The List this week takes a bit of a different tack than normal in that MMORPG.com columnist Bill Murphy takes a retrospective look at 2010 and highlights the best and the worst MMO events that captured our attention. Check it out and add any thoughts you might have to add to The List.

I really can’t believe that another year has come and gone. I’ve now been with MMORPG.com for more than a calendar year, and I honestly have no idea where the time went. Somewhere in there I graduated with my Masters, got a new day job at the VA Hospital, traveled to PAX and E3 both, got married, went to Hawaii, and now find myself staring down 2011 with deer-in-head-lights eyes because life seems unrelenting in both pace and sheer awesomeness. That said, with Christmas now a bittersweet memory for the next twelve months, it’s time to take stock of the 2010 that was for MMORPGs. Here then is my list of Best and Worst in MMO gaming for the past year. As always I hope you’ll toss in your own list in the comments below.

Read more The List: The Best & Worst of 2010.

Some very good points.  I did laugh at the part about vomiting over WoW...once you are done leveling.  I haven't gone back, but friends of mine who had never tried an MMO before are now post cata.  It makes me SICK! But it also makes me giggle.

Although I do sort of disagree with Aion, but hey, most of it seems pretty good.

I am surprised you didn't mention STO and FFXIV for worst of the year.  Otherwise, nice list.  I too felt underwhelmed this year and can't wait for SWTOR and GW2 to hit my PC.  

I have to disagree on both vindictus and GA.

Vindictus looked good at first, but then it turned into something that was not even a real MMORPG. GA is just a glorified fps.

Also, vindictus is so bugy it is ridiculous. I tried ot play it again a few days ago... /snooze / boooring.

Originally posted by Swanea

Some very good points.  I did laugh at the part about vomiting over WoW...once you are done leveling.  I haven't gone back, but friends of mine who had never tried an MMO before are now post cata.  It makes me SICK! But it also makes me giggle.

 

Although I do sort of disagree with Aion, but hey, most of it seems pretty good.

 Aion would probably have to rank as one of the best games out there right now... Sorry you disagree.

Agree on everything except that we should really stop using the word free because its not free. We need another word to use instead of free. :)

I for one can not wait for 2011 to get here.  While it is shaping up to be a very debatable game, I am currently beta testing and loving DCUO.  Which I personally find funny cause I warned a good friend of mine not to pre-order this game but rather give it a chance to live up to the hype (that was before I got into the beta).  But that highlights my point. 2010 made me a bitter gamer and contributed to my game hopping "problem".  The fact is nothing out right now is worth a long term investment (except for WoW and a couple of freemiums and all in my opinion of course). 

I want something new and refreshing...something different.  That is what I see being offered in the titles of 2011.

Freemium is realy bad! Its like Buy 2 Win... So for me Freemium is the worst of the decenia...

Originally posted by mmorpgdooder

Freemium is realy bad! Its like Buy 2 Win... So for me Freemium is the worst of the decenia...

Freemium is Buy 2 Convenience at worst. Please know what you're talking about before giving an opinion.

 The one thing I would have to disagree with is looking forward to 2011. I'm sure in 2009 it would be possible to have said looking forward to STO and APB and the other games that didn't live up to the expectations. So while I have to conceed that GW2 looks amazing and will no doubt be the next step in the MMO. Till a game is out you can't know if its going to be any good. So looking forward to 2011 cause some big names have games coming out is some what hopeful.

The only thing I think this article was missing was a reference to the debacle that is FFXIV.   I can't ever remember a time where such a big name company released such an attrocious bomb, and admitted it by not charging a sub fee.

I htink the freemium models that are now present in DDO, LOTRO and EQ2 Extended are certainly well worth watching-theyve breathed new life into those three games and I think are generating solid returns for the companies.

As for the rest of the list I found it kind of silly.  Global Agenda? Vindictus?  A whole bunch of nothing there.  AoC is still a ghosttown and a shell of what it should have been.  Aion has made a nice rebound-but I am not sure worth mentioning on a year end review list.

