MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: Best MMO Crafting

December 25, 2024 12:00 PM

Welcome back to Massively Overpowered’s formal end-of-the-year awards!

Today’s award is for the Best MMO Crafting, which was last awarded to Final Fantasy XIV way back in 2020. We retired the award for a few years owing to frustration with the state of crafting in the modern MMO genre, but we’re bringing it back in 2024 for another try (at worst, it gives classic MMOs more possible wins!). We’ve opted to include live, fully released MMORPGs launched in any year, as long as their 2024 crafting experience is what’s being judged (this is not an award for greatest MMO crafting of all time). 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 of 2024 is…

LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE

Andy McAdams: Albion Online

Brianna Royce: Lord of the Rings Online, Pax Dei. So I play a lot of LOTRO, and crafting is one of my primary pursuits there. It’s always had solid crafting for a themepark. But that isn’t why it deserves the award in 2024. It deserves the award because SSG has spent all year working on crafting-specific co-op content as well as working on the crafting “refresh.” More of this, please, MMORPG devs. Don’t just leave crafting as an abandoned side game that gets a new tier every expansion and nothing more. That said, I would’ve been just as pleased if Pax Dei won, as while its crafting is grindy AF and its early access is early indeed and needs a lot of refinement, it’s also an actual MMORPG for which crafting is a major gameplay component. It’s a clear runner-up for me.

Chris Neal: Lord of the Rings Online, RuneScape. I’m of the opinion that no MMORPG has great crafting, but I’m convinced enough that LOTRO has some good things going for it, and it’s added some fun little things like the forester event and the cooking event.

Eliot Lefebvre: LOTRO

Justin Olivetti: Elder Scrolls Online, Lord of the Rings Online. I’m going to give a nod to LOTRO and SSG for putting some honest effort in getting a cooperative crafting event underway (with some bumps and bugs). That’s pretty cool and I hope we see more of that. And there’s a huge crafting community and focus in ESO that doesn’t get enough credit. Heck, many people subscribe because of the enormous crafting bonuses. If you like to make stuff, this is a good game for you.

MJ Guthrie: Er, since survival games don’t qualify, I actually don’t have a vote here. I do find it sad that all my crafting desires are being fulfilled outside the genre that I love.

Tyler Edwards: Elder Scrolls Online. It remains the one MMO I’ve played where crafting felt like a viable path to endgame progression without being a completely soul-crushing grind. It’s still pretty grindy, but tolerably so, just.

LOTRO took our award for Best MMO Crafting. What’s your pick?

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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 commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. 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. Reader poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.