end-of-the-year-awards
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Ask Massively: The one where we talk about our 2014 awards
Massively's 2014 awards series is over, but we like to go back and take a look at the reader polls and some of the big questions and neat comments that arose during the course of our rollout because many of our awards were contentious, as they are every year. It'd be no fun if they weren't, I suppose. Allow us to pontificate, and in the course of the review, we'll try to answer some frequently asked questions as well.
Jukebox Heroes: WildStar features the MMO soundtrack of the year
Originally I wanted to write a final Jukebox Heroes column for this year that would have ranked all of the soundtrack releases in 2014, but that ran into a couple of snags. Not only am I still in the process of listening and finding all of them, but one game's score was going to thrash the rest of them so badly that it didn't feel fair to stack them up together. That MMO was, of course, WildStar. I started to suspect that Composer Jeff Kurtenacker's score for WildStar was going to be something else when the studio started releasing parts of it over a year ago, but even then I wasn't prepared for the sheer quality and quantity that the full soundtrack presented. Critics and fans of the game alike have been very vocal in praising this game's music since the beta and through launch, and I'm still grooving on it months later. My only complaint is that it still -- still -- has yet to see an official release, free or paid. So even though our yearly awards didn't include a soundtrack category, I'm going to take the initiative and crown WildStar as the soundtrack of the year. Let's listen to six of the OST's highlights and discuss our favorites in the comments section.
One Shots: Top 10 best player screenshots of 2014
It's been a pleasure being your tour guide through a sea of player screenshots this year, and I can't wait to see what awesome pics you all will take in 2015. Before we get to the new year, however, I'm going to do something we've never done before here on One Shots: play favorites. Actually, I went back through all of this year's columns and picked out 10 screenshots that I personally liked the best. I don't often comment on what I think of a picture or what makes one stand out over the others, so the end of the year seemed to be a good time to do this. And I have one other special treat for you as well! Starting tomorrow, Massively will be putting out a single One Shots entry each day for the next two weeks. So if you've sent in a picture but have yet to see it posted in its full glory, then it may indeed happen over this holiday season!
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: MMO of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards come to a close today with our 12th and final award, this one the biggun (and usually the most contentious): our MMO of the Year. To be eligible for this award, MMOs must have launched in 2014, full stop. (If you want to know what would win the staff's best-MMO-ever vote, it's Star Wars Galaxies, and now I've saved us all that discussion, and you're welcome.) All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Anticipated for 2015 and Beyond
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Anticipated MMO for 2015 and Beyond. Pretty much every MMO that isn't out yet or is planning a major content update in 2015 was eligible for this award. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Anticipated MMO for 2015 and Beyond is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best Update or Expansion of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best Update or Expansion of the Year. Every patch, be it small freebie update or traditional paid expansion, was eligible for this category, as long as it released in 2014. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best Update or Expansion of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Likely to Flop
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Likely to Flop in the coming years. This'd be a released or announced MMO that we think has little chance of performing to expectations, even if it may not capsize completely (though we're happy to be proven wrong!). All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Likely to Flop in 2015 and Beyond...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest MMO Blunder of 2014
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest MMO Blunder of the year. This is also not a fun award to give or receive, but criticism is a necessary element of growth. This category focuses on a mistake made by a game or developer or the genre as a whole, something that has far-reaching negative consequences for the industry. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Biggest MMO Blunder of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best MMO Trend of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best MMO Trend of the year. We're not talking about a single article or game here; we are looking for trends, memes, and ideas that have seen a rise to prominence and have the potential to influence our genre for the better. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best MMO Trend of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best Pseudo-MMO of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best Pseudo-MMO of the year. This is always a difficult category since it forces us to define MMOs. This year, we opted to make eligible any online game that isn't a pure and traditional MMORPG, games we'd cover in Not So Massively: mobile MMOs, console MMOs, OARPGs, MOBAs, MMOFPS titles, MMORTS titles, and so on. And of course, the game must have launched in 2014. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best Pseudo-MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest MMO disappointment of the year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest Disappointment of the year -- not exactly one of the more coveted awards, admittedly. For this category, we focused on single games rather than concepts, and every MMO that launched in 2014 was eligible. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Biggest Disappointment of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Best MMO Studio
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Best MMO Studio of the year. Every studio that runs an MMO in 2014 was eligible, even those who didn't launch anything this year, but whatever the studio did to impress us should have occurred this year. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Best MMO Studio of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Improved MMO
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Most Improved MMO of the year. Pretty much all MMOs were eligible for this particular award, even if they didn't launch in 2014, as long as they improved significantly in 2014. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Most Improved MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Biggest Story of the Year
Massively's end-of-the-year awards continue today with our award for the Biggest MMO Story of the year. We're not talking about a single article or a game's plot here; we're looking for dominant, ongoing news arcs in the MMO space that had a big impact on the genre. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for this category. Don't forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end. The Massively staff pick for Biggest MMO Story of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2014 Awards: Most Underrated MMO
We're breaking with tradition this year when it comes to the Massively end-of-the-year awards. Instead of lumping them together into one huge article that no one reads because everyone's busy cheering and jeering over the GOTY down in the comments, we're going to pace ourselves so the little ones get some attention too. We'll also be explaining our votes so you can see the split and the rationale behind our picks. And because we know you want to have your say too, we'll throw in a reader poll just for fun. Please don't cheat. Today's award is for the Most Underrated MMO of the year. As will be the case for many (though not all) of this year's awards, games must have launched in 2014 to be eligible, which makes the list of eligible games fairly short. All of our writers were invited to cast a vote, but not all of them chose to do so for every category, so some games will literally win by a hair. The Massively staff pick for Most Underrated MMO of 2014 is...
