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7 weeks till launch, NDA still in effect, Open Beta still to come...hmm...
Pyrostasis
Member UncommonPosts: 2,293
Ok first off just want to say that I am strongly looking forward to AOC release, however Im a bit concerned.
We are now a week into april, leaving only 7 weeks till AOC launch, and the NDA is still up and there is no open beta yet.
NDA's are usually dropped between 4 and 8 weeks from release, and the farther out the NDA is dropped can be used to determine the confidence the devs have in their game.
For instance, wow dropped their NDA 8 weeks prior to release, while not a fan of WoW, they did have a good product and werent afraid to let the beta testers speak.
On the other hand we have Tabula Rasa which bombed once its NDA was breeched, and was cited as one of the things leading to its failure (I disagree, think bad game design led to its failure but thats another topic).
Regardless, Im concerned that Funcom hasnt released the NDA yet, and Open beta doesnt seem to be around the corner.
I dont think AoC is going to be awful, but if these two things arent taken care of in the next week or so we are most likely looking at a push back sadly... and I really hope thats not the case.
Comments
1st off open beta is normally 4 weekish before launch so well withing that time another point wow wasnt a great a launch as alot of you guys say it was,it had alot of bugs and class issue's the difference is not only has mmo's moved forward but so has the players.
I aint no AoC fanboi thats for sure,but just to throw knives at it for no reason is also not right.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
Im not throwing knives, and Im not saying these are what make a good game.
Im saying breaking the NDA early means you have confidence in your game, waiting till the last minute, means you dont, or, your pushing the game back.
I dont think WoW had a great launch, I said they had a great NDA break.
As for beta, Im just saying we are running low on time thats all.
Tbh I aint in beta,but I have been following it through alot of sites and it seems they have 2 choices,release it in may unfinished and release and repair or delay it again.
I dont know which they will do or which is best,a few years ago it would be fine to release and repair but that isnt allowed now after VG,so we will wait and see.
Alot of ppl said the best thing to happen to mmo's was VG as devs wont release unfinished games,I sort of dis-agree as now devs just wont release games!
full release teasting is also good if they have the basic code right,but now it seems every gamer wants a perfect game on release or forget it.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
If the games not finished by all means push it back, Id personally love to have a finished conan in 7 weeks, but Ill live with out it.
I just want to know if its coming or not, and Im starting to get that sick feeling in my stomach that its going to get pushed back, due to the reasons I mentioned.
Well tbh if the code is right and it just has some quest bugs naybe some class balance issue's etc etc you would be alot happier if they released now and had the "open game testing",ok this will maybe annoy alot of people on the sort term,but alot more ppl playing and reporting the bugs and problems will get them sorted quicker,though like I said that isnt allowed these days.
Sorry had to add there was alot of things said about WoW when the nda broke but the best and tbh the thing that sold WoW to the world was
"Grab your grandma and her old pc,as both can play this game"
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
NDA is never going to be taken off it is the Funcoms way so no need to expect it to be lifted and no need to make any assumptions based on it.
sorry m8 but that doesnt add to the subject,or indeed make sense.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
Well... its a rather clear assumption if you keep NDA locked till the day of release, then you have little if any confidence in your game.
If you took the NDA down 3 months before your game released you have a huge amount of confidence.
I forget what dev was talking about NDA's and release dates and such recently, but it seems to be a fairly industry wide agreed upon thing.
I can wait for AoC. I do think that even if they bump it back another month or so it will still need some work after release. What game doesn't. Expect some bugs delayed again or not. The impression I get after reading other dev chat is that no date is set in stone. Yeah that was from WAR but it has to be true if we trust the dev's to do their job and learn from the process of beta testing anywhere.
I am with you though on that sinking feeling that a delay is inevitable.
Just for a point of reference, are you aware that Funcom has never dropped the NDA for Anarchy Online? In that they never really allowed people to disclose what they were seeing in the beta.
Just because you feel that "the farther out the NDA is dropped can be used to determine the confidence the devs have in their game." Doesnt mean other people do. I'm sure you'd like to think that your point of view is universal.
Many companies believe that the beta is an unfinished product, and they dont want people running around talking about it, because people are professing knowledge about an unfinished product, and people believe that it is accurate. Is a cow representative of the finished product, a steak?
It's nice that you think those things.
Funcom seems to be cirumspect, and it could be that they are holding a dog and dont want it out, or, more likely, it's because they feel any negativity is a bad thing, because there will always be morons who believe it, and then dont come back to find out what they missed out on.
Since it's not a real open beta (I guess it depends on your definition of an open beta) Funcom can easily hold out until May 1, which I think some folks pointed to because in a video interview with Gaute, they allegedly saw Open Beta for that date. I never saw the video, but I'm sure you could go to the O-Forums and speculate to your hearts desire. In any case, that gives Funcom 14 days of semi-open beta, before people can start to DL the client for the headstart of the 17th.
Feel free to believe what you like. Dont ever let facts get in the way of a good theory!
AoC has so much hype, so much hope. they know they have alot of reputation for themselves and for MMO's in gerneral riding on this. so, a push back would be hopefull if they arent finished.
Im not attacking AoC, as I said, I want the game, and I want it to do well, I was just pointing out some facts about other MMO's and what other MMO devs have said and done.
