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unreasonable delay vs premature launch
osmunda
Member Posts: 1,087
One of the recurring complaints about MO has been the delays in the launch of the game. It crops up repeatedly in other thread, threatening to derail the topic. Since there hasn't been a recent thread specifically about delays recently, here is a new home for that argument.
The facts so far: The initially planned release date for MO was Summer 2009. At the time, the game was still close to the concept stage, so I personally don't find tha meaningful. When Beta was first announced, they announced that for people that preordered the physical product would be released in September and that launch was planned for Q4 2009. At least one person has interpreted the physical product being released as the anticipated launch, but at the time they specifically stated a different window, so September was not an anticipated launch. As the end of Q4 approached, the announced that development would be delayed another month, which was soon replaced by a statement that launch would be in Q1 2010. As the end of Q1 approached they again announced a delay of another month and noted that a launch date would be announced later. April has seen them announce the announcement of the April release and patch, the announced collaboration with Epic to tackle desynch and the delays from the volcano. From the most recent press release it seems that finally release is imminent and it really will be just a matter of debugging the most recent build.
Certainly, Starvault has fallen short in announcing anticipated delays, not announcing the delay intil a couple days before the end of the previously announced window. Each time, however there have been at least hints that they were unlikely to meet the window (e.g. lack of announcing a more specific target date as the end of the window approached.
Despite the shortcoming in managing expectations about the release date, I think it is best to decide to delay the game if it is not ready, even if that decision comes right before the anticipated release. Darkfall would be in much better shape today if the chaos that was it's launch was instead the beginning of open beta and the actual launch went as smoothly as the launch of the NA server.
P.S. Slapshot: the counterchallenge was a bit too specific ( Sure.. as soon as you can show me 3 other MMOs that charged a non-refundable fee and hadn't delivered a product after 10 months of the charge) so here are some contenders that meet parts of the criteria you set.
Games that had prepurchase more than 3 months before launch: Heroes of Newerth (9 months), Love (5 months), Xsyon (to be determined, but at least 3 months
Games that were available for purchase but never launched: Gods & Heroes
Games that were launched in such an unfinished state that ther was no game in 10 months ( the flip side of taking preorders to stay in development) : Mourning, Fury, Cities XL, Seed, Auto assault.
Games that had less than one month delay from the initial announced release date: ?
Comments
So I take it that you couldnt find ANY games that had charged a customer (with no refunds!) 10 months earlier and hadn't delivered a product. OK
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Very few would argue that the longer a game is in development the better (well except for DNF). The issue here is that the company got people to purchase the game based on unreasonable projected release dates AND stating that the only way to guarantee the ability to play on day one was to pre-order.
I would have ZERO issues with their delays if they simply offered those people who bought the game almost a whole year ago a refund. Instead they deny refunds but keep moving the carrot.. one month at a time.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
In the case of MO its a bit different. SV stated from the beggining that they will delay the game as much as possible, and that funds from preorder is exactly to finish the game. If they manage to delay the game even one more year it will be great as it will mean better release. In short words preorder is to support MO developement. Without such system smiliar game will never see successful release.
Where themepark games try to hide that they are copying WOW, games like Mortal Online and Darkfall make no attempt to hide their inspiration
______\m/_____
LordOfDarkDesire
The only reason I disagree is because whether it's considered released or not those who pre-ordered can play.. What difference does it make that's it's not considered launched? Anyone can play it right now for free, when it is launched people will have to pay to play it, which makes perfect sense to me as it stands, as they don't want to charge when there's glaring problems like they have right now.
As for refunds I don't think they are entitled to one, as they paid for early access, they got that, meaning they got what they paid for.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
And they deliver the preorder collector with this tremendos quality and content...very professional
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3tVXpLyMx8
Sorry, but when I pre-ordered the game I didn't agree to allow them to unilaterally decide to convert my purchase into an open-ended loan. What you are describing above would mean they decided (on their own) to take and keep my money for 2 years before delivering the promised product. What's your limit? 2020? If they delay it for 10 years it might be playable on the new holographic displays!
Sorry... YOU may have donated money to the cause of software development. I simply bought (or thought I did) a game.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
LOL totaly agree
Been covered before (multiple time). No one paid for early access. They paid for a GAME. The developers have repeatedly stated that no one paid for beta access. Not going to look up the old quotes (believe from Mats) but you can find them on this forum or the official Mo forums if you care.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The delay is not unreasonable. They are taking the necessary time in order to get the game to a working and playable state before they release it. Would you rather they released it with major desync issues and many other bugs?? If they did, the game would fail for sure.
There is no fraud here. No deception or manipulation. They sold pre-orders for a game which also gave beta access. They always said that it could take longer than their estimate to release the game and they also said that at first it would release with only the core features implemented. The argument I keep hearing on these forums that SV has been unethical does not hold much water in my opinion...
Yeah and they can play it...
It's funny to me that people want consequence in their games, but not in life. This is a consequence of spending money prematurely. You might not always like what you pay for, that's no reason to make a return. I've bought plenty of DvD's I didn't like, I didn't expect a refund. I've bought many a single player game with the same result. I wasn't entitled to that moeny back, I got what I paid for.
I sympathize with anyone over the quality of this game, it has little. I could have told you that when they started asking for pre-orders in the way they did. Again though if you paid for it, you paid for it.. there's no reason to give it back to you.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The core feature of any RPG is character progression. On a beta server your character is continually wiped. To equate a beta version of an RPG and it's placeholder characters with the experience of building your real character is false. This is like watching the first 30 minutes of movies.. over and over again... but you never get to see the story develop.
