2008 Reader's Choice Awards: Favorite MMO Studio

Hands down: Turbine.

AC2 aside (which was more of a technology demonstrator in my eyes) Turbine continues to put out a well-polished product. 

Though I wish they would stop with the 2nd party IPs and return to their roots with a new sequel to Asheron's Call 1.

 voted turbine as well for their continous support for the small gem ddo
ccp would get my second vote but since we can only vote 1...

strange how funcom isnt even in the list, even if everyone and their mom would want these guys lynched they should still be considdered one of the nominees

Originally posted by craynlon

 voted turbine as well for their continous support for the small gem ddo
ccp would get my second vote but since we can only vote 1...

strange how funcom isnt even in the list, even if everyone and their mom would want these guys lynched they should still be considdered one of the nominees

That was my oversight, I'm going to add them now. They had a big year this year.

 thanx,

they wouldnt have been my 1st choice anyway but i actually respect them keeping conan up, running and improving with probably low numbers atm while nc soft just shafts their games when things get rough.

ps.: i hope there will be a "newcomer" category so i can promote  spellborne nl a bit more ;)

I also feel it's Turbine.

I like NC Soft games but in the end I feel they are an arrogant company.

Turbine seems to care and though they might not do everything the players want, they have a very strong presence on their forums and seem to actually listen to the playerbase.

Link doesn't work?

Turbine , wins this hands down.

Hmmm no SOE on the list?  Not saying they will be a favorite but they are a major studio with several MMO's.

They honestly all suck. Indie companies ftw.

Wow, what a thoughtless list of nominees.

I've played a lot of MMOs from a wide range of developers, and I'm sorry to the haters out there, but EQ2 offers the best fantasy-genre gameplay I've yet found.

And SOE is a vastly more active developer overall than Blizzard - The Agency looks awesome, and DCUO has some buzz behind it.  Free Realms for the kiddies?

SOE gets my vote, with Cryptic (omgzIwannaplayChampions) in 2nd place.

Turbine. They lived , they learned, and they show it it in how they understand the people who play and buy thegmes, are the most important factor. I've played NcSoft games, SoE games, and they just don't have that level of commitment to the players as Turbine.

i actually have a lot of respect for all of these companies, even funcom even tho they screwed up big.  it was somewhat of a hard choice for me

 Turbine without a doubt. Currently playing LOTRO and I must say that the game is great, and their devs have what feels like a genuine concern of what the players want/need. They put out a great product and I will continue to buy Turbine games in the future.

I think all of these companies did something memorable and positive this year.  It was a hard choice between Turbine and CCP for me.

SOE again gets the flying fickle finger of fate award as the most out of touch with their playerbase developer.  As long as Smedley continues to head that company, we will continue to see mediocre games that do not reflect users interests. 

Smedley's new direction to consoles and cash shops for it's MMOs I view with great skepticism.  I really don't think he is in touch with his customer base.  Only time will tell if I am right.

SOE would get my vote, but they didn't make the list.

 Turbine for sure. I have played games from Blizzard, SOE, Funcom, and Turbine. I must say that Turbine is the most in touch with their customers, and implement features that people want while still keeping the games balanced and very enjoyable.

 Turbine.  Great developer who listens to its subscribers and does this with little fanfare and drama.  They just get stuff done, and they do it very well.  They also provide content/expansions quicker than every 2 years.  LOL!

But we already know who will win purely because of volume and fanboi'ism.

Kind of a tie between Turbine and CCP for me. Both great developers and both (for the most part) listen to their playerbase. They seem more concerned with their current fans than grabbing up tons of new players.

I ended up choosing CCP only because I am currently playing Eve. If I could I'd vote for both.

Turbine here as well, I have been around the mmo world since the start, and in this day and age Turbine is a class act.. All the companies have good and bad points, in all my dealings with Turbine they have have been a class act..

Turbine is the best ! I believe that overcoming the Blizzard ....

CCP hands down, for not straying from their vision while still keeping great player relations and constant free expansions, as well as one of the most immersive experiences I've had in an MMO over the years.

NCsoft. Everything about the GW brand is so solid and professional. It also a company with various major brands within the MMO genre unlike the other nominees. And 2009 will give us Aion and possibly GW2. So even if they should not win this year they seem to be a strong candidat next year as well. 

Turbine hands-down.    I currently am playing only LOTRO and EQ2 but have played games from all but one of those on the list.  Besides putting out polished products (or quickly fixing what gets missed in testing) and the constant free content, their customer service and community participation are heads-and-shoulders above everyone else.  They honestly listen to what the players are saying (although, unfortunately, upper management and $ often has the last say), they have a very strong presense in the forums as well as in the game itself, and they will take one person's problems just as seriously as a major game issue would warrant. 

SOE on the other hand, who rightly did not make the list,  has one of the worst community presenses in the industry.  This from a long time player and active forum member of EQ & EQ2, both from beta and both of which are truly great games in their own way.  As another stated, SOE is out-of-touch with the playerbase.  Their bottom line is 'how much money can we make' and their motto is 'we will do it this way and you'll like it because we know best.'

As for the others on the list, Mythic, CCP, and Funcom all pretty much are in a dead heat for second (well, maybe CCP has a slight edge ) since each has a glitch or two that needs work, either in their games or in their management.

Blizzard is Blizzard.  They have the money to put into their games, but truthfully, I just don't see all the hype over WoW.  The graphics are just not up-to-snuff in this day and age, and they should have the resources to put together more than they have.

I haven't played any NCsoft MMO's, so I will not rate them one way or another.

I voted for Turbine, great company, quality products. 

If I could have voted only for the part of Arenanet that did Guild Wars, I would have done that.  But, after what happened to Tabula Rasa (publisher - "we love it, we love it - wait, now we are cancelling it" - I'm paraphrasing), I couldn't do it.

mszv

As a recent LoTRO player I had to vote for Turbine.  Great world for a casual player.

Turbine gets my vote hands down!

As someone who has played Turbine games since AC1 beta, I would have to pick them. AC1 was, by far, the better game between that and EQ1. Turbine understood what made your charcters feel like heroes. AC2 was, as well, an innovative game, with classes like the Tactician and Hivekeeper. Both of the AC games were held back by the complete lack of interest shown by the publisher, Microsoft.

With DDO, Turbine once again broke away from MMO conventions and made a game that didn't fit the EQ/WoW mold. It may not have been a commercial smash, but I admire Turbine for sticking with it.

And Moria is an amazing expansion to the LOTRO universe. The sheer scope of the caverns dwarfs (pardon the pun) any dungeon attempted in an MMO before.

Turbine, but if I had to chose a 2nd place I would pick SOE too, I can't believe they didn't make the list.

Turbine. I have to say I am very impressed with them thus far (after 2-3 months of LotRO). :)

Turbine rocks!!!! 

Anotehr Turbine vote here.  Although I had some issues with Moria when it initialy released they patched in most if not all of the fixes in about a weeks time. Now that was some good service.

I don't think i've ever posted on these forums, but Turbine is most definitely worth the time to post and vote!

I've played SOE, NCSoft, Mythic, and Turbine games primarily - and Turbine's customer involvement and constant listening and high-quality delivery are second to none.

They're the messiah of MMO gaming..

okay, maybe that went a little too far :)

X

GO TURBINE GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Turbine, hands down.

I've actively played games by all six studios and there is just no competition for Turbine's ability to continually impress me with their MMOs.

NcSoft is not a "studio:" they are a publisher that houses many different studios.

Another vote for Turbine here.

I've play almost all the major MMOs since DAoC including at least one title from each of the studios on the list and Turbine has impressed me the most  by far.

DDO is a unique take on the MMO genre and succeeds in being different but fun in today's "copy me" MMO space. Lotro is quite simply the best, most polished, fun, casual friendly, and story-driven solo/small-group PvE experience on the market.

Couple this with their constant presence in the company-provided forums, their true willingness to listen to and engage the community, and their unequaled pace of releasing new content, they are the clear favorite.

Voted for Blizzard, they're truly a great company and know how to run an MMO. I may be sick of playing that MMO and its tediousness but I don't know of other games who give you free play time if the servers are down for an extended period of time or release such major content patches for free.

I also have to give a nod up to CCP for their innovative design on EVE.

Why isnt $OE on the list?

I am sure it wont get a vote but as far as I know its a major MMO studio as well...

Another vote for Turbine here!

Lotro is by far the best PvE MMO out there!

Not sure how this is even a contest...

How could you vote for company that makes you pay for your expansions when you are paying them, every month.

on this list CCP would be the only choice

Originally posted by Naar

Not sure how this is even a contest...

How could you vote for company that makes you pay for your expansions when you are paying them, every month.

on this list CCP would be the only choice

How could you vote for a company who's flagship title is a better cure for insomnia than it is a game?

Anyway, I couldn't vote, SOE wasn't on the list.

