f13.net

Not that I generally care about this kind of shit but I do feel like GW2 deserves it, I expect to see a lot of awards for the title as a best of 2012.  I was pretty bummed out about TOR being the POS it was, but GW2 has filled the void nicely.  Seeing the events / content they have come out with since launch all for no sub, GW2...MAZEL TOV!

http://www.gamespot.com/shows/best-of-2012-videos/?event=pc_winner20121217

There might be a game that would be better for the award but GW2 is certainly the MMO of the year and hopefully many concepts (dynamic events, level downscaling, wvw etc.) will be used in some form in other MMOs to come.

The Game of the Year for me personally is Crusader Kings II but I wouldn't say it's the best game if that makes any sense.

Yep, ultimately GW2 wins for me since the gameplay's just so much more fun than TSW. TSW's really strong as a "single-player-ish" game, though. Also, the buy-to-play model is my favorite by far when it comes to sub/f2p/freemium/etc models.

e: oh right, PC game of the year. Tough call between it and xcom, but I ultimately got more fun/enjoyment out of GW2, so there's that.

It's my favorite MMO this year. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say the best game this year. We've had some absolutely amazing games put out this year.

Meh. XCom is my GOTY, probably. GW2? Ugh.

Easily my GOTY.  Still playing daily, along with the wife when she can.

If xcom didn't have some los and buggy behavior I would agree it as goty, but its more frustrating than fun to me.

Crusader Kings II! Wooooo!

GW2 as GotY doesn't surprise me, but definitely not what I would pick. But congratulations, GW2. ;)

Nah, XCOM was arguable good, but ultimately a disappointment as UFO sequel.

Even though I've soured on it a bit, I'd still probably put it as GOTY. Simply, it's the most important game of the year. It is, of course, good, but the more important bit is just how influential it will end up being.

You watch: Blizzard lifts half of these innovations for WoW by next expansion.

Yeah, those Fractals level ups are darn good for distinguishing dedicated raiders and those who aren't.

I think they deserve it just for the leap forward they've given the industry, on top of being a well done game.  I'm hoping it will encourage a little more intelligent design instead of copying, and help kill the idea of subscriptions.

They have had some stumbles, but they're also learning from them, and learning quickly.  Wintersday has taken the best of the two previous events and gotten rid of the crappy bits.

I didn't play any other games this year so ..... :grin:

But I can say that I'm glad and not surprised at all, at least as a person who has been playing mmos for awhile.  This is the first one that I haven't dumped and returned to WoW without reaching max level.  I'm still having lots of fun.

The only thing I see hurting GW2 is the more and more obvious funneling to the cash shop.  Either make the game sub based or get off this pay-to-win path.  It was supposed to be cosmetic stuff we payed real cash for.

Pay to win what, exactly?  Most of the stuff in there is cosmetic or just convenience items.  As far as the gems <-> gold, I guess you could, but I could put together a full suit of exotics plus weapons in a week, which as far as I'm concerned, is end-game armor.  There's nothing you really *need*, just stuff you want or stuff that can give you a little shortcut, but there aren't going to be people who fail to "win" because they never bought gems.

Now, I will say the halloween costumes are seriously OP in costume brawl; pay-to-win some POW BAM, motherfucking anet.

Don't get me wrong, I do fine in whatever gear my toons have, doing the things I like to do.  I'm referring to loot nerfs and the outrageously priced things going up on the TP though.  It's a path, they're not completely there yet, and I hope they don't stick to it.

Most people I know just used gold to craft their Legendaries - that is , farming is shit in this game, there's nothing engaging about farming lodestones over and over, nor there is anything special with getting a precursor. You just hit the damn RNG till it spits it out.

That's a pretty terrible way of designing a Legendary IMO.
WoW does it better with examples like Warlock , Paladin mount and Hunter bow last time.

You can't farm 500 pvp or dungeon badges with gold, the first one at least is a massive grind.  You can't farm karma with gold, and it takes around a million total for a legendary, depending on how lucky or unlucky you get with clovers.  There is a massive gold grind involved with the legendaries, but you can't just buy yourself one either.

Sure you can:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/30704

You'd have to be insane to buy at that price, but it is possible!

It's shit content, gated by RNG. And padded with yet more RNG that a few can be bypassed with currency.
There's one precursor for 10G on TP - The Bard - Focus type. You tell me if anyone would craft it with the current state of lodestone prices.

Look at the Non-legendary Exotics recipe and you'll see how stupid the grind gets when it just comes to cosmetic items.

I keep trying to play Crusader Kings 2 (the demo, at least) and the tutorial makes me want to smash someone. Can't find the buttons, sometimes I'm told to do things that won't let me proceed ("Start a war! Make peace! What happens if the stupid send button doesn't light up? IT DOESN'T. Did he reject it? What just happened? WTF?").

So, as someone who never played Guild Wars at all -- 1 or 2-- what's the appeal of 2, putting it up as GOTY material? Short version, I mean.

