Red Kutai
You and I touched on this already, but I think the bit about "no true innovations" isn't being quite generous enough - the Ring System is extremely clever design, and I'm not familiar with any other MMOs that make use of something directly comparable. That's a pretty significant innovation and it's core to the game, so I'd hardly consider that nothing.
Apart from that I think you were very generous with your 'polish' score - I know I tend to score a little more harshly than most, but for a game that actually has a reputation of being unplayably buggy I think a 7 is a tad excessive. Your score for 'aesthetics' was fair, as that is one of the game's major strong points; making pretty things is something Gaia has traditionally done quite well. I can understand the temptation to give high marks in 'social', but the game's mechanics don't actually reflect that - Clans are pointless, the game doesn't really reward having 'friends', and strangers are actually encouraged to avoid each other unless they can Crew together. The game obviously has a dedicated community around it, but the game itself has only done a minimal amount of work to achieve that; most of it is by virtue of its context on Gaia... sweatdrop
The game is fairly generic which is why I said it has no true innovations. The ring system is of course very innovative but not to the extent that it makes the game innovative as a whole. You and I may disagree with that, but from people's comments about the game, the first most obvious detail is that people just plain and simply find the game boring.
rolleyes
Lolol. I do agree the polish score was perhaps too generous but I like to think that zOMG!s crippling flaws though they exist are minimal and only occur in rare cases. So I had to consider how zOMG! for the majority in this case.
razz
Okay, I'll agree that zOMG! does little to promote socializing by itself but I've also noticed that it's the case with almost all mmos. I haven't played a lot of mmos but I've yet to see one that actually promotes cooperative play in some meaningful manner apart from simply there being strength in numbers. So I had to consider how zOMG! is different from other mmos and it is unique that is has heavy ties with a virtual world like Gaia which most most mmos don't have.