Well, Turbine did give players the option of buying a lifetime subscription.to Lotro.  My husband and i both did, and we haven't regretted it.  Two hundred clams up front isn't cheap, but when you consider that LotRO is contracted to continue through the middle of the next decade and, optionally, further than that, it comes down to a few cents an hour....

I've been pleased to see so many posters saying, in effect, "I've played every game there is and I voted for Turbine."  I voted for Turbine too, but I don't have the wide experience of the other posters.  I got hooked on Asheron's Call in 1998 and I've never looked elsewhere.  Somebody told me once that Turbine, unlike most other companies that were founded by suits who said "Hey, there's money in these silly games, let's publish one," was founded by  gamers.  I don't know if it's true but it sure sounds likely.

Turbine gets my vote, but I wish I could also vote for CCP!

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

Having played MMOs since 2000 (see my sig for a list), I've found Turbine to be my favorite MMO Studio. There's genuine concern for customers, something quite refreshing after my horrible experiences with SOE.

The free content delivered in Turbine games is rivaled by only a few MMOs. With the success of LOTRO, they could just sit back and ride the money wave (like Blizzard), but they don't; they're working hard to make the LOTRO experience even more fun and entertaining.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

C C P.

The only MMO developer who "gets it" with respect to what a MMORPG should be, and what a player wants.

And they have been handsomley rewarded with 300K subs, which btw is more than anyone has in the EU/US for a single game outside WOW.

Worst: SOE.  They have the inverse midas touch.  Midas could turn things to gold.  SOE turns things (even games they themselves developed such as the Pre-CU SWG) into sh-t.

Being a "lifer" with LotRO, I had to vote for TURBINE !

I have played under all the other nominees [been gaming (online) since UO back in the day] and hands-down TURBINE is the best I have expierenced. The devs, the community moderators, the in-game GMs, customer support, the design teams...every aspect of TURBINE and LotRO have far exceeded my hopes and expectations of an MMORPG provider. 

Botemedel Bedrovelse~Level 50 LM~Firefoot

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

I agree with you 100% on the invoking trust and loyalty. NCSoft has proven many times that they are in this to make money first too many times in our market and they do stink for that. They are on my poop list as well and although I wasn't hyped about Aion, I'm probably going to avoid it now.

However, one thing they have shown is they are not afraid (at least in the past) to try something new. It doesn't always work out....but at least they went out ona limb and tried NOT to bring us another WoW reskinned with Elves and Dwarves killing Rats and Orcs...like everyone else. The concepts of AA and TR where very good, its to bad they didn't work out. It would have been nice to have a "Car Wars" style MMO and a "Mechanoid Invasion" style MMO that thrived so we had some unique games to chose from.

I think one of SOE primary barriers and issues is technical quality. Everything they launch has some fairly major issues for about a year or 2. I think EQII was their only game to survive that and it had some pretty big problems at launch. Just recently look at Vanguard and PotBS. Both games were launch disasters.

The other thing IMHO that drives people to dispise SOE is their constaint tinkering with core mechanics years after launch. SWG is the best known but EQII went through some major revamps that had some very profound impact ingame. Nothing annoys a player more then changing to trivializing something they worked to achieve. Sometimes their changes are for the better but a lot of times it just angers the current players and fails to have any impact on bringing in new subs.

The changes to SWG which put SOE in the "company to hate" spotlight was just amplified by the unsuccessful launch of Vanguard and PotBS.

NCSoft on the other hand, well their primary market is Asia (the US/EU only account for less then 19% of their revenues) and they enjoy "rockstar" status there and it looks like they hit gold with Aion. They broke all Lineage 2's launch numbers. What happens here in our market, well NC is pretty calus to that. When we start marking them some money maybe they will be a bit more concerned but so far we have been nothing but a money pit to them as "Lord Brit" swallowed up tens of millions of their dollars on knothead ideas and half realized games.

Blizzard Entertainment created World of Warcraft not Activision Blizzard. They are not the same. Activision Blizzard does not control anything Blizzard Entertainment does.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

 

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

This, and the poll, should be earmarked for future reference for replys to those who say SOE is in the back pocket of MMORPG.com.  Of course the reply will be that SOE paid you to not be put in the poll because they were a guaranteed last place showing.

I voted for Funcom because I want them to have at least one vote.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique  payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

 

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

Fair enough, though I may not agree with your decision I appreciate the feedback.

SOE is alrite in my book.

› Blizzard wow  nice generic and entertaining MMO more casual and tongue in cheek, love the children in the streets touch,, on my go back to list.

› CCP anti-casual player PVP only nitch game  with this kind of thinking no wonder icelands economy is in the dumper

› Mythic Entertainment

› NCsoft city of heroes  some innovation flying, superleaps, slippery ice  but still all thug bashing and no heroics

› Turbine LOTRO a solid reliable stable game with good lore and a loyal player base, with that said  not very innovative or creative still no boats!! non-interactive zones,, same old rehashed quests and mob generators and mob AIs  and an insulting fishing addition,, even with this said,, this is still my winner as for the most part they are still going in the right direction with quality and clockwork game additions still want to see interactive terrain like cliff climbing,, and slippery ice and zone content that make zones attractive after the quests are completed (zones are dead boring once quests are done.

› Funcom age of conan an epic level dissapointment,  was expecting a revolutionary realistic mature MMO and what we got was an absurdly heavy graphic game that was same old content  in older better games
 

as for sony  I hate them all of their games are rude to players and are nothing but uninspired money grinders for those of lesser standards who put up with sonys bad behavior   many of sony games are on my anti-game list (SWG) and i go out of my way to warn other players away from them.

still looking for a game that isnt arcade based or combat oriented, like steping into an alternate universe (idealized reality ofcourse) where there is climate and weather and food and water are important  food based economy   but the console players are convinced that this form of game cant be fun. if there not killing 500 mobs a day.  let them deal with a plague or famine in their village and see what they think.

Originally posted by salvaje

C C P.

The only MMO developer who "gets it" with respect to what a MMORPG should be, and what a player wants.

And they have been handsomley rewarded with 300K subs, which btw is more than anyone has in the EU/US for a single game outside WOW.

Worst: SOE.  They have the inverse midas touch.  Midas could turn things to gold.  SOE turns things (even games they themselves developed such as the Pre-CU SWG) into sh-t.

 

your kidding right? all sucessful games in my mind, make CCPs "300k" look PATHETIC, CCP is out of touch and is nothing more than a nitch game as long as they are nothing more than a PVP ganker only game they will never compete with real games like lotro,  its a fact that more casual players have been forced to leave eve than its current subscribers  it would not suprise me if eve was to endgame unless they change their vision.  the non-pvp mining corps are routinly torn apart by predatory harassment WARDECs that make any shop in the corperation including mining barges and haulers vulnerable to attack anywhere in the universe forcing people to sit in hangers for a week (if not longer) or leave the corperation og give up on the game all together and cancel their account (I have seen this happen several times.

CCP could be a great popular game,, they choose NOT to be.

 TURBINE: FOR:

THE LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE.

all others are HORRIBLE compared to TURBINE. hands down. 

Blizzard got my vote. Through years this company has show the ability to deliver polished and well done games able to catch the attention and give fun to a lot of people. In my opinion this is the goal for a game company and they have been the most successful in achieve it. It doesn’t matter WoW is not my game.

NCSoft could have got my vote, they developed Lineage II and it is still my best experience in the MMORPG’s world, but it’s just one game (I can't consider GW as a NCSoft developped game it was developped by Arena.net before the merge same for TS/ Richard Garriot or CoH developped by Cryptic Studios). Then second place for NCSoft.
 

Originally posted by almeric

Wow, what a thoughtless list of nominees.

I've played a lot of MMOs from a wide range of developers, and I'm sorry to the haters out there, but EQ2 offers the best fantasy-genre gameplay I've yet found.

And SOE is a vastly more active developer overall than Blizzard - The Agency looks awesome, and DCUO has some buzz behind it.  Free Realms for the kiddies?

SOE gets my vote, with Cryptic (omgzIwannaplayChampions) in 2nd place.

I personally would have voted for SoE but apparently somebody forgot to add them.

Originally posted by brenth

Originally posted by salvaje

C C P.

The only MMO developer who "gets it" with respect to what a MMORPG should be, and what a player wants.

And they have been handsomley rewarded with 300K subs, which btw is more than anyone has in the EU/US for a single game outside WOW.

Worst: SOE.  They have the inverse midas touch.  Midas could turn things to gold.  SOE turns things (even games they themselves developed such as the Pre-CU SWG) into sh-t.

 

 

your kidding right? all sucessful games in my mind, make CCPs "300k" look PATHETIC, CCP is out of touch and is nothing more than a nitch game as long as they are nothing more than a PVP ganker only game they will never compete with real games like lotro,  its a fact that more casual players have been forced to leave eve than its current subscribers  it would not suprise me if eve was to endgame unless they change their vision.  the non-pvp mining corps are routinly torn apart by predatory harassment WARDECs that make any shop in the corperation including mining barges and haulers vulnerable to attack anywhere in the universe forcing people to sit in hangers for a week (if not longer) or leave the corperation og give up on the game all together and cancel their account (I have seen this happen several times.

