Not sure how this is even a contest...

How could you vote for company that makes you pay for your expansions when you are paying them, every month.

on this list CCP would be the only choice

Originally posted by Naar

Not sure how this is even a contest...

How could you vote for company that makes you pay for your expansions when you are paying them, every month.

on this list CCP would be the only choice

How could you vote for a company who's flagship title is a better cure for insomnia than it is a game?

Anyway, I couldn't vote, SOE wasn't on the list.

Well, Turbine did give players the option of buying a lifetime subscription.to Lotro.  My husband and i both did, and we haven't regretted it.  Two hundred clams up front isn't cheap, but when you consider that LotRO is contracted to continue through the middle of the next decade and, optionally, further than that, it comes down to a few cents an hour....

I've been pleased to see so many posters saying, in effect, "I've played every game there is and I voted for Turbine."  I voted for Turbine too, but I don't have the wide experience of the other posters.  I got hooked on Asheron's Call in 1998 and I've never looked elsewhere.  Somebody told me once that Turbine, unlike most other companies that were founded by suits who said "Hey, there's money in these silly games, let's publish one," was founded by  gamers.  I don't know if it's true but it sure sounds likely.

Turbine gets my vote, but I wish I could also vote for CCP!

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

Having played MMOs since 2000 (see my sig for a list), I've found Turbine to be my favorite MMO Studio. There's genuine concern for customers, something quite refreshing after my horrible experiences with SOE.

The free content delivered in Turbine games is rivaled by only a few MMOs. With the success of LOTRO, they could just sit back and ride the money wave (like Blizzard), but they don't; they're working hard to make the LOTRO experience even more fun and entertaining.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

C C P.

The only MMO developer who "gets it" with respect to what a MMORPG should be, and what a player wants.

And they have been handsomley rewarded with 300K subs, which btw is more than anyone has in the EU/US for a single game outside WOW.

Worst: SOE.  They have the inverse midas touch.  Midas could turn things to gold.  SOE turns things (even games they themselves developed such as the Pre-CU SWG) into sh-t.

Being a "lifer" with LotRO, I had to vote for TURBINE !

I have played under all the other nominees [been gaming (online) since UO back in the day] and hands-down TURBINE is the best I have expierenced. The devs, the community moderators, the in-game GMs, customer support, the design teams...every aspect of TURBINE and LotRO have far exceeded my hopes and expectations of an MMORPG provider. 

Botemedel Bedrovelse~Level 50 LM~Firefoot

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

I agree with you 100% on the invoking trust and loyalty. NCSoft has proven many times that they are in this to make money first too many times in our market and they do stink for that. They are on my poop list as well and although I wasn't hyped about Aion, I'm probably going to avoid it now.

However, one thing they have shown is they are not afraid (at least in the past) to try something new. It doesn't always work out....but at least they went out ona limb and tried NOT to bring us another WoW reskinned with Elves and Dwarves killing Rats and Orcs...like everyone else. The concepts of AA and TR where very good, its to bad they didn't work out. It would have been nice to have a "Car Wars" style MMO and a "Mechanoid Invasion" style MMO that thrived so we had some unique games to chose from.

I think one of SOE primary barriers and issues is technical quality. Everything they launch has some fairly major issues for about a year or 2. I think EQII was their only game to survive that and it had some pretty big problems at launch. Just recently look at Vanguard and PotBS. Both games were launch disasters.

The other thing IMHO that drives people to dispise SOE is their constaint tinkering with core mechanics years after launch. SWG is the best known but EQII went through some major revamps that had some very profound impact ingame. Nothing annoys a player more then changing to trivializing something they worked to achieve. Sometimes their changes are for the better but a lot of times it just angers the current players and fails to have any impact on bringing in new subs.

The changes to SWG which put SOE in the "company to hate" spotlight was just amplified by the unsuccessful launch of Vanguard and PotBS.

NCSoft on the other hand, well their primary market is Asia (the US/EU only account for less then 19% of their revenues) and they enjoy "rockstar" status there and it looks like they hit gold with Aion. They broke all Lineage 2's launch numbers. What happens here in our market, well NC is pretty calus to that. When we start marking them some money maybe they will be a bit more concerned but so far we have been nothing but a money pit to them as "Lord Brit" swallowed up tens of millions of their dollars on knothead ideas and half realized games.

