The start of the year end lists is upon us.
I saw over on Sneaky Hobbits that Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online was the number one entry MMORPG.COM’s user ratings for 2009.
That, in and of itself, is not controversial in my mind. LOTRO is a good game built on the hugely popular Middle-earth lore, Turbine has been dedicated to improving the game over time, and it has a loyal user base.
But, of course, the prospect of a list was too much to resist. I like a good list… and love a bad list even more so some days, so I decided to see where other games fell.
Here are the top 33, which represent all of the games ranked 8.0 or better out of a scale of 1 to 10.
- Lord of the Rings Online 8.38
- Atlantica Online 8.30
- EVE Online 8.29
- Fallen Earth 8.28
- EverQuest II 8.26
- Vanguard: Saga of Heroes 8.25
- Guild Wars8.23
- Ryzom 8.23
- Warhammer Online 8.23
- Dark Age of Camelot 8.22
- Guild Wars Factions 8.22
- Final Fantasy XI 8.22
- Guild Wars Nightfall 8.21
- Perfect World 8.20
- City of Villains 8.20
- City of Heroes 8.20
- The Chronicles of Spellborn 8.20
- Champions Online 8.16
- Ultima Online 8.15
- Runes of Magic 8.13
- Lineage 2 8.09
- Requiem: Bloodymare 8.08
- Anarchy Online 8.08
- EverQuest 8.08
- PlanetSide 8.07
- Asheron’s Call 8.07
- Sword of the New World 8.06
- World of Warcraft 8.06
- Dungeons & Dragons Online 8.04
- Dekaron 8.02
- Battleground Europe 8.02
- ROSE Online 8.01
- Cabal 8.00
That is an… interesting list.
When you consider that the difference we’re talking about here, the gap between a rating of 8.0 and a rating of 8.38, is about the same as the difference between a B and a B-, you can assume that these games are all enjoyed by groups of players who each think about as highly of their game of choice.
These games are all equal to their users in some very abstract sense.
Yes, I know we’re looking at an epic mis-use of statistics with bad, and probably inadequate, samples, self-selecting respondents, no weight given to number of respondents, no range of responses shown, and no indication of the gap, if any, between professional reviews and these player reviews. So you have to take that in stride when you look at this.
Now when any one of us goes over that list, I’m sure we all see something on there that makes us go, “No way.”
For example, I see Requiem: Bloodymare on that list and frown slightly. I played the game for a bit and never mentioned it, thinking that was exactly how much coverage it deserved. But somebody likes it. Several somebodies in fact, enough to get it an 8.08 score on this list, putting it ever so slightly ahead of World of Warcraft.
I’m probably less surprised by the games that made it to 8.0 or greater than those that did not. Wizard 101, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Aion fell just shy of the 8.0 mark, while Darkfall, with an ever vocal community, was way down the list with a score of 7.09. No doubt a forum post will fix that. (“Go vote for us!” posts are perfectly acceptable in my opinion.)
How about your favorite game? Did it score above 8.0?
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
The placement of some of the entries on the list is a bit odd – but then, you have to think about the ‘campaigns’ some people go on to ‘push’ their preferred game to the tops of lists (LotRO kept getting knocked out of the top 10 most anticipated list before release by ‘WoWers’ who werent ashamed to admit it).
There is no real moderation with the list so the numbers probably aren’t 100% (though I stand by LotRO being #1 :p). Some entries just… wow. I agree w/ you about Requiem – I tried it early on (Beta and release). I know that I would have rated DDO much higher than CO – but what can ya do?
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WoW #28 on the list? Seriously? Wizard101 not on that list at all? Though I enjoy the fact that EVE and EQ2 are so high on the list, I can’t believe these rankings have any credibility at all.
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@Tipa – I think it is the lack of credibility that draws me to this list. There is something in there for everybody to both love and hate!
If I were (more) evil or got paid by the page view, I could stir up a hell of a ruckus. I would just have to title the post something like:
27 games that are better than WoW
and let the rage roll in.