All and all another more or less pointless article.  Odd to omit mention of Perpeteeum, EQ2's extended server, EVE's continued space atop the leaderboard, the failure of STO and FFXIV,

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Agree on everything except that we should really stop using the word free because its not free. We need another word to use instead of free. :)

The expression is free to PAY and I doubt these experiments are long term sucesses. A P2P game which turns F2Pay is simply on its last legs of monthly money grabbing.

Nothing more, nothing less: it is the final way out to closure: 300% gain is already near 150% gain after 3 months (taking sampled  Xfire stats)

And 150 % gain of zero in the end stays zero. First the total year hard dollars earnings and then you can come up with real figures conclusions for this "one time to pull tric" .

I thought it was an interesting article.  Thee were a few things I disagreed with. 

First thing I have to very much respectfully disagree with is the best thing happening was well, ahem games going the new fermium rout.  He he  Cash shop route is what we should name it. LoL

Second thing I think most folks will say STO was the worst thing that happened as far as games go.

I hope that next year things will get better for gaming, right now it looks mighty hopeless other than SWTOR.  DCUO already getting bad reviews from folks in beta, followed by rift taking it on the chin for not living up to the hype.

Other than that spot on.

Worst: Beginning of 2010

Best: Ending of 2010

Enough said I think.

Originally posted by sungodra

I have to disagree on both vindictus and GA.

 

Vindictus looked good at first, but then it turned into something that was not even a real MMORPG. GA is just a glorified fps.

 

Also, vindictus is so bugy it is ridiculous. I tried ot play it again a few days ago... /snooze / boooring.

 

 Try this again.....

Vindictus isn't buggy on my machine, something wrong with yours? And boring? Try juggling old TNT, might be exciting enough for ya.

A fun list, of course leaving out the purple elephant in the room (FFXIV), but overall well done.

I agree with the last point about looking forward though, the depth of upcoming RPG titles (even beyond mmos) coming out in 2011 from major publishers is outstanding and I'd love to see the figures on the kind of development $ invested alone - its gotta be astonishing.

Cheers to 2010, good year for FPS' and thats about it.

Pretty good article, I agree with just about all of it. To those who question, Aion HAS become a really good game, as long as the PvP isn't what you were looking forward to. It really doesn't happen very much anymore, which is actually good news to a lot of people on this side of the world. It was steadily improving before I left, and in fact the only reason I quit was because of the terrible item grind which was addressed with a huge increase in the drop rate. It was mentioned that within 20 trips through one of the endgame dungeons they left with tons of legendary and epic items between them all. People who played Aion know how huge that is, where prior you could grind your entire career and never see an orange item drop let alone be the one to get it.

The problem is most, like me, were burnt pretty bad on Aion. So, even if it has gotten better, the interest in it is still just as lost. With MMOs, there's just so many that these days you only really get ONE chance to make a good impression on your audience. Once you mess that up, it's over. No matter how much you improve, how much you put into your advertising, you'll always have that stigma. People still swear WoW is for kids based on quests as they used to be instead of the challenge the end-game holds now (so I'm told, I don't play), people swear Aion's still a Korean grinder (which I can say first hand, it is not), people swear Champions is a snooze fest with zero content even though it's improved so much it's not even the game it started as anymore. Do I neven need to bring up Age of Conan? Let alone Final Fantasy 14.

You just can't recover from a stigma once you have it, because the choices are too varied. Sometimes that's a shame, and other times it's well-deserved.

Best : None (lets face it, was a poor year for mmo's)

Worst: FFXIV

WOW set the standard that cannot be beaten! But it sucks. And worse it's not even the real definition of MMO. No one has made a game that is anywhere near what WE want! They all suck. Thanks to Blizzard. Some games suck more than that but show me something different. Show US something better. Come on you lame ass developers get some creative humans in your employ. We are so sick of playing skinner boxes and RL rat races come on. Where is the Virtual Reality you promised. Now the RL sucks so bad people are accepting your crap as an answer. No wonder we grow up to be alcoholocs and druggies you developers aren't DOING your job! This place can be better but YOU have to start somewhere. Beat the WOW standard or I'm never coming back!