Golden Cog Awards Celebrate MMO Winners

Thanks to Stratics for publishing its Golden Cog Awards for 2003, honoring "the very best of 2003's Massive Multiplayer titles... chosen through the votes of literally hundreds of Stratics staffers." Interesting or unexpected choices include Codemaster's Dragon Empires as 'Best Beta' ("populated by creatures that thrive in their ecosystem by acts of migration and foraging"), eGenesis' A Tale In The Desert as 'Most Innovative' ("...a difficult game to classify because of its pioneering nature"), and overall, Final Fantasy XI as 'MMOG Of The Year' ("...attention to detail, and a great community.")

Comments

FFXI

[Nutcase]

This is the best game I have ever played of any type. It is my first MMORPG, and I am severely addicted. I don't think I will ever play any of my other games again.

Highly Highly Recommended.

Re:FFXI

[chrismcdirty]

I played it and grew sick of it after a month and a half. After I got to LVL30 and started gaining advanced jobs, it felt like a chore to level them up. Trying to party up with noobs in Valkurm Dunes was hell, since none of them knew what they were doing. I know I was a noob at one point, too, but I wasn't half as bad as what I was putting up with.

Re:FFXI

[Dylan_t_p]

the best rpg I ever played was a free rpg out of korea named slayers great game but unfortunaly the closed the english version down since they more or less were using us as test subjects for the korean version.

Re:FFXI

[brkello]

I feel your pain. I got my Paladin flag and had a tough time finding a good party in the Dunes. It is really hit and miss whether you can find an effective party or not. Whenever I had that problem and leveling became a chore, I just did something else. I had a lot of fun trying the crafts out. I got fishing up to level 26 and cooking up to 40. I completed a bunch of quests. That's the nice thing about the game, if one thing gets annoying, there are lots of other things you can do.

Sorry it didn't work out for you. I know how it feels when your friends are way ahead of you. You feel you need to catch up and it isn't fun. The nice thing about this game is that your friend, if he wanted to, could just pick another job and start at level 1 (not losing his old job levels) and go up with you. Too bad he didn't go that route.

I played a few MMORPGs (EQ and SWG) and got sick of those in a few weeks. This is the first one that has me hooked, I highly reccomend as well as the grandparent post.

Re:FFXI

[Nutcase]

I disagree. It definately has a chatroom feel to it. But it also has extensive quests and plotting involved, just like any other final fantasy game. You do quests to find items, which is definately not chat.. but does induce party based chatting.

The thing is.. there are also missions. Missions progress you through the plot, and let you follow the various stories in the world (which apparently will change over the story of the plot and/or time)

It seems to me that if developers release a game that I enjoy much much more than the so called "real games" I used to get, sending them a message that it's good would be the right thing to do.

Besides.. what makes a game real? Having to play it alone vs. characters that are entirely computer controlled? Thanks, but I think its the human interaction that makes mmorpgs so much more fun in the first place.

Re:FFXI

[MMaestro]

FFXI is a glorified chatroom, just like Everquest and 90% of the other MMOs out there.

FFXI and Everquest along with 90% of the other MMOs out there are MMORPGs. The whole point of them is to Role Play. They weren't designed to be a jump in, wack a couple things, piss off a buncha random people you don't know online, and then jump off laughing knowing you've wasted somebody's time type of game. You want a non-glorified chatroom online game? Go play Counter-Strike. Other than people spamming with macros and the occasional yellings of 'CHETAR!@!!!@!111!' EXTREMELY few people talk there.

MMORPGs are the best thing that never happened.

[Marc_Hawke]

As the guy above says about FFXI, "I'll never play any other game again." The promise of a MMORPG makes most other games seem like petty wastes of time.

I've been looking for the right MMO since 1993.

I'm in love with the concept, but hate the games. I love the message boards for these games. I spend hours and hours every day, reading about MMO's , writing about MMO's, arguing/dreaming about MMOs.

However, once I get the chance to play them, they can't keep my interest for even a day, and I look for another game with a message board.

In this contest, I was rooting for Dragon Empires. It's not release, and I haven't had a chance to play Beta. :) I think WoW is good still as well. :)

Re:MMORPGs are the best thing that never happened.

[L7_]

This thing about Dragon Empires is that the premise of the game sounded EXACTLY like Shadowbane when it came out. I mean EXACTLY. I don't have the press release handy, but it was almost like the DE people copy and pasted GoD Game's press release and published it as thier own.

Now, fast forward 2 years later when the Shadowbane implementation left a bad taste in alot of people's mouths, and you find that Dragon Empires hardly even mentions that they are going to be a full asset pvp/gvg/zvz game (unless of course, they did a complete 180 with thier game design).

These next generation MMOGs need something to keep people interested, and that is mainly due to game play and its implementation. And it won't be the hyped up games like Horizon either, I think it will be something a medium sized development house puts out.

Either way, we shall keep playing betas, reading message boards, paying thier monthly fees and we will keep being disapointed.