Tenton Hammer names Guild Wars 2 best MMO of 2013

[zito]

I don't find living story to be that bad, I actually enjoy a lot of the things that have been released because of it. They have in my opinion improved upon their living story releases from when they first started doing it. I don't know if you played through the first living story release, but that release consisted of only a very small part where we searched for dead settlers and fixed road signs for the whole month, I think their pacing has greatly improved with their 2 week mini patch releases. It however still needs more improvements and they need to start putting more story into the releases instead of relying on short stories released on their website to fill in the story gaps.

2 week updates is too fast imo. I mean it's all great and dandy but the updates lack polish and sometimes depth. 1 month updates were fine except when they first started the living story there was fucking nothing to do - but now they remedied it but not because of 2 week updates.

Needs to go back to 1 month updates.

[mmokri]

PvE-wise I would give GW2 award as best single player game with elements of Co-Op.

[Karizee]

2 week updates is too fast imo. I mean it's all great and dandy but the updates lack polish and sometimes depth. 1 month updates were fine except when they first started the living story there was fucking nothing to do - but now they remedied it but not because of 2 week updates.

Needs to go back to 1 month updates.

I agree that 2 weeks feels pressured. I like that more updates (or in the case of permanent content, the window to complete the achievements) are available for a full month but the recent Fractured release window only allowed 2 weeks for players to complete the achievements. I think some players missed the cheeves as they were not aware of how difficulty scales are linked (for instance always starting with Mossman you will never see Urban Battlegrounds)

[Lane]

WoW had some fantastic (fantasy wise) views that were very impressive for me, but GW2 for me has much more immersive worlds that not only look great when "just a forest", but also have some amazing points of view.

Immersion for me is heavily based on lore. It was practically impossible not to feel immersed in WoW because there was so much story and history. Even in areas where it wasn't fully disclosed (like pre-goblin Azshara) you could only imagine what happened there. One thing that's missing from GW2 are those 'unexplained' areas, like a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere, or an abandoned boat on the beach, or an unoccupied homestead somewhere you can't imagine anyone would want to live. WoW is full of that stuff.

The only place I've had that experience (sort of) was Orr, mostly because it was the only lore offered (through the personal story). Regardless, I actually got interested in the history of it. Unfortunately, that experience was irrevocably marred by the miserable design of the zones. Mob density, aggro radius, respawn rate, DEs that were impossible to solo, etc. led to me basically running for my life throughout all of Orr just trying to hit objectives without having many safe opportunities to look around and ponder anything.

I don't find living story to be that bad, I actually enjoy a lot of the things that have been released because of it.

The story itself is bad, really bad. The only remotely enjoyable things to come out of it (IMO) have been SAB, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and Queen's Pavilion. Basically, the fully fleshed out activities that the 'story' (such as it is) tries to revolve around.

As far as I'm concerned, most LS updates exist as a means to grind achievement points. That's basically the only reason I 'participate' in most of them at all. (I got my 10k chest doing the Toxic Alliance nonsense, so yay.)

[Avada Kedavra]

I would let the player base vote on whats best. Easiest way is with sub numbers. I thought that the numbers were bleak. i could be wrong. i tried GW2 - and it looks really nice, but it was meh all around. I would not give it best MMO of the year, but that just imo.


I would say the award should go to WoW. Still the leader in MMO's and the one to beat, and imo GW2 has not done that. did i say imo enough - dont want people to mis-interpret my opinion as fact.

[zito]

The story itself is bad, really bad.

The story itself is bad because there is no plot yet which is coming next apparently. They just presented it in the wrong order - her goals and ideals should of been presented months ago and more depth of it come after but instead they are doing more depth first and her agenda last.

If they fixed that the story is actually really fucking good. She is a crazy mary sue but that only gets old if people see that a lot.

[MitchMeister-]

I think im personally too addicted to WoW at this point. Since playing since beta, I have tried nearly every other MMO out there and none hold my interest for more than a few weeks. GW2 I played for about a month, trying various classes until I got bored. Same thing with Rift, Aeon, LOTRO, SWOTR ( which hurts the most because I love star wars) ... and I keep just coming back to WoW, because everything they do just fits what I expect a MMO to be at this point.

[Height]

I think I'm just going to wait for EQnext and Wildstar. Wildstar for raiding and EQnext for playing open world. ESO isn't appealing to me at the moment. The general consensus is that it's the most likely to flop. Also, their website is hideous compared to Wildstar's and EQnext's which I know doesn't necessarily mean anything, but if you cant develop a site and release good information then I have less hope for a game. Wildstar/EQnext have a ton more information available.

And Guild Wars 2? That game turned me off faster then any other MMO I've ever played.