CCP could be a great popular game,, they choose NOT to be.

300k is hardly a niche game. Just because you do not enjoy it does not mean others cannot.
 

Likewise, size of the userbase for a single game does not make the company owning the game a shining star in terms of customer interaction or support. CCP is doing very well with EVE and investing a lot of time and effort into responding to their playerbase.

I can only applaud CCP for sitcking to the gameplay that their players enjoy instead of trying to water it down into generic bs in an attempt to aquire a larger market share.

  Hmmm what happened to SOE? It has EQ2, VG, EQ, SWG among others and it's not even an option? This years people's choice awards sucks by default.

CCP for me, all the way!!

Some people here need to learn to read. SOE is NOT on the list because they knew they would come in last, so they asked to be removed!

At least that's all I read LMFAO!

Would have to agree with what others have said: Tie between Turbine and CCP. My vote went to CCP though because Turbine has veered away from growing their own IPs and fell in line with the themepark bandwagon. AC, which made the company in my opinion, was not a themepark and I believe they should go back to making games in that mold. With their reputation for polish they don't need to follow the WoW formula for a successful game.

 Turbine.

Voted Turbine.

I started MMO's with AC1 though I dont play anymore, not any other game has kept me entertained as long as that title.

 My favourite 2 aren't really in the list. :) My first favourite one, is pretty known, AreaNet. They made Guild Wars, in case you never heard of them before. I started respecting that company after seeing the making of Nightfall dvd. It looked like they had a pretty relaxed working environment. big open rooms, instead of boxes etc. A nice garden (why don't I have one of those?!). And most importantly, some frigin' good developers! Their graphics are amazing, and run on about system. Their server system is encredible, not even the "holy" Blizzard has a server system like that! 

And second of all, barely known to anyone, Silverlode. Don't really know a lot about them, except that they're a small company, making a revolutionary MMORTS. They only charge $20 for the actual game, and give away free copies! A lot of them really, I think you can get one at filefront at the moment. Besides that, it must be one of the only games where the developers actually help the players themselves! I got stuck at a quest, and one of the devs was kind of enough to help me out. :) 

Was hard choice between Turbine and CCP, choosed Turbine as I have no experience with CCP.

Clearly Turbine.

I voted for Turbine as well.

SOE should be on the list.  I am not a fan by any means but they helped created the genre and have like 5 or 6 active games running. 

Sony Online Entertainment

Voted NCSoft myself.  Even after 4 years I still enjoy City of Heroes immensely, they support it well with the free content patches (Issues).  Dungeon Runners is an enjoyable Diablo-ish free to play game.  Of course then there is Guild Wars with the no-sub MMO philosophy.

I'd say Turbine would be my #2 choice.

If I had to pick my least favorite I'd say EA.  They screwed up Motor City Online and didn't support Earth & Beyond.  When they bought Mythic, DAoC has since stagnated and Imperator cancelled.  WAR was released to mixed reviews, mostly due to population imbalances having not been addressed.

Turbine for me as well they just do things right IMO. Sure companys make mistakes but its how they handle them that matter to me and wheather I feel they are using their development resources properly.

If I pay for a game with a subscription I want to see that money come back to me in the game.

I dont commend a game for always releasing polished games as that is just them doing their job but when a company adds new content as much as Turbine does for free I will commend them for that.

Yes Blizzard might have had my vote but their new Xpac is lacking in my opinion and is not even half of what Turbine just released in MOM. Since Turbine can release twice the amount of content with a fraction of the resources Blizzard has Turbine will keep my vote.

Funcom- Only company ever to make me personally question wheather I try a new game or not and my friends feel this way as well. I have never seen a company do what they did to its customers and its a shame as I have 3 friends who actually quit the entire genre after this game.

Even game forums in general seem to have turned for the worse due to so many upset gamers over Funcom.

CCP- from the few months I have played EVE the game seems very well managed and the scope of the game has stayed the same regardless of how many subs it has had.

Turbine FTW

SoE and Turbine are the leaders in my opinion.... but somehow SoE isn't even on the list....

What amuses me the most is that SOE took so much heat for trying to do just that: Pandering to customers they don't have instead of making the game better the one the they do.

CCP continues to succeed in a time where MMOs are costantly being cancelled for being innovative and not going for the casual/ lowest common denominator/ walk-me -through-your-content crowd.

That is probably their greatest sign of sucess beyond simple sub numbers.

I vote for Sony Online Entertainment

You claim some of them have lost our trust, but then add NCSoft and Funcom and leave out SOE. Double standard much?

I voted for Funcom, because they have tried the impossible, and came out with not a completely bad product, which deserves applause, no other MMO development studio is trying anything new, hence why Funcom should be applauded, not matter how the MMO itself turned out, we need more companies to start trying to new things, instead of being conservative and saturating the MMO scene.

Blizzard have shit customer support

CCP suck cause of the having to buy ISK to be good at the game

Mythic created the lackluster WAR

ncsoft are asain or whatever and I hate their culture of dumb looking character emo models

Turbine created two failure mmorpgs which shoulda been the biggest seeing as they are Dungeons and Dragons and Lotr.......

Funcom created the failure AoC



 

So none of them :\

Best Fricking Company =     SQUARE ENIX

SoE aswell.

soe has very good costumer support regardless...

funcom, WORST WORST customer support i have seen in my LIFE. it's not even f2p type of mmo, its p2p mmos they make yet no possible way of contacting them via phone, only email with one week replys, heh. and they usually reply with some sort of BS. ==/

Originally posted by craynlon

 thanx,

they wouldnt have been my 1st choice anyway but i actually respect them keeping conan up, running and improving with probably low numbers atm while nc soft just shafts their games when things get rough.

ps.: i hope there will be a "newcomer" category so i can promote  spellborne nl a bit more ;)

Does funcom have anywhere to go with AOC but up?

Originally posted by Zarki

Hmmm no SOE on the list?  Not saying they will be a favorite but they are a major studio with several MMO's.

SOE isn't meeting any of the criteria they don't have any new products out unless you count expansions for EQ and even if they did get a nomination trust me they would get so few votes it would only serve to make it more obvious how backwards a company they are

Originally posted by almeric

Wow, what a thoughtless list of nominees.

I've played a lot of MMOs from a wide range of developers, and I'm sorry to the haters out there, but EQ2 offers the best fantasy-genre gameplay I've yet found.

And SOE is a vastly more active developer overall than Blizzard - The Agency looks awesome, and DCUO has some buzz behind it.  Free Realms for the kiddies?

SOE gets my vote, with Cryptic (omgzIwannaplayChampions) in 2nd place.

Don't forgt the S in SOE  stands for SONY which is the only reason these guys are able to work on so many products without being a true force in this industry (anyone who disagrees with me let's simply look at the performance of sony's other game division playstation and then compare it's place in the video game world to SOEs) honestly I have nothing against anyone personally favoring soe games but I can hardly see any reason to waste space or even take a chance at letting them think they couldn't do better by puting them in this list

Umm Square Enix and there Final Fantasy series is the 4th best selling series of all time and they are not in the voting list? lol.Bested by ONLY non MMORPG genres such as SIMS/mario.

Wow brags about there 10 millions subs lol and most of them are cafes/gaming pubs and RMT farmers.The Final Fantasy series only has 85+ Million copies sold.To top that off,there are MANY who have claimed it is very hard to purchase/ find a final fantasy game at times.Square does not market nor push there game to the public at all,they rely on QUALITY over marketing.

Funcom=weak,Turbine until LOTR =very weak...Blizzard =WOW success,size of there staff and money spent is an embarrasement to there final product.I see better results from the two Teenagers who made crash Banicoot.Sure WOW is a large game but each individual piece is very weak and would take nothing for a small time developer to easily top.

CCP=??? you kidding me?very weak developer,they are far behind even some small developers.

NCSOFT=RMT/RMT/botters/botters and a staff that couldn't care less to clean up there games.You can bet your ass they have staff involved in RMT or paid off by the RMT sites to turn the cheek.I have ZERO respect for NCSOFT,well there staff/managers.I guess there coders/artists/mappers deserve some credit,it's not there fault there heirarchy is so lame.

How SOE is not also in the list is too funny to mention.They have the most contraversy surrounding them in the whole world.There Everquest was the cornerstone of this whole MMORPG market.So much so that Blizzard chose to copy Everquest when designing there game,and MANY others still follow/use the exact same template.SOE also set the COST standards when charging for online services.Nobody charges more than the 15.99,witch has become standard.SOE is also the first to incoporate MANY new ideas to the MMORPG genre and the first to have there own RMT activity,keeping it safe for users and taking it out of the hands of the ILLEGAL sites that have no business making money off there hard work.

