2012 is nearly over and it's always fun to take a look back at the games that we spent lots of hours enjoying. We'll be spending this week talking about the games that we, the staff of MMORPG.com, caught our attention in the year that was. As ever, join the conversation in the comments. First up, Managing Editor Bill Murphy's list.

Firefall

Yes, it’s not out yet, but you can buy your way into the beta as a founder so what do we call that? Sort of released? Either way, I’ve been playing Firefall for almost the entirety of 2012, and it’s been a privilege to watch it grow as a game in that time. When I first started in the beta, it was barely a shell of the game it’s become in recent months. I know our Mike Bitton loves him some Planetside 2, but for me? I like to mix my PVE and PVP in the shooters I play, and Firefall allows me that choice.  With an overworld that is set to be uncovered and discovered by player’s actions, and an ingenious leveling mechanic, there’s a lot of originality in Red5’s inaugural title.  Firefall is still rough around the edges, but as it nears launch in 2013, I can’t wait to see where it ends up. 

Read more of Bill Murphy's Bill's Best of 2012.

GW2 - I was able to play it for a few days.  I probably did better than many mainstream gamers who have abandoned it's shallow gameplay.

Torchlight 2 - Oh yeah this game.  Almost forgot it existed.  It's a good game, but it has no longevity, even worse so than Diablo 3.  Their forums are all but dead now, and the multiplayer only works when you play with 1 or 2 people you know IRL.

TSW -  Obviously failed.  I bought a copy now, so I'll get around to the full tour eventually, but the fact that it went F2P says more than I ever can about it.  Might be a while before I get to it, I received 5+ games for christmas, and have a week or 2 left on a 2 dollar EVE sub.

I've been abstaining from mmo's lately, waiting for TESO and ArcheAge, but Firefall looks fairly awesome. I didn't realize I could buy a founder's pack to get into the beta, I may have to give that a try.

I'm in total agreement about TL2, it was basically everything I had wanted D3 to be, except with indie steampunk-ish art and graphics. 

Have to agree with you Bill.  Although I have not played TSW, I have heard some good things about it from friends.  I also like Smite far better than LOL, just a better game and not so many rude players.  Not a big fps player, but Firefall is more of a hybrid and I am enjoying it just the same.

Torchlight 2 just owned Diablo III, I have not played Diablo since about 3 weeks after release yet I find myself coming back to Torchlight time after time.  Blizzard did just about everything wrong about Diablo and I do not think they have the guts to fix it.

Hope we have some big surprises coming up next year.

"I can’t wait until we learn more about Torchlight Online."

Yes, please.

I like this format better than Staff Awards.

On one side you get to know a little more about what each staffs likes in terms of games, and on the other there's nothing really to argue, so don't have to bother with commenters complaining about something *cough* Pirate101 *cough*.

Plus, Giant Bomb is a great site to take a bit of inspiration from. They're really great to watch and read.

Firefall is taking up most of my game time. I'd like to say more but rules...

I enjoyed The Secret World during beta but couldn't afford the subscription. At buy to play it's gotten a lot more attractive.

Torchlight 2 (thanks, Castille!) is okay, but I don't think about when I'm not playing it.

Guild Wars has never appealed to me. I just don't care about it.

MOBAs (whatever that means) aren't enjoyable. Too many toilet bowl mouthed punks.

My best of 2012 funny enough only consists of one MMORPG game, the rest are single player games that blew me away.

Lotro:Riders of Rohan, best expansion

Assassin's Creed 3

Xcom:Enemy Unknown

Farcry 3

CoD:Black Ops 2

Any lego game :D

That's my list.  And most of those were discovered in the past 2 months, sadly.  2013 is going to rock gaming wise considering I'm still playing these titles and looking forward to quite a few such as GTA5, DMC, God of War 4, TESO, Neverwinter, Wild Star, ArcheAge and a few others.

So here are my thoughts on this year’s games and expansions and what I’m looking forward to in 2013!

GW2: Without question is my favourite new mmo, really the only thing I don’t like about it is the lack of the trinity but that’s personal preference. I agree though I can see myself playing this for years to come and buying the expansions.

TSW: I’ve been playing this on and off since launch, the stories, cut scenes and dungeons are industry leading I think and I like the fact this game has sandbox elements but I don’t like it enough to play it as a main game.

RiFT: I still rate this game above all other theme park mmos and Trion are an awesome company. Storm Legion has been a great addition to the game and even though I don’t raid anymore it doesn’t matter because there are just so many things to do in this game. Dimensions are amazing and I can’t wait to see how they develop, it’s an exciting time to be a RiFT player that’s for sure.

