Notes

Massively's Best Of 2022 Awards
It's practically the top of the year, a time for merriment, camaraderie, and cynical evaluation of all the MMO triumphs and tragedies that 2013 supplied us.

Immediately, Massively's workers honors the better of the very best (and the worst of the worst) for the 12 months 2013. Every writer was permitted a vote in each class with an something-goes nomination process. No MMO, company, or headline was off the desk, as long as it met the criteria. Can WildStar make it to a few years in a row at the highest of our "most anticipated" pile, or did its delay dampen our enthusiasm? Can SOE repeat its win for finest studio? Which MMO is most more likely to flop next 12 months? And simply what constituted the largest MMO screw-up of the final 12 months?

Take pleasure in our picks for one of the best MMOs, expansions, studios, tales, and innovations of 2013... and our most-anticipated for 2014 and beyond.

Finest New MMO of 2013: Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Runners-up: Tie between Neverwinter and Defiance

Jasmine: Remaining Fantasy XIV, palms down. This sport managed to realize something I believed was unattainable: Square-Enix took a recreation that I thought of the worst MMO I've ever played and turned it into one thing that retains me logging in every chance I get.

Eliot: When you had requested me two weeks ago, I might have mentioned Ultimate Fantasy XIV with out reservation. Now don't get me flawed; everything good about the unique version is brought to the forefront, and all the pieces unfavorable has either been removed or minimized. However the 2.1 update and the housing fiasco have pushed residence the idea that we're not out of the woods and that we're simply taking a look at an period of daring new mistakes. If these issues get fixed, then I have excessive hopes for the longer term; if not, it's going to be a shocking example of a gorgeous turnaround followed by a shameful crash.

Finest Expansion or Replace of 2013: Guild Wars 2's Tremendous Journey Box
Runners-up: Tie between EVE Online's Odyssey, EVE On-line's Rubicon, and Star Trek On-line's
Legacy of Romulus

Richie: Guild Wars 2's Tremendous Adventure Field patch stands out in such a profound means because many players thought it was nothing greater than an April Fools' Joke. The official web site was updated with wonderful images from an 8-bit world accompanied by a hilarious, cheesy, '80s-type business. After i logged into the sport and realized that SAB was really in the sport, my jaw hit my desk. There have been three full levels of this 8-bit world full with secrets and techniques, puzzles, boss battles, authentic music rating, and custom sound results -- a full platforming adventure game neatly tucked inside of my MMO.

Brendan: I've written a fair bit on why I really like this year's Odyssey and Rubicon expansions, but Rubicon's personal deployable constructions push it just over the sting. The Cell Depot has made lengthy-term exploration a very possible career by allowing tech 3 ships to refit anywhere in deep house, and Ghost Websites have added some additional reward for these scouring deep space. The change to warp acceleration has additionally fixed the disparity between small and large ships and enabled real hit-and-run model warfare again.

Greatest Non-Traditional MMO or Pseudo-MMO of 2013: Path of Exile
Different nominees: Hearthstone, Dota 2, Cube World, Defiance, MUSH

Matt: Path of Exile gets my vote for this one. The folks at Grinding Gear Games have taken the time-honored action-RPG components popularized by Diablo and twisted it up into an expertise that feels both contemporary and familiar. Eschewing conventional lessons and progression in favor of an nearly inconceivably large ability tree and permitting gamers to customize their capacity loadouts by way of interchangeable gems are simply two of the distinctive spins Path of Exile brings to the table, and with its variety of leagues and competitions, there's one thing here for the whole informal-hardcore spectrum.

Justin: Hearthstone. If nearly everybody's in beta, does it depend? I say it counts. Blizzard's bought a cash cow hit on its arms, and the mixture of World of Warcraft and Magic-lite is simply impressed. Plus, it's fairly fun.

Most Underrated MMO of 2013: Neverwinter
Runner-up: Defiance

Larry: Neverwinter launched with a wide audience and the hopes of being a full-fledged Dungeons and Dragons MMO. However alas, that's not what Cryptic had in mind for the game, and gamers did not appreciate Neverwinter for what it was: a fun sport that you just spend a couple of minutes to a couple of hours enjoying to unwind from the day by day stress. Once i revisited the sport, I was really stunned at how a lot fun I had. I don't need to stress about rotations or builds or the standard MMO worries. I simply log in, pound by a couple of dungeons, then carry on with my day.

Tina: I believe a lot of people boxed Neverwinter underneath the "more of the same" category without giving it a chance. The normal charm is up to date nicely through the 4th Version Dungeons and Dragons freshness.

Jef: Defiance isn't setting the world on fire or anything, however I loved my time in it, and that i keep it installed in case I need some sci-fi shooter motion with questing and a objective.

