With December now upon us, it’s time for us to take a look back at 2011 and recognize the outstanding accomplishments made by the games we love to play.
While this is MMOCrunch’s fourth year covering MMO gaming, this is our first ever MMO Awards presentation, so we’re a bit excited. Hopefully you guys will agree with many of our decisions, but even if you don’t we’d love to hear some of your picks.
Continue below to find out our picks for the best MMO games of 2011 and who won the best MMORPG of the year award.
Most Anticipated MMO for 2012
Guild Wars 2 is undoubtedly the most anticipate MMO game coming out in 2012 or at least it is here at MMOCrunch. ArenaNet seems to be one of the few MMO developers out there that aren’t following the trends, so we’re are very excited to see what they come up with in GW2.
Runners Up:
- The Secret World
- PlanetSide 2
- TERA
Best MOBA 2011
2011 has been a huge year for RiotGames and League of Legends as they have seen their player base explode in the second half of this year and for good reason. League of Legends is the best MOBA game out there today and while others came close, none made the cut.
Runners Up:
- Heroes of Newerth
Best MMO Shooter 2011
World of Tanks as been rolling along since it launched in April of 2011 and has quickly become the game to play if you want to blow sh*t up. With the addition of Clan Wars, World of Tanks gives players a second layer of MMO strategic combat to consider as players fight for control for power and territory.
Runners Up:
- Fallen Earth
- Global Agenda
Best PvP 2011
Eve Online might have had a bumpy road in 2011, but their PvP system remains the place to be for the best PvP combat in any MMO game today. With the recent launch of it’s latest expansion Crucible, Eve Online is back to the basics, improving the core of its game-play mechanics and is our choice for the best MMO PvP for 2011.
Runners Up:
- Darkfall
- Warhammer Online
Best Free-to-Play MMORPG 2011
This was a close race as there have been so many games that switched from subscription to free-to-play in 2011, but in the end Lord of the Rings Online came out victorious. While the release of the Rise of Isengard expansion wasn’t all it could be, Turbine responded quickly with additional updates and content and it is our Best Free-to-Play MMORPG for 2011.
Runners Up:
- DC Universe Online
- Everquest II
- Age of Conan
Best New MMORPG 2011
While 2011 might have been a record year for the amount of MMO games released, only two really stuck out to us with RIFT coming out victorious. RIFT has seen a great first year with the fastest content updates around, constantly improving and adding on to an already great MMORPG.
Runners Up:
- DC Universe Online
Best MMORPG 2011
It looks like RIFT not only took Best New MMORPG, but also Best MMORPG for 2011 out of the gate in its first year of release and why not? RIFT has had a great first year, tons of content updates and one of the smoothest game launches I’ve seen. However it was by no means won by a landslide as it just edged out World of Warcraft for the win. We listed SWTOR as a runner up because many of us have already played it during the betas and we feel it’ll be a serious contender in 2012. Since its release will technically be in 2011, we decided to give it some acknowledgement.
Runners Up:
- World of Warcraft
- Lord of the Rings Online
- Star Wars: The Old Republic
I can’t express how happy I am to not see SW:TOR even in the running for most anticipated. Thank you for validating you place on my RSS feed.
December 1st, 2011 at 8:18 pmQuote
Just wondering, regarding your dicision of League of Legends. What is it based upon? No doubt, that accountnumbers favor LoL immensely, but did you take a look at the quality side and the competitive side of the games aswell?
I can agree with LoL being the most successfull MOBA, also being the first to use the F2P strategy with cosmetic & advantage sales, but it’s aimed at the Casual crowd, whereas HoN is balanced for competitive play and supports it much better than LoL.
December 2nd, 2011 at 3:19 amQuote
“whereas HoN is balanced for competitive play and supports it much better than LoL.”
LoL = 5 million $ dollars for the competitive season 2? Spotlights on the website showing and preseneting LoL pro-players? What is doing HoN? (ohhh yes dying because of DOTA 2 coming)….
When you troll Nuclear, do it right please…..
December 2nd, 2011 at 5:47 amQuote
The reason why SW:TOR isnt one of them, is because its coming out this year, not 2012.
December 2nd, 2011 at 7:50 amQuote
EVE Online, best PvP, dont be stupid, 0.0 is crawling with hand holding pussies where lag wins every fight. The game is stale and a joke, it is best suited for people who want to pass time in the worst possible way, saying that it is a nice game but in no way or form should be considered PvP, not in 0.0 at least anyway.
December 2nd, 2011 at 8:00 amQuote
Most anticipated : did your forget ArcheAge ? or you don’t find it interresting ? or it won’t be out in 2012 ?
December 2nd, 2011 at 9:45 amQuote
Even with the blobfests of 0.0 I don’t see any other game with compelling open world PvP like EVE has, the people at MMO Crunch probably didn’t see an alternative either.
FYI its human nature to band together in groups in order to “win” so don’t blame EVE for that, just blame human nature and the sandbox elements of EVE that allow human nature to thrive.
