Editor's Choice Awards
Today, we proudly present the MMORPG.com 2006 Editorial Awards where our site's editorial staff picks the best in four different categories.
Awards By Jon Wood on January 19, 2007
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Editorial Awards Biggest News Story: EAMythic The winner of this category was the biggest newsmaker in 2006. For better or for worse, the winning event produced the best MMORPG story of the year. On July 24th of 2006, it was official, the publishing giant EA had officially purchased Mythic Entertainment, the company responsible for the MMORPG hit Dark Age of Camelot and who are currently in production of the highly anticipated Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The news came as a surprise to many in the industry, and with EA’s background in MMOs, many fans were nervous about the future of both Dark Age and Warhammer. Six months later, and all seems well at the newly formed EAMythic, and Dark Age of Camelot continues to grow and function, and progress of Warhammer Online sees that game’s release on the distant horizon. Honorable Mentions The Fall of E3 It came as an initial shock to many industry veterans when the people behind the exceptionally successful video game expo announced that they were calling it quits. The event, it seems, was getting out of hand, and with a staggering amount of time and money being spent by game companies each year in preparation for E3, once people had a chance to think about it, the decision seemed to make sense. It is still unclear as to whether another event will step up to give us the same spectacle in a new form. CCP and White Wolf Merge CCP, the company behind the successful space MMORPG, EVE Online and White Wolf, the second most popular pen and paper game makers announced that they would be merging together to form one company. The move is widely seen as a good one for both companies, and should see the rise of a World of Darkness based MMORPG.com |
Is anyone on the Internet *really* interested in these Editorial Awards, let alone the one by Mmorpg.com? I mean, we all love threads like "Name the 5 best games of your life" but that's because it allows us to talk about our own loved games at length and discuss likes and dislikes. Editorial Awards are like 1 guy talking about his own "Best games evah!" but nobody can join in.
In my oppinion MMORPG.com staff really hitted it dead on. The awards were justified and well deserved.
Although I would put CCP&White wolf merge as no1 news. Just because it was so unexpected
That is why they have the Reader's Choice Awards, which they did in December. But if you go look at them, you will see that is was more of a popularity contest than it was an actual award contest. I prefer the Editorial Awards, because they are more objective and are not subject to thousands of drooling fans skewing the vote. So I guess that means yes someone on the internet actually is interested in hearing the editor's view on which game's desired recognition last year.
The EA Mythic story generated the most controversial attention, from "bye bye Mythic" to "hello money."
WAR is easily the most anticipated game, and has won the award on other sites as well.
I can see that Guild Wars got it's reward. I personally think it should have considering it's opposition.
EQ2's expansion EoF definitely should have won best expansion because of the renewed hope it gave people in EQ2 as a good game.
Good choices all around.
I think Vanguard could have taken an award if there was a catagory for most contriversial MMO. The Beta sure has stirred up alot of discussion for both possitive and negitive perspectives. It couls have also taken or had a draw for first if there was a catagory for MMO most hated. The game for that they may have had to tie with would be WoW. Even though they have 8 million subscribers there is also a vary vocal bunch who dislike what has given it such huge market appeal.
There truely no way to please everyone. Not even in Awards, editorial or otherwise.
http://www.guildwars.com/support/faq/prophecies-faq.php
Scroll down or do a page search for the letters mmorpg.
/wave
~Mysk, who's apparently being anal today, but seriously...
No matter where I go in these forums you always have something to say bad about Vanguard. It's so far past old it's not even funny. Think for the first time in my years here on mmorpg I'm going to try out the ignore button on you. I'm just that freaking sick and tired of seeing poop froth from your mouth about Vanguard.
QFE
And why Vanguard isnt mentioned? It's just eq1 with better graphics.
This is just sad... As if it wasn't bad enough Guild Wars is on mmorpg.com in the first place...
On top of that it's got some of the best cut scenes in a mmorpg I've played to date a lot of companies skipped them all together which was almost ways a standard part of any good rpg.
