MMORPG.com is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 Reader's Choice Award for Best New Game of 2008.

In the voting for Best New Game, 4252 votes were cast. The editorial nominees were: Age of Conan, Atlantica Online, Pirates of the Burning Sea , Warhammer Online, and None of the Above.

Of all of our categories, this one presented us with the tightest race between two nominees. Mythic’s Warhammer Online and the ominous None of the Above category battled it out with WAR coming out on top with 33% of the vote. 3% more than None of the Above.

Read the Best New Game of 2008: Winner

Grats to WAR and the team at Mythic. I'm glad the "none of the above" didn't win... I'm really sick of all the complainers who ignore the fact that just because a game doesn't have everything and more they want, it doesn't mean it can't be a good game. There are a LOT of good games out there, and WAR definitely was the best new game of 2008.

I voted for Warhammer as the time I spent in the game was an absolute blast.

Congrats Warhammer!

 Grats on eeking out a victory over None of the Above. 

Originally posted by Thradar

 Grats on eeking out a victory over None of the Above. 

Win.

Congrats to WAR and Mythic! Even if it didnt have a perfect launch it still was a very polished and fun game that almost lived up to the hype.

Im looking forward to try the game again :) (to busy playing LotrO now)

Originally posted by streea

Grats to WAR and the team at Mythic. I'm glad the "none of the above" didn't win... I'm really sick of all the complainers who ignore the fact that just because a game doesn't have everything and more they want, it doesn't mean it can't be a good game. There are a LOT of good games out there, and WAR definitely was the best new game of 2008.

I totally agree!!! I too get sick of all the troll dung some people seem to be so obsessed with writing.  It's like they are determined to be unhappy no matter what.

Anyway congrats to warhammer. I've never played the game but am watching it closely to see where mythic takes it.

I did not like the game, but it is still head and shoulders above the rest of the pack that was released this year.  Congrats to Mythic.

Since we were voting on games and not necessarily the companies behind them, I am suprised that Age of Conan didn't fair better in the polls. Mythic is by far a much better company than Funcom, but Age of Conan was pretty much on par with everything WAR had to offer.

Congrats to WAR and Mythic and hopefully things pick up for them. I hope AoC's reviews don't deter Funcom too much from future MMO's or expansions. As much as I pounded on Funcom with complaints, AoC is still a good game.

Originally posted by streea

Grats to WAR and the team at Mythic. I'm glad the "none of the above" didn't win... I'm really sick of all the complainers who ignore the fact that just because a game doesn't have everything and more they want, it doesn't mean it can't be a good game. There are a LOT of good games out there, and WAR definitely was the best new game of 2008.

Exactly. It's at a point where developers won't want to make games, b/c they are bashed no matter what.

Publishers won't back them, b/c they can't make them in 3 years, but with 5 years of content.

and that's sad. Sure, there are some downsides to all games, but gamers are harping on that shit so much, they're making their own genre crumble from the inside.

Gz to Mythic for a well deserved reward!

Tho the game is plagued by quite a few issues (some normal to new releases, some due to over-fussiness in design), it brings a lot of new good stuff into the mainstream mmo genre and it is playable and really enjoyable right out of the box.

While we have all been waiting for the next revolutionary game what we got is a nice new evolutionary step. Realistically, that is pretty much all we could have expected, considering the enormous production costs of AAA mmos - simply, this is not the way big corporations work. Let us be thankful that we've finally seen a AAA mmo that is PvP at its core... that's something, and not a small thing if you take into account the horrible "PvE quest or raid" paradigm that's been forced on big old MMOs from EQ onwards.

Imo, WAR is opening up new possibilities for future AAA mmos. It shows that PvP is not the boogey man those awful "free for all" grief-apocalypse attempts made it out to be. It is possible to create a popular, mainstream AAA mmo that is PvP oriented and which gives players a role (however limited) in shaping the world they share with other players. Developers, take heed - after WAR "hero's journey" MMOs are as good as dead and buried.

I voted for AoC, but gratz to WAR and Mythic.

WAR has it's good points, but the bugs and terribad PvE content annoyed me. I love the PvP leveling system and I'm definitely going to check WAR out again in the future.

Gratz Mythic but.... I have to mention few things about the "none of the above" feature.

Alot of ppl voted for it.  Hell - almost 1/3rd...   Maybe thats not strange considering what some of these games had promised to deliver.  None of them did deliver on what they promised. 

What we learned most in the year 2008 is that new does not mean "massive".  Both WAR and AOC talked about masive fights with 100s of ppl.  Im not sure if AOC has 100s of ppl on their servers - but their Siege combat is defently nothing new when it comes to numbers.  And WAR is now plauged with server crashes and lagfest in their RVR.  The outcome is ... limit the number of players ....

So what we learned is that one huge part of what alot of ppl are after in MMO - Large scale battles are still not reality in the MMO world.  Even if the entire game is stripped down to bare bones when it comes to graphical quality (like war has done) to try to acomplish lagfree battles... it ends up beeing all for nothing.

So... None of the above is the true "winner" of this reward.    The thing is... Can there every be a best new MMO game ever again considering what the genre is turning into when it comes to new realeases ?  Maybe we should rather vote on the most improved game 2 years after release from now on ?  Sounds like more of a realistic aim than to hope for devs releasing anything other than empty promises that are then filled with bugs and problems when it comes down to it....

Originally posted by Thradar

 Grats on eeking out a victory over None of the Above. 

I wonder what would have happened if it was None of the Above.

Congrates to Warhammer as it was clearly the best new release!  I'm amazed though with all the whiners on these posts that "none of the above" didn't win by a 75% margin, maybe there is hope for this board yet!

WTF WoW didnt win? they must have posted on thier forum to come and rig the vote!!!11111!!!

Finally,one I agree with grats war.

Most of the None of the Above were in fact AoC voters.

I played Destruction from clossed beta until a couple months into release. The game had/has great potential but I felt that Destruction was getting a short straw on every draw. The healers were outmatched compared to Order healers in the sense that Order healers are practically tanks and Destruction healers are soft. Other than that the game was beautiful and the quests were terrific. I might go back to it later this year, hopefully by then the unevenness will be gone. Congrats on the win Warhammer Online...