Originally posted by Xriot

I don't think i've ever posted on these forums, but Turbine is most definitely worth the time to post and vote!

I've played SOE, NCSoft, Mythic, and Turbine games primarily - and Turbine's customer involvement and constant listening and high-quality delivery are second to none.

They're the messiah of MMO gaming..

okay, maybe that went a little too far :)

X

Thats right boys and girls get ready to give it up for my boys at turbine who also got my vote, but I am seeing so many posts about people asking for soe to be included I'm starting to wonder if they shouldn't put them in just to gauge how the communnity votes for them even though I still think they are too out of touch and shady to get a nod it looks like enough of you guys want to see them there that maybe they should be in (even though Turbine will smash all comers anyway

Originally posted by jaxsundane

Originally posted by Xriot

I don't think i've ever posted on these forums, but Turbine is most definitely worth the time to post and vote!

I've played SOE, NCSoft, Mythic, and Turbine games primarily - and Turbine's customer involvement and constant listening and high-quality delivery are second to none.

They're the messiah of MMO gaming..

okay, maybe that went a little too far :)

X

 

Thats right boys and girls get ready to give it up for my boys at turbine who also got my vote, but I am seeing so many posts about people asking for soe to be included I'm starting to wonder if they shouldn't put them in just to gauge how the communnity votes for them even though I still think they are too out of touch and shady to get a nod it looks like enough of you guys want to see them there that maybe they should be in (even though Turbine will smash all comers anyway

Agreed!

Turbine for sure.  The make a great engine and use it to make very different games.  I just wish AC2 had been saved and AC1 killed :(

Also they are very much invested in their games delivering content and polish along the way for free.  Anyone who played DDO or LotRO at launch and now can atest that as good as they were then, its not even funny how much has been added in content and look/feel.

Ya know, its really kinda sad how SOE didn't get on this list.  While I am am not a huge SOE fan as I have had my good and bad times with that company I can at least appreciate them for what they do not  only with all their MMO's but for the entire industry.

How do you not include the company that has the second longest running MMO in history?  Everquest 1 still pulls a ton of subs for SoE moreso than any NCsoft title, and EQ2 is even bigger.  Not to mention they still have SWG moving along, Planetside is still up and running after going on what? 8 years? And Tabula Rasa is being shut down. They also have a slew of other MMO's and are developing at least 2 more and Im pretty sure there is a third one.

And to say "Well all they have had is expansions" Uhm, sorry but I didnt see any new MMOs coming outa Blizzard this year, nor NCsoft, or Turbine?  So that argument is null and void.

Also while back in the day I did like SoE because I loved Everquest 1 and I still like SoE because of Everquest 2 I knew they had issues with the customer service.  Then again there was no other company out there to judge "Good" customer service by so I guess you cant really fault them for being the first. 

Go play an SoE game now, I GUARANTEE they have the BEST Customer service out of any MMO company.  I know this because I currently subscribe to LOTRO, Sony All Access, Warhammer and until fairly recently I was a subscriber of Age of Conan and WoW.  I can say without a shred of doubt that Sony's customer service completely blows all the competition out of the water.  Dont believe me? GO put a petition in EQ2 or better yet, Vanguard and see how awesome the GM's are for helping your issues.

Now, getting to the end of this, I want to say that It is a disgrace to call yourselves "MMORPG" and be so clueless about what MMO's are truly out there and what different companies have done. 

And to justify it by saying you only wanted 6 nominees? lawl, Thats the lamest thing I ever heard.  If you only wanted 6 nominees you shoulda dropped NCsoft from the list or Funcom and added in the bigger companies of SoE and Square-Enix.

 You should have included the top 8 and added in SOE and Square-Enix just to be fair.

My Vote would have been SoE

As it is I will go with Mythic followed very closely by Turbine.

Originally posted by Wizardry

Umm Square Enix and there Final Fantasy series is the 4th best selling series of all time and they are not in the voting list? lol.Bested by ONLY non MMORPG genres such as SIMS/mario.

Wow brags about there 10 millions subs lol and most of them are cafes/gaming pubs and RMT farmers.The Final Fantasy series only has 85+ Million copies sold.To top that off,there are MANY who have claimed it is very hard to purchase/ find a final fantasy game at times.Square does not market nor push there game to the public at all,they rely on QUALITY over marketing.

Funcom=weak,Turbine until LOTR =very weak...Blizzard =WOW success,size of there staff and money spent is an embarrasement to there final product.I see better results from the two Teenagers who made crash Banicoot.Sure WOW is a large game but each individual piece is very weak and would take nothing for a small time developer to easily top.

CCP=??? you kidding me?very weak developer,they are far behind even some small developers.

NCSOFT=RMT/RMT/botters/botters and a staff that couldn't care less to clean up there games.You can bet your ass they have staff involved in RMT or paid off by the RMT sites to turn the cheek.I have ZERO respect for NCSOFT,well there staff/managers.I guess there coders/artists/mappers deserve some credit,it's not there fault there heirarchy is so lame.

How SOE is not also in the list is too funny to mention.They have the most contraversy surrounding them in the whole world.There Everquest was the cornerstone of this whole MMORPG market.So much so that Blizzard chose to copy Everquest when designing there game,and MANY others still follow/use the exact same template.SOE also set the COST standards when charging for online services.Nobody charges more than the 15.99,witch has become standard.SOE is also the first to incoporate MANY new ideas to the MMORPG genre and the first to have there own RMT activity,keeping it safe for users and taking it out of the hands of the ILLEGAL sites that have no business making money off there hard work.

I love Square Enix as well but they have one mmo if I'm not mistaken so all those facts you point out mean moot since you are obviously adding in non mmo figures. And though you do differentiate between second party rmts and in house rmts what difference does it really make when they are asking you (in cheap ways I might add) to pay more money for a lame ass product you already bought I speak mostly on this subject in regards to that awesome TCG that has been incorporated into SWG what a joke. I think you just set back the argument that SOE should be included in this poll btw what exactly has SOE done this year to deserve a nod? And it's also questionable what SOE had to do wih the creation of Everquest anyway if I'm not mistaken the game was near release before they outright bought the company developing it. Read carefully this is a poll for mmo studio of 2008 not 1999 wasn't SOEs last release Vanguard? I rest my case.

1) SoE did not release Vanguard, Sigil did - SoE only ran their servers for them.

SoE bought Vanguard after Sigil tanked and since then Vanguard has slowly risen in subscriptions and is actually a very good game now.

2) 989 Studios who developed EQ1, was a subsidiary company of SoE from the start.  It was created as a fall company in case Everquest tanked.  Once EQ took off as it did, Sony just disolved 989 back into SoE and dropped the studio name.

3) SoE has released Expansions for EQ2 and EQ1 within the last year.  Which is just as much as say, Turbine and Blizzard has done -- Oh wait SoE released 2 xpacs and Turbine only 1 and Blizzard only 1. Seems SoE is doing more this year than both those games.

Im sorry, I dont want to sit here and sound like a raving lunatic, but it really is sad that SoE didnt at least get a nod. 

You cannot buy WoW and suddenly be an expert on MMO's.  How about going out and playing pretty much every MMO on the market atm (Which I have) and then come back and tell us what ya think.

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Ya know, its really kinda sad how SOE didn't get on this list.  While I am am not a huge SOE fan as I have had my good and bad times with that company I can at least appreciate them for what they do not  only with all their MMO's but for the entire industry.

How do you not include the company that has the second longest running MMO in history?  Everquest 1 still pulls a ton of subs for SoE moreso than any NCsoft title, and EQ2 is even bigger.  Not to mention they still have SWG moving along, Planetside is still up and running after going on what? 8 years? And Tabula Rasa is being shut down. They also have a slew of other MMO's and are developing at least 2 more and Im pretty sure there is a third one.

And to say "Well all they have had is expansions" Uhm, sorry but I didnt see any new MMOs coming outa Blizzard this year, nor NCsoft, or Turbine?  So that argument is null and void.

Also while back in the day I did like SoE because I loved Everquest 1 and I still like SoE because of Everquest 2 I knew they had issues with the customer service.  Then again there was no other company out there to judge "Good" customer service by so I guess you cant really fault them for being the first. 

Go play an SoE game now, I GUARANTEE they have the BEST Customer service out of any MMO company.  I know this because I currently subscribe to LOTRO, Sony All Access, Warhammer and until fairly recently I was a subscriber of Age of Conan and WoW.  I can say without a shred of doubt that Sony's customer service completely blows all the competition out of the water.  Dont believe me? GO put a petition in EQ2 or better yet, Vanguard and see how awesome the GM's are for helping your issues.

Now, getting to the end of this, I want to say that It is a disgrace to call yourselves "MMORPG" and be so clueless about what MMO's are truly out there and what different companies have done. 

And to justify it by saying you only wanted 6 nominees? lawl, Thats the lamest thing I ever heard.  If you only wanted 6 nominees you shoulda dropped NCsoft from the list or Funcom and added in the bigger companies of SoE and Square-Enix.