It's not as massively multiplayer as it could be at times especially in the case of pve, but it's multiplayer enough in pvp is concerned. On top of that it's a easy mmorpg game to leave off on and jump back into at a later point in time when you feel like because you don't have to any hassle to deal with that you might with the other mmo's like resubscribing and the fees associated with it plus long patches to wait for since it's all streamed in GW.
Sure the game is basically entirely instanced, but who cares the main areas in like almost every new mmo is instanced as well and for good reason it cuts down significantly with lag plus it prevents a lot of problems associated with pve that EQ was notorious for like trying to find a camp having your camp stolen from you or getting to a camp spawn only to find it allready camped by another group or person.
Say what you will about Guild Wars, but they got a lot of things right. It's only main pitfall is it's not massively multiplayer enough for a lot of players especially if they're more into pve. That pitfall aside it's a great game and in a lot of ways the game play itself feels like it's got more rpg traits and aspects to it than most others. I know there's some kinda cheesy things associated with doing the missions like rushed through certain missions from a person sprinting from the start to finish, but you can't do it with every mission and that's always been a feature in about 95% of rpg's that convienant little run away feature that we all abused to a point to get to that next town.
I don't get why people complain about it as if it's a horrible game and downcredit it as not being a mmorpg. It somewhat leads me to be inclined that a lot of the people complaining and saying it sucks or it's not a mmorpg never even played it themselves to begin with. I don't care if they've seen other people play it or not either because playing a game and watching one aren't the same thing at all.
If you really think GW isn't a mmorpg because of the instancing them I guess other games with instancing aren't either and neither are the ones with zones or classes for that matter because UO and Meridian 59 were the mmorpg pioneers and were both persistent worlds and skill based, but that's obviously absurd now isn't it? Get over yourself it's a mmorpg well made and popular regardless of how you feel about it.
I know you never said anything to do with those points in particular, but if id asked how you thought GW wasn't a mmorpg you probably would have mentioned those things to try and discredit the game so I'm merely beating you to the punch by explaining how it is a game and how it is justified as game of the year. If you'd been watching the game rankings during the year you'd realize Guild Wars and each of it's expansions have been at the top of the ranking list at one point or another, but I guess it's still bad to you and not a mmorpg even though clearly plenty of other people would agree it is.
I enjoyed reading the awards. I agree with another poster about more categories though. Then I read the comments. It is funny how some come to bash and admit that they don't care about the awards. This is the same type of person that I have avoided in real life even if the person was a friend of my friends. If you don't care go somewhere else. If you feel that an award was not the right one then talk about it.
I have to say I am still worried about EAMythic. I am glad to see Guild Wars up there. I am really looking forward to seeing Warhammer even though people for some reason keep thinking that a company over 30 years old using their artwork is copying a 16 year old companys' game. I have to say that DAoC is still my favorite game and that Warhammer is my most anticipated. I love Vanguard and am very much awed by it. It is so much fun and so unlike any other game I have played. Still Warhammer is my most anticipated mainly because I know about the minatures and RPG.
Everything they stated in there editorial about it was true you can't deny it's got tons of faction grinding plenty of the same old repeated questing patterns from the first time around and quite time consuming if you really stop to look at it just the leveling process from 60 to 70 is equivilent to leveling from 1-50 so it's almost like leveling all over again. I wouldn't be surprized if the epic mounts are also now knowticably harder to get than they were in the beta as well to slow progress down even further again. That's how they game business's tend to work nerf things if they feel are "too easy" or "too powerful" rather than working on and providing more content like they should be doing , but naw it's all about revenue for them keep paying for the same content longer so they don't have to hire more game designers and can pocket more of the money for themselves. I think mmorpg's are getting to the point where if you want a quality team that cares about it's player base your gonna need to go with a indy/underground dev team kinda like in the music industry. I think that's a big part of the appeal of Darkfall you know if or when it's finally released it's by a team of game designers that care about it being successful and succeeding because they're such a small group you know they're taking a big risk trying what they're doing to begin with. It's kinda sink or swim for them which can only be good or horrible for the players only time will tell for sure.
