I don't think there should be any best MMO's or best MMO expansions of 2008, because in my opinion nothing warrants such awards.

Instead, there should be "Best of what's out there" awards.  Maybe the LOTR expansion deserves a "Best MMO expansion out at the moment" award.

Originally posted by jimmyman99

Gratz MoM players. I wish Blizzard would learn from this and make their expansions more like MoM, more content for ALL levels!

WoTLK is great, its just that too many people are too wrapped up in playing it instead of surfing the net and voting. 

Originally posted by GungaDin

Didnt vote. 

 Could be a lesson in that.

I have to say congratulations on a well-deserved victory. I don't love Turbine for many reasons, but MoM should be a model for what should go into an expansion for companies for a long time to come. It supports growth and new experiences for everyone across the playerbase. It is, very simple, what an expansion should be.

I didn't vote in this poll because I learned about it after it had finished, but I'm sure that had the WoW community known about it it would have won easily.

Massively.com gave the "Best Expansion of 2008" award to World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, and their reasoning makes more sense to me:

http://www.massively.com/2008/12/16/massivelys-best-of-favorite-expansion-of-2008/

I really wouldn't say adding content that some games have had for a long time, on top of finally figuring out how to make questing somewhat interesting, qualifies as a grand achievement in my book, especially when the story that drives all those quests continues to slide down the septic tubes even further.

I wouldn't really vote for LotRO either for winner. Of the options given i wouldn't have voted for any.

Maybe EvE Online, even though I get bored out of my skull playing the game, at least their expansion added new stuff and at least the beginnings of a new direction to playing the game.

Originally posted by Dionyseus  

Massively.com gave the "Best Expansion of 2008" award to World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, and their reasoning makes more sense to me:

MMORPG.com "gave" this award because people voted for it you dim-wit.

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

With just under 4k votes casts for this award, it shows how little read this website is by the majority of MMO players in the genre. I mean hell, 4k people is almost what DAoC has active on a daily basis.

So I take these awards with a grain of salt, because these rewards don't represent what the majority think or what professionals think like most serious awards.

... except that MoM is getting high praise from "professionals" as well; assuming that by "professionals", you mean major gaming sites and publications. Just look around at the  reviews from different gaming sites and magazines. They all give it high scores.

That, and polls never represent an entire population, but a sampling of it. The poll is no different here. And, given the praise it's getting in the press, I think the results of this poll are at least consistent.

 

To compare the average critic scores:

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/lordoftheringsonlineminesofmoria

Mines of Moria: 8.6

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/worldofwarcraftwrathofthelichking

Wrath of the Lich King: 9.1

So yes, to say the results of this poll are way off would be an understatement.

Even taking in to account that LOTRO subscriptions numbers are probably a lot higher than people suspect, the WoW expansion is still going to have sold high multiples, and if the WoW people had voted would have won without any trouble. So my guess would be either the LOTRO demographic includes people more inclined to vote, or they were generally happier with their expansion.

As for critics they are near on useless, does anyone actually take them seriously (other than themselves)?

Probably worth pointing out neither of the MMOs held any long term interest for me, so no axe to grind either way.

Originally posted by pencilrick

I don't think there should be any best MMO's or best MMO expansions of 2008, because in my opinion nothing warrants such awards.

Instead, there should be "Best of what's out there" awards.  Maybe the LOTR expansion deserves a "Best MMO expansion out at the moment" award.

 

Ummm, it's not the Best expansion EVER award.... it's clearly labelled as the Best Expansion of 2008 Award. So, yes, it actually IS the best MMO expansion out at the moment award. That just takes too long to say and looks silly on a badge.

Seriously, I get that you probably weren't impressed with this year's crop, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a best of the bunch.

One Expansion to rule them all!

Yeah, I'm happy they won, I voted for them, well deserved victory. We are talking about Moria, ladies and gentlemen, beautifully rendered in its full gloomy glory, golden ancient forests of Lothlorien, fair elves and sinister monsters from the womb of the Earth. Best graphics, best lore, best community, best quests.

As for this pathetic losing WOTLK, I'll have only one question: How in the first place, fanbois, could you bear to look at jamaican weedsmoking trolls dancing capoeira or gnomes on helicopters and not run the f*ck away? And how dare you speak of "lore" and "RP" in Wow? The kind of lore they are pulling out of their ass to sell more figurines and books and thrill the 12 year olds? (If you're not 12 year old and enjoying *that*, you must be schizophrenic/retarded).

