Yikes. I didn't realize what a terrible year 2011 was for MMORPGs.

Hybrid MMOs: I had no interest in playing any of these. That's just personal taste, though.

Rising Star: "None of the Above." I don't expect any of these to exceed 250k North American subs - except WildStar, which I don't expect to ship at all. ArcheAge may do well in Korea.

Most Innovative: Based on the choices offered, perhaps this category should be titled "Most Competent." None of these games are really innovative (except perhaps Glitch) - they just chose a gimmick feature and didn't screw it up.

Most Anticipated: I default to Guild Wars 2 only because I find the rest either uninteresting or likely to be spoiled by tedious grinds (ArcheAge). But as time passes and GW2 is still seems no closer to ship, I've found my ardor cooling. It's less accurate to say I'm "anticipating" it than it is to say I'll pick it up whenever it comes out.

Game of the Year: RIft was a flash in the pan for me - interesting for about six months, but it had no hook to keep me playing. SWTOR is WoW with VO. Fine if you like it, but I'll pass. The best prospects seem to be the old standbys; EVE, LotRO, and WoW. EVE's year was marred by extremely bad corporate decisions, with results measured in layoffs. They're back doing what they do best, but I wouldn't award GotY for fixing your clownshoes mistakes. LotRO released a tepid, feature-free expansion. It's okay, but not great. And WoW's playerbase is contracting at a rate that would be catastrophic to a more svelt gorilla.

So... bleh.

One minor feature I enjoyed in Asheron's Call 1 were the books. Players could buy several sizes (varying by number of pages) and write whatever they wanted in them. The authoring character was noted at the bottom of the pages. The text would be saved on the server and the book be passed around. Some people used books to make notes on quests. Others used them to distribute stories in game.

Related to this tech, AC1 offered the ability to inscribe descriptions on items (a text field at the bottom of the item stats panel). Often this was used by item appraisers - the ability to see an item's stats and spell was skill-based, those with a high skill would jot down the stats so all could see them. Sometimes people would inscribe gifts with messages, or stories about how they acquired the item.

Equipped weapons and shields could be targeted and inspected by other players while wielded. It was an interesting diversion to sit in town and read what people wrote on their equipment.

Heh. :)

...the county has a CEO?

For someone who lives in the frigid north, she sure ain't wearing much (which is all the more comical given she's also wearing a skirt made from fur curtains).

You go out dressed like that in Edmonton, you'd have tissue damage in seconds.

I have to quibble with the inclusion of EVE Online.

It definitely has one of the greatest economies of any MMORPG. The "player economy" is not just a quaint euphemism for a flea market - the market actually drives the game and the PvP conflicts.

Crafting, however - the actual process of making something - is like a concentrated distillation of all the worst ideas in MMORPG crafting. Collect materials by poking rocks for dozens of hours. Collect rare parts by grinding mobs for dozens of hours. Place materials in drawer, click a button, and come back in X hours. The only interaction required by the player is the boring stuff.

These are old school MUD-ish ideas, particularly the storytelling and insult contests. Interesting.

I completely disagree on the matter of crafting.

Ten years ago, crafting tended to be designed for and performed by crafters. It was an alternative way to play the game that didn't (necessarily) involving slaughtering thousands of mobs. And crafting was powerful -- in UO, if you wanted a good weapon, you asked someone to make it for you.

The trend recently is to dumb down crafting, to make it quick, cheap, and unsatisfying -- something everyone dabbles in and no one specializes in. And crafted items are, at best, on par with the best quest rewards. We don't make anything for ourselves anymore. We queue up at amusement park rides that hand us what we want when we reach the end.

You know, when I log out of a game and turn off the computer, it's to do other things. Work. Spend time with the family. Read a book. Watch a movie. Listen to music. Sleep, occasionally. I have no desire whatsoever for my games to start intruding on the rest of my life.

Eh, who am I kidding? I'm clearly just some crazy Luddite dinosaur, out of touch with the Red Bull generation and their hardcore 24/7 gaming lifestyle. I should lern2play2crush or go buy a cane and a rocking chair.

Meh.

Originally posted by guy232

As I recall isnt this the same place that is a Haven for  every enemy/terrorist  of the free world? 

 

That's a fairly accurate description of 0.0 space. Pakistan, not so much.

Originally posted by sloeber

LET THE RICH PAY and leave the working class alone.......realy sick of seeing al this shit on TV all evening long.....now they are starting ingame too....fuck that.