Not even close to the real deal.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
True though the amount of time this game has been up (beta, playable for pre-orders), is longer than most would probably stick around anyway.
The fact that everything will be wiped is a downfall to pre-ordering so far away from release.
The problem with your argument is they're not pro-longing beta to screw those who pre-ordered over, they're pro-longing beta to do the opposite (please them), as they're the ones providing the feedback.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Green is the key here..... See you can't say they shouldn't get there money back because ANYONE can play for FREE right now.
If ANYONE can play for FREE then that right there specifies a urgent need for them to refund a lot of peoples money. So since anyone can play for free then no the people that pre-ordered did not get what they paid for, because playng cost 0 atm.
Now if SV wants to keep the pre-order money and use it in the form of an investment .... well then they kind of Owe people some money because they are no longer players they are investors.
Either they are paying customers that have yet to recieve what they have paid for or they are investors that have what they put in + intrest comming to them. You decide but with Anyone being able to play for FREE you can not say that the pre-order people have gotten what they paid for.
sorry for the double post but this deserved a seperate post imo.
Non f this matters anyways and here's why. After playing a game for a 6 months to a year people aren't going to pay to play what they've been playing for so long. They're already at the point where people need fresh content to keep them interested. Meaning a full blown expansion. So MO is already behind in the game by a lot. How many do you think are really going to stick around for another year or two waiting on content they haven't played for god knows how long.
If the core game isn't even finished yet and people have been playing it for this long, by any logic they should be hitting that burnout threshold if they haven't already hit it. Which means it's a no win situation lol. By the time they launch people will have already had there fill of what MO has to offer.
That's not why I think they shouldn't get their money back. I think they shouldn't be given refunds because they might actually learn a lesson. As I said to begin with, people want consequence in games but not life.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yep, that's what I meant when I said, (paraphrasing) people have probably already had their fill at this point, this beta has been a long one, especially for those who pre-ordered early on.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The delayed the game the last few times because they have a huge desync issue. I don't think they needed pre-order people to tell them this. Also.. the VAST majority of forum accounts (160k) are free beta people. There is no way more than a fraction of those people actually bought the game (as evidenced by 1 server at launch...). These people are quite happy to have the game delayed perpetually.
Anyhow.. all indications are that this is the final week or so of the beta. It's almost sink or swim time for MO and all the forum debating can be replaced by actual results.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The initial challenge was to name games that did have their launch delayed from the initial release date planned. Since most MMOs are not available for prepurchase, the counterchallenge was far more specific than the initial challenge.
Even so, I did find one that meets the conditions set ( Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising. last I checked infinite is longer than 10 months http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/9023/PreOrder-Return-Information.html) and one that falls one month short and may well stretch out another month (Heroes of Newerth) and one that I suspect will stretch out to 10 months at the rate it's going (Xsyon)
To acknowledge that I didn't find 3 as with the original challenge, I did revise it to less than one month delay.
When a company puts up a release date, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual game being finished at that date or not (unless the game is actually already finished and just waiting for the "right consumer window"). It's still an estimation. If that estimation isn't met, they have two options:
1. Delay the game. People get disappointed.
2. Release the game anyway. People get disappointed.
It happens all the time. More often than not. We feel that in all honesty it's better to let people be aware of this from start, by not giving an exact release date. At least now people can choose whether to risk it or not - instead of us cashing in now, without caring about people being disappointed in of our failure to deliver later.http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/300214-post164.html
I'm not sure that I can do any better than showing you that mats was saying the same things in June that you are being told now
__________________
Umm.. Gods and Heros was cancelled.. and as per your link.. people went and got their money back. Perhaps you missed that part of the "challenge"? Also.. pretty sure (not certain) that the pre-orders mentioned were not actually handled by Perpetual but rather the brick and mortar ones where you put down $5 and reserve your copy. As opposed to paying $75 for a game almost a year ago and still not getting it and being denied a refund.
I was actually quite dissapointed that GnH folded like that as I was enjoying the beta (at least it was a change from the standard fantasy/sci-fi). I've seen that another company has picked up the assets... but after the lapsed time and techological changes who knows if it will ever see the light of day or if it does it it will even be worthwhile.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Except most companies don't repeatedly push back the date at the last minute and only do so in roughly 30 day increments.. over.. and over again. I'm sure it's happened, but I honestly cannot recall any company delaying their game literally 2 days from launch... nor can I recall any company doing so multiple times..
Whatever though.. release is now eminant. It's time for Mortal to live or die based on it's merits.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Even thought further delays means disfranchised pre-orderers it is the right thing to do. A fact is the game needs further development beyond what's currently seen in the open beta.
Maybe we should approach this with a different view. What I mean is, a lot of feedback has been given about needed improvements and they are listening. While this doesn't address the progress one would expect, afterall they are an indie development studio and hindsight is 20-20, they are in fact listening to what people are saying,
Hopefully they come out ahead. I actually like much of what I've seen. Even in its current state I I've grown quite found to many of the game's mechanics. To think what this game could be like once they've addressed the current bugs, filled in the lore, improved settings, resolved desync, and balance the equipment a bit, this game should be awesome.
Out of everything, I think the crafting is incredible. While it's not quite as good as pre-cu SWG is it is a damned close second.
In the end, I'm not some whinny mouth breathing bitch who thinks everyone owes me something yesterday. I am just an optomisitic guy looking forward to an open ended gaming experiance.
Moral of the story - be consctructive if you want to be heard.