Originally posted by Dionyseus

I didn't vote in this poll because I learned about it after it had finished, but I'm sure that had the WoW community known about it it would have won easily.

Massively.com gave the "Best Expansion of 2008" award to World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, and their reasoning makes more sense to me:

http://www.massively.com/2008/12/16/massivelys-best-of-favorite-expansion-of-2008/

 

 

Yea I liked their reasoning why MoM only got second place:

"So why didn't Moria win top spot, if it's really that good? There are a variety of reasons, but the simple fact is that more people play World of Warcraft. This being LotRO's first shot in the Expansion Wars, I'd have to say they're not doing too bad, either. This is certainly one of those cases where second place is still quite a compliment."

The readers of MMORPG.COM voted MoM as best expansion, why is this such a deal for all the WoW fans?

[quote] The readers of MMORPG.COM voted MoM as best expansion, why is this such a deal for all the WoW fans? [/quote]
 

A small fraction of its readers. 

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

With just under 4k votes casts for this award, it shows how little read this website is by the majority of MMO players in the genre. I mean hell, 4k people is almost what DAoC has active on a daily basis.

So I take these awards with a grain of salt, because these rewards don't represent what the majority think or what professionals think like most serious awards.

... except that MoM is getting high praise from "professionals" as well; assuming that by "professionals", you mean major gaming sites and publications. Just look around at the  reviews from different gaming sites and magazines. They all give it high scores.

That, and polls never represent an entire population, but a sampling of it. The poll is no different here. And, given the praise it's getting in the press, I think the results of this poll are at least consistent.

 

 

To compare the average critic scores:

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/lordoftheringsonlineminesofmoria

Mines of Moria: 8.6

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/worldofwarcraftwrathofthelichking

Wrath of the Lich King: 9.1

So yes, to say the results of this poll are way off would be an understatement.

Why is that odd to you?

Have you ever read book, music or movie reviews, and then seen how different or divided reader/listener/watcher opinions can be by comparison? The same holds true for games. It's not exactly some alien concept.... well I guess to you it is given your response.

Find me a critic or reviewer, anywhere, for anything, whose opinions/reviews are never disagreed with. You can't, because no such person exists

Let's try something...

We'll call it a mind opening exercise.

Okay... if you could, just for a moment... Step out of your own head and pretend that there are millions of  people in this world with minds of their own. Now pretend that those people are all capable of forming their own opinions and, even better, offering them when asked.

Still with me? Okay good...

This is where it's gonna get tough for you...

Envision thousands of those people whose opinions, likes and dislikes don't necessarily match your own, or those you agree with.

Take a breath. Told you this would get tough. Accepting that others have different opinions than you and that theirs are just as valid can be difficult to swallow for a hyper-opinionated, closed-minded person. It gets easier with time and, besides, that's what this exercise is for.

Let me know when  you're ready to continue.

Ready?

Okay, good..

Now imagine all those people, with minds and views and voices of their own, are invited to cast their votes in a player poll for best expansion for a MMORPG. Imagine that, despite what might seem like the "obvious", "correct" choice to you, they all vote for a different game, and that game wins by a substantial margin. The world doesn't stop turning. The sky doesn't fall. The sun still rises and sets like normal.

Now, take a deep breath, snap out of it, come back to reality and accept that that's exactly what happened here. People were invited to vote for what they felt was the best expansion. They did and LoTRO got the most votes. Don't point at what meta-critic shows, because that doesn't mean anything here. These polls reflect player opinion, not industry reviews.

I'm sure there are plenty who agree with you and didn't choose it. There were simply more in this poll who didn't agree with you.

Why is that so difficult to accept?

Bottom line: The award went to the game that, in your opinion, shouldn't have gotten it. A lot of people disagreed with you. Learn to deal with it, and move on.

Or, continue griping about it.

Whatever gets you through the night.

As an aside, I do find it funny when you start citing reviewers like that. From past experience, I know you'd just as quickly dismiss those same reviews if they didn't support your argument.

Originally posted by Papadam

Originally posted by Dionyseus

I didn't vote in this poll because I learned about it after it had finished, but I'm sure that had the WoW community known about it it would have won easily.

Massively.com gave the "Best Expansion of 2008" award to World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King, and their reasoning makes more sense to me:

http://www.massively.com/2008/12/16/massivelys-best-of-favorite-expansion-of-2008/

 

 

 

Yea I liked their reasoning why MoM only got second place:

"So why didn't Moria win top spot, if it's really that good? There are a variety of reasons, but the simple fact is that more people play World of Warcraft. This being LotRO's first shot in the Expansion Wars, I'd have to say they're not doing too bad, either. This is certainly one of those cases where second place is still quite a compliment."

