Polls are a quantitative sort of magic that we don’t often get from our other articles – at least when they aren’t being brigaded by various groups around the internet – which is why I love our recurring Leaderboard column as a fun project adjacent to our Daily Grinds. Let’s take a look back at our best MMO polls of the year! And if you want a few more, you can look back at our polls from 2017, 2016, and 2015 too.
Must MMORPGs revolve around grouping to be MMORPGs?
You’d think this one would get to the heart of MMOs, right? But our community was evenly split over how much group content an MMO really requires – in fact, more than twice as many people think an MMO needs no group content than think an MMO needs primarily group content.
How much time should you put in to become a great player in the typical MMO?
Our community wasn’t impressed by the idea that you need to play a lot to do well in MMOs. Most folks either don’t care at all about being great or believe that training the right skill is more important than how long they spend playing.
Are you giving Ultima Online’s Endless Journey F2P conversion a try?
The genre’s oldest living MMORPG went free-to-play, so naturally we asked whether folks planned to give it a go. Responses were mixed, but what surprised me was how many people already played (11%! What?!) and also how many people said they’ve never given it a try. Welp, now you can.
Are you still playing Secret World Legends?
A year after Funcom pushed out its do-over for Secret World, we asked the community who was still playing. A surprising number – almost a third – said they were all-in for the Africa content. But the largest number by far said they’d never even gone back to the game after its conversion.
Are you playing RIFT Prime, Age of Conan’s Xath, or LOTRO’s legendary server?
Progression servers were a big deal this year, and our polls show why studios are making the effort to draw back players: A third of our respondents expressed clear interest in LOTRO’s, while a quarter were up for a go in RIFT’s and AOC’s.
Are you giving Bless Online a second chance?
Yikes, no mercy from our commenters: Just over half said they either wouldn’t go back, wouldn’t try the game at all, or were done with it entirely when Bless Online formally launched out of open beta early access.
What kinds of MMORPG purchases do you consider pay-to-win?
This poll had so many votes that the tally looks absurd. But the truth is pretty much everything is considered pay-to-win by somebody, even cosmetics. The top three winners? “Buffs that cannot be acquired in the game,” “gear with stats,” and “advantages that help in PvP but not PvE.”
Does the Daybreak fiasco affect whether you play its MMOs?
When the Daybreak Columbus Nova scandal hit this spring, many commenters (and writers!) expressed a desire to wash their hands of Daybreak and its obfuscations altogether. Only a fifth of poll participants said they were unaffected by the news, with another 16% saying they were in wait-and-see mode. More than half said they were done either because of this or before.
Let’s end on a World of Warcraft duo, shall we?
Did you preorder WoW’s Battle for Azeroth expansion?
A whopping 63% of you said you had preordered or planned to play WoW’s expansion. But…
Is a ‘WoW Immortal’ a very real possibility?
A third of you also have no faith in Blizz and believe it will foolishly take the franchise mobile. May as well play WoW while you can, right?