 You should have included the top 8 and added in SOE and Square-Enix just to be fair.

 

My Vote would have been SoE

As it is I will go with Mythic followed very closely by Turbine.

 

 

SOEs games are so dead now they don't have much choice but to have good customer service, but even if the games were highly populated and they had good customer service it's mostly a moot point because most of what you guys praise SOE for can be summed up simply by the S before the OE Sony is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world people movies,music and console games included they have a much greater chance of keeping dead games running than anyone else they don't have to turn a huge profit like say NCsoft who only makes mmos. I for one respect and applaude NC for dropping games that aren't going in the right direction they are better off using those resources on products that are pulling an audience in instead of dead games that even the creator dropped. I find that funny how people rail against nc for dropping a game alot of the player base had a problem with and the creator himself who's name was all over it left but I mosltly hear people sympathizing with Garriott the spaceman which is pretty funny. And it's a simle answer to your opening line what soe did for the entire industry was back in 1999 not 2008 this is not for all time favorite mmo studio it's best of this year which sony barely made a blip in oh wait I forgot they did launch the sloth instance for SWG and that awesome trading card game. I'm not sure did they release any EQ1 or EQ2 expansions this year? I can for one say I'd still vote for SOE over Funcon but really guys you want to give soe a lifetime achievment award fine but keep it out of the "mmo studio of 2008 category because none of you have pointed out a single reason why in 2008 they should recieve any credit for advancement of the industry

Well they ahve released 2 expansions packs this year.  Thats more than Blizzard and Turbine has done, so that alone is reason for them to be on there just as much as those games.

There thats your reason, and you cannot argue that logic either.  2 games, 2 xpacs is doing more in the industry than 1 game and 1 expac.

Oh and btw do you even play Everquest and EQ2? EQ2 EASILY has more active players than LOTRO does, EASY its very obvious if you actually play both games - in fact its pretty obvious that EQ2 has more subs than LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Eve.

So EQ2 is bigger than those 3 games which are the cornerstones of 3 of the companies on this list (Besides GW for NCsoft, but Guild Wars isnt even a true MMO.  ITs as much an MMO as freaking DDO was.)

Originally posted by Trevalon00

1) SoE did not release Vanguard, Sigil did - SoE only ran their servers for them.

SoE bought Vanguard after Sigil tanked and since then Vanguard has slowly risen in subscriptions and is actually a very good game now.

2) 989 Studios who developed EQ1, was a subsidiary company of SoE from the start.  It was created as a fall company in case Everquest tanked.  Once EQ took off as it did, Sony just disolved 989 back into SoE and dropped the studio name.

3) SoE has released Expansions for EQ2 and EQ1 within the last year.  Which is just as much as say, Turbine and Blizzard has done -- Oh wait SoE released 2 xpacs and Turbine only 1 and Blizzard only 1. Seems SoE is doing more this year than both those games.

 

Im sorry, I dont want to sit here and sound like a raving lunatic, but it really is sad that SoE didnt at least get a nod. 

You cannot buy WoW and suddenly be an expert on MMO's.  How about going out and playing pretty much every MMO on the market atm (Which I have) and then come back and tell us what ya think.

Thanks for clearing up a few points I was not totally clear on (who developed EQ) but once again sony is the reason soe can do any of what you named not SOE .

1)I only credit them because they actually stil exist and considering that half the people working on Vanguard worked on EQ does it really matter if they actually had SOE on the checks they cashed? I don't think so but at the same time I actually do give them credit for fixing the game up but let's be honest who else out there can buy every crappy mmo and throw it on a station pass if not the mighty sony?

2)989 studios was not "created as a fall company in case EQ1 tanked" it existed as a developer of sports titles long before EQ was thought up the division of 989 working on EQ broke off to create Verant interactive which then was indeed disolved back into SOE so they could take credit for something they had lttile hand in depending on who you ask.

3) SOE is going to release games keep running dead games etc. they are after all backed by Sony.

I'm not sure if I am supposed to be the one who "bought wow and thought I was an expert on mmos' but I can say I have played alot of mmos up till now (wow was one that btw I don't play) but I am straining hard to see these waves that you guys keep acting like soe is making ripples yeah waves nah.

Heck I could use the fact that 2 exp packs launched and an avid player and reader like me didn't even notice to show that soe isn't doing all that great

Even though I currently play EQ2, I voted for Turbine. I may be biased because the stepson of the comptuer teacher at my high school is one of the graphic designers there, and he's a pretty awesome guy. He helped design the Shire areas in LOTRO.

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Well they ahve released 2 expansions packs this year. Thats more than Blizzard and Turbine has done, so that alone is reason for them to be on there just as much as those games.

There thats your reason, and you cannot argue that logic either. 2 games, 2 xpacs is doing more in the industry than 1 game and 1 expac.

Oh and btw do you even play Everquest and EQ2? EQ2 EASILY has more active players than LOTRO does, EASY its very obvious if you actually play both games - in fact its pretty obvious that EQ2 has more subs than LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Eve.

So EQ2 is bigger than those 3 games which are the cornerstones of 3 of the companies on this list (Besides GW for NCsoft, but Guild Wars isnt even a true MMO. ITs as much an MMO as freaking DDO was.)

(italicized because I am editing and don't know how to use quote from an already-existing post)

EQ2's population is smaller than LOTRO's, about the same size as EVE's, and larger than CoH's.

If your an avid reader of MMORPG.com then I would understand why you wouldn't be informed as this is a scrub site (Only made this account to say my distaste for this one poll).

Secondly, Thank you very much for correcting my 989 comment, It was Verant and I have absolutely no idea why I said 989.  It is still true though that Verants paychecks did come from SoE and SoE was involved from the get-go with EQ1.  When they dissolved Verant they didnt change the staff so the same people working for verant were working for SoE who were working already working for SoE Anyways...they just got rid of the Verant name.  Nothing changed, except the loss of Verant.

Either way, You dont have to like SoE to at least be able to say they SHOULD have been on this list.  They HAVE contributed to 2008 and they still have at least 2 VERY successful MMOs alive right now and slew of "Mediocre" MMO's that are on par with City of Heroes success -- Heck SWG was the biggest MMO in the world at one point -- Even though granted, SoE did  mess that game up and lost them alot of subs, but that doesnt change the fact SWG wasnt a major player and still is actually (SWG is just as active CoH is).

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Well they ahve released 2 expansions packs this year.  Thats more than Blizzard and Turbine has done, so that alone is reason for them to be on there just as much as those games.

 

There thats your reason, and you cannot argue that logic either.  2 games, 2 xpacs is doing more in the industry than 1 game and 1 expac.

 

Oh and btw do you even play Everquest and EQ2? EQ2 EASILY has more active players than LOTRO does, EASY its very obvious if you actually play both games - in fact its pretty obvious that EQ2 has more subs than LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Eve.

So EQ2 is bigger than those 3 games which are the cornerstones of 3 of the companies on this list (Besides GW for NCsoft, but Guild Wars isnt even a true MMO.  ITs as much an MMO as freaking DDO was.)

I'm not sure I agree here my posts have constantly pointed out that with Sony behind them they have the man power to relase games "shrug" but are they making noise?
 

This post is exactly why mmo development moves so slow I can think of lots of companies that released lots of crappy games and have never seen anyone wanting to give them credit for it until I started to play mmos'.

I personally don't get into sub numbers too much besides to see if a game is dying or not which eq1 or 2 is obviously not but as has been pointed out on forums before if you buy a station pass you can play any soe game so please guys stop using sub numbers to prove a point that can't be proven simply because you can play any soe game with a station pass that doesn't mean anyone is actually subscribing to that particular game.

I constantly hear eq2 players moan about low pops so as with your statement it's all based on what you see not what you know. I had actually said I thought sony did deserve a nod because so many people on the forums asked for it doesn't mean I would change my vote (I wouldn't) nor that my opinion of soe has changed that much the bottom line for me is SOE in comparison to sonys other divisions has problems and always underperform wether it's from the bad rep they themselves created or not is irrelevant I just would think that if they were the mmo studio of the year it would be a sad state for mmos

EQ2 has less subs than LOTRO? What makes you think that?  Now I could say that personally I play both games very actively and my LOTRO server is Silverlode (Which is a pretty active LOTRO server) and my EQ2 server is Mistmoore (Which is a pretty mediocre sever for EQ2) and my EQ2 always has more people than my LOTRO server on at max times (I have done /who tests on level ranges just out of curiosity on multiple occasions to test this theory .. Sure its not scientific but its a good indication).

So Assuming both games can house about the same players per server (And guarantee they can, I would even go as far as to say EQ2's can hold MORE players than LOTRO's can) then you could jus tlook at how many servers each game has as a good indication of playerbase.

LOTRO has 11 servers

Everquest 2 has 22 servers.