[Smitzelplix]

Immersion for me is heavily based on lore. It was practically impossible not to feel immersed in WoW because there was so much story and history. Even in areas where it wasn't fully disclosed (like pre-goblin Azshara) you could only imagine what happened there. One thing that's missing from GW2 are those 'unexplained' areas, like a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere, or an abandoned boat on the beach, or an unoccupied homestead somewhere you can't imagine anyone would want to live. WoW is full of that stuff.

The only place I've had that experience (sort of) was Orr, mostly because it was the only lore offered (through the personal story). Regardless, I actually got interested in the history of it. Unfortunately, that experience was irrevocably marred by the miserable design of the zones. Mob density, aggro radius, respawn rate, DEs that were impossible to solo, etc. led to me basically running for my life throughout all of Orr just trying to hit objectives without having many safe opportunities to look around and ponder anything.



The story itself is bad, really bad. The only remotely enjoyable things to come out of it (IMO) have been SAB, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and Queen's Pavilion. Basically, the fully fleshed out activities that the 'story' (such as it is) tries to revolve around.

As far as I'm concerned, most LS updates exist as a means to grind achievement points. That's basically the only reason I 'participate' in most of them at all. (I got my 10k chest doing the Toxic Alliance nonsense, so yay.)

I fully agree with your points on WoW, that's the major reason I even bother buying their expansions despite my dislike of their raiding endgame. I just find the lore so interesting and their zones interesting because of the lore that I have to at least play through some of it.

I do disagree with the GW2 story being bad though, I quite enjoyed a lot of those short stories released on their website that tend to accompany the LS releases, but that's the problem it's a short story on their website not in game.

[Sharuko]

Ten Ton Hammer's Best MMO of 2011 was SWTOR. Best MMO of 2009 was Aion. They didn't have a year end award in 2010 but they did have E3 award's and gave the Editor's choice to Tera. Ten Ton has some great taste.

I hope GW2 has some sort of big update planned for 2014 to keep its head over water, or the niche population will become even more niche. I say this for all MMOs in the market today, but most seem prepared for the onslaught.

[Svifnymr]

Immersion for me is heavily based on lore. It was practically impossible not to feel immersed in WoW because there was so much story and history. Even in areas where it wasn't fully disclosed (like pre-goblin Azshara) you could only imagine what happened there. One thing that's missing from GW2 are those 'unexplained' areas, like a table and chairs in the middle of nowhere, or an abandoned boat on the beach, or an unoccupied homestead somewhere you can't imagine anyone would want to live. WoW is full of that stuff.

I liked the lore of WoW, until I just got tired of too many things where it became obvious that they didn't really have a great plan for it... The background is just made up in too many ways and the internal consistency is just dead by this point. The little spots you mention, some of them were neat little sidelines, but there's nothing to imagine for the most part. There's no story there, maybe some day they may take up a thread/ site, but there's nothing to discover at the moment.

Plus, Cataclysm introduced so much more gag-reel stuff that it took a lot of the value out for me.

Now, an issue with some of this in GW2 is that there's a POI/Skillpoint/Vista driving you to some of these little areas anyway, though that discussion has been hashed out many times on this forum. I'd put the little swamp huts north of Shadow Behemoth up against any similar area of WoW in feel. Definetly better than the old "click on frogs" "click on reeds" of Dustwallow.

[quote]The only place I've had that experience (sort of) was Orr, mostly because it was the only lore offered (through the personal story). Regardless, I actually got interested in the history of it. Unfortunately, that experience was irrevocably marred by the miserable design of the zones. Mob density, aggro radius, respawn rate, DEs that were impossible to solo, etc. led to me basically running for my life throughout all of Orr just trying to hit objectives without having many safe opportunities to look around and ponder anything.


Orr and Ascalon both have a good "destroyed ruins" vibe to them, though they differ in the specifics. I also have a fondness for Wayfarer/ Frostgorge in looks and such, though I despise Dredge and their areas and centaurs drive me away from too much of Kryta. Obviously it comes down to preference, though I think there's also an element of "exploring in WoW after doing my grinding" vs "exploring in GW2 is your grinding".

The story itself is bad, really bad. The only remotely enjoyable things to come out of it (IMO) have been SAB, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and Queen's Pavilion. Basically, the fully fleshed out activities that the 'story' (such as it is) tries to revolve around.

As far as I'm concerned, most LS updates exist as a means to grind achievement points. That's basically the only reason I 'participate' in most of them at all. (I got my 10k chest doing the Toxic Alliance nonsense, so yay.)

I really think I've just come to have low expectations for MMO updates, really. The ones folks rave about in so many MMO's are just boring and tedious very quickly. Folks have some random notions of what work can/will be done. Two week updates= less time for polish... well, maybe, but that assumes that they actually COULD polish things better given more time, so I don't know.

