Massively's Best of E3 2010

E3 2010 has wrapped up and we're still recovering a bit from the shiny overload that's bombarded us for the event's long three days. While many MMO development studios and publishers weren't in attendance (NCsoft, Funcom, CCP, Mythic, etc), there was still a significant presence for MMOs this year. Whether through demos or hands-on play, we spent time with each and every MMO on the show floor this year.

So we wanted to honor the best of the best in our annual E3 awards which focus on MMO-related topics only. Follow along after the jump to see what tickled our fancy.

Biggest Surprise

Black Prophecy

Biggest surprise is a difficult category to measure with new games, because they're all surprises. With Black Prophecy, we didn't even realize it would be playable on the show floor! Surprise! Although all we did was fly around and blow stuff up, it was still really a lot of fun. It's a gorgeous game packed full of action, so the hands-on demo booth was perfect. How it will do beyond that is still up in the air, but you can read much more about the possibilities in our in-depth demo experience.

Best Demo

TERA

Want to know the perfect formula for a demo at E3? Get a room full of five or six journalists, group them up and lead them through some boss battles, screaming instructions the whole time. TERA's demo was intense, educational and it was a whole lot of fun.

Best Booth

Trion Worlds

Words cannot describe the awesomeness of this booth showcasing both End of Nations and RIFT: Planes of Telara. There were giant screens, giant prop plants from the rifts, a full meeting and demo room in the back and even a booth babe in full costume.

Diamond in the Rough

Need for Speed World

This is a category we decided to create because there were SO MANY games at E3, it was really hard to find the ones hidden behind the flashy booths and overpowering banners. Need for Speed, while a huge franchise with an even larger publisher (EA) was shown in its MMO version at the Alienware booth on two laptops and a massive desktop machine. The focus, of course, was to show how these games ran on the Alienware hardware, so most people didn't pay attention to the games themselves. After a demo given to us by the game's producer, our eyes were opened to how amazing this upcoming game will be.

Best New MMO

LEGO Universe

As an overall experience, LEGO Universe offers more than anything else we saw at E3. Among new and upcoming games, it especially shown through. I could sit here and try to explain it all in this small paragraph, but you'll have to read our write-up for that info.

Best New Concept
World of Tanks

You're a tank. You drive around and blow stuff up. What else do you want? While most game developers realize that fantasy is on its way out, the popular alternative is either sci-fi or superhero games. Wargaming.net decided to take a different approach by giving us an MMO centered around the tanks of World War II.

MMO of the Show

LEGO Universe

Not only did we think LEGO Universe was the best new MMO at E3, but even among its already-released peers, it has proven itself a star. A star made of little yellow LEGO bricks, but still a star. This was one where word quickly spread among those Massively staff members in attendance that making time for LEGO Universe should be a priority. Many of us tried it out and we all loved it. It's fun, it's creative and it's exactly what any LEGO fan would want in an MMO. Heck, it's exactly what any MMO fan would want in an MMO.