I love this time of year when I get to look back over the past 12 months and slap myself at how wrong I was with last year’s predictions. Let’s not draw out the agony any further and have a look at what were hits and misses from my crystal ball:

The predictions:

Expansion 1 will be announced

This prediction’s a bit of an easy one in that I’m sure planning is already underway. It’ll probably be the second half of the year when the announcement is made, and there’ll probably be a new race. A new class seems less likely though.

Well I got this right at least – although only just with Rise Of The Hutt Cartel only announced last week.

The 3-million player mark will be hit in the first half of 2012

This is the biggest risk I’m taking in that the number could be well under or well over that, though I doubt it. That said I’m fairly confident this watermark will be reached by July 2012, and then it’ll be a much slower growth trajectory from then on.

I think I should just shake my head sadly and move on yes?

Sensationalist journalism will dig its teeth in

Around February/March expect the first run of stories on people claiming SWTOR has taken over their lives / eaten their children / forced their spouse to taser them to stop playing the game.

Another big miss here – mostly related to the growth issue i.e. unless SWTOR hits 3 or 4 million users the sensationalist media is unlikely to kick in with a story.

Plans for a TOR movie will be announced

Either based on one of the novels i.e. Revan, or key story lines in the game, there’ll be at the very least hints thrown out by LucasArts or even Bioware/EA on movie plans. With or without Justin Bieber as Revan.

I won’t be a con-man and claim the announcement of Star Wars Episodes 7-9 count for this prediction given they won’t be set in the Old Republic era.

Australia / New Zealand launch

I have to throw in a local prediction here. The launch events will be in March in Sydney and Auckland as the respective largest cities in each country. One of the Bioware ‘Doctors’ will come for the launch, along with whichever community rep and/or developer that wins the lottery for the working holiday Down Under. There will be no flash mobs in full Star Wars kit riding kangaroos and kiwis. Well definitely no kiwis, as that’d be cruel.

Got this one right on the money – and my prediction of no flash mobs was a sure-fire one once it became apparent how low-key the event was going to be, although we did get to sit down one-on-one with BioWare’s Gabe Amatangelo.

So a 2/5 score: I reckon even Nostradamus could have done better but there you go. It won’t stop us making further predictions for 2013 – watch this space.

Over to you now: looking back over the past year, did things in SWTOR pan out for you like you expected they would?