Massively OP’s 2018 Awards: Best MMO Crafting of 2018

December 23, 2018 12:00 PM

Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2018 awards continue today with our award for Best MMO Crafting, which was awarded to EverQuest II last year. Once again, we’ve opted to include pre-2018 MMOs, as long as they were actively maintained in this calendar 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 the Best MMO Crafting of 2018 is…

Final Fantasy XIV

Andrew Ross (@dengarsw): Worlds Adrift. There’s a lot that’s rough about the game, but I really enjoyed building my ship when I wasn’t being brutally murdered. It’s very SWG-esque in execution, but without the daunting stats system of the constantly newly-generated resources. Playing around with placing modules or using different materials right out of the gate was really fun. Seeing people build “ships” as stores is still inspiringly creative. If you can get into the rest of the game, especially as it starts to shed it’s “Red is dead” pitch, give it a shot!

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Final Fantasy XIV. Years ago, Eliot and I spent the whole drive from San Francisco to Sacramento discussing the differences between Star Wars Galaxies and Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting. Turns out they’re more alike than I knew. Giving the nod to one of the few high-end AAA MMORPGs that take crafting super seriously, with hat tips to EVE Online and EverQuest II too. (Of course, I still prefer Star Wars Galaxies, but emulators aren’t up for these awards, and most of the challenges are coming from games that simply aren’t out yet – like Camelot Unchained and Crowfall.)

Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): I’m not a big fan of Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting, but of the major crafting systems in MMOs out now, it certainly is the one that’s the least bad. Which is meritorious enough considering how crafting is usually handled.

Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): I’ve mentioned before that the Venn diagram of “people who care a lot about crafting on the MOP staff” and “people who have played Final Fantasy XIV for any length of time” includes, well, just me. Which is a shame, because… wow. The crafting here is still really good and relevant, folks.

Matt Daniel (@Matt_DanielMVOP): Final Fantasy XIV is one of the only modern titles that doesn’t treat crafting as a mere afterthought or side-activity. While I don’t think it’s perfect by any means, it’s without a doubt the most in-depth and engaging crafting system in any game I played this year.

MJ Guthrie (@MJ_Guthrie, blog): As little as I have done it compared to EverQuest II, I still think Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting wins out but a bit. It is involved and has other parts of the game tying into it, which I think is great. Crafting needs to be a meaty endeavor that has a real place in the world. Now, talk to me when a couple anticipated games launch, and my answer is likely to change. We’ll see if we get that far next year.

How does Massively OP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together over the course of a few days to discuss candidates and ideally settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include written commentary from every writer who submitted it on time so that you can see where some of us differed, what our secondary picks were, and why we personally nominated what we did (or didn’t). The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January.

Final Fantasy XIV won our award for Best MMO Crafting of 2018. What’s your pick?

Reader poll: Which MMORPG has the best crafting of 2018?