[Buxton McGraff]

Sellouts.
They've lost credibility with me.

[Valeron]

mmos are a poor medium for story telling. even mmos with some good story telling parts, such as swtor and tsw, are all contained in personal instances. unless you have some sort of phasing tech, the story progression doesn't affect the actual world. but then with phasing you segregate the players. I'd much rather see mmos just make the world, the lore, populate the world, and then have the players play in them. Have the players make the stories and change the world by their action rather than having a themepark developer led story experience. Leave that to single player games.

anyway, off of my soapbox. as for mmo of the year, that is purely subjective. MMO of the year is the one that I play and enjoy the most. And that happens to be GW2 for this year.

[Zarc]

This is just silly. World of Warcraft is the best MMO out there. Period.

This year started with me being bored of WoW and my whole guild who had been raiding for years deciding to finally throw in the towel and quit raiding. Needless to say I unsubbed from the game, and the second quarter saw my sub change to frozen for the first time in years. This sparked the MMO Year of 2013 for me and a friend, who since we quit WoW have been trying out all these other MMOs that are considered great.

We started out playing some Guild Wars 2, hit max level, then moved on to Star Wars: the Old Republic. Again, hit max level, moved on to Rift. We played up to the expansion content, at which we felt the game suddenly started to suck (more). At this point we had some real "new MMO" fatigue, and re-subbed to WoW to do the Siege of Orgrimmar stuff, expereince the Timeless Isle and do some fun PvP. And WoW is simply just sooo much better than the competition. Now my sub is once again frozen, and we're currently playing Tera. But damn, WoW is just better.

Can't wait for Warlords of Draenor to come out. Sadly, as an ex-raider, there simply isn't enough content around to validate a permanent sub to WoW. But gosh, is it better.

[Valeron]

This is just silly. World of Warcraft is the best MMO out there. Period.

maybe for you it is

wow is a big meh for me but we all have different preferences and those preferences shape what we like in an mmo

[Sharuko]

Sellouts.
They've lost credibility with me.

Really? When they gave Aion the award in 2009, they weren't sell outs back then?

[Toiran]

"Best Studio - Sony Online Entertainment"

Wow, you would never hear that years ago, how times have changed.

Not surprising WoW hasn't won anything, it's still the same core as it was 10 years ago, don't get me wrong, I enjoy it still, but it's still a newer, shinier same with more to do, it's genuinally hard to innovate in the MMO genre succesfully, it's a tough crowd and a tried and tested formula, this is why I expect WoW expansions to be an evolution, not a revolution, which they are, so they do the job.

Certainly a lot of lack of creativity in recent years though, every big feature seems to be Blizzard's version of someone else's feature, just like Apple, they take someone else's idea, and polish it up and make it user friendly.

[zito]

"Best Studio - Sony Online Entertainment"

Wow, you would never hear that years ago, how times have changed.

Not surprising WoW hasn't won anything, it's still the same core as it was 10 years ago, don't get me wrong, I enjoy it still, but it's still a newer, shinier same with more to do, it's genuinally hard to innovate in the MMO genre succesfully, it's a tough crowd and a tried and tested formula, this is why I expect WoW expansions to be an evolution, not a revolution, which they are, so they do the job.

Certainly a lot of lack of creativity in recent years though, every big feature seems to be Blizzard's version of someone else's feature, just like Apple, they take someone else's idea, and polish it up and make it user friendly.

WoW hasn't done anything to break the mold so to say - rather they make it easier for people to enjoy the content they already present. (LFR for example). So it winning MMO of the year for being a 10 year old game would be pretty sad for MMOs in general.

[zed zebes]

An acquaintance once described WoW expansions as Blizzard adding another floor to a burning building.

[Deleted]

I remember listening to TotalBiscuit once during a Terraria clip & he mentioned J.Cox being a warcraft lore nerd.
Until then, i had no idea anyone took any notice of the lore in that game.
I played for around four years, althoguh most of my time was spent fighting my way to the next battle master or hunting other players, but even in between, the lore just didn`t seem to show itself to me.
Aion, that story I liked, from what I recall, but again pvp took over.
Guild Wars is not only the first game that ever struck me with its story, it is the only game that got me so much, that we still haven`t done any pvp in there & that to me, is shocking.
So when gw2 came out, whilst I bought it primarily for the pvp (/cry), I had assumed the story would be great. There was only once anything stood out & that was when helping a mate do his story & I heard Vekk or his father mentioned.
Apart from that, I just thought it a chore at best to do LS & it was there purely for xp & not story.
I don`t think their idea of finally putting some story onto a website is good. You`re playing a game & alt tabbing to learn the story is just wrong.
Sure not everyone wants to read lines of text in game, but it beats the alternative.