Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Crafting

December 25, 2020 12:00 PM

MassivelyOP’s end-of-the-year awards for 2020 continue today with our award for Best MMO Crafting, which was awarded jointly to Final Fantasy XIV and EverQuest II last year. Once again, we’ve opted to include pre-2020 MMOs, as long as they were actively maintained in this calendar year (and are legally operated). Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the Best MMO Crafting in 2020 is…

FINAL FANTASY XIV

Andy McAdams: Either Elder Scrolls Online or EverQuest II. FFXIV’s crafting is… OK. It’s fine. It’s fine. Just fine (to paraphrase Eliot). It’s not exceptionally inspired and… it’s fine.

Brianna Royce: We all know the best crafting in an MMORPG is in Star Wars Galaxies, which exists only in rogue server format now and is therefore ineligible. Consequently, I send in my nominations for Final Fantasy XIV, Lord of the Rings Online, or EverQuest II as usual because they are the next best thing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here being a full-time crafter in my SWG emulator. Who wants some Fizzy Pudding?

Carlo Lacsina: I’m not a crafter. So I’ll just give it to FFXIV because it looks like it deserves it. It’s still a stretch though. I don’t understand how a game can go so deep in its story, but never goes out of its way to give crafters a chair or something. It kills immersion.

Chris Neal: I’ll say that this is merely “best” purely because every other game is doing crafting objectively worse, but I still have to dig on how Final Fantasy XIV’s Restoration of Ishgard brought up new reasons, new ways, and new rewards to make crafting and gathering feel impactful. Especially in a game where item level heights are barred behind raid content.

Eliot Lefebvre: Final Fantasy XIV. This coming year, I have resolved to get Bree to actually try Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting because I know she’ll love it. Wish me luck, fam.

MJ Guthrie: EverQuest II. I am sure I sound like a broken record by now, but I haven’t really enjoyed any currently live game’s crafting more than EQII. (Only SWG and Vanguard beat it.) After that, I’d say FFXIV. I know FFXIV has good crafting, but it never really clicked with me personally; if I delved deeper into the game so that crafting felt useful it might resonate with me more.

Tyler Edwards: Elder Scrolls Online. Not a lot of other games let you craft yourself full legendary gear in every slot, and it’s actually… kind of fun? Ish?

Final Fantasy XIV took our award for Best MMO Crafting in 2020. What’s your pick?

Reader poll: Which living MMO offered the best crafting in 2020?

Final Fantasy XIV (26%, 120 Votes)
EverQuest II (9%, 43 Votes)
Elder Scrolls Online (16%, 74 Votes)
LOTRO (4%, 20 Votes)
EVE Online (6%, 28 Votes)
RuneScape (2%, 10 Votes)
Black Desert (5%, 22 Votes)
Guild Wars 2 (5%, 24 Votes)
ArcheAge (1%, 7 Votes)
Wurm Online (4%, 18 Votes)
World of Warcraft (2%, 11 Votes)
SWTOR (1%, 7 Votes)
Ultima Online (3%, 15 Votes)
A dead game beats all these! You know the one. (13%, 59 Votes)
Something else (tell us in the comments!) (2%, 11 Votes)

Total Voters: 397

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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully 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.

How does MassivelyOP populate this poll?

Poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.