Post by Morreion on Dec 31, 2020 11:36:31 GMT -5
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: MMORPG of the Year
FINAL FANTASY XIV
Eliot Lefebvre: Honestly, this one is hardly a surprise. In a year where almost everyone had to scale back in some way, Final Fantasy XIV continues trying new things with its content, delivered a story conclusion that had people praising it to high heaven, and even kept its updates mostly on track. I’m always surprised when it winds up here for a given year, but as it flows away toward its next expansion (and, as I write this, patch 5.4 is just a couple of days away) it’s hard to really argue with it as one of the most consistently high-quality experiences on the market.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Most Underrated MMO
STAR TREK ONLINE
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Most Anticipated MMO
NEW WORLD and CRIMSON DESERT
Carlo Lacsina: Crimson Desert. I have no idea what that game is going to look like, but I cannot wait to see what Pearl Abyss has ready for the MMOjority. I know Black Desert has taught the company some great things, and I’m excited to see what they’ll do. I really think this is going to be one of the games that will define this new decade.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Not-So-Massively Game of the Year
GENSHIN IMPACT and ANIMAL CROSSING: NEW HORIZONS
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Indie MMO of the Year
ALBION ONLINE
Justin Olivetti: Albion, Project Gorgon, Wurm Online. It’s very tough for PvP sandboxes to overcome their ruthless reputation that has dragged down so many contemporaries, but Albion seems to have done that. Its secret? Lots of continued game design and an attractive-looking world that isn’t mired in greys and browns.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: MMO Studio of the Year
ZENIMAX ONLINE STUDIOS and CRYPTIC STUDIOS
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Trend of 2020
THE MMO CONSOLE PORT CRAZE
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Business Model
ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE and WORLD OF WARCRAFT
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Worst MMO Business Model
STAR CITIZEN and ARCHEAGE
Tyler Edwards: Star Citizen now and forever. People are basically paying them not to make a game at this point — they’ve clearly clued in that they can make more money by selling dreams than a finished game.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: MMO Story of the Year
DAYBREAK’S SALE and COVID’S GAMING IMPACT
Brianna Royce: I couldn’t choose between Daybreak and COVID, so I choose both. The virus has reshaped everyone’s lives and the gaming industry too. It’s impossible to ignore how much it changed us and in particular how MMOs became a place of solace for so many people. And yes, the Daybreak news is still very fresh, and I always hesitate to give a December story an award, but this was a long time coming (we started predicting it over a year and a half ago!), and it definitely feels like a major moment for the MMORPG industry, as if we’re all holding our breath to see what happens next. Even if you don’t care who’s holding the lease on the company, you have to be peeing your pants over the huge financial and metrics dump we got out of the whole deal. That’s enormous and changes my perception not just of Daybreak’s game but of the genre. If even the small, neglected Daybreak games are doing great and making bank… yeah.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Biggest MMO Surprise of 2020
THE BETHSOFT BUYOUT
Brianna Royce: The Bethsoft buyout. I didn’t see it coming at all, whereas we’d been pondering Daybreak’s sell-off intentions since last year, and I think Microsoft’s move definitely changes the playing field for the biggest tech and gaming companies vying for market share now – yes, the single-player RPG market and the console but also (and more relevantly for us) the online gaming market. Things just got interesting.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Biggest MMO Blunder of 2020
STANDING STONE’S LOTRO FIASCO
Brianna Royce: LOTRO is actually getting several positive nominations from me this year, so it pains me to give it a bad one here, but let’s be real: Standing Stone, or Daybreak if Daybreak is the one giving these orders, absolutely squandered the mountains of goodwill it generated in giving away content during COVID. Players might have forgiven the multiple weeks of technical snafus and crashing and downtime (and even a rollback for one unlucky DDO server) but for the abysmal communication along the way. Then it topped it all over with a seriously gross monetization shift meant to wring cash out of the most loyal players with blatant lies about a skimpy paid patch being an “expansion.” The studio head’s belated candor at the very end of the year may have assuaged some of my frustration, but it doesn’t make up for the blunders along the way. These were huge screw-ups from a game people love to love. I hope SSG reflects on them.
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Character Customization
BLACK DESERT
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Player Housing
EVERQUEST II and ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Crafting
FINAL FANTASY XIV
Massively OP’s 2020 Awards: Best MMO Event of 2020
EVE ONLINE’S WORLD WAR BEE 2
Brianna Royce: I thought EVE Online’s ongoing world war deserved the nod this year, largely because this is an entirely player-directed event, it’s massive, it involves almost everyone in the whole game, it’s dramatic, it actually has an impact on the political dynamics of the server, and CCP has properly capitalized on promoting it for its own benefit. That’s way better than anything a developer could manage top-down by itself. Power to the players.