Massively's Best of 2013 Awards
It's nearly the end of the year, a time for merriment, camaraderie, and cynical evaluation of all the MMO triumphs and tragedies that 2013 provided us. Today, Massively's staff honors the best of the best (and the worst of the worst) for the year 2013. Every writer was permitted a vote in each category with an anything-goes nomination process. No MMO, company, or headline was off the table, as long as it met the criteria. Can WildStar make it to three years in a row at the top of our "most anticipated" pile, or did its delay dampen our enthusiasm? Can SOE repeat its win for best studio? Which MMO is most likely to flop next year? And just what constituted the biggest MMO screw-up of the last 12 months? Enjoy our picks for the best MMOs, expansions, studios, stories, and innovations of 2013... and our most-anticipated for 2014 and beyond.
The Daily Grind: What MMO are you embarrassed to admit you play?
One of the silly questions I posed the Massively staff during our end-of-2012 awards was about embarrassing MMOs that we play. But we didn't publish the answers, partly because we couldn't come to any consensus. Glitch took my vote; browser games are still looked down on, no matter how creative they are. Among the other writers, Clone Wars Adventures cropped up, as did RuneScape, Free Realms, Habbo Hotel, and Star Stable. It wasn't just "kids games" making the cut, either. Mike lamented the fact that World of Warcraft is a "punch line" in the community and that "serious" MMO players can't play it. Jef said Lord of the Rings Online makes him want to shower after he logs out, while Patrick argued that Champions Online's apparent lack of developer resources makes for a sad experience. But the other reason we didn't publish our responses was that most of us just aren't deeply embarrassed about playing anything. As Eliot put it, If you're playing an MMO, you have absolutely zero ground to make fun of someone else for playing another MMO. This is something that really gets under my skin, the idea that some games are somehow cooler than others. MMOs are just plain fun, and there's no reason to be embarrassed by anything you like to play. I'm happy when anyone finds a fun game, even if it's a game I'm personally not fond of. Follow your bliss, people, and hold your heads high. So where do you stand? Are you embarrassed to play a certain MMO, and if so, what is it? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Daily Grind: What's your MMO of the year?
You've all heard Massively's (somewhat contradictory) opinions on the best MMOs of 2012, and some of you wanted a chance to chime in on the top awards, even though the results of polls can be... somewhat dubious (see image above from a few years back -- and also raise your hand if you've never even heard of like half of those). So let's test the theory that community polling is worthless and do some informal best-of polls anyway! Remember, the games and expansions you're voting on had to have been released in 2012 (that means Star Wars: The Old Republic is more or less out for having launched at the tail end of 2011, but if you want to write it in anyway, that's OK too -- we did for our awards too, after all). We don't really have room for every game in the poll, so feel free to do write-ins at the end and then tell us why you voted the way you did.
Massively's Best of 2012 Awards
When game obituaries and studio layoffs start to pile up in the news, Massively can seem like a herald of doom, but the reality is that the MMO industry is stronger and richer than ever. We've got more features to try, more business models to play with, more studios (and indie Kickstarters) to vie for our favor, and more titles to play than most of us could possibly sample in our lifetimes. Today, Massively's staff honors the best of the best for the year 2012. We asked each writer and streamer to vote in each category with an anything-goes nomination process. No MMO, company, or headline was off the table. Enjoy our picks for the best MMOs, expansions, studios, stories, and innovations of 2012... and our most-anticipated for 2013.
Flameseeker Chronicles: The Guild Wars 2 end-of-the-year awards
The end of the year seems to be a good time for awards -- all the cool kids are doing it, and Massively is nothing if not cool. Guild Wars 2 has been around long enough for me to have made some favorites. I've talked about features and things I loathe and love before, but now it's time to call out specific NPCs and instances, rather than general features. Before we get any further with this: These awards are purely my own opinion. Disagree with me? Great; write your own end-of-the-year awards. The more, the merrier.