At least 3 of LOTRO's servers are almost completely dead and should have been merged years ago.

At least 6 of EQ2's servers are dead and should be merged.

Now that is not scientific in any way shape or form, but it is a VERY good indicator.

So I don't see where you could even logically THINK that LOTRO had a larger subscriber base than EQ2.

I will say in the negatives for SoE.  This is mostly their fault.  They have all but completely stopped advertising for EQ and EQ2.  Which is a shame because both games are great and still have very active communities.

It seems as if SoE is just waiting for their next 2 MMO's which is a true shame cause alot of people are missing out on some great games (Vanguard included).

Turbine is the best studio. They have been and always will be dedicated to the PLAYER. If you have yet to play a Turbine game, what are you waiting for?

T U R B I N E, is the only name that belongs in the MMO industry.

Oh and btw, I love Turbine, but the ONLY reason Turbine has so much support for these low-grade contests is because Turbine is the ONLY company that actually sprays these things all over their main website page and their forums.  I went to the other developers and did not see any advertisement for this on ANY of them except Turbine.

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Well they ahve released 2 expansions packs this year.  Thats more than Blizzard and Turbine has done, so that alone is reason for them to be on there just as much as those games.

 

There thats your reason, and you cannot argue that logic either.  2 games, 2 xpacs is doing more in the industry than 1 game and 1 expac.

 

Oh and btw do you even play Everquest and EQ2? EQ2 EASILY has more active players than LOTRO does, EASY its very obvious if you actually play both games - in fact its pretty obvious that EQ2 has more subs than LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Eve.

So EQ2 is bigger than those 3 games which are the cornerstones of 3 of the companies on this list (Besides GW for NCsoft, but Guild Wars isnt even a true MMO.  ITs as much an MMO as freaking DDO was.)

The ONLY reason I could think of that SOE would be on the list for, is for the worst developer .   They don't have a major MMO in any category.  All they have left is a bunch of small niche games struggling to exist.  Even their flagship, EQ2, is not competitive any more, even though  it does still have a small, but dedicated following.

Yeah they still release expansions, does not mean they listen to their playerbase at all.  Probably the most out of touch developer in the market right now.

Been with Turbine games since AC1 Beta.  Tried EQ, DAOC, SWG, Horizons, COH, AO, WoW,  and several others.  For customer service, game quality, fun factor, free content update, et al... Turbine still wins hands down.  Yes, I did see a blurb on their website saying they were one of the companies nominated.  Glad they did.  They wouldn't get the votes if they didn't earn them.

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Oh and btw, I love Turbine, but the ONLY reason Turbine has so much support for these low-grade contests is because Turbine is the ONLY company that actually sprays these things all over their main website page and their forums.  I went to the other developers and did not see any advertisement for this on ANY of them except Turbine.

 

 

This is one of the things that imho makes Turbine fun and sets them apart they actually seem to care what people think of them and the product they make which in entertainment is pretty important and certainly does give a person the sense that they are actually involved intimately in the community and are in fact not just guys grinding out code trying to make it into the "nerd" hall of fame like Brad McQuaid or Gaute Godager. I'd reason that others in the industry probably feel the same way since so many other magazines and sites like these enter promotional endeavors with them quite often.

I will say this I hope with Sonys recent realigning that they can turn things around because I'm a product junky and I love to mark out for companies that I respect and sony is one of them but when I compare what we have to deal with from SOE to the offerings we get from this companies films and console games it just boggles my mind that some of the things that happen there do happen from the SWG debacle to the crap fest that Vanguard started out as and I forgot to mention POTBS wether they are the developers or backers far too often soe has thrown there lot in with substandard or unready products and that isn't something that an industry leader does maybe they are the superhero of mmo studios haha.

But in conclusion I do once again think maybe they should be added because it's obvious there are more than a few of us out there that would vote for them and again that would be good to see how people vote for them.

+1 to CCP :D

Can't say I'm a big fan of any of those studios. I would be a fan of the old Mythic, but the one being run under EA has no originality.

I'd have to say I'm a little surprised not to see SOE in the list and although its not a major company, PlayOnline and or Square Enix should have their place too imho.  Oh and you also forgot Ubisoft, creators of Shadowbane

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Oh and btw, I love Turbine, but the ONLY reason Turbine has so much support for these low-grade contests is because Turbine is the ONLY company that actually sprays these things all over their main website page and their forums.  I went to the other developers and did not see any advertisement for this on ANY of them except Turbine.

 

 

But that's part of why Turbine is good. They don't look at it as low grade or make judgment calls. They are very much part of the gaming community. They are a small dev company here in Massachussetts. If you look at their forums, they are there! Not only with "go here for help" or "send in a ticket" but making comments, making jokes, being part of the community.

If anything, my respect goes up for them many times more precisely because they get excited about this stuff. They are human. They are a community (and business of course) of people who like games. Are they perfect? Oh heck no. I can make an extremely long list of things that I dislike or hate about their games.

but they seem to be genuinely interested in the entire pie, not just the filling.

When I was playing, Lineage 2, even though we had great cm's, gm's etc, there was very little communication going on. It was only at the end with Mystryl and Alyra that it started opening up a bit.

I love NC games but they do come across as a "company". They make business decisions. Not to say that other companies shouldn't but at least Turbine seems to be a bit more.

Anyone that doubts Turbine is part of the community and watches what is going on in game, take a look at the jewlled bell example.

I love Lotro so I'll have to vote for Turbine.

I have to chose between Turbine and Mythic. Both are not great choices for me though. As EU customer I hate having to wait for patches that I read about in the released US patch notes. I wont support MMO's anymore that divide EU and US that way. Im totally fed up with this (with The Chronicles of Spelborn distribution being the ultimate failure in this).

If instead of NCSoft it would list Arenanet (from GuildWars, where NCSoft is publisher), I would go for them.

Mythic does however listen to the playerbase and address their issues in their patches. They also patch quickly. Just EU distributor GOA is not that fast to follow that up (EU servertransfers anyone?). So I guess I could say that Mythic is the least worse of the companies listed for me.

Edit: Changed my mind, I wont vote.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Trevalon00

Well they ahve released 2 expansions packs this year.  Thats more than Blizzard and Turbine has done, so that alone is reason for them to be on there just as much as those games.

 

There thats your reason, and you cannot argue that logic either.  2 games, 2 xpacs is doing more in the industry than 1 game and 1 expac.

 

Oh and btw do you even play Everquest and EQ2? EQ2 EASILY has more active players than LOTRO does, EASY its very obvious if you actually play both games - in fact its pretty obvious that EQ2 has more subs than LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Eve.

So EQ2 is bigger than those 3 games which are the cornerstones of 3 of the companies on this list (Besides GW for NCsoft, but Guild Wars isnt even a true MMO.  ITs as much an MMO as freaking DDO was.)

 

The ONLY reason I could think of that SOE would be on the list for, is for the worst developer .   They don't have a major MMO in any category.  All they have left is a bunch of small niche games struggling to exist.  Even their flagship, EQ2, is not competitive any more, even though  it does still have a small, but dedicated following.

Yeah they still release expansions, does not mean they listen to their playerbase at all.  Probably the most out of touch developer in the market right now.

I have to disagree. What they did since the NGE fiasco was pretty good imo. SWG has been improved loads since NGE. So has Vanguard.

More important for me is that as EU player I dont feel like a secondgrade customer like with WAR and LOTRO (patch delays and seperated official forums ftl!!).

I voted for Blizzard..

This isn't a poll about who have the best devs and customer support for there MMORPG games. (Even though this is a MMORPG site), but its a poll about who has the BEST STUDIO.

All I hear is about how Blizzard = WoW. Yes WoW is one of there biggest games ever, but they have also made Starcraft series, Warcraft series (the RTS), Diablo series, successful books and board games, and products steaming from all there successful games.

Blizzard might be best known for WoW now but go back to 2002 before WoW and mention blizzard and you would hear how GREAT Stracraft and Warcraft (RTS) is.

For that Blizzard gets my vote, $OE would be my 2nd choice though.

Now if this was What studio makes the best MMORPG games then Turbine would get my vote...

Originally posted by jaxsundane

Originally posted by Wizardry

Umm Square Enix and there Final Fantasy series is the 4th best selling series of all time and they are not in the voting list? lol.Bested by ONLY non MMORPG genres such as SIMS/mario.

Wow brags about there 10 millions subs lol and most of them are cafes/gaming pubs and RMT farmers.The Final Fantasy series only has 85+ Million copies sold.To top that off,there are MANY who have claimed it is very hard to purchase/ find a final fantasy game at times.Square does not market nor push there game to the public at all,they rely on QUALITY over marketing.

Funcom=weak,Turbine until LOTR =very weak...Blizzard =WOW success,size of there staff and money spent is an embarrasement to there final product.I see better results from the two Teenagers who made crash Banicoot.Sure WOW is a large game but each individual piece is very weak and would take nothing for a small time developer to easily top.

