MMORPG.com is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for Most Innovative Feature of 2008.

In the voting for Most Innovative Feature of 2008, 2341 votes were cast. The editorial nominees were: Council of Stellar Management (EVE), Combo Combat (Age of Conan), Public Quests (Warhammer Online), Ship Combat (Pirates of the Burning Sea).

With an impressive 41% of the vote, the winner of the Most Innovative Feature of 2008 was Warhammer Online's Public Quests.

Read the Most Innovative Feature: Winner

Totally agree with the results. I'm looking forward to seeing what other companies decide to incorporate this into their games and how they evolve/tweak it.

Public Quests arn't even innovative and they arn't fun. They basically become solo grinds where you all fight over the mobs and tbh we've been doing this is every launch of a new mmorpg where you're all starting in one area fighting over mobs for quests...... it isn't fun and gets old FAST.

They all sit unused now anyways to show you how much of an innovative feature they are... rofl.

SWG did this type of thing before with Restuss aswel pre WAR and WoW did it with the opening of one of it's new dungeons.

 

 It will be implemented in MMOs to come. I believe I saw Champions Online adding a similar feature in their game. Yes, like it or not, Mythic rightfully took this one home.

Can it be improved upon?  Of course it can.  Other companies will see where Mythics mistakes are and make it better. No doubt Mythic will work on it too. They just have a few "more pressing" matters ATM.

as idea, it's innovative, so the award is well deserved imo, but the implementation in WAR is poor due to the other features slapping it, when 90% of the population are whoring scenarios, it's hard to get PQs at full potential.

Public quest as a innovative feature for multi player games YES it can be among the winners, personaly I don't see how it could become a innovative feature winner in a genre of MMORPG's, isn't this genre about getting the community not only together but also together to communicate?

Is communication needed with PQ's? No it's not, and we all know the general population tends to disregard the community aspect what keeps these games afloat.

Sorry for this negative reaction but I simply can not see someting like this to be innovative in a genre like MMORPG.

Generally accurate results to the poll though I think PoTBS's ship combat was more innovative (and fun) then AoC's combat system. Not to mention it required a lot more thought. If those two had been switched in ranking I think it would have been spot on.

Originally posted by John.A.Zoid

Public Quests arn't even innovative and they arn't fun. They basically become solo grinds where you all fight over the mobs and tbh we've been doing this is every launch of a new mmorpg where you're all starting in one area fighting over mobs for quests...... it isn't fun and gets old FAST.

They all sit unused now anyways to show you how much of an innovative feature they are... rofl.

 

SWG did this type of thing before with Restuss aswel pre WAR and WoW did it with the opening of one of it's new dungeons.

 

 

Firstly, I don't know what server you played on but PQ's are very good, especially if you have friends and guilds to do them with, high end they offer great rewards.

And, Restuss is nothing like a public quest... it's essentially a badly made PvP lake that is very small. NGE SWG is a very bad game.

Warhammer isn't perfect but it definitely deserves this years prize as most innovative. Some of the stuff they've added recently, like PvP Influence rewards, has made ORvR a blast and made Scenarios very uncommon... I love it

I have mixed feelings about it.   I think the first real idea of the public quest comes from FFXI in their besieged feature, where the entire zone rallies up to defend the town from monster raids.  Almost every single public "quest" in Warhammer boils down to kill 100 mobs, kill 10 harder mobs, kill boss mob. 

It highlights for me a greater issue with their quest system where literally 80% of the quests are kill quests, and the other 20% are collection quests.   They really need to mix things up a bit.   If you look at your quest log at any given time, I bet you almost everything in there fits one of these 2 types.  Literally by the time your at 40, your ready to smash your head into a brick wall until your dead from doing the same quest over and over with just a different monster inserted.

I think one of the more innovative features from that list would be from POTBS honestly.  I think the only reason this was picked was because it has more subscribers then the other games who had features nominated.

I agree with this, originally it was one of the most fun things in the game as long as there was opposition from the other side.  Now sadly the PQs seem to be all one side now and the a lot aren't even populated.  However, a very innovative concept.

"a very innovative concept"

Have to disagree with that statement.  The degree of innovation in this genre overall is appalling.  Even the new games did not innovate to any degree.   Half the items on this so called innovation list are take offs on things done in other games. 

Combat combos were in DAoC long before AoC was even conceived.  The only thing different in AoC combat was the ability to choose the attack location.  So that invalidates that choice.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"a very innovative concept"

Combat combos were in DAoC long before AoC was even conceived.  The only thing different in AoC combat was the ability to choose the attack location.  So that invalidates that choice.

Actually, the additional of directional combat is an innovation on an existing model.

Remember, invention is coming up with something entirely new, while innovation is a cahnge to something already existing. For example, the telephone was an invention, call waiting, or call display were innovations to the telephone.

I'm not saying you have to think that the device is the bees knees. I'm just saying that, like it or not, it IS an innovation to combat.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"a very innovative concept"

Combat combos were in DAoC long before AoC was even conceived.  The only thing different in AoC combat was the ability to choose the attack location.  So that invalidates that choice.

Actually, the additional of directional combat is an innovation on an existing model.

Remember, invention is coming up with something entirely new, while innovation is a cahnge to something already existing. For example, the telephone was an invention, call waiting, or call display were innovations to the telephone.

