In the last weeks of December 2001, you had the opportunity to vote for the best RPGs released in 2001. Nobody knows better what these are then you the player and as such The RPGDot 2001 Awards will look good on any game receiving one.
We thank all those who entered their votes and helped us in making it possible to select the best games.

Best Online RPG
Nothing better than to spend your time playing online games from time to time. These games tend to be real time eaters, when you're trying to level up your character as fast as possible or when you're just enjoying the scenery and teh community that always exist in online games. But not all of them are good....but here are some that are.

The winner: Everquest: Shadows of Luclin
Shadows of Luclin is the 3rd expansion of Everquest. The game now requires DirectX8.1 and the graphics have alot of 3D eyecandy to show for it.
Creatures and players can make facial expressions. Worn equipment is seen distinctly as body pieces. Most of the adventures zones in the old world have been given a terrain texture upgrade. There are 25 new adventure zones for all levels one thru sixty. Walking through the zones you will find a variety of colorful landscapes and dungeons.

Graphics werent the only enhancment. A new race, the Vah Shir (cat people) was added. A new class, the beastlord now exists. Horses were added to the game. The ability to grab a free teleport (from Luclin) to 4 of the 5 continents is a new feature.

For the level 51 thru 60 players, 100+ new class abilities (skills) were added. These skills are varied and take time to gain enough experience to advance. This effectively extends gameplay for people who are already the max level of 60.

The downside is that Everquest now has beefy memory requirements if you want to view all the new racial character models. Fortunately you can configure game options for what Gender/Race PC model you want to see, facial animations on or off, etc

Verant has been producing an Everquest expansion every year.
With the new support for DirectX8.1 and XML, the Everquest World is more dynamic than ever

(Nadia)

Runner Up: Dark Age of Camelot
This game had the only successful launch of a MMORPG in 2001. With any luck it will prove to have started a trend, not bucked one. The game came as a welcome release to many online game players, who have endured some shocking game releases. It should be noted that DAOC offers little new or innovative features. It can (and has) been summed up as "Everquest, with less of the bits that suck."

The designers have tried to make the world more apparent by dividing players into one of three opposing ‘realms’ and making communication between those realms impossible. The realms are at constant war, and players may participate in the PvP aspect of the game, once they reach a certain character level.

It is not unfair to say that DAOC will be remembered more for its stable launch than its innovative gameplay, though it is likely to still be around at the end of this year, the other MMOGs launched in 2001 will be lucky to last that long.

(Chaerea)

Second Runner Up: Ultima Online: Third Dawn
Without doubt Ultima Online is a great game. But it has been plagued with bugs in the past and the third dawn had it's share of bugs also after it's release (...and some severe lag...). Although graphic enhancements were made, compared to Everquest the graphics are a bit dated. But that doesn't influence the gameplay. Ultima Online is still a great game to play with lots of freedom and atmosphere.

Now with it's added 3D textures to the 2D world, it looks better than before and the skill based system of Ultima Online should give every roleplayer what he or she wants.

(Nadia)

The Numbers

To make it complete we now give you the top 10 as voted by our visitors:

1.	Everquest: Shadows of Luclin	30%
2.	Dark Age of Camelot	29%
3.	Ultima Online: The Third Dawn	5%
4.	Anarchy Online	4%
5.	Asherons Call: Dark Majesty	3%
6.	Legends of Might and Magic	1%
7.	Lineage: The Bloddpledge	1%
8.	Redmoon	0.5%
9.	Fighting Legends	0.1%
10.	Lorgraine - The Black Standard	0.1%

And 28% of those who participated were unable to select one of the games.

We, the RPGDot team also voted to create our own top 3:

Not a lot of differences here, beyond second place the percentages seem to get a bit small. Yet Ultima Online seems to be the best of the rest and at RPGDot it's Lineage.

Note that percentages are rounded to the nearest number.