0.0 is much less about “good fights” than say low-sec or even highsec pvp (see Red v Blue), 0.0 is about “winning” and currently the only way to win is to bring more heads than the other guy or go “United States” style and spam heavy assets that are an instant I-WIN button (see Super Capitals).
Again if you put people in an environment like this, they are going to do whatever it takes to protect their sand castle and kick over someone else’s. But hey that’s idea right, the only problem now is that CCP didn’t realize how much people want to win i.e. banding together in thousand man fleets causing soul crushing lag. But I bet they will run into walls if they try to restrict that freedom.
December 2nd, 2011 at 11:47 amQuote
Soulcleaver: Nah, SW:TOR wouldn’t have gotten my vote even if it were a next year release. Which, now that I think about it, even knowing it’s slated for this month I was still thinking in my head as a next year game. I’ll be playing it for a little while at least, but I’ve been anticipating The Secret World and Guild Wars 2 far more.
December 2nd, 2011 at 12:48 pmQuote
EVE has something the others don’t. Actual loss. When you lose in PvP in eve you lose your ship, modules, potentially implants, which all took a certain amount of effort to obtain.
That is why pvp in eve is fun and exciting. If you lose, there is an actual loss beyond some kill/death ratio or rank.
and while this largely depends on style of play, if you go gung-ho with that T3 you were just able to buy and lose it, no more T3 for you until you scrape together enough money again, and just to kick you in the balls you get to retrain some skills as well.
Actual loss, with actual impact. That’s what makes eve special. (beyond the whole player driven market/universe which is pretty pimp as well)
December 2nd, 2011 at 1:11 pmQuote
Human nature you say, firstly human nature means well anything todo with humans, its like saying “humans blob because they do”, sounds like one of those shitty forum replies when people complain about stale gameplay.
Secondly, the sand box has been changed many many times to encourage PvP and despite the changes being welcomed they have been implemented too late, as a result people just cba with anything and EVE is really all about logging in and changing skill.
Thirdly, 0.0 isnt the only place with sandcastles but is the only place that adopts shitty “lets all hold each others balls and RMT our fat arses off” and you know why 0.0 is only doing it? BECAUSE OF RMT, nothing todo with survivability it is all about profit and war isnt profitable.
All in all nullsec leaders are the only ones not playing EVE, the rest of EVE happily PvP sadly since EVE is a sandbox, there isnt any reason to PvP so “I want to protect my WH” isnt a good enough reason to play.
In the end the game died, sandboxes are only good when theres motivation to actually be in the sandbox, in EVE you have a lot todo but none of it is worth the time or effort
EVE is as much a good PvP game as WoW is!
December 2nd, 2011 at 1:12 pmQuote
Some of the PVP issues the other posters mention should be fixed now or soonish with the Super Carrier and Titan Nerfs and upcoming time dilation to fix lag. Though this down’t fix the massive happy rainbow unicorn land nap fest that is large parts of 0.0
December 2nd, 2011 at 1:34 pmQuote
he mad.
December 2nd, 2011 at 5:08 pmQuote
Eve is the best pvpo gameplay i ever tried. You can do it solo or in group, depending on skill. Don’t expect to loliwinz against a large blob, but you can do quite well solo against quite alot of people IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!! Don’t expect to have a positive k/d ratio, but expect every fight to be challenging (not against falcon.vjust overheat everything, rage and hit self destruct while trying to gtfo). This is based on personal experience, and dying alot.
Also another thing to know is to go for the kill, or skip it. Know your enemy and know your limitations is the most essential part of eve solo pvpppppp
In short, eve pvp is as fun as you make it.
December 2nd, 2011 at 7:44 pmQuote
The name of game in Shooter category is The World of Artys!!!!
December 3rd, 2011 at 8:26 amQuote
Dear NC guy: I’m sorry I systematically destroyed your whole carebear empire in about 4 months even if your coalition had roughly 5 times our numbers. I hope we can be friends again.
Love,
December 4th, 2011 at 1:11 pmsomeguy
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Dear Someguy: You didnt really kill us, you just became us, theres a difference, we should be flattered really, kind of like when a stalker dresses up as its victim then kills it, would explain why you called yourself Northern CoalitionDOT
December 5th, 2011 at 12:56 pmQuote
saying that you havent really killed us, Razor is still around and the MM corps will likely join us, all you really did was umm oh yeh become pets and get some space, gratz, enjoy it while it lasts, if it lasts hahahaha
December 5th, 2011 at 1:05 pmQuote
sgfsa weggegh
December 7th, 2011 at 5:17 pmQuote
WoT as the best shooter….Lmao!
December 7th, 2011 at 7:15 pmThat game has so many bugs in it they should have never released it!
Not to mention the game is Biased towards paying customers too!
Wonder what WoT paid MMO to make that claim!
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What rift fanboys, swtor should be first, none of those crap compare to TOR. And that’s a fact.
December 12th, 2011 at 6:21 pmQuote
Well except for WoW.
December 12th, 2011 at 6:22 pmQuote