Massively's best of - Favorite game of 2008

Winner: World of Warcraft (writeup by Michael Zenke)

There's a reason this game has so many players. It's as simple as that: World of Warcraft is the best fantasy MMO on the marketplace. It's probably the best AAA MMO period.

We don't talk about World of Warcraft as much as the MMO genre might dictate on Massively because WoW Insider does such an amazing job with its coverage, but that game literally touches everything we do here. It's impossible to talk about the popularity of MMOs without mentioning the game. It's inconcievable to consider the size of the US market without it. We've asked ourselves on several occasions: without Blizzard's behemoth would there even be a need for a site like Massively.com?

Regardless, Blizzard has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt this year that WoW's preiminence is well-deserved. Say what you will about Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King is a tour-de-force in modern gaming. It's the most polished, exciting expansion to a massively multiplayer game we've ever experienced and the storytelling chops they show in the Death Knight starting area are simply amazing. We've played a lot of games here at Massively. We've ground hundreds of levels, invested thousands and thousands of hours in this genre ... but one game has captured our attention more than any other this year.

For that, more than anything else, World of Warcraft is worth saluting. Here's hoping that some of the amazing changes we've seen in Lich King trickle down through the rest of the game. Here's hoping that Blizzard does their best to top this already amazing content with newer, better releases. And here's hoping someday some designers muster the gumption to pull the community's attention from our favorite game of 2008.%Gallery-36550%

Runner-up: Lord of the Rings Online (writeup by Shawn Schuster)

The Favorite Game of 2008 is quite an honor for any MMO; just take a look at the extensive list of MMOs we cover on the site. As with the Expansion of the Year, the Favorite Game of the Year award for 2008 went to World of Warcraft with an honorable runner-up once again being Lord of the Rings Online. With WoW the clear leader on anything popularity-based due to its enormous playerbase, second place is still quite impressive for a game that's 18 months old.

So why would Lord of the Rings Online win a contest more-appropriately named Favorite Game of the Year That's not World of Warcaft? Now we're talkin'! This year has seen some amazing improvements to the game. We've had four free content upgrades with Books 12 through 15. This year gave us the cosmetic outfit system, barbers, the entire land of Forochel, Fishing and the Hobby System, a new Monster Play class, two new Free Peoples classes, the Legendary Item System, tons of new quests, housing trophies, events and way too much more to list in a sentence filled with this many commas.

It's easy to see why a game with this much attention from their development team would garner the appreciation of so many gamers out there. With word of a continued schedule of content coming in 2009, I'm excited to see where Lord of the Rings Online places in next year's awards.

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We hope you enjoyed Massively's favorites of 2008. We're looking forward to a great 2009, and can't wait to see what the new year has to bring in massively multiplayer gaming. Let us know what your favorite game of 2008 is below in the comments!