CCP=??? you kidding me?very weak developer,they are far behind even some small developers.

NCSOFT=RMT/RMT/botters/botters and a staff that couldn't care less to clean up there games.You can bet your ass they have staff involved in RMT or paid off by the RMT sites to turn the cheek.I have ZERO respect for NCSOFT,well there staff/managers.I guess there coders/artists/mappers deserve some credit,it's not there fault there heirarchy is so lame.

How SOE is not also in the list is too funny to mention.They have the most contraversy surrounding them in the whole world.There Everquest was the cornerstone of this whole MMORPG market.So much so that Blizzard chose to copy Everquest when designing there game,and MANY others still follow/use the exact same template.SOE also set the COST standards when charging for online services.Nobody charges more than the 15.99,witch has become standard.SOE is also the first to incoporate MANY new ideas to the MMORPG genre and the first to have there own RMT activity,keeping it safe for users and taking it out of the hands of the ILLEGAL sites that have no business making money off there hard work.

 

I love Square Enix as well but they have one mmo if I'm not mistaken so all those facts you point out mean moot since you are obviously adding in non mmo figures. And though you do differentiate between second party rmts and in house rmts what difference does it really make when they are asking you (in cheap ways I might add) to pay more money for a lame ass product you already bought I speak mostly on this subject in regards to that awesome TCG that has been incorporated into SWG what a joke. I think you just set back the argument that SOE should be included in this poll btw what exactly has SOE done this year to deserve a nod? And it's also questionable what SOE had to do wih the creation of Everquest anyway if I'm not mistaken the game was near release before they outright bought the company developing it. Read carefully this is a poll for mmo studio of 2008 not 1999 wasn't SOEs last release Vanguard? I rest my case.

Blizzard and WOW were released this year?LOTR and TURBINE were released this year?the original GUILD wars or Lineage2  this year? umm i am sorry but you are being biased talking about SOE when all the other ones listed are in the exact same boat.Funcom is new so they can be in there but up until AOC,they would not even be considered let alone listed to vote on.This is a poll for 2008 studios ,yes SOE is a studio in 2008 and will be for a VERY LONG time.

SOE is the innovator far above all these others.If you want SOE news for this year they have announced a game that will compete against Runescape[F2P].They have a game that hired a student [female]to work on it outside of their firm,that hit news.They are FOREVER in the news,a lot more than ALL these other developers.Blizzard keeps riding WOW and that is ALL they have going for them,they are a weak developer,if not for the money they made off of WOW they would still have Starcraft2 in the scrap heap.

To the guy wondering about Square Enix,they are the FIRST to have a MULTI platform MMORPG and they are the FIRST to have in game language translator.Why can't Blizzard make WOW for PS2/3? or Xbox360?no money?lol..no smarts?afraid?.This is why the pole asks WHO YOU TRUST,i have seen what other developers do, can't do or might do,Square is the one i trust foremost by a longshot.They also are building rpg games for ALL platforms not just the marketed ones like PS3/Xbox360.Square is a BIG mover in rpg games ,so i would trust them bigtime moving ahead to the future.

I would perhaps give Turbine a second chance after they botched everything else up,just because they show promise again with LOTR,the other developers ,i would most likely not buy any of their poducts.The only success story of them all is Blizzard but i see them stuck back in 2003,not moving forward at all,and they have the manpower and money to make it happen,they just don't.I think it lends to the fact that Vivendi almost went under once,so now that company is very cautious.

What CCP has done right:

Streamlined organizational issues for people who were incapable of doing it with Factional warfare.

Created an interest in pvp among those who didn't think they would enjoy it.

Worked long and hard to reduce latency issues and now players are able to get into fleet battles without 20 minutes worth of lag.

Tech 3

What CCP has done wrong:

Failed to follow up on warnings that Factional warfare isn't sustainable. Faction fleets are now hemmoraging members.

Continued to disrespect its members in an effort to gouge them for money with the GTC changes and lies to support removal of ghost training.

What Mythic has done right:

Deliver on features as promised.

No one else has communicated with their members as strongly, varied and effectively as Mythic even with their lack of official forums.

What Mythic has done wrong:

While the features are present the implementation has proven to be wrong and the intended effects are not occurring.

Made PvE more of a focus in the game than it was expected to be.

What Blizzard has done right and wrong:

This is a mixed bag for Blizzard. In many ways they are listening to their community and adding changes many want. The problem is that they have now acquired a community with very different tastes and anything to please one clique is intolerable for another.

Blizzard is in a catch 22 scenario unlike any other company.

What FUncom has done right

Fired/Released incompetent people to fix leadership problems.

What Funcom has done wrong

Too long to list but thing have improved with the one thing they've done right recently.

I can't comment on Turbine or NCsoft.

Turbine is the maker of the MMO which I have the fondest memorys for, Asheron's Call which was my first MMORPG and the one where I have had the most fun to date and played for the longest time (4 yrs or so). Every month they would have huge monthly patches where they would add new dungeons, new quest, new world events, new items, and lots of other goodies instead of "mini game" events like Blizzard does with World of Warcraft.

Its too bad that they never decided to remake AC3 remade like AC1 but with better grathics (not like AC2 which was a total failure) ... ah well

for this reason I think the company that listens to players more then any other company is Blizzard even though they make some pretty annoying moves like releaseing SC2 in 3 seperate games they always seem to make quality games that their players enjoy for years and years (I still play warcraft III custom games myself since it was released)

Turbine gets my vote.  They try to listen to the community, which is very hard as you can't please everyone and some would be impossible to please.  But they give it a good try.

I am so glad I went with the lifetime it is great.

My only big disappointment is being unable to play with my friends in EU.  I don't like separatation like that.

Ive had positive experiences with Blizzard and CCP. I haven't played any games from the other companies on that list. So im not voting.

Something to think about for all the people who only care about subscriber numbers...

World of Warcraft is the biggest. Nearing 11 million.

But what i'm wondering is what people think is the second biggest (Western) mmo. I know which one it is, and i know that people will never believe it, going by the fanboyism here^^

On another note, i'd recommend people to check out the Fanfest videos of EVE. CCP is pretty much one of the technology fore-runners of the industry, believe it or not.

Originally posted by Trevalon00

EQ2 has less subs than LOTRO? What makes you think that?  Now I could say that personally I play both games very actively and my LOTRO server is Silverlode (Which is a pretty active LOTRO server) and my EQ2 server is Mistmoore (Which is a pretty mediocre sever for EQ2) and my EQ2 always has more people than my LOTRO server on at max times (I have done /who tests on level ranges just out of curiosity on multiple occasions to test this theory .. Sure its not scientific but its a good indication).

So Assuming both games can house about the same players per server (And guarantee they can, I would even go as far as to say EQ2's can hold MORE players than LOTRO's can) then you could jus tlook at how many servers each game has as a good indication of playerbase.

LOTRO has 11 servers

Everquest 2 has 22 servers.

 

At least 3 of LOTRO's servers are almost completely dead and should have been merged years ago.

At least 6 of EQ2's servers are dead and should be merged.

Now that is not scientific in any way shape or form, but it is a VERY good indicator.

So I don't see where you could even logically THINK that LOTRO had a larger subscriber base than EQ2.

Actually LOTRO has over 22 Servers.

11 US/Oceanic and 11 EU servers. Plus they have seperate Servers for Japan, and seperate servers for China.  Im not sure of the exact numers for those though.

There was a poll about this recently

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/212952

Originally posted by Lobotomist

Turbine , wins this hands down.

Turbine is an abomination. They lost my respect, and the respect of thousands of others, when they NGE'd Middle Earth Online about 5 months from release and transformed it into LotRO almost overnight. They took an awesome concept, that people had played, and they had advertised for years, and flushed it down the toilet. Only reason you don't hear of it more is because no one that was looking forward to playing Middle Earth Online is currently playing LotRO. And during development, their PR was almost worse than Darkfall's, actually it was quite possibly worse. 

Blizzard is just a parasite that sucks ideas out of other games instead of inventing any. 

EA and SOE are MMO killers, when they aquire a game, it dies. 

So who does that leave? 
 

As much as I'd like to say Turbine, I find their games polished but boring.  They've never put anything out as fun as AC was, and they seem uninterested in redoing that game to bring it up to date.

Blizzard is good at taking other ideas and improving on them.  If they'd put out a game that didn't look like a cartoon, but had as much care and polish as WoW, I'd most likely be playing it right now.

SOE seems to make irrational decisions without much interest in what their player base thinks.  They've saved VG by putting it on life support, but that's about it.  They really haven't impressed me since EQ1.

NCSoft is meh.  I don't really like L2 other than the graphics, CoH was good but they didn't make it, and TR was a complete failure.  They might win me back over with Aion though as that's looking pretty good so far.

Cryptic might be good with CO and ST, but we'll have to wait and see.  I'm not much of a an Emmert fan as he seems to steam roll the players if they get in the way of his vision.

