Massively Reader's and Staff Choice Awards results for 2009
by Shawn Schuster 
Jan 1st 2010 at 12:00PM
Filed under: Opinion, Massively meta
This year's vote turned into something quite interesting, we must admit. Instead of being a direct "reader's choice", it seems to be much more of a popularity contest among the fans of the largest games. This made many of you quite angry when Runes of Magic dominated every category literally overnight. Some studios created contests to get their players to vote in the poll, most added a link to the awards on Twitter or Facebook, but the Runes of Magic team did everything from front page placement of the awards link to regular in-game announcements prompting fans to vote. Now that's how you win a vote. Especially when you have millions of players.
Hand-in-hand with this, there have been reports of exploits on the polls involving a simple cookie clearing (although the site designers promise that an exploit through clearing cookies alone is not possible). Even if we assume that the exploit is true, this whole thing shows who has the fans that are most dedicated to supporting their favorite game. There's nothing wrong with that.
So we're still going to show you the results as voted by the fans, and the results of our own staff poll. Follow along after the jump for the complete run-down.
Category |
Reader's Choice |
Staff Choice |
| Best Crafting in a 2009 MMO |
Runes of Magic | Fallen Earth |
| Best PvP in a 2009 MMO |
Runes of Magic | Darkfall |
| Best Capacity for Roleplay in a 2009 MMO | Runes of Magic | Champions Online Fallen Earth (tie) |
| Best Free-to-Play MMO of 2009 |
Runes of Magic | DDO |
| Best Visuals/Graphics |
Runes of Magic | Champions Online |
| Best MMO Studio of 2009 |
Frogster | Turbine Fallen Earth LLC (tie) |
| Biggest Disappointment of 2009 |
Aion | Aion |
| Best Launch of 2009 |
Runes of Magic | Runes of Magic |
| Overall Best New MMO of 2009 |
Runes of Magic | Fallen Earth |
| Most Anticipated for 2010 |
Star Trek Online | All Points Bulletin |
As you can see, there's quite a bit of difference between our opinions and what was voted upon in the reader's polls (except in two categories). We thought we'd further the explanations behind our decisions with a few key quotes from the staff:
Best Crafting in a 2009 MMO - Fallen Earth
"Is there really a question? Fallen Earth offers such a richness to its crafting system that it's almost incomprehensible, and I was already diving into it after nothing more than a few minutes in the tutorial. If anything, I wish the game gave more emphasis and press to its crafting system. But that's a different discussion." - Eliot Lefebvre
"Is there really a question? Fallen Earth offers such a richness to its crafting system that it's almost incomprehensible." |
"I'm really not a Darkfall fan... but even I can't deny the game its rightful award: Best PvP. When you cross an FPS with an MMO, you're bound to get something that's worthy of PvP. Beyond that, Darkfall features city sieges, territory control, full loot drops, and enough character customization options to keep the PvPer happy for a good, long time." - Seraphina Brennan
Best Capacity for Roleplay in a 2009 MMO - Champions Online and Fallen Earth (tie)
"Fallen Earth was made for roleplayers, as the world is just so open-ended. What better place to rewrite the plot of the world than a game where it's all been wiped out?" - Shawn Schuster
"The Champions Online roleplaying community is amazing. There's many, many guilds dedicated to roleplaying characters from all ages of comics, you have huge expanses and great situations to roleplay in (Nemesis Confrontation, anyone?) and you have the best costume creator seen in an online game outside of City of Heroes. If you want to be creative and you want to have some good roleplaying fun, you want Champions Online." - Seraphina Brennan
Best Free-to-Play MMO of 2009 - Dungeons & Dragons Online
"Dungeons and Dragons Online made such a smooth and impressive transition from pay-to-play to free-to-play that it's almost embarrassing, and it's made the rest of the industry take a much closer look at the business model. That's pretty significant by itself, but the game is fun, action-based, and feels far easier to pick up and play than most other games." - Eliot Lefebvre
Best Visuals/Graphics - Champions Online
"This took a LOT of thought. Aion has some beautiful graphics, except when it comes to visuals. Champions Online has a very distinctive style that I happen to appreciate. Aion is very close, but honestly after the 'OH SHINY!' effect wears off you're left with a game that kind looks like a whole lot of other games." - Kyle Horner
Best MMO Studio of 2009 - Fallen Earth LLC and Turbine (tie)
"Honestly, every studio operates differently. The more open and honest a developer is with their fanbase, the more trust is earned. This year, I'd say that Fallen Earth LLC (formerly Icarus Studios) has been pretty impressive when it comes to this factor." - Kyle Horner
"Turbine is not only the best MMO studio of the year (with the release of LotRO's Siege of Mirkwood and DDO as F2P), but the best studio period. They are astute professionals who know what their players want and how to compromise on tough design and business solutions." - Shawn Schuster
Biggest Disappointment of 2009 - Aion
"When your holy grail MMO title turns out to offer absolutely nothing new to the genre except a new record in grind time to level 50, you win the "Biggest Disappointment" award from me. Grats Aion. This honor is only outmatched by the size of your experience curve." - Seraphina Brennan
"Did Runes of Magic launch? I thought it just always was... there." |
"Did Runes of Magic launch? I thought it just always was... there. Anyhow, Aion and Champions both had rocky launches for different reasons. Personally, it wasn't the fact that Cryptic nerfed so much of the game at launch that miffed me a bit -- it was that it broke so much of the game for the first few weeks. Certainly, they've repaired significant amounts since, but it's the kind of tough lesson you don't want to repeat. HINT, HINT. But who am I kidding? I was just playing Champions Online before writing this up, so whatevs." - Kyle Horner
Overall Best New MMO of 2009 - Fallen Earth
"Fallen Earth really deserves so much for what it has accomplished in three short months. Sure, it has some bugs still, but the game has given us hope that indie MMO studios can break through the high-budget publisher barrier and spread almost entirely by word of mouth. The game has shown that quality game design can trump the largest advertising budget any day." - Shawn Schuster
Most Anticipated for 2010 - All Points Bulletin
"Ironically, this one only made the top of one of our lists, but it made the #2 spot in all of them, gaining enough collective points to win (with Final Fantasy XIV a very close second). APB has been pimping its amazing character creator for almost two years now, and we're ready to throw together some custom tattoos and kick some butt. Now we just have to see how it actually plays." - Shawn Schuster
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
DylanGrissom said on 12:25PM 1-01-2010
Hmm, there wouldn't happen to be a lot of Runes of Magic fanboys on this site would there?