Most Anticipated for 2014 and Past: EverQuest Next
Runner-up: WildStar
Different nominees: EverQuest Next Landmark, ArcheAge, Future, Pathfinder On-line, TUG, The Elder Scrolls Online

Brendan: There are some great MMOs on the horizon, but the one I'm looking forward to essentially the most is EverQuest Next. I am an absolute sucker for sandboxes, and the idea of a fantasy sandbox with a voxel-primarily based and fully destructible world has me absolutely excited! The huge financial success of Minecraft has impressed a deluge of voxel-based games lately, however no game has yet completed the characteristic justice. EQ Subsequent guarantees to be as removed from these blocky worlds as doable while retaining a lot of the same sandbox gameplay.

Bree: The day I discovered Star Wars Galaxies was closing, Smed reassured a teary-eyed me that SOE was engaged on a fair larger and better sandbox. That sandbox turned out to be EverQuest Next. I'm banking on SOE's capacity to parlay all the things it learned from SWG -- particularly the mistakes -- into EQN. There are different good sandboxes on the horizon, absolutely, but nothing as likely to thrive as Next.

Justin: Modern sandboxes or huge fanbase followings aside, I'm rooting for Carbine to tug off a wacky sci-fi themepark in WildStar. I virtually hope it doesn't launch super-big so that it can grow from word-of-mouth instead of developer hype.

Richie: I am trying forward to WildStar. Ever since I stop World of Warcraft, a part of me has missed having a couple of nights each week as scheduled hangouts with my mates. I'm itching to raid again, and it seems to be as if WildStar could have the best endgame features of the 2014 MMO crop.

Most Prone to "Flop" in 2014: The Elder Scrolls Online
Runner-up: Dust 514

Anatoli: "Flop" is a extremely loaded term on the subject of MMO. I do not assume ESO will make much of a splash. I doubt it will fail as a recreation or as a enterprise, but I predict that lots of people will determine that it did when it would not set the whole world on fireplace.

Bree: I think ESO will launch just fine and acquire a lot of field and sub charges initially, however long-term, it's in bother. MMORPG followers are sick of story-pushed single-player themepark MMOs, console fans can be mystified by subs and a 3-method PvP endgame, and Elder Scrolls followers will wander back to the lore and mods of their solo sandboxes. I am actually unsure for whom the game is meant, and i say that as a TES fanatic.

Matthew: I'm not likely a fan of The Elder Scrolls collection, so perhaps I am biased, but I can't see the net model having the success of the single-player installments.

MJ: If I had been pressured to hazard a guess, I might say ESO. It feels as if there's a darkish shadow of "can't meet expectations" hanging over it.

Greatest Studio in 2013: Sony On-line Entertainment
Runner-up: Trion Worlds
Honorable Mention: Tiny Speck

Beau: SOE continues to churn out games, but the studio does so on its own phrases. Find it irresistible or hate it, you cannot deny that SOE has accomplished many, many things which have changed the course of MMOs.

Mike: SOE seems like the studio that has the most effective hold on what the market wants. It retains releasing partaking new content material for its current properties, and EverQuest Subsequent seems to be like the first fantasy MMO to actually strive anything new since Ultima Online. SOE additionally has a strong reputation for making large promises and failing to deliver, however I'd say it had a very good year. No question all eyes are on EQN in the coming years.

Toli: Glitch's shutdown final yr was downright tragic, but Tiny Speck has made every effort to keep the spirit and neighborhood alive, going as far as to release the game's property into the public area only in the near past. That's preposterous, and that i mean that in the best possible manner.

Greatest Story of 2013: The reveal of EverQuest Next and Landmark
Runners-up: Tie between Star Citizen's Kickstarter success and Final Fantasy XIV's relaunch

MJ: EverQuest Next Landmark grabs this one as a result of the sport got here literally out of nowhere! There was not a single whisper, hint, leak or something to recommend there was a second game on SOE's horizon. On this business, that's simply unheard of.

Tina: EverQuest Subsequent. Everyone simply went nuts, and for good reason!

Matthew: EverQuest Subsequent. Since the announcement, it seems as if the whole future of the trade is coloured by comparisons to our new savior. I'm not going to disagree. I'll exit on a limb so far as to say I believe Blizzard went back to the drawing board on Titan due to EQN.

Jef: Star Citizen. You might not want to play it, and you could also be bored with the Chris Roberts hero-worship, however you can't deny the impression that it is had and continues to have on the way in which games are made.

Greatest Disappointment of 2013: Dust 514
Other nominees: Defiance, Warhammer's sunset, the Kickstarter craze, Age of Wushu, Neverwinter, uninspired MMO design, traditional subscription fashions, no EverQuest Subsequent at SOE Reside, the gloom and doom surrounding World of Darkness, and Guild Wars 2's residing story.