Honestly, I guess I don't have a favorite MMO studio at the moment.  They all kind of suck in their own ways.  If we could mash all of them together, we might actually have a good MMO company (or a complete disaster).  Who knows?

Like the last poster I really don't like any of them. I was thinking yesterday about how much fun eq1 was back in the day when druids and wizzy's were taxis and exploring the world of norrath was so very exciting. The market is saturated with crap now. Here's hoping 2009 reveals something new that is not rushed.

Not a very good list...

You Missed SOE with some of the best games out there including EQ2 and Vanguard.

Maybe you need to fix this?

Originally posted by WallisHall

Not a very good list...

 

You Missed SOE with some of the best games out there including EQ2 and Vanguard.

 

Maybe you need to fix this?

Had you actually read the other posts you would have seen this:

Originally posted by Stradden

Stradden: " Some have lost our trust or confidence entirely, while others have impressed us and gained our loyalty. "

NCSoft's President of Publishing, David Reid, 24 Sep 2008: "and we see improvement happening in Tabula Rasa. We're encouraged by it. ....It is a game that is very much in the wheelhouse of what NC West and NCsoft globally are all about"

NCSoft 21 Nov 2008: " So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009."

Yup, that just makes me gush with loyalty. Come on now be honest, you knew if you would have put SOE in the list the SWG Vets would come in with their alts and spam the living crap out of the board, so to bypass those boils you just dropped them. For all the glowing reports you all write on EQ2, The Agency and DC Online regularly, offers more variety in generes under a unique payment plan system like no other company, a company that incorporates Trading Card games into their MMO's or can be played seperately, how does the studio not impress you all?

Honestly, I'm really curious here.

Originally posted by BaronJuJu

We wanted to narrow it down to six nominees. We talked about SOE, but in the end, we decided to go with NCsoft instead. The cancellation of Tabula Rasa aside, they are currently running two games that our readers tend to enjoy (GW and CoH) and have a big gun on the way with Aion. They have engendered a lot of loyalty from some folks and deserved to be on the list.

I'm not saying that there aren't arguments to be made for SOE's presence here, and I'm not trashing them, but in the end we decided to go with NCsoft.

Well, I picked Mythic. DAoC made me a Mythic fan  since 2002, but after the release of WAR, I've realized it's a different company now. I don't see the love in WAR the way their love for making games shown in DAoC. WAR is the last game I'll buy from Mythic without reading a review first, unless it's DAoC 2.

I think Blizzard and Adventurine will be my choices for 2009, depending on how Darkfall turns out.

Originally posted by Mitara

There was a poll about this recently

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/212952

R.o.f.l.

Well, I picked Mythic. DAoC made me a Mythic fan since 2002, but after the release of WAR, I've realized it's a different company now. I don't see the love in WAR the way their love for making games shown in DAoC. WAR is the last game I'll buy from Mythic without reading a review first, unless it's DAoC 2.

I think Blizzard and Adventurine will be my choices for 2009, depending on how Darkfall turns out.

MMORPG's w/ Max level characters: DAoC & SWG

Currently Playing: WoW

 

I agree with you 100%

I am torn between Turbine and Mythic. Turbine has made a great MMO in LOTRO in my opinion and Mythic is very receptive when listening to the community. I will have to think about this a little longer before I can vote.

Originally posted by smut

I am torn between Turbine and Mythic. Turbine has made a great MMO in LOTRO in my opinion and Mythic is very receptive when listening to the community. I will have to think about this a little longer before I can vote.

If it helps you any, I've called Mythic's phone support a couple of times in the past for DAoC. That was several years ago. The CS Reps on the phone were very helpful and resolved my issues quickly. When I had a problem with WAR, I called Mythics phone support expecting to get the same quality service, but instead their phone support was automated and referred you to the technical support knowledge base on their website. If your problem wasn't answered there, you could open a ticket online.

That saddened me and has changed my opinion of Mythic. I literally would brag about Mythic to other mmorpg.com forum goers because of their phone support, feedback forms, and Grab Bags. People who were with the other company (SOE), just didn't understand why people were appalled with SOE's CS Support. I cannot take pride in Mythics support anymore. I'm not sure if it's the fault of EA or they just stopped caring overtime, but the customer service they had in DAoC is gone.

Turbine, while I dislike some of their decisions, never rubbed me the wrong way. I don't like the games Turbine created overall, but they do a good job of keeping their games updated and running and mostly without extra cost to the player other than monthly subs, as I believe it should be.

Originally posted by JK-Kanosi

Originally posted by smut

I am torn between Turbine and Mythic. Turbine has made a great MMO in LOTRO in my opinion and Mythic is very receptive when listening to the community. I will have to think about this a little longer before I can vote.

 

If it helps you any, I've called Mythic's phone support a couple of times in the past for DAoC. That was several years ago. The CS Reps on the phone were very helpful and resolved my issues quickly. When I had a problem with WAR, I called Mythics phone support expecting to get the same quality service, but instead their phone support was automated and referred you to the technical support knowledge base on their website. If your problem wasn't answered there, you could open a ticket online.

That saddened me and has changed my opinion of Mythic. I literally would brag about Mythic to other mmorpg.com forum goers because of their phone support, feedback forms, and Grab Bags. People who were with the other company (SOE), just didn't understand why people were appalled with SOE's CS Support. I cannot take pride in Mythics support anymore. I'm not sure if it's the fault of EA or they just stopped caring overtime, but the customer service they had in DAoC is gone.

Turbine, while I dislike some of their decisions, never rubbed me the wrong way. I don't like the games Turbine created overall, but they do a good job of keeping their games updated and running and mostly without extra cost to the player other than monthly subs, as I believe it should be.

I also had very quick and friendly CSR help when I was playing DaoC  but that was a long time ago and I am no so sure they are the same company as they were then. I'm not crazy about WAR and 1 tickey I issued took almost 2 weeks to get a response on WAR. I am sure it was due to their being overwhelmed with WAR being new and all but it did happen.
 

Mythic. hands down, actually listens to customers and actually implements our ideas as fast as they can.

10/10

Turbine. Even though I am only subscribed to WoW presently and I have rere...re-canceled my LotRO subscription and could never get into DDO Turbine has a special place in my heart for Asheron's Call.

I find that I am still comparing portions of modern MMOs to concepts laid down in Asheron's call and finding them lacking. Maybe it's nostalgia kicking in but I really think that present day MMO companies (and that includes the Turbine staff today) need to go back to Asheron's Call and remember some of the things that made the MMOs of that time so endearing they have held on to this day.

As a company Turbine has always tried to push for their customers and have upheld far more promises than they have broken. While I am not that enamored with some of their design choices in recent MMO offerings I will always give their latest MMOs a chance.. or two... or even (rere... re-canceled) 3 chances. ;)

BTW, if I had to rank the options instead of casting a single vote it would go like this:

Turbine
CCP (love or hate EvE loads of respect to CCP for doing what most MMO companies avoid. A single server. An absolutely robust economy. Viable player-run factions and multiple, interlocking playstyles all with killer graphics to boot. And it's coded in Python! HA!).
NCSoft (Character customization done right and while they screwed the pooch on the early months of CoH vis a vis tanks they've done better in recent months)
(Honorable mention: Bioware - but we haven't seen their MMO yet so they get the middle of the pack neutral position)
Blizzard (The miss as much as they hit but their solid base keeps me coming back)
Mythic (I want to like what they have to offer but more misses than hits)
Funcom (AoC's launch proves they didn't learn a #$@%$ thing from AO's launch).

You know if you had asked me this in January I would have said Turbine however as we watched Mines of Moria come closer and closer it became clear Turbine was about to take their excellent work todate and trash it. The new classes have ZERO basis in Tolken, they destroyed the one aspect that made LOTRO stand out. Now LOTRO is just another WoW with the Tolken backdrop.

CCP for all it's falws has delivered one promise without fail, no cost for expansions. That added with a unique game play style still makes ti stand out from the pack. I have life time accounts on 6 different MMOs, all of them given to me as gifts, and yet I PAY to play EVE.

Originally posted by seabass2003

Some people here need to learn to read. SOE is NOT on the list because they knew they would come in last, so they asked to be removed!

 

At least that's all I read LMFAO!

What you "read" was one game players guess. Not fact. Maybe you need to "learn to read".

Of course they wouldnt have come last, they have a large number of popular games, they have revitalised Vanguard, and they have at least 3 great looking games on the way. Compared to publishers like NCSoft who make really bad generic Free2Play games, or Funcom who completely screwed up AoC, or even Blizzard, who made ONE game (which they copied from EQ), then just milked it for 5 years with 2 weak samey expansions, SOE are at least attempting to explore the MMO genre in new directions with new styles and deserve some credit.

i vote for Ncsoft cause i think their games are always full of funs. There are attractive characters , plenty of quests.

actually, the studio of the game affects a lot .or i won't pay attention to the product at all