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For me, this is a feel-good list: I love Lotro and Fallen Earth, I still play WAR and EVE (me is macboy) and I am overjoyed seeing WoW eating the humble cake. The only let-down is no Wizard101 in there. (no hard feelings about the anime-wow aka Aion however)
I know with my mind that there is probably no beginning in mentioning what is wrong with the list, and how this is the schoolbook example of lies, damned lies, and statistics.
But still, wow, it made my day, I can’t help smiling now.
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Obviously far from an exhaustive list–if you had the Toril folks responding all 12 of them would have rated it an 11 on the 10 point scale.
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Doesn’t this reveal something about the nature of mmo’s – these games take so much time and dedication that anyone who is actually playing one has gotta love the game they are playing.
I don’t know if it is even possible for one human to give a genuinely objective comparative review of two mmos not unless they have more than one lifetime to do it in.
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Oohh sorry for the repost but gotta poitn out to @Tipa that Wizard 101 rated 7.98 just edging ahead of Free Realms but just behind that well known blockbuster Vendetta Online.
My guess is the ratings are percentage based but no allowance is given for the number of people voting for a game. Perhaps only one person voted for Vendetta but thought it was quite good. On the other hand there could be thousands of voted for WoW
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If you go and look at the actual “list” on MMORPG.com, you’ll see that some well-known games aren’t even rated. They haven’t accrued the minimum 20 votes.
That includes successful, child-friendly titles like Club Penguin and Pixie Hollow, critical hits like Faunasphere and even internet phenomenon Evony. The satisfied (or otherwise) players of those games probably don’t even know MMORPG.com exists.
The MMORPG ratings are a bit of a game in themselves, I think, with advocates and enemies posting and cross-posting pans and raves. Not surprising that WoW has taken a hit. The haters are probably more motivated after 5 years to go review a game that everyone already knows.
If you look at the actual ratings details, WoW has an average of 8.1 from just under 9000 votes. Requiem: Bloodymare, one place below it on 8.0 has only received 146 votes. The Realm, despite having been around since 1996 (!) languishes at the bottom of the list for Sub-based games, with just 5.6 from 143 votes.
Endless fun for all the family in the data there :P
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I think that list speaks to how worthless fan ratings are. Generally two types of people will rate a game on a site like mmorpg: fanboys or haters. Clearly more of the former than latter.
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Lord of the Rings is the best, it’s perfect game
also the others games are good games but LOR is the king :)
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Yeah, despite the fact that I love LotRO, that list is pure fanboyism run wild. I like a lot of MMORPG.com’s features, but this isn’t one of them.
For a while I kept looking at the ratings for M59 and most of the votes were “this game is old, so it gets a 1 in everything,” by people I assume never played it. Or people who were cranky that we changed something in the relaunch, or that I don’t still dedicate my life to running the game despite wanting to do things like eat and have a roof over my head. :P I figure a lot of the votes were mostly negative votes by people who wanted their favorite game to score higher on the list.
In the end, I think that list is a question of who has the most fans most motivated to mark a game up and others down. Looks like LotRO motivates people more than WoW (and quite a few other games). :)
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My top three all made it into their top-10:
DAoC, EVE, and LOTRO. And my runners up didn’t do too badly; Warhammer, GuildWars, and CoX. Even my “nostalgic” game at least made the list; Asheron’s Call and Anarchy Online.
It’s all interesting, but like others have noted – there’s not much meaning to such lists, just a bit of fun.
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I did log in to see what it took to rate a game. You have to actually “earn” points before you can provide a rating, so you cannot “rage rate” without some premeditation. You have to invest a tiny amount of effort to slam a game.
But yes, fanboi-ism at its finest. I think the LOTRO staff posts on the forums encouraging people to go vote, or at least they have in the past.
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You have to actually “earn” points before you can provide a rating, so you cannot “rage rate” without some premeditation.
Ah, that’s new since I took a look at the system a few years ago. Back then you could create a fresh account and pretty much run wild on the ratings. Looks like they’ve taken some steps to try to reduce that.
Still, giant grain of salt when looking at that list.
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