I cant quote about half a dozen game mechanics from AoC that might not generally be new or innovative, but have essentially been copied by other games due out.
The game director said on Norweigan TV that beta will be by invite only (open beta) and that it might start around May 1st and run for 2 weeks or so. There might be a special beta weekend before this though coming up soon.
To show that they have some confidence, they should really release the NDA in 3 weeks from now MAX. The logner it takes, the less confidence.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
funcom will never release their NDA....that's the way the company has always produced their games, and why i will never preorder a game from funcom
Well tbh no press is bad press,Take me I never looked to AoC as my next mmo,but after so many many posts by avery I am quite tempted to turn my back on TCoS and follow..half joking and half serious,it is nice to see someone so passionate about there game without resorting to underhand tactics,I guess the point is you dont just need a good open beta if you have a great community to back your game
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
Yeah, I know other publishers/developers do things differently, but the facts are that Funcom just doesnt operate that way, never have, and arent likely to change now for AoC. People can talk all they want that it shows confidence, and that sort of thing, but in a way I disagree. If they dont drop NDA, and have a reasonably good launch, with a fairly fun game, people are going to come play. They'd do far better to go that route. After all, if you remember, they've said on a few occasions that the internal version is 2-3 weeks ahead of what people are testing. Eventually that's gotta come full circle, and testers will have that "closest to release version" (and I dont mean "miracle patch version).
Personally, I'd love to see 'em release more info, drop the NDA, but since Funcom doesnt have a history of it, I wont read anything in to it. Now if other companies who have dropped NDA's early suddenly decided to keep it in place this close to launch, then I'd be worried about the state of the game.
Either or, six weeks and everyone will have the answers they want, and four weeks until larger groups start trying the semi-open beta phase.
Well thats where we disagree. No argument the game if good will sell very well. Hell its the next big thing and since WAR was delayed... no competition.
However, AO had a HORRIBLE launch. Granted that was a long time ago... However, some of us still remember what that was like.
Holding tight on the NDA to me, and many others is because your afraid of what people will think. (And no matter how good your game is shutting down that NDA always makes you lose a few customers, it also helps you gain some).
Funcom's policy or not, it does look like a lack of confidence, and simply saying its company policy... well just looks bad in the world of mmo devs we have now.
However, that aside Im buying it either way... I just hate going in blind, as do lots of other folks.
History lesson:
In 2001, Funcom was on the cusp of releasing Anarchy Online. However, in the beta phase it was running right before the planned release, there were several promised features that were either missing or broken completely. The majority of the game at that time was based around a revolutionary dynamic instanced mission system.... a system that only rarely functioned properly. Most instances were bugged so they couldnt be completed, or have unintentional invisible walls that blocked movement through rooms. There were severe lag and server slowdowns, especially with more than a handful of people on screen at once.
The beta testers knew well the issues and said it wasnt ready and there were still major problems to resolve before it was release ready. Funcom went ahead and released it anyway, while maintaining an image with the non-beta customers that such features were in and functioning. They were allowed to do this thanks to their nda, which they maintained long enough to keep the game hyped for sales to come in.
Release came, and it was one of the worst releases in the history of mmos. But thanks to the nda, they accomplished enough initial sales to earn the money and keep the game afloat, and over a period of 6+ months, slowly started whittling away at all the issues until it was more release worthy. And when they had got most of the biggest issues taken care of, they started doing expansions and growing the game past its initial feature set.
Fast forward 7 years, AoC release is on the horizon. I see the same nda being held until near release. I see the same kinds of posts about the state of things. And I wonder if the same old tactics are being used here as they were back then. I think a lot of people that so faithfully defend the decision to keep the nda in place for so long were not around back in 2001.
Everyone can argue until they are blue in the face about what the future might or might not hold for AoC. But I think history has a lot to tell about why someone would think the NDA should be dropped before release. They are basing their position on proof from the past, and I can't say that I blame them.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
Where's the rewards for the veteran followers t(and yes that includees myself) that were promised. No where to be seen.
How many posts on the official forums did you have prior to august 2006? Pretty much everyone from 2005 who ranks higher than Barbarian is in I think. Join date 2005 and 2 posts doesnt = veteran. (not saying you made two posts or getting at you) Its just there are a few people out there who think if they sign up to a forum early enough without being part of the community grants them beta admission to the game.
I'm not in the beta either, but so help me god, if this game is released with even half the problems Anarchy Online had at it's release... then I'll be out of there before I even get started.
Here's to hoping for the best!
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
In 2003 I was working at Gamestop and a few of the funcom devs or marketing guys were meeting with our corp folks.
I remember talking to one of them about the launch and he said that they had 32,000 server crashes in the first 72 hours.
I remember it being bad, but not that bed. I actually kinda liked stepping out of the whompa and seeing nothing but white space and wondering what was up, then seeing a tiny spec in the distance grow incredibly fast as I realized I was falling from 70,000 feet up. I think I freaked out the first time I cratered... wasnt as much fun the next 40 or 50 times.
And that is probably one reason they don't want beta testers who are not testing the finished product talking. Because there are many people to this day who say AO is crap because they played it in beta ( and never again afterward ). If the inevitable "kiddie testers" ( the ones who try a game even in alpha and say "Don't buy it. it's buggy!" start talking all over, people will believe them and the game will suffer.