MoP: I thought I would give this expansion a go because I still have several friends playing but it just feels like a really dated game now and I didn’t even last a month playing it ( even though I had played it for 7 years strait before). The cross server zones are probably the best feature and I do think it’s a brilliant bit of tech even though it has teething problems. Overall, it just feels like every other WoW expac where you end up doing the same things over and over.

ESO: This is the next mmo I’m going to seriously try being a massive Elder scrolls fan since before Morrowind I really can’t wait for this game to launch. I just hope they don’t release early like SWTOR and the game is fully polished at launch. I really feel if they can launch a polished product this game is going places as the lore is second to none and flushed out like no other.

Happy New Year everyone :)

GW2 is actually worse than SWTOR imo.  I'm far more disappointed with GW2 than I was with D3.  I didn't even bother with the xmas event and instead returned to WOW for a ten day MoP trial.  GW2 completely misses the mark on everything other than world and character design.

TL2 was a two week game.  It really offers nothing in terms of replay value.  I don' know enought about the others but having played DoTA in WC3 and LoL I have a feeling SMITE wouldn't do it for me.

TSW:  Without a doubt the best game out last year and easily the best mmo out there atm.  The stories, community and gfx in my opinion are amazing.

GW:  Not really that good, the cut an dpaste world really turned me off however good to return for the holiday events.

LOTRO:  Riders of rohan.  The best expansion so far for LOTRO, this makes me forgive their implimentation of their Cash Shop - stats are purchasable in LOTRO *le sigh*

Age Of Wushu:  Keeping my eye on this, some parts I love other things like weird world gfx and running animation put me off.

GO TSW!!!

[mod edit]

GW2: could have been a way better and should be a much more complete mmorpg -if ANet was a better company. They once were, but somehow along the way they lost it.

Although i quit Rift a while ago (say "generic"), Trion with SL is once again sort of the runner up for me and i am curious to see what they have at hand for 2013. Hopefully no more lay offs.

The games this old school mmorpg'er had the most fun with last year reflect the poor state of the mmorpg-genre altogether:

Saints Row Third, Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2, Far Cry 3, Kingdoms of Amalur, Skyrim -in no particular order.

*edit : 'Whats with the format of the text in comments?

Here is my list:

1.TL2 because Runic delivered everything they said they would and the game is a little indie gem.

2. MoP since it added some new and fun aspects to WoW as well as expanding on the world already there. The Oriental theme is a nice change from many Western MMOs.

3. GW2 because it is a beautiful game that is a great B2P model. I like it a lot.

The big disappointment for me this year was D3. I haven't played it since a month after it came out.

Guild Wars 2 entertained me for a while, but hasn't held my attention.

The Secret World now that it is buy to play was worth looking into, and I'm glad I did.  I've played on and off, and will continue.

The surprise for me, though, has been SW ToR, a game which I didn't even want to try because I don't usually enjoy sci-fi settings.  Then again, I don't like horror, but I do enjoy TSW, so there's a lesson for me there about trying to stay open-minded.

Now that SW ToR is free to play, I decided to give it a try and was amazed to find that I'm loving it so far.  I'm still in the early stages, but even so the story line has gripped me and I find myself thinking about the game and looking forward to the next session.  Let's hope it lasts.

Happy New Year to everyone >^.^<

p.s.I think you mean "cue" rather than "queue", Bill ^^

My short list is as follows:

Guild Wars 2 - GOTY and, to me, best video game ever.

TSW - Picked it up when it went B2P (which for all of you who can't seem to get it right is NOT F2P).  Love the more mature setting and gameplay.  The story is very cool so far as well.

LotRO - I stopped playing only because GW2 came out.  Up til then I was having a blast.  The more action oriented combat of GW2 and TSW have soured me on the "stand still and fight" style of gaming.  I haven't tried the new expansion, and I'm not sure I will but I definitely got my $60 worth when I bought the ROI expansion.

Family Guy Online (Beta) - I played the open beta and while it was ok it didn't grab my attention like the show does.

Wizard 101 - I'm only adding this because it's the only other MMO I played last year.  I stopped playing once I realized what a truly Pay2Win game this is.  I've heard people complain about how LotRO is that way since you can't access all quests in all areas but in LotRO I never had a problem doing my main quests.  I did in Wiz 101.  I would get quests and then not be able to access the area I needed to go to.  Unless I either paid a sub (which I don't do) or bought that area.  That was it for me.