Jef: Mud 514. I is likely to be beating a lifeless horse right here, however console-solely plus identical-outdated-shooter-gameplay equals meh. And CCP hyping the crap out of the EVE Online connection wasn't significantly sensible since there really is not one.

Mike: This could also be a cop-out, but I'm pinning this on all the MMO genre. The year was ruled by numerous re-treads of acquainted fantasy worlds and numerous uninspired work from developers that should actually know higher (Trion, I'm taking a look at you). With the line between MMO and non-MMO getting blurrier by the minute, MMO builders have to get their acts together if they're hoping to remain competitive. They usually want cease asking for handouts via Kickstarter.

Eliot: Kickstarter. We've had numerous funding drives for games, some successful, some not, with almost each single one in every of them promising the same basic gameplay philosophies, none of which has been backed up by precise completed MMOs. At the very least a kind of studios has gone again to the effectively and asked for extra money from Kickstarter backers, and I don't think about it will likely be the first. It's not a trend I'm joyful to see, and one which I've already written about at size. There's some nice stuff on Kickstarter, however this year's glut was unpleasant.

Largest Blunder of 2013: Subscription fashions for Elder Scrolls On-line and WildStar
Different nominees: Console MMOs, All the pieces ESO does, LucasArts' closure, Blizzard's lore sexism, Star Wars: The Previous Republic's space fight, FFXIV's launch woes, CCP's World of Darkness layoffs, Guild Wars 2's horrifying PR campaigns, and Diablo III's public sale house fiasco.

[Replace: We discuss extra about this award and the rationale behind it in December twenty sixth's Ask Massively.]

Eliot: WildStar's enterprise mannequin at the very least appears to be taken from a e-book written by somebody with the vaguest knowledge of business tendencies, however ESO's seems to have been designed with the assumption that every different recreation that went free-to-play after launch (also referred to as "just about each sport that has launched inside the past four years") was a worse game than ESO will likely be. Can we please cease pretending you can launch with a subscription now?

Mike: I believe, in the long term, putting a subscription payment on The Elder Scrolls On-line will become a pretty bad concept. Bethesda will make piles of cash before it's compelled to shift to free-to-play, however I am undecided what the price will probably be when it comes to loyalty to the model. If fans feel burned or taken advantage of, the Elder Scrolls franchise will undergo. A subscription charge essentially says, "You'll give up World of Warcraft/EVE On-line/Ultimate Fantasy XIV for this," and that's exceptionally bold from a studio that's never made an MMO.

Tina: I truthfully do not see how CCP can keep its dedication to complete World of Darkness whereas frequently chopping the group. We have to see some solid leads to 2014 to prove otherwise.

Greatest Innovation or Development of 2013: The return of sandbox gameplay
Runner-up: Defiance's transmedia synergy
Different nominees: Oculus Rift, Guild Wars 2's cadence, streaming games, blurring genre traces, actiony MMOs, voxels, and Warhammer's sunset.

Toli: I like that developments are swinging again toward a wide range of gameplay features this 12 months. Voxels! Sandboxy things! I flip around and suddenly MMOs are launching with housing once more! Holy smokes!

Matt: I am pleased to see extra studios tapping into the sandbox market. From heavy-hitters like EverQuest Subsequent and Star Citizen to much less-hyped titles like Pathfinder Online, the sandbox style is gaining a lot of traction.

Larry: Defiance was a disappointment as a recreation, however as a product it broke the mold. I actually loved the tie-in launch of a television collection with an MMO. I do not think different games want to copy this mannequin exactly, however I do suppose that tie-ins, crossovers, and multi-media launches add value to a product. And that i also consider that outside-the-box thinking needs to be encouraged in MMOs, even when it does in the end flop.

Justin: Oculus Rift: Could VR come back to be an actual future for MMOs? It is a risk, and what teases we're seeing this 12 months have whet my want to attempt it out for actual.

Shawn: Closing Warhammer Online. I imply, the sport was kinda enjoyable at first, however can we cease with that exact formula now? Thanks. (I'm already putting my vote in for 2015's Biggest Development to be "the top of voxel-primarily based online video games.")

Most Improved in 2013: Closing Fantasy XIV
Runners-up: Tie between Star Wars: The Previous Republic and RuneScape three

Jasmine: Last Fantasy XIV. It improved so much from 1.0 to 2.Zero that it performs like an nearly totally completely different game. I don't think you will get much more improved than that.

Beau: RuneScape 3 introduced so much to the older sport that it really is a distinct recreation. It's at all times been dynamic and felt like a dwelling world, however this relaunch made it that a lot better.

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