PC Gamer named Lord of the Rings Online their MMO of the Year. Normally, I would be happy to see a game I play and love recognized, but I can’t agree much with their reasons for awarding LotRO.
When it came to keeping us entertained all year long with small updates, plus throwing us the occasional party with huge loads of free content, LotRO treated its fans the best.
What? I’m not sure they were playing the same game I was.
They  mentioned two new regions and two new Epic Books. They must be including Mirkwood (which released at the end of 2009) in the new regions because the only new area in 2010 that I remember was Enedwaith. Did I forget a content release? Could they be including the new Yule Festival village? It is true that Books One and Two were released for Volume 3 this last year, and at the time I was pretty happy with Book 1 too. Of course that was when I thought there would be a few months before the next Book, not the six months it turned out to be before Book 2 came out with the F2P release.
One part of the article that I whole heartedly agree with though: LotRO has some of the best server communities of any MMO.
As a LotRO player 2010 was a disappointing year, I hope 2011 turns out to be an amazing year for the game.
I think LOTRO is well deserving of the honor. I’m sure the successful transition to f2p helped with the desision, along with a disappointing year in MMO releases. But I hear that STO is not doing too bad these days.
LotRO is as deserving as any other MMO if you take into account their prior years, but compared to what they did in 2009, 2010 just wasn’t up to par. I think what really bugged me about the PC Gamer article wasn’t that they recognized LotRO, but that their reasons were thin, at best. I’m still a little bitter about all of the store stuff. 😉
Yup…mind numbing to me everytime LOTRO wins another reward. Is the MMO market that bad, that a game with some of the ugliest character models, slipshod UI and animations that look like stick figures with robot waists, is considered the “best”?
Until I see them putting back some of this “tripled” revenue they keep expounding upon into hiring animators, character artists or UI designers, I will still shake my head in astonishment over each award this below average game gets.
Except all of the things you mention are a matter of personal preference, none of which bothers me except for their atrocious hats. My complaint with the PC Gamer article is that they were congratulating Turbine for releasing what amounted to very little content.
Hmm, I thought LOTRO deserved the honor and actually quite agreed with that quote. I remember being really impressed and grateful for all the free weekends, updates, events, etc. but I admit I haven’t been playing LOTRO as long, end of 2009 was when I started. To think they were even more generous and content-ful in the years before this! :-O Turbine really is an awesome company.
You know that’s a good point a about the events, I’d mostly forgotten about them.
In my defense, most of the event stuff is recycled from previous years, except for the new Haunted Burrow and Yule Winter-Town stuff that they did this year. I enjoyed the Haunted Burrow stuff quite a bit, except for all the hysteria over that ugly skeletal mount. I only barely tried out the new Yule Festival content though. By the time that was released my enthusiasm for LotRO had waned so much that I actually had to force myself to login a few times so I could at least check it out.
I’m sure my disappointment in the game’s minimal updates this year have soured me on the events in October and December. It was also why the PC Gamer article got under my skin so much. Despite all that, I’m still hoping that 2011 brings a return to previous years when we got new content every three months or so. For me, this year is a make-or-break year for LotRO. I don’t see myself staying active in the game if we get only one small Book in the first six months no matter how cool the Isengard expansion might be when it shows up in the fall. Especially with the announcement of the revenue tripling, a repeat of last year would be really upsetting.
I suppose the argument could be made that since Mirkwood was release in December 2009, most of the content was EXPERIENCED in 2010?
True. I would have to agree that’s a valid argument on PCG’s part. My reaction was primarily based on my disappointment with the last six months of the game, and the more time that passes the less that article bothers me now. It used to be, I waited to cool-off before I posted, but I thought this year I would let a few more of those rants out into the world. I don’t want to change the tone of the blog too much but I wanted to experiment a bit.
For what it’s worth, I had the exact same initial reaction to the article, and you know I’m a LoTRO fan generally. The holiday events were certainly exceptional this year, I can’t think of any other MMO that’s ever put out a new zone in for a holiday event. However, I think I really got spoiled by the first year of the game. Launch through Moria, the pace at which we got major new updates was astounding.
Agreed. Having enjoyed the first years of the game with fairly consistent Book updates and then Moria followed by Lothlorien and then Mirkwood left me with a higher expectation than what was delivered in 2010. The holiday events (which really were pretty good) might have done more to mitigate my disappointment if it weren’t for the constant irritation of the TP alerts and store buttons. The layering thing as well has bugged me since it has killed the chance of having another Weatherstock.