You know what bothers me? Our annual awards recap. We always list all of the games that we’ve given awards to in the past, and we’ve given out many awards for the MMORPG of the year. Aside from the year that we gave the award to nothing (and then changed our rules), we’ve been giving an award every year since 2009. But what kind of blows is that we don’t have any history before then! We awarded no MMORPG of the year from 1997 until 2009! That’s a huge break of continuity, and it’s a real problem.
Now, you could argue that Ultima Online called itself an MMORPG and that’s an accepted start date, so it didn’t have competition. (It did, but just bear with me.) And that’s all right. And who cares about 1998? But it bothers me that we have a gap there, so I have taken it upon myself to fill in our totally arbitrary history that we must now observe. If this fails to be counted in our official awards chronology from now on, may the heavens strike someone else dead. Someone I don’t like. I have a list; I’ll put it in an envelope.
1999 – Asheron’s Call
You know, some years you have two viable choices, and one of them is the obvious fan favorite that you would have expected to win but the other one is the one that you actually want to win? Usually this is a problem solved by democracy, and in this case that is exactly what I used. I voted and no one else got a vote. Fortunately, I feel that history vindicated my choice. Unfortunately, financial restitution did not.
2000 – Phantasy Star Online
I really assumed other stuff came out in 2000, but I guess not? Some of the early years really did have a shoo-in candidate, and to be fair, that’s why we changed our rules after “nothing” won; it’s not fun when you only have one or two viable candidates and none of them really feel like they earned it. Then again, maybe my feelings about this game are skewed because of personal history. Eh, whatever.
2001 – Dark Age of Camelot
Boy, this dark age has been going on for about 23 years now, huh? It feels like the game is still chained to that time period. Should people unchain it? Although maybe that’s a bad idea. But the important thing was making the right people start frothing at the mouth, and on that note I consider this one a success.
2002 – Asheron’s Call 2
“All right, now you’re just trolling us.” To that, dear reader, I say: Now? You think that started now?
2003 – Star Wars Galaxies
There are a lot of complex things to say about the game, but to avoid a column-length tangent, it is undeniably a game that was really trying to do different things with the genre, explore what was possible in the online gaming space, and fuse a lot of different concepts into one title. You can argue about how well that synthesis worked, but arguing over it also ignores how many games over the next decade or so wouldn’t even try. 2003 saw a lot of interesting releases, but I have no doubt in my mind that this would have been the standout if we had all been doing this back then.
It would have been weird if we were all doing this back then, since I had only started playing my first MMO a couple months before the end of the year (and it was not this), but that’s a different discussion.
2004 – World of Warcraft
All right, this one is kind of a gimme. Don’t look at me like that; I really wanted to give this one to City of Heroes, but it feels just weird to act like it deserved the title this year. And yes, some of this is no doubt about looking into the past and realizing what would be more important in the future. I can’t send myself back in time to 2004 and take a vote then; that’s not how it works.
2005 – Guild Wars
Remember when people were arguing over whether or not Guild Wars counted as an MMORPG? Good times. Wait, no, incredibly stupid times that were always predicated on weird edge cases. Regardless, I’m giving it the nod for 2005, because it both deserves it and didn’t really launch with a whole lot of strong competition this year. There were other games and lots of updates, but it was one of the big new titles at the time. And hey, Guild Wars 2 is still doing all right for itself these days.
2006 – Dungeons & Dragons Online
This seems like a title that has long gone back and forth in perception. It was surprising when it launched, then it failed to get much traction with players, then it went free-to-play and saw a massive player surge, then that dropped off, then people saw that it was a unique experience on its own… sort of a constant swing of the pendulum. I don’t know how much of the game in its current state really maps to the game that the developers thought they were making back then, but it has at least stood the test of time admirably.
2007 – Lord of the Rings Online
Speaking of games that have stood the test of time admirably, here’s a game that managed to win our annual award just this past year! Good on you, Lord of the Rings Online! And you can kind of see why because unlike a lot of the titles on this list, this is a game that launched very much with a picture of what it was supposed to be and it hasn’t really deviated much from that. Oh, sure, it has changed and expanded, but the core feeling of adventuring in Tolkien’s world with what feel like Tolkien-esque characters remains in place.
At one point I actually had a joking column in my mind about funny suggestions that would totally not mesh with this specific game, like sending players to the moon on flying mounts, but it never quite came together right. It’s weird to think that the game is technically younger than some games that have reinvented themselves more often, but that’s also part of how the game still feels vibrant and fresh even as it approaches the 20-year mark.
2008 – Warhammer Online
This one I just think we would have been wrong on. That’s not to say I think Warhammer Online is a terrible game, but it was a janky one that was very clearly trying to sell itself on being World of Warcraft without actually being WoW, and a lot of people were buying into the hype in no small part because of that. Which is ironic because all of the really bad decisions that would make WoW an actual pain to slog through wouldn’t come about for several more years, but we’re all human and we make decisions based on emotional logic.
So what have I learned by doing this list? I’ve learned that I could pick out 10 titles between 1999 and 2008 to fill out the appropriate number of entries for a Perfect Ten. These are the lessons that you can internalize from some of these columns.
Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.”
