How to measure a game

ulberon

I am reading all these posts about "NDA breakers don't know jack!" and "funcom is sleazy", so I'm going to propose a fair way to measure a game besides name calling sources.

 

1) How much of the mechanics of the game have changed since the initial release of the information, and how much of it has been reported?

This one is obvious, and I think should be weighted the most.  If you propose a unique and interesting "thing" like spell weaving, and then remove it (I'm not saying they removed it, this is just an example), and then don't report this back to the public, but instead wait for them to spend $40 to discover the change, that's pretty poor.

 

2) It will be implemented later.

Again, this is a poor excuse.  Anything that will be "implemented later", as in Hero classes, which still aren't (I know, a WoW reference), shouldn't even be mentioned.  Promising the world and saying it will be implemented "soon" I think is evidence of desperation, maybe because the company is running out of money and is desperate for customers, maybe because they don't have any realistic grasp of time.

 

3) Descriptions don't match reality.

 

Normally this would be related primarily towards lore and content, but could also be applied to mechanics.  For instance, WAR offered a description of marching your army to the gates of an enemy city and then taking the city, followed quickly by looting and lolz.  The reality is that everything is instanced and the sum of the victories and losses in individual instances determines if you win or lose.  In addition, it is extremely unclear how the looting and lolz will be accomplished (instanced sucks, do they only allow you to loot it once?  Or is it like the cow level where as long as you don't kill the boss, you can re-loot forever!).

 

4) Poor logisitics

LoTR beta had the same problem AoC is having, only slightly worse.  They had the file you had to download (one massive file) that was too large for most web browsers to handle (I don't remember the reason why, but evidently at 4 or 8 gigs, the download prematurely stops, says its done when its not).  If you realize some 50,000 people need to download 4-8gigs of game over X hours, that means you need Y bandwidth, or a torrent, or something.  There is really no reason not to anticipate this.

 

5) Polish

Polish is very subjective and closely related to "Description doesn't match reality", and the reason for it not matching usually has to do with time, money, or both.  In general, if half the quests don't work, not all the skills for your character are complete, or have sounds, or have graphics....I think we have reached a point where we shouldn't have to pay for an incomplete product (it's not 1990 anymore).

 

FLAME ON!

-ulberon

ulberon

I should add, right now, AoC is failing the logistics test.  The rest we'll have to wait for NDA to raise.

Braavosi

If the game is fun to play. Most MMO's today put me to sleep ZZzzZzZzZzzzzzzzzz