Game of the Year 2004 Awards: Biggest Surprise
Myrthos, 2005-02-22

The last couple of weeks you could vote for the best RPGs and MMORPGs that have been released in 2004. Not us but you the player decide who receives the RPGDot 2004 Awards in the various categories. We thank all those who entered their votes and helped us in making it possible to select the best games of 2004.

Biggest Surprise MMORPG
At times there are games that are better than expected and actually manage to surprise us.

The winner: World of Warcraft
While the hype leading up to the launch of World of Warcraft had many convinced it would be an incredible game, others were obviously not so sure. With underlying game mechanics firmly rooted in a familiar EverQuest-like formula, graphics that were clearly years behind the cutting edge and perhaps some doubt that Blizzard could pull off something as big a MMORPG, many were surprised with the result. Once in-game, those crude low-poly graphics became beautifully stylised and varied vistas of an amazing gameworld, the familiar game mechanics had been polished to a highly-accessible sheen that allowed players to solo or group with ease and despite some server issues, Blizzard showed they had what it takes to capture the market.

(Dhruin)

Runner Up: City of Heroes
City of Heroes was quickly distinguished from the others titles by bringing most of the promised features from the very start, without any annoying technical bugs to spoile the fun. Quite a big change isn't it ? Add to that a successful use of the comic's universe and that's enought reason for CoH to figure in this top.

(JRM)

Second Runner Up: Everquest 2
Despite the obvious success of EverQuest, it's a name that has also become synonymous with issues like level grind. It's with this in mind that many players may have mentally dismissed EverQuest II, only to find that Sony Online's experience has delivered a game that while familiar, is certainly among the best on offer.

(Dhruin)

The Numbers
To make it complete we now give you the top 9 as voted by our visitors:

And 12% of the voters didn't have a clue about what to select.

The team members only found one game surprising, which was World of Warcraft.

List of the awards
Awards on RPGDot:
Best graphics
Best Sound and Music
Biggest Surprise
Biggest Disappointment
Most Anticipated
Dream Game
Best Console RPG
Best Non-RPG
Best RPG

Awards on MMORPGDot:
Best graphics
Best Sound and Music
Biggest Surprise
Biggest Disappointment
Most Anticipated
Dream Game
Best Expansion MMORPG
Best MMORPG

Note that percentages are rounded to the nearest number.