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2005 MMORPG.com Reader Awards
MMORPG.com has announced the winners of its 2005 Readers Choice Awards. Interesting to mention, because the MMORPG.com users have a unique outlook on the genre. Eve Online leads the 'Favorite Game' category, and Saga of Ryzom nets the 'Best Story' prize. From the site: "Ryzom is set in a science-fiction universe and in addition to its story, it also boasts crisp graphics and a loyal and supportive community. The game also boasts PvP and is on the verge of a revolutionary expansion called 'The Ryzom Ring'. In this expansion, players will be able to take story-telling to the next level as they introduce player-created content tools. The original category included Horizons instead of Asheron's Call and managed to produced a dead split between the top four games (22% each). Oddly enough, this didn't carry over into the finals, where The Saga of Ryzom emerged on top with 31% of the votes. City of Heroes / Villains grabbed 19% for second place. They were followed by Anarchy Online at 18%, Asheron's Call at 15% and Star Wars Galaxies at 14%."
I'm not really sure what your quarrel with EVE is. It really is worlds better and more interesting than Everquest, WoW, or all their sword and sorcery derivations. There have been countless stories about EVE in the game media, a great piece in PC Gamer last year, any number of great pieces on The Escapist, and assorted gaming websites over the last couple years. Sure, it may not be as newbie friendly as WoW or City of Heroes, but it's a living breathing world, and the only unsharded MMOG around. Yesterday I was playing with 20,000 simultaneous players, and looking at the map and watching the stats glow, seeing alliances clash on that enormous galaxy map was just another reason to love the game.
It's full of trickery and scams, people who would kill you for just coming into their asteroid belt, PC characters more evil than any of the NPCs, spying, scheming, infiltration, betrayal, and distrust, and that's the beauty of it. Combat, trading, and anything that involves two player parties is much more reliant on your wits and intelligence, rather than your level 60 mage and his staff of smiting. Not that there's anything wrong with a staff of smiting, but in EVE, you can out think a much more heavily armed ship, a newbie can con a con man, and that's ok.
The best part about the world of EVE is that the devs know it's just that - a virtual world. They don't step in to regulate the market, they don't shut down corporations whose goal is to disrupt someone's legit space-business, they just set it in motion, provide timely updates, and make sure the servers are running. The rest is up to the players.
So in short, I say "yeah, right" back at you in all seriousness. In every way I can think of, EVE: Online is the MMORPG of the year.
I'll tell you why EVE won for favorite game over a title which has about 100 times more subscribers. It's the endgame. All over the net you see people talking about the Lv60 cap and the grinding to get top level gear. I've been playing EVE since a month after launch and I am nowhere near any kind of level cap. That's because there isn't one. Because there aren't any levels. I admit I haven't played WoW but it seems like it has the same failing as in other titles I've played where once you cap-out there really isn't anything to do except engage in some relatively pointless PvP. In EVE the more skilled your character gets the richer your experience becomes because the endgame isn't against some bajillion-person raid instance but against the rest of the playerbase. In EVE it is the players themselves who are developing the storyline through the alliance conflicts and with the addition of even more complex levels of play-controlled structures in the (free) cold-war and red-moon-rising expansions this empire vs empire interaction becomes just that much more meaningful. I think the fact that everybody lives in the same universe is a great aid to this. In addition, PvP has real impact because you can actually lose substantial virtual assets (both "material" and political) on failure as opposed to games like GW where there are no negative consequences for loss at all.
:) AWM is on the move again and we're always looking for new recruits.
Anyway, if you like rewarding PvP and haven't played EVE yet you should really try it out. And if you do drop me a line in-game
-Pinkoir