I'm not saying you have to think that the device is the bees knees. I'm just saying that, like it or not, it IS an innovation to combat.

 

It's a close one as far as AoC's combat goes, but I think I'll side with Jon on this.   Like it or hate it, was it was new approach to fighting.   I didn't like it, which is why I stayed as non-melee classes, but it was definitely different.  

I don't think AoC or WAR should have won though.  The games with the most innovative features in this poll are the ones least played, so most people probably don't fully understand the other choices so voted for what game they knew.    Realize I have never played POTBS or EVE, but from what I have read, one of them probably should have won.   Whoever said the last few MMO's have been appalling in this regard I think is pretty much spot on.

Originally posted by magicktrick

I agree with this, originally it was one of the most fun things in the game as long as there was opposition from the other side.  Now sadly the PQs seem to be all one side now and the a lot aren't even populated.  However, a very innovative concept.

Totally agree. I love PQ because it gives me the chance to group with so many different people.  We don't have to be in the same guild, or all be on ventrillo, or have some pre-arranged time.  I've made more friends through PQ than guild.

I started leveling a new alt and noticed that PQ just doesn't have as many people as before.  I would love to see a little tweaking to draw people back to them.

Originally posted by Paragus1

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Ozmodan

"a very innovative concept"

Combat combos were in DAoC long before AoC was even conceived.  The only thing different in AoC combat was the ability to choose the attack location.  So that invalidates that choice.

Actually, the additional of directional combat is an innovation on an existing model.

Remember, invention is coming up with something entirely new, while innovation is a cahnge to something already existing. For example, the telephone was an invention, call waiting, or call display were innovations to the telephone.

I'm not saying you have to think that the device is the bees knees. I'm just saying that, like it or not, it IS an innovation to combat.

 

 

It's a close one as far as AoC's combat goes, but I think I'll side with Jon on this.   Like it or hate it, was it was new approach to fighting.   I didn't like it, which is why I stayed as non-melee classes, but it was definitely different.  

I don't think AoC or WAR should have won though.  The games with the most innovative features in this poll are the ones least played, so most people probably don't fully understand the other choices so voted for what game they knew.    Realize I have never played POTBS or EVE, but from what I have read, one of them probably should have won.   Whoever said the last few MMO's have been appalling in this regard I think is pretty much spot on.

I don't think DAOC had player shields either, right? like AoC has. The ability to chose where to defend ones self.

As for Public Quest, I am sure I participated in something similar in Runescape back in 2003, the premise changed and got tweaked with Warhammer so they brought some good ideas with it. Shame it didn't work out so well in integration from my experience.

Seriously, I don't think that the winner deserve that title. First of all, to innovate something you have to create something completely new, which is very hard. I see lots of games copying each other or mixing features (usually mixing features works very well, take WoW as an example). I think EVE innovated much more when comes to features, by the way new games they are coming with very interesting features, I think at the end of this year we will see a more "fair and realistic" result.

I  think the votes to Warhammer Online was based on all the game, not only the features (chech the home page, Warhammer is always on the top of the lists). To bad. Hope this year people vote thinking on the theme, innovative features, not on the game that they like to play.

Well, the idea and concept of public quests may be innovative.  I'll grant you that.  But what I would call this is more of a "Most Innovative Failure of a Feature".  No one does the public quests in the game, and they rarely ever get completed.  Players don't work together much on PvE, and unless you're of a significantly higher level over the PQ, a small group of 2-3 players has no chance of trying to complete the final stages.

The gameplay is so damn lopsided and the only thing anyone does is grind scenarios over and over again.  It's like WoW without the PvE game.  And it's NOT RvR or strategic like DAoC either.  It's just a 2-sided war of death tradeoffs and repetition.  This game doesn't deserve any of the "awards" some sites are shelling out.  I get the feeling that the awards come easily to the games with the more generous advertising budgets.

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Originally posted by Ephimero
as idea, it's innovative, so the award is well deserved imo, but the implementation in WAR is poor due to the other features slapping it, when 90% of the population are whoring scenarios, it's hard to get PQs at full potential.

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Things have changed, nobody whores in the senarios anymore,(atleast not on my server) check your facts! People used to do that though, so you probably haven't been online in awhile m8.

PQs are fun!

Originally posted by Stradden

MMORPG.com is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for Most Innovative Feature of 2008.

In the voting for Most Innovative Feature of 2008, 2341 votes were cast. The editorial nominees were: Council of Stellar Management (EVE), Combo Combat (Age of Conan), Public Quests (Warhammer Online), Ship Combat (Pirates of the Burning Sea).

With an impressive 41% of the vote, the winner of the Most Innovative Feature of 2008 was Warhammer Online's Public Quests.

Read the Most Innovative Feature: Winner

with all of the innovative features which this site refused to nominate, sort of a hollow victory.

good job.  very impressive on the staff for nominating non-innovative features (seriously, the csm for eve?????) and ignoring TONS of actual innovation done in games in 2008.

but hey, goes hand in hand with the quality of a lot of correspondent articles i've been reading.  trees and apples i guess.

This is a joke.

1. The innovation isn't a innovation

2. PQ's should not have been nominated in the first place

3. It show how biased and immature MMORPGers really are. They are not voting for the best feature they are voting for their game (with all possible multiposting profiles)