League of Legends tops Game Developers Choice Online Awards

AUSTIN, TEXAS--As the Game Developers Conference Online reached its apex Thursday night, the event's organizers held the inaugural Game Developers Choice Online Awards. Like the Choice Awards held during the flagship Game Developers Conference in February, this counterpart show was devised to let the creators of online entertainment laud each other.

While dozens of games were honored, online game creators were apparently quite taken with Riot Games' League of Legends. The free-to-play hybrid of real-time strategy and role-playing games took home five awards for the night, including the Best New Online Game category. It even won the Audience Award, narrowly edging out Wizard101 from Austin-based Kingsisle Entertainment. The only category in which League of Legends was nominated but failed to win was Best Live Game, an honor claimed by EVE Online at the expense of other high-profile competitors like World of Warcraft and Farmville.

While League of Legends dominated the awards, it had to share the spotlight with a pair of online pioneers. The first was Ultima Online, which was named as the first inductee into the GDC Online Awards Hall of Fame. Original Ultima Online developers Rich Bogel, Starr Long, and Raph Koster were on hand to mark the occasion, with each offering a few words of thanks and appreciation for all the players and developers who have touched the game over the last 14 years.

"I remember bringing my baby daughter into the office in a baby carrier to work on the game," Koster said. "She's a teenager now and doesn't want to talk to me."

Long offered specific thanks to former Electronic Arts CEO Larry Probst for signing a $100,000 grant approval on the back of a napkin to get the project started and to the player who assassinated the Lord British character during the game's beta phase, making it clear who was really in charge.

The other pioneer honored was Dr. Richard A. Bartle, who received the Online Game Legend Award. One of the original designers of the massively multiplayer online game predecessor MUD (multi-user dungeon), Bartle said he was honored, thrilled, humbled, and surprised to receive the award.

"I guess the reason I won it is because most of the other people who could've won it are on the nominating committee, and of the remaining ones, I'm closest to death," Bartle joked.

Most award categories were for games launched in beta or full versions between May 2009 and May 2010. Nominees for Best Live Game--which honors currently operating titles--had to have launched in North America at least 12 months prior to May 2009 and distinguished themselves with exceptional new content since then. Nominees in the Best Community Relations and Audience Award categories only needed to be currently operating.

Categories and Nominees (Winner in italics)

Hall of Fame inductee
Ultima Online--Electronic Arts

Online Game Legend honoree
Dr. Richard A. Bartle

Best Online Technology
Aion--NCsoft
Champions Online--Cryptic Studios
Global Agenda--Hi-Rez Studios
League of Legends--Riot Games
Love-Quel Solaar

Best Social Network Game
FIFA Superstars--Playfish
NanoStar Siege--Digital Chocolate
Nightclub City--Booyah Inc.
Social City--Playdom
Treasure Isle--Zynga

Best Online Visual Arts
GodFinger--Wonderland Software/ngmoco
Papermint--Avaloop
League of Legends--Riot Games
Star Trek Online--Cryptic Studios
Love--Quel Solaar

Best Audio for an Online Game
Aion--NCsoft
Champions Online--Cryptic Studios
Music Pets--Conduit Labs
Nightclub City--Booyah Inc.
We Rule--Newtoy/ngmoco

Best Community Relations
EVE Online--CCP
Free Realms--Sony Online Entertainment
Guild Wars--ArenaNet
Wizard101--Kingsisle Entertainment
World of Warcraft--Blizzard Entertainment

Best Online Game Design
Champions Online--Cryptic Studios
Dungeon Fighter Online--Neople/Nexon
League of Legends--Riot Games
We Rule--Newtoy/ngmoco
Zoo Kingdom--Blue Fang Games

Best Live Game
EVE Online--CCP
Dungeon Fighter Online--Neople/Nexon
Farmville--Zynga
League of Legends--Riot Games
World of Warcraft--Blizzard Entertainment

Best New Online Game
Dungeon Fighter Online--Neople/Nexon
FIFA Superstars--Playdom
League of Legends--Riot Games
Nightclub City--Booyah Inc.
We Rule--Newtoy/ngmoco

Audience Award
League of Legends--Riot Games
First runner-up: Wizard101--Kingsisle Entertainment

Where World of Warcraft Screwed up

Released in November 2004, World of Warcraft (WoW) currently has over 11.5 million subscribers raking in over $100 million a month for Activision/Blizzard. It can safely be called a success, but it is not without its failures.

At this weeks Game Developer's Conference (GDC), Blizzard lead designer Jeffrey Kaplan discussed mistakes in WoW that Blizzard is aware of.

1 Christmas Tree Effect - This is when a player shows up to a new quest hub, and his or her mini-map is lit up like a Christmas tree with new quest opportunities.

2 "Too long, didn't read" Quests - Medium envy, where writers of one medium (in this case videogame writers) envy another medium's writers. (writers of books) And I quote, “We need to stop writing fucking books in our games because there are lots of better books out there". I remember playing WoW and constantly hearing this line.

3 Mystery - Trying to give subtle hints to where the next quest begins or consists of translates into when-players-aren't-clear-on-what-to-do,-they-become-confused,-and-that-provides-for-a-bad-game experience.

4 Poorly-Paced Quest Change - A long WoW quest that is impossible to complete until the player reaches a certain level. For players below that level who are failing at that quest, frustration sets in, which leads them to lose trust in the game's design. This also leads to frustration, and a bad experience.

5 Gimmick Quests without Polish - These are quests that are more fun for the game designer than the player. Kaplan described a vehicle quest in WoW. The game's engine isn't really designed for vehicles. If it's only designed as a gimmick, it's probably not really fun for the player.

6 Bad Flow - In WoW when players are given an inordinate amount of collection quests or kill quests in a row. It gets boring and repetitive.

Kaplan has a lot of great points. I remember those low points in an otherwise perfect game. He was previously a director in WoW, but is currently working on an unannounced Blizzard MMO. People have speculated that it will be World of Starcraft. That should be interesting.

Modern Warfare 2 announced!

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has a sequel in the works. Activision announced a couple days ago at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) that due to C.o.D. 4 selling over 12 million copies worldwide, and as stated "-Modern Warfare has taken on such a life of its own...".

The first one was highly entertaining with a short campaign. Hopefully they can continue the success with the sequel.

Is OnLive the next step in Videogame Evolution?

The Game Developer's Conference (GDC), also known as E3's little brother, is releasing some very interesting videogame news stories. Rearden Studios is planning on introducing a gaming service and "microconsole", called OnLive in the near future. It is a new way to play games online without having to buy titles. It may sound alot like the vaporware Phantom console or the new Zeebo (also making a debut at the GDC), but it is much different.

OnLive will use your internet connection to allow you to "view" the game on your computer or TV while it is playing on 1 of 5 servers located at various locations across the country. Lag is reported to not be an issue and the developer's claim you only need a 1.5 Mbps connection for Standard Definition play and 5Mbps for High Definition.

The system is designed to allow players to stream on-demand games at the highest quality onto any Intel-based Mac or PC running XP or Vista, regardless of how powerful the computer. The system will also stream games directly to a TV via a small plug-in device, and players can use a custom wireless controller as well as voice-over-IP (VoIP) headsets in conjunction with it.

Deals have been made with nine publishers: EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Eidos, Codemasters, Epic, Atari, WB and 2D Boy, and, according to Perlman, it only requires minor modifications on Rearden's end to get titles to run on the service.

We may be playing videogames in a completely different way in the future.