Blizzard Entertainment created World of Warcraft not Activision Blizzard. They are not the same. Activision Blizzard does not control anything Blizzard Entertainment does.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

 

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

This, and the poll, should be earmarked for future reference for replys to those who say SOE is in the back pocket of MMORPG.com.  Of course the reply will be that SOE paid you to not be put in the poll because they were a guaranteed last place showing.

I voted for Funcom because I want them to have at least one vote.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

 

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

Fair enough, though I may not agree with your decision I appreciate the feedback.

SOE is alrite in my book.

› Blizzard wow  nice generic and entertaining MMO more casual and tongue in cheek, love the children in the streets touch,, on my go back to list.

› CCP anti-casual player PVP only nitch game  with this kind of thinking no wonder icelands economy is in the dumper

› Mythic Entertainment

› NCsoft city of heroes  some innovation flying, superleaps, slippery ice  but still all thug bashing and no heroics

› Turbine LOTRO a solid reliable stable game with good lore and a loyal player base, with that said  not very innovative or creative still no boats!! non-interactive zones,, same old rehashed quests and mob generators and mob AIs  and an insulting fishing addition,, even with this said,, this is still my winner as for the most part they are still going in the right direction with quality and clockwork game additions still want to see interactive terrain like cliff climbing,, and slippery ice and zone content that make zones attractive after the quests are completed (zones are dead boring once quests are done.

› Funcom age of conan an epic level dissapointment,  was expecting a revolutionary realistic mature MMO and what we got was an absurdly heavy graphic game that was same old content  in older better games
 

as for sony  I hate them all of their games are rude to players and are nothing but uninspired money grinders for those of lesser standards who put up with sonys bad behavior   many of sony games are on my anti-game list (SWG) and i go out of my way to warn other players away from them.

still looking for a game that isnt arcade based or combat oriented, like steping into an alternate universe (idealized reality ofcourse) where there is climate and weather and food and water are important  food based economy   but the console players are convinced that this form of game cant be fun. if there not killing 500 mobs a day.  let them deal with a plague or famine in their village and see what they think.

Originally posted by salvaje

C C P.

The only MMO developer who "gets it" with respect to what a MMORPG should be, and what a player wants.

And they have been handsomley rewarded with 300K subs, which btw is more than anyone has in the EU/US for a single game outside WOW.

Worst: SOE.  They have the inverse midas touch.  Midas could turn things to gold.  SOE turns things (even games they themselves developed such as the Pre-CU SWG) into sh-t.

 

your kidding right? all sucessful games in my mind, make CCPs "300k" look PATHETIC, CCP is out of touch and is nothing more than a nitch game as long as they are nothing more than a PVP ganker only game they will never compete with real games like lotro,  its a fact that more casual players have been forced to leave eve than its current subscribers  it would not suprise me if eve was to endgame unless they change their vision.  the non-pvp mining corps are routinly torn apart by predatory harassment WARDECs that make any shop in the corperation including mining barges and haulers vulnerable to attack anywhere in the universe forcing people to sit in hangers for a week (if not longer) or leave the corperation og give up on the game all together and cancel their account (I have seen this happen several times.

CCP could be a great popular game,, they choose NOT to be.

 TURBINE: FOR:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE.

all others are HORRIBLE compared to TURBINE. hands down. 

Blizzard got my vote. Through years this company has show the ability to deliver polished and well done games able to catch the attention and give fun to a lot of people. In my opinion this is the goal for a game company and they have been the most successful in achieve it. It doesn’t matter WoW is not my game.

NCSoft could have got my vote, they developed Lineage II and it is still my best experience in the MMORPG’s world, but it’s just one game (I can't consider GW as a NCSoft developped game it was developped by Arena.net before the merge same for TS/ Richard Garriot or CoH developped by Cryptic Studios). Then second place for NCSoft.
 

Originally posted by almeric

Wow, what a thoughtless list of nominees.

I've played a lot of MMOs from a wide range of developers, and I'm sorry to the haters out there, but EQ2 offers the best fantasy-genre gameplay I've yet found.

And SOE is a vastly more active developer overall than Blizzard - The Agency looks awesome, and DCUO has some buzz behind it.  Free Realms for the kiddies?

SOE gets my vote, with Cryptic (omgzIwannaplayChampions) in 2nd place.

I personally would have voted for SoE but apparently somebody forgot to add them.