6. World of Warships Will Continue to Thrive in 2017, and Will have a Tech Tree for a New Country Added by the End of the Year.

Result: Completely Accurate (2 points)

WoWS has  had a great year, by any stretch of the imagination. Lots of new ships, new tech trees, new PVE game modes, and new competitive PVP modes have all made their debut in 2017. It appears the game does not have as widespread a popularity as World of Tanks does, but nonetheless seems to have a loyal and enthusiastic playerbase. One thing I did not see coming is the release of WoWS on Steam; this is a great move, I think, and will hopefully bring a lot of new players into the game. Certainly, this was my most-played video game of 2017!

Conclusion

Final Score:  5 pts

Well, 2017 turned out to be a Not So Great year for my predictions! There were certainly a lot of ups and downs over the year. However, I have a lot of optimisim for the new year. There are a lot of good things to look forward to, whether it be the contunued development of WoWS, the re-launch of DW by Warcradle, or new developments for game like DFC or even (I hope!) BFG. I’ll save more discussion on that point for next time, when I will talk about my predictions for 2018!