NVM - wrong thread
I think if the awards happened 2 months back, Vanguard would have been mentioned as the most anticipated.
However, a lot of people have played the beta, and now, well, let's just say a lot of people have seen that there wasn't much to be excited about...
Most anticipated game: WAR is ok, but...Gods and Heroes? OMG!!! Can be seems another stupid historical MMORPG. And no one of them, till now, is a good or nice game. They are boring, with a lot of hystorical errors. Vanguard SoH or Chronicles of Spellborn are most valuable than Gods and Heroes (and i think that SoE has found the new SW:G. Another futile game!)
Best game: it's a fake, isn't it? Because GW (btw a nice game) is not a MMORPOG! Can be a fantasy MMOG, can have one of the best PvP system never seens but is not a MMORPG. Poeple can prefer WoW or EQ2 or EVE-Online or RF Online (me
Well, I clicked the link and read the article, so I suppose you could say I was interested.
I mean, I wasn't drooling or quivering in anticipation or anything, but it was worth a couple of minutes of my day.
Sometime SoE games start not so well and become great time after time. The same thing can happen to Vanguard, too ;)
(and, yes, i think that now is only a nice game. Now. Can become fantastic? I think yes... but my 2007 game is Warhammer Online
Reading the above made me wince...
Anyhow, it's not the article by itself, but the community expanding on the ideas within it that make it worth reading. Several interesting points were brought up:
1) The CCP/WW merger was unexpected and a potentially huge influence on the development of EVE
2) While the MMORPG qualification for GW is a moot one, what can't be denied is that their business practices are successful and innovative and thus worth notice by players and industry reps alike.
3) Vanguard is certainly controversial, as evidenced in this thread, let along in the VSoH forum.
Edit for confusion on facts :(
Some companies are trying to do something different from the traditional EQ or WoW model, and the differences can be large enough that they are Not MMOs, at least by the same standard as earlier well-established MMO games.
I personally think that MMO means: the main game-play includes interaction with a large population of players that are not on your team of 6 people, or whatever. Thus I decline to call an MMO any game like GW or DDO or Diablo 2 that makes heavy use of instancing and you only ever adventure with your group, and never interact with other group that is also adventuring. City of Heroes is an MMO because they do have shared world space where lots of players can have their characters interact, even though CoH also has instanced missions without this MMO interaction.
In your face. Guild Wars got recognized.
Why is Guild Wars considered a MMORPG while its developers consider it a CORPG? Simply because of the fact it would be unique to the genre. But nevertheless it's still a MMORPG, because any contest would have to include "BEST CORPG OF THE YEAR" award. You don't want that, do you? Most of you won't want anything that cannot be awarded to EVE or WoW anyway. Most understand though, that Guild Wars is closer to a MMORPG-genre than a RTS, FPS, etc.
Sorry if this was a bit too harsh, but you will have to survive the fact that Guild Wars is a good game and deserves its award. Yep, no EVE or WoW for this one. The Editors have their own opinions as these awards are not based on popularity, but instead on an active game, with excellent gameplay and graphics, a respectable following, and contributed to the genre. You can't say Guild Wars isn't one of the most innovative games of 2005/2006 (considering their chapters, too).
I thought people might find this information useful:
The creators of Guild Wars class it as a CORPG, a "Competitive/Cooperative On-line Role-Playing Game". Some might say that this is not a MMORPG, and you would be partly correct, but also partly incorrect.
Lets look at the definition of a CORPG:
I would like to direct your attention to the last sentence of this definition:
"It is considered a sub-category of massively multi-player on-line role player games."
Therefore it has every right to be part of a MMORPG website/competition/rating system.
"Show me your hatred for Guild Wars, and I will tell you how far you got through playing it (if at all)."