Massively OP’s Best of 2017 Awards: Most Improved MMO of 2017

Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2017 awards continue today with our award for Most Improved MMO, which was awarded to The Elder Scrolls Online last year. All live MMOs, regardless of release date, were eligible for this award, provided they made improvements this year. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

The Massively OP staff pick for Most Improved MMO of 2017 is…

​Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Can I give it to Elder Scrolls for all the bear promotions? No? Well, we’ll do Pokemon Go. Considering the game and this year’s new raids feature launched with basic parts of catching broken, multiple bugs cheating players out of rewards, and a system that didn’t help people find groups for the current main multi-player feature, fixing most of that in rapid succession was a pretty big deal for both hardcores and casuals. It may not be a great game yet, but Niantic did make some significant improvements.

​Brendan Drain (@nyphur): EVE Online has been improved incrementally for over a decade, and this year has been no different. In addition to the new moon mining gameplay and quality of life fixes in the Lifeblood expansion, we now have expanded free to play options and a substantial new highsec PvE feature for the first time in years. Though CCP’s endeavours in VR have come abruptly to an end this year and firing the entire community team is a mistake that will come back to bite them in the arse, EVE Online as a game is in a great position.

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna): Podcast listeners will recall that I totally flipped out upon returning to Trove and checking out the new atlas in person. It literally took a game where you had to walk into a portal to get anywhere to an MMORPG with a map – it feels so much more like a game based in a real world than a hub game now. I could also see this going to Guild Wars 2 as mounts really gave the game an entirely new dimension.

Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre): Guild Wars 2. The fact of the matter is that we have three separate games for our “best of the year” category, and the distinction is important; this is the one that went from low to high. While last year was not what I’d call a good one for GW2, Path of Fire was a pointedly good expansion, and it managed to do a good job of reversing course and overall improving the game. So points to it for improving!

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster): World of Warcraft. While Blizzard wasn’t perfect with all of its decisions with the Legion cycle, it kept to its promise of meaty and fairly frequent patches throughout the year. We didn’t see a content drought in 2017, and that’s not something you could say for 2016… 2015… or 2014, to be honest.

Larry Everett (@Shaddoe): Is it right to give the Most improved award to same game two years in a row? I think so. Elder Scrolls Online gave us housing, instanced PvP, a much-requested patch of land. Last year, I think ESO’s most improved award stems from where it was at launch, but this time around, I give it the most improved award because it just keeps getting better.

MJ Guthrie (@MJ_Guthrie): To be clear, most improved does not mean it was bad to start with! It just means it got better by a larger margin than other games. Trove was a good game, but changes to gem reforging, the new atlas, the improved Shadow Tower with lobby, the megalithic update that brought the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game up to speed with the PC version, and the huge club update all push this title into the even better category.

Tina Lauro Pollock (@purpletinabeans): I’m going with Guild Wars 2 here, though Elder Scrolls Online is a very close runner-up in my book. After Path of Fire’s mounts and marked improvement in story telling for the expansion and now Season 4, alongside a remarkable commitment to keeping up with the pacey content release cadence promised, I have to throw the Most Improved spotlight in this direction. I don’t think I need say much more on ESO than housing and immersion really!

Trove won our award for Most Improved MMO 2017. What’s your pick?

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