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The Champions Online 'Smooth Launch'
Czzarre
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,742
Certainly there has been a lack of 'good launches' in MMOs of late (Remember AoC?..rememeber Darkfall...ouch..the pain).
Certainly every MMO has it's share of detractors who will blast and cry foul against the game even if blatantly false. The same holds true for Fans who can smile wide in denial of even the most atrocious problem.
So, how can we (The independents) define 'Good/smooth launch' for Champions (or any other future MMO release)
Thoughts?
Comments
I'd love to know how MrblueTROLL knows this, other than by being a troll of course.
Anyone who was around for the City of Heroes launch will tell you it was perhaps the smoothest game launch anyone's seen in the genre. No doubt partially because of the 'head-start' which CO is also doing.
I'm sure it will be fine unless they screw up their patcher again or something similar.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
After experiencing the un smooth launches of AoC and WaR in the Eu im expecting this to be pretty smooth - the game has been pretty full in beta so i think they will have anything major ironed out, i get to start a few days early anyway
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Anything can be smoother compared to those launches and that isn't saying much. I don't think Champions will be anything like previous launches though.
I've been there for the launch of CoH and it was pretty smooth. On the other hand, Cryptic dropped the ball for the start of CO's open beta. So I'm not sure about this.
With AoC's launch, I was pretty sure that Funcom would learn from the mistakes they made with AO's launch. I figured that they would go out of their way to make AoC's launch as smooth as possible. That, of course, didn't happen.
I won't be playing CO at launch anyway--too many things wrong with it, in my opinion--but it would be interesting to see how the launch goes and the game develops.
Here's what I consider to be the elements of a "smooth launch"
1) No issues trying to download the client software. No long (more than 2 hours) download times either.
2) No problems signing up for a new account and entering my CC info. Don't want my CC accounts to be closed because the vendor decides to double bill me. (looking at you Aventurine)
3) No limitation on how many can sign up on launch day, (again, looking at DF) or log into the servers. (no queues on day 1 please)
4) Its OK if system lags a bit, or even crashes once or twice, but nothing ridiculous like being stuck in a looting position for 5 minutes (or even dying) because the DB servers can't keep up with the requests. (yep, talking about WOW specifically)
5) I expect some defects, but the game had better not be a bug-riddled mess that doesn't deliver the features that were promised for launch. (AOC comes to mind here)
I realize that any game might experience issues in one of these areas at launch, and that's fine, but if two or three occur, I consider it to be a failed launch.
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How so? If you've got the beta client, launch will be logging in.
Instanced everything will make this launch much, much smoother. Dynamic scaling is good.
Stop crying in my beer.
Get used to opening your launcher and getting this message: No shard found.
Map disconnects and wicked rubber-banding aside....yes, it was pretty good.
The beta leads me to believe there will be problems. The servers are auto disconnecting me tonight.
Beta is the perfect time to balance server loads in my opinion, so I'm not willing to write it off completely, the bluk of the issues i have are stress test issues and i'm participating in a stress test; however with only 2 or 3 days before launch, the sheer number of technical difficulties I've had with this game leads me to believe that they will be no means all be fixed in time. I haven't personally participated in a worse open beta for a multiplayer game.
It's going to be "one of those" in my opinion. Lags, patches and errors. I don't forsee being able to play it smoothly every day at all.
At the same time, Eve played like this for the entire time I was subbed to it and people still rave about it.
Yeah, considering this is the second superhero MMO and Cryptic released City of Heroes, if they failed to get the smoothest superhero MMO release, they would be an epic laughable fail.
"Head-start" isn't something clear though, as long as you pre-ordered from the correct retailer as not all of them offer access to the "Head-start".
@Baff If your were having these sorts of problems it may be problems with your connection or rig.
I have played through closed and open beta and the only time i have had any problems was in the event last night and that was only a little bit of lag and one CTD, i dont have the best of rigs but i run the game on max settings and with only these problems, dont get me wrong i dont think it will be the smoothest of launches but i dont think it will be the worst we have seen, but i could be proved wrong.
What Kyleran said. It's a balance of things. Nobody expects an MMO launch to be entirely problem-free, but there's a certain threshold of combination of problems that will lead people to conclude "poor launch" or "failure".
Personally, I don't think that will happen. Cryptic are a great development team imho. I remember in the days when they were in charge of CoX, patcher and updates were usually smooth; if there was a problem it was fixed within a couple of days (not to say that Paragon Studios hasn't kept up that fine tradition). The CoX engine itself, was, imho, a marvel (second only to WoW and GW in responsiveness, stability and smoothness, as far as I'm concerned), and CO's engine is a development of it, so that gives me confidence.
I'm actually pretty sure it will be a decent launch for the good ship CO
I hope so, anyway, as I wish the game well - I'll certainly be playing it.
1 day after official launch everything should work without bugs.
Man, judging from the comments a lot of people are dissapointed with this game. Lots of hate these days. I guess its gamer frustration. I can see why, after games selling themselves as exactly what you are dreaming of and then falling short. Is it the games fault for trying to fool us or is it our faults for wanting to believe it.
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CoH had one of the smoothest launches to date. Same with WAR and DAoC.