Reply
Seraphina Brennan said on 12:28PM 1-01-2010
Read the first paragraph or two to understand what happened there, regarding the Reader's Choice awards.
monkeystick said on 2:47PM 1-01-2010
The digg generation doesn't read actual articles, only headlines.
Landeyda said on 12:30PM 1-01-2010
Really people? Runes of Magic sweeping all the "good" categories? So the basic method of success is copy WoW down to the letter, make it free to play, and suddenly it's the best thing ever! (Oh, also have all your readers come pollute what could have been an interesting poll)
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Landeyda said on 12:31PM 1-01-2010
Errr, readers = players.
Blythe said on 12:31PM 1-01-2010
But I have to say, I do agree with all the staff's choices.
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Seraphina Brennan said on 12:34PM 1-01-2010
Thank you! ^_^ I like to think that the staff choices are more... um... accurate. XD
cowy said on 11:17PM 1-01-2010
I agree with the Editor choices. How many of the voters REALLY tried each game (and not to like... level 2-3) before voting?
I'm on my first week of Fallen Earth (level 12). Loving it. Fully plan to keep going for another month to see what it's like. Glad the Editors chimed in on it.
Psst: Free Trial is free... go find out about what you're missing. See for yourself.
Wade said on 12:37PM 1-01-2010
What a complete load of rubbish, both on the "readers choice" and staff side.
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CheesyTaco said on 12:40PM 1-01-2010
What a joke. Why must there always be one company that ruins the accuracy of a poll by telling all their subscribers to go flood it? Same thing happened a while back with Turbine and an Escapist contest...
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CheesyTaco said on 12:59PM 1-01-2010
On a side note, I agree with most of the staff choices. Only thing I would swap out would be SWTOR for most anticipated of 2010 (I know it wasn't a choice, but I'm pretty confident it will release some time this year. We already know more about it then most of the titles that have a release date already.)
Kyle Horner said on 1:45PM 1-01-2010
I think 2010 is going to end up writing you an I.O.U. :\
CheesyTaco said on 7:06PM 1-01-2010
I guess one of your coworkers is an idiot then :/
"In line with this, 2010 will continue this trend for niche games. The only exception to this will be Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I predict will launch in Q4 2010."
-Shawn Schuster
jslim419 said on 2:23AM 1-02-2010
"I guess one of your coworkers is an idiot then :/"
shawn "predicted" that.. he didn't state it as fact. if he stated it as fact with nothing to back it up. then yeah he would be an idiot.
i personally think swtor will be near release in time for the holiday season next year also, but i'm also realistic in knowing it could very well be put on hold because of an unforeseen problem until Q2 2011. calling names over this at this point in the games development is what is idiotic.
CheesyTaco said on 7:36PM 1-02-2010
You misunderstood my point, sir. I just think Mr. Horner is wrong in stating that TOR won't be released in 2010 like its a fact. It certainly might not be, but it's a very distinct possibility given the abundance of information that we already have on it.
torak said on 12:44PM 1-01-2010
Runes of Magic????
Well I guess this sums it up best
"Especially when you have millions of players"
Pretty sad when an imported F2P wins out in every category, speaks volumes about the state of the genre.
Most P2P games couldn't muster up enough players to fill a bus these days. Hell I think SWG has more subs then WAR and AoC at this point IMHO as I've dabbled in all 3 in the last 6 months.
WAR has to be the worse of the three.
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Cinnamoon said on 1:37PM 1-01-2010
You might be right about that. Some of the SWG servers have over-population problems -- those are the kind of problems I like having (hi Starsider!) I realize you weren't considering that a compliment, excactly, but for a 6.5 year-old-game to be mentioned alongside 2008's big-names is a big deal.
The Massively staff poll seems a bit on the silly side, though. There weren't exactly all that many games to actually launch last year, and they all pigeon-holed themselves right into the obvious categories. Ho-hum.
torak said on 3:33PM 1-01-2010
Well I didn't mean to compliment nor slander just compare.
But yeah, SWG has one of the strongest populations I've seen in awhile.
While the handful of disgruntaled vets haunt the forums for the last 5 years, a lot of people are currently playing the game despite that prolonged hate campaign.
Bissrok said on 12:47PM 1-01-2010
Well, luckily, I think most people already realize that Runes of Magic is a terrible, terrible game.
Then again, there certainly wasn't much competition this year. When Fallen Earth wins best new MMO, ya know it's been a tough year.
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Graill said on 3:23AM 1-02-2010
"Then again, there certainly wasn't much competition this year. When Fallen Earth wins best new MMO, ya know it's been a tough year."
Agreed.