I think it's a great single player MMO with very flexible partying system when in the outdoors area.
Lots of nice 'Public Quest' like Warhammer Online, but population shortage can be an issue while tackling these quests.
Gearing is very straightforward - there's lots of convenience in this game to accommodate the players some of them taken for granted like:
- unlocking of waypoints and instantly teleporting to previously visited points - for a fee of course. It does scale up as you level, but it's great for revisiting areas.
- access to trading post to sell stuff from anywhere in the world. You still have to return to a Trading Post vendor to collect your earnings & bids you've won etc.
- depositing of raw materials gathered into the bank with a click of a button, making it very easy to clear inventories without sorting it in banks.
- structured PVP that made everyone equal at the start - there's no level distinction in this structured pvp, but there isn't any reward except skins and some ...uh..cosmetics? Maybe there's currency reward, but it's not even worth talking about.
- A gearing process that just went statistically 'static' at level 80. You can just pull out 20 gold and buy your full set of end-game armor from the auction house. Or spend time raiding for the same item. Until they added the new dungeon and new tier gear called Ascended, that is.

GW2 doesn't rank GOTY for me, it was actually the first MMO that I struggled to level my first character in.  As in, I was going back to play SWTOR cuz I was getting bored of the whole ordeal.  The main story was bland imo... and as much as people say that the leveling was innovative, itreally wasn't any different than if I just went from PQ to PQ in Warhammer Online.

Personally I have had more fun with Borderlands 2, X-Com, Dishonored, and Far Cry 3.

Not really game of the year for me.  I got a couple of characters to around 40 then completely lost interest.  I haven't played in almost 3 months.

More like Betrayal of the Year.

It was GOTY for me - I put more time and got more enjoyment out of it than any other game I've played in the last couple of years. I'm not logging in as much lately, but that's more about commitments and time issues at this time of the year than desire to play.

I think I'm close to 300 hrs played, which for me is a CRAZY number and I'm still getting the itch to log in and play some more.

Best MMO of the last few years for me without a doubt, I can only echo the thoughts that it's innovative, important and hopefully lessons will be learned for future MMOs.
Game of the Year has to be Dishonored for me though; I found it almost flawless, although I am a bit ambiguous about the ending(s), and it put the finger on why DE:HR disappointed me somewhat (which might have had as much to do with my expectations as the game itself though).

Nowhere near GOTY for me, nor even MMO. I got more fun out of SWTOR and MoP; the constant level up-and-down-scaling meant I didn't feel like I was getting more powerful, and having the majority of your attacks unlocked very early meant I had little reason to keep leveling up. The main story was also boring (and involved way too much futzing around inside the cities so I eventually gave up), I don't like platforming, and while the PQs were nice they're only an incremental improvement from WAR and Rift. I'm also not really into PVP at all, so GW2 is just not for me.

I just started playing this.  I'm not very far in, but it doesn't feel all that interesting.  Particularly not enough to be GOTY.  It seems to play basically like every other MMO I've played. 

I have to say that Carrier command rates the highest of any game o bought this year, which frankly isn't a lot.

It's the best game (of the three) I bought this year but my interest in playing has basically dropped off a cliff.  I tried to log in for the Christmas stuff but after about half the patch downloaded I just exited out and fired up World of Tanks.  I guess I'm done with MMOs.

Game of the year seems reasonable to me. It is a game that tried something innovative and pointed out new directions, that doesn't mean it will automatically be to everyone's personal taste.

Just like there are people who love SWTOR, and all power to them, but the game was obviously flawed in what was novel and poor in what was copied making it ineligible. Likewise game of the year for an expansion would require something pretty innovative.

Couldn't agree more.  :heartbreak:

It didn't hold my attention long enough to be GOTY. Level 61 and then I shelved it because it became boring. Later on I went back, got to 80 and gave up because really, the storyline was average and while I can see how the game wanted to be innovative, it never truly felt it. No where near how I felt about the original Guild Wars when it was released.

I don't even see how that works. PR can lie to you, a game can be bad, but betrayal? ... you might need to step away from the computer for a bit if you think the game has it in for you personally.

I have to agree with this.  Good game that was worth the box cost.  Definitely produced some nice additions to the genre.  All in all, it wasn't a memorable experience for me.  A month of GW2 encouraged me to go back to WoW and SWTOR for a month each and I had more fun. 

This is how it works. I will offer a special explanation for you since you are special: It's just, like, my opinion man..

I just started playing this as well. I jumped into it without reading much. I like it far more than The Secret World or STO (the two mmos I've recently tried), and I'm not sure where it stands with relation to Rift for me yet. (I liked Rift very much; it's the mmo I think about going back to more than any other).

I like the little pockets of things I come across when I explore. The main storyline is just ok, not particularly compelling, but the little stories are neat.

As far as GOTY goes, for those who don't like it enough for that - I'm interested, which mmo would you say was GOTY?

It was PC game of the year, not MMO right? Of what I played, I'd go with Walking Dead even though there's no real game or innovation, there was excellence in writing and acting.

To me GW2 has so many great ideas, but they just never come together into something that's compelling. To me, the single player storyline isn't something I care about (The Walking Dead) nor is there huge diversity of things to do single player (Skyrim) and the multiplayer elements that I want from an MMO aren't really there (even Diablo 3 felt more social, certainly TSW did).

I'm not mad about it though. It was a disappointment. Most of life is.

Different people have different views on GOTY eligibility.

News at 11

Yeah this is the objection. There weren't many MMOs in 2012 so it winning MMO of the Year certainly wouldn't raise any eyebrows, but PC Game of the Year?

I would never have even noticed if it wasn't being discussed... I mean who cares what gamespot thinks? It looks like they don't have any categories so it's pretty pointless. MMO, action and story categories would make the judgement a bit more meaningful.