One of my favorite things to do every year is look through Livefyre and round up the articles that you guys just would not stop talking in. So let’s have a meta-look at the top 10 posts of the year 2015, by number of comments — and commenters.
Top posts by comments
World of Warcraft announces Legion expansion with Demon Hunter class, Broken Isles continent; beta this year
Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts responds to publication’s ‘long troll’, threatens legal action for defamation
Derek Smart calls for FTC investigation of Star Citizen’s finances, presents Chris Roberts with list of demands
Star Citizen threatened with class-action lawsuit
Rumor: WildStar coming to Steam as a free-to-play title in August [Updated]
WildStar is going free-to-play this autumn
Derek Smart demands Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts resign, fronts $1M for audit
Derek Smart says Star Citizen, ‘as has been pitched, will never get made’
Why Guild Wars 2’s prepurchase deal has the internet raging
Star Trek Online flame wars erupt over gay backdrop NPCs
Top posts by participants
The Daily Grind: What’s your one wish for Massively Overpowered?
Derek Smart calls for FTC investigation of Star Citizen’s finances, presents Chris Roberts with list of demands
Derek Smart demands Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts resign, fronts $1M for audit
Daybreak layoffs hit Landmark, EverQuest Next, H1Z1, more
World of Warcraft announces Legion expansion with Demon Hunter class, Broken Isles continent; beta this year
The Daily Grind: What feature do you wish MMO devs would stop implementing?
WildStar is going free-to-play this autumn
Why Guild Wars 2’s prepurchase deal has the internet raging
Star Citizen threatened with class-action lawsuit
The Daily Grind: Will you play WildStar once it’s free-to-play?
Reflection
Right away, it’s clear that the Star Citizen/Derek Smart drama dominated the year in terms of what people really wanted to talk about — and when I say talk, I mean rage for days. The posts on the drama attracted a lot of veteran Massively OP readers as well as those who normally don’t step outside Reddit.
That said, World of Warcraft’s Legion expansion announcement still brought the most comments (1422) on the whole, which is unsurprising given just how many people still play and how many more used to and might again.
WildStar’s free-to-play conversion was a major topic for commenters as well, no doubt because its original business model was so contentious and its “cupcake” machismo was a bit of a turnoff.
Guild Wars 2 was done no favors by its prepurchase fiasco this past summer, though it’s a squabble I suspect most of you have long since forgotten!
Daybreak’s layoffs were aftershocks. The Star Trek Online story is just depressing.
Finally, there were a few general Daily Grinds that unexpectedly went viral. One was literally an open thread for complaining about everything you hate about the MMO genre, and it was glorious. And the other one was more or less a who’s-who of the dedicated Massively community. /salute to you.
So 1422 is your number to beat next year, folks. Make it happen! In the meanwhile, stay tuned for a follow-up piece going into the popular posts by pageviews — it’s quite the contrast.