The readers of MMORPG.COM voted MoM as best expansion, why is this such a deal for all the WoW fans?

Probably for a similar reason as to why my own sister can't grasp the concept that I don't find WoW to be as OMGAMAZING as she does. She can't understand it.

Probably for a similar reason why a guy I know who declared "all other MMOs are irrelevant" after WoTLK launched can't understand why I don't enjoy WoW.

To some who play that game (or any game to be fair), there *is* no other MMO worth playing and they feel that somehow those who don't play or like it are misinformed, don't know any better or have lousy taste in MMOs. Or, in the case of LoTRO, they only play it because it's based on Tolkien's lore.

So, to WoW players who fall into that category, that WoW could do anything *but* take top honors in any poll is probably inconceivable.

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

With just under 4k votes casts for this award, it shows how little read this website is by the majority of MMO players in the genre. I mean hell, 4k people is almost what DAoC has active on a daily basis.

So I take these awards with a grain of salt, because these rewards don't represent what the majority think or what professionals think like most serious awards.

... except that MoM is getting high praise from "professionals" as well; assuming that by "professionals", you mean major gaming sites and publications. Just look around at the  reviews from different gaming sites and magazines. They all give it high scores.

That, and polls never represent an entire population, but a sampling of it. The poll is no different here. And, given the praise it's getting in the press, I think the results of this poll are at least consistent.

 

 

To compare the average critic scores:

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/lordoftheringsonlineminesofmoria

Mines of Moria: 8.6

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/worldofwarcraftwrathofthelichking

Wrath of the Lich King: 9.1

So yes, to say the results of this poll are way off would be an understatement.

Metacritic also shows just how polarizing player voting is with World of Warcraft.  On almost any site you will see that people either really love WoW or truly despise WoW.  There is no middle ground.  With LoTRO you see that most people will lean towards the generally favorable because 1) it isn't the king of the hill and 2) most people that play the game have good things to say about it even if they don't play it perrennielly. 

oh~my favorite are on the list of winner, wow and lord of rings online are the best 2 deserve the call

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by Gameloading

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

With just under 4k votes casts for this award, it shows how little read this website is by the majority of MMO players in the genre. I mean hell, 4k people is almost what DAoC has active on a daily basis.

So I take these awards with a grain of salt, because these rewards don't represent what the majority think or what professionals think like most serious awards.

... except that MoM is getting high praise from "professionals" as well; assuming that by "professionals", you mean major gaming sites and publications. Just look around at the  reviews from different gaming sites and magazines. They all give it high scores.

That, and polls never represent an entire population, but a sampling of it. The poll is no different here. And, given the praise it's getting in the press, I think the results of this poll are at least consistent.

 

 

To compare the average critic scores:

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/lordoftheringsonlineminesofmoria

Mines of Moria: 8.6

www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/worldofwarcraftwrathofthelichking

Wrath of the Lich King: 9.1

So yes, to say the results of this poll are way off would be an understatement.

Why is that odd to you?

Have you ever read book, music or movie reviews, and then seen how different or divided reader/listener/watcher opinions can be by comparison? The same holds true for games. It's not exactly some alien concept.... well I guess to you it is given your response.

Find me a critic or reviewer, anywhere, for anything, whose opinions/reviews are never disagreed with. You can't, because no such person exists

Let's try something...

We'll call it a mind opening exercise.

Okay... if you could, just for a moment... Step out of your own head and pretend that there are millions of  people in this world with minds of their own. Now pretend that those people are all capable of forming their own opinions and, even better, offering them when asked.

Still with me? Okay good...

This is where it's gonna get tough for you...

Envision thousands of those people whose opinions, likes and dislikes don't necessarily match your own, or those you agree with.

Take a breath. Told you this would get tough. Accepting that others have different opinions than you and that theirs are just as valid can be difficult to swallow for a hyper-opinionated, closed-minded person. It gets easier with time and, besides, that's what this exercise is for.

Let me know when  you're ready to continue.

Ready?

Okay, good..

Now imagine all those people, with minds and views and voices of their own, are invited to cast their votes in a player poll for best expansion for a MMORPG. Imagine that, despite what might seem like the "obvious", "correct" choice to you, they all vote for a different game, and that game wins by a substantial margin. The world doesn't stop turning. The sky doesn't fall. The sun still rises and sets like normal.