 

When the rich don't care enough to help, it's up to us.

Ah, voiceover. We can forget about GW2 getting regular or timely content updates.

I've worked on several games with VO. This will add months of lead time to and tens of thousands of dollars to the process of adding quests. First they write it, then they hire actors and rent a sound studio, get the former into the latter, and after that's done, they spend a few weeks mixing and editing the results. And then they repeat the process in other languages.

And god help them if they need to change the dialogue in one of those quests. Then you have to rehire the same actor (subject to their scheduling), or re-record the entire NPC.

This is the first misstep I've seen them make in GW2. They're not perfect after all. :)

I guess the new lead designer didn't like Monkeytown?

6.5 is about right for APB judged as an MMORPG. But it's not an MMORPG.

It's a game only runs on centralized company servers (Modern Warfare 2), with achievements and unlockable equipment (Bad Company 2, America's Army), and a side feature of extensive avatar customization (Brink, Battlefield Heroes).

APB is a shooter. The next generation of them, IMO. It's squarely in the place shooters have been moving towards over the last five years, and RTW has stolen a march on the competition.

As a shooter, I leave its merits to be judged by those who play those games. I don't. I just hope the tragic mis-marketing of APB to MMORPG players doesn't kill it in the crib. I may not care for it personally, but it's going in the right direction. It deserves to find its audience.

Originally posted by Regnevanz

Most MMO's have bad grpahics and shonky mechanics due to poor programming and yet PC's still have trouble running them most of the time.

While I agree with you that there's room and need for improvement, I think you've underestimated the difficulty of:

1) Rendering a large open environment with potentially over a hundred player avatars onscreen at once... all with unique appearances.

2) Designing mechanics that function adequately when you're playing on a server that may be a continent away from your PC, and can handle the aforementioned hundred players all trying to do something different at the same time.

3) Crafting an experience that a player is inclined to pay a monthly subscription for, for years at a stretch.

Call me a crusty old dinosaur.

I've never had any interest in Facebook, Twitter, or blogging. I don't own or plan to buy an iPhone or Blackberry. I've never connected my Wii or PS3 to the internet. I've never played Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and I consider Natal a Virtual Boy in the making.

If this is what the "third age" is going to be, you guys can keep it. I'm not egotistical enough to assume anyone cares how I'm wasting my time 24/7, nor am I so addicted to technology that I can't step away from email for even a few minutes.

It sounds to me that the "third age" is going to be all about voluntary loss of privacy to gain the dubious boon of shallow, impersonal interaction with 400 Facebook and X-Box Live friends. Instead of grinding mob kills to unlock achievements in MMGs, we'll be spamming friend requests.

At least two MMG developers have done preproduction for Potter MMGs in the past, going back eight or nine years now. You'll note there still hasn't been one released.

Frankly, I don't expect that to change.

MMORPG awards for "best of the year" should confine themselves to MMORPGs actually released in the last year.

Expansions (boxed or digital, like LotRO Shadows of Mirkwood or RoM The Elven Prophesy) are eligible.

To reward MMORPGs that have been chugging along, add categories like Most Improved, Best Continuing Content, Best Community, and Best Scandal (because, admit it, we all love it when it happens to someone else).

With all those caveats, the game would have to be precisely what I want in order for me to sub. I might sub for a gritty "Game of Thrones" style fantasy world, for example, but not a goofy Warcraft style world. I might sub for a science fiction / space opera game, but not an Old West game... or even a science fiction / cyberpunk game.

As an aside, I don't mind higher subscription rates, but I think the price point you suggested is too high to be practical. $40-$50 a month is what I pay for my utilities, not my entertainment. (Before you ask, I don't have cable, and that's 1.5-2x what I pay for my broadband). I'd be much more likely to consider something in the range of $20-30 a month.

Originally posted by robert4818

...the reality of it is that players are rarely ever given the tools to effectively do this. 

I agree. You've articulated the real problem.

However, I won't dismiss the possibility that player justice will work until someone takes the financial risk of making a game with decent player justice tools, and it fails.

The thing about justice -- in a game or in real life -- is that it's not the severity of punishment that deters crime, but the certainty (thanks, sociology 100). The death penalty, by itself, does little to deter crime. Excellent police work, fingerprinting, and CCTVs do a lot more.

In a game, unlike in real life, it is always possible to prove guilt and find the perpetrators. Real life doesn't have server logs.