Now, take a deep breath, snap out of it, come back to reality and accept that that's exactly what happened here. People were invited to vote for what they felt was the best expansion. They did and LoTRO got the most votes. Don't point at what meta-critic shows, because that doesn't mean anything here. These polls reflect player opinion, not industry reviews.

I'm sure there are plenty who agree with you and didn't choose it. There were simply more in this poll who didn't agree with you.

Why is that so difficult to accept?

Bottom line: The award went to the game that, in your opinion, shouldn't have gotten it. A lot of people disagreed with you. Learn to deal with it, and move on.

Or, continue griping about it.

Whatever gets you through the night.

As an aside, I do find it funny when you start citing reviewers like that. From past experience, I know you'd just as quickly dismiss those same reviews if they didn't support your argument.

 

The biggest problem with your point of view is that you like to believe that every opinion is valid and well educated, and this is simply not true.

The thing with mmorpg.com award is that every person with a connection to the internet can vote. Now lets stay realistic: How many people here have actually PLAYED and EXPERIENCED all the games listed? If it's more than 10%, I'll be impressed. If you haven't played or experienced all these games and expanstions, how can you make an objective vote?

Short answer: You can't. The result is that this poll is all about fanboyism and bias, not actual product quality.

The reason why I cite critics is that if you look at the games from an objective viewpoints, WotLK clearly comes out on top and it really shows just how little quality has to do with the results.

Originally posted by Gameloading

Short answer: You can't. The result is that this poll is all about fanboyism and bias, not actual product quality.

 

No shit, it’s a READER CHOICE AWARD. That doesn’t mean that the quality is not there. Because it is, the two are not mutually exclusive.

If you would stop babbling about this BS, and read what others have posted here as to why they voted one way or the other, you would see why LOTRO won.

Also, please note, LOTRO has 14 reviews, WOTLK has 41 to make the average of your Critic score.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Gameloading

Short answer: You can't. The result is that this poll is all about fanboyism and bias, not actual product quality.

 

No shit, it’s a READER CHOICE AWARD. That doesn’t mean that the quality is not there. Because it is, the two are not mutually exclusive.

 

If you would stop babbling about this BS, and read what others have posted here as to why they voted one way or the other, you would see why LOTRO won.

 

Also, please note, LOTRO has 14 reviews, WOTLK has 41 to make the average of your Critic score.

 

It's undeniable that the quality isn't there because from an objective point of view, WOTLK scores higher than MoM and yet Lotro wins with a landslide victory here.

It doesn't matter what people post here, because I don't believe for a moment that even half of the people who voted here did so with an objective and educated mindset. For that, you need to look no further than yourself.

" they also have 25 man raids, something blizzard has recently decided to mimic"

Blizzard decided to mimic? what? WoW already had a 20 man raid dungeon about 2 years before Lotro was even released.

In my opinion, it is very clear why people have voted for Lotro. Because Blizzard is the big bad bully, and Turbine is this cute little company offering an alternative to WoW.

I think it pretty much goes like this:

Look at the nominations:

- EVE empyrean age
- Mines of Moria
- Seeds of Destruction
- Shadow of Odyssey
- Wrath of the Lich King

The only company with a worse reputation than Blizzard on this forum is SOE, so that leaves out Seeds of Destruction and Shadow of Odyssey. It doesn't matter how good these expansions are, the fact that they are published by SOE means people won't vote for it. Next is EVE: Empyrean Age which quite a lot of people voted for but I think the fact it wasn't a traditional retail expansion kept it from getting votes. WoW players obviously voted for WoW, so that leaves with the biggest group: The people who hate WoW because it's big and mainstream, and since 2nd best is Lotro, it's obvious that's where the votes will go to.

People are far more forgiving to Turbine than they are for Blizzard


"Lotro is not about the endgame, it's about the journey to it!" Unfortunately Lotro's quest are, just like WoW, little more than "Go kill XX" or "Go find XX" with a storyline mission thrown in every now and then to keep the story moving, only difference being that WoW has a lot more content untill you reach the cap level. The endgame in Lotro is nowhere near that of WoW's, so the correct translation of the phrase "It's not about the endgame" would be "The endgame sucks".

People will write entire essays to write what they don't like about WoW's PVP system but when Lotro's monsterplay comes up, it usually goes "It sucks, but it's not the focus of the game" as if that is a valid excuse for it being the way it is.

Also, a game having less reviews is usually in its favor, as the score most of the time goes down as more and more reviews get added.