I will explain this without trying to say this in a politically correct manner.
The Vast amount of MMORPG consumers are FOOLS.
they buy into Hype, and cleaver marketing. They even buy into the same marketing tactics over and over.
If I was making a MMO, and ran out of money, why not over hype the MMO so I can sell Box sells so I dont drop into major debt? MMO gamers fall for this tactic multiple times in t he past. Why not again?
this is why MMOs that are unfinished get released so often because the Developers and Publishers know they can fool MMO consumers.
Every game has nay-sayers. I could necro posts saying that WoW wouldn't do well, wouldn't attract a large audience, that blizzard doesn't know how to make an mmo, etc. It is only with the games doing poorly that we look at back at those predictions and say, 'see we were right'.
We forget about the predictions we made that didn't come true.
Thing is, when a game is out for testing, its pretty much already to late to do major changes to a game. A lot of people seem to think mechanics can be changed on a whim easily. These issues are stuff needed for addressing early in production not later on. Worst off is its hard to judge since people will support stuff and quickly turn a blind eye to it. Its hard to really find what will be the player's 'joy' in several months and what they wanted so much they could hate since it wasn't what they imagined.
Seriously though in regards to devs magically changing a near finished product massively before launch... I want a dev to just give you a game and just go "Alright, change this then and you can have it before launch in a month.' I'd bet most people would still not have it changed within a year time. It takes so much time and money to do massive changes to a game.
The worst thing though is just the players. Hype is so easily garnished and when unrealistic expectations aren't made, they abandon ship and don't give it a chance. With MMO players spoiled by such a large market of today, I have a feeling World of Warcraft released today would end up actually being a relative flop, standing on par with Rift or just below, unless of course we talk about vanilla wow maybe around its final patch before BC, then it would fail.
Every game has nay-sayers. I could necro posts saying that WoW wouldn't do well, wouldn't attract a large audience, that blizzard doesn't know how to make an mmo, etc. It is only with the games doing poorly that we look at back at those predictions and say, 'see we were right'.
We forget about the predictions we made that didn't come true.
you are right.
but the manner examine the pre release of a MMO title, is by observing how much Hype a game is getting and why its getting it.
I like to scratch out the hype from the pre-release info.
whats left over is usually far closer to reality of post release.
in Reality, WoW was nothing but a Copy Paste of EQ with the removing of annoying time sinks. no reason that would blow up in the genre. (actually to this day, no other developer has taken this approach to taking on WoW as WoW did to EQ1.)
many MMO now days thrive off the hype. and I dislike the hype. I dont want to use GW2 as an example, but I posted some examples in other threads.
Comments
I will explain this without trying to say this in a politically correct manner.
The Vast amount of MMORPG consumers are FOOLS.
they buy into Hype, and cleaver marketing. They even buy into the same marketing tactics over and over.
If I was making a MMO, and ran out of money, why not over hype the MMO so I can sell Box sells so I dont drop into major debt?
MMO gamers fall for this tactic multiple times in t he past. Why not again?
this is why MMOs that are unfinished get released so often because the Developers and Publishers know they can fool MMO consumers.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Here's a simple answer.
Every game has nay-sayers. I could necro posts saying that WoW wouldn't do well, wouldn't attract a large audience, that blizzard doesn't know how to make an mmo, etc. It is only with the games doing poorly that we look at back at those predictions and say, 'see we were right'.
We forget about the predictions we made that didn't come true.
Thing is, when a game is out for testing, its pretty much already to late to do major changes to a game. A lot of people seem to think mechanics can be changed on a whim easily. These issues are stuff needed for addressing early in production not later on. Worst off is its hard to judge since people will support stuff and quickly turn a blind eye to it. Its hard to really find what will be the player's 'joy' in several months and what they wanted so much they could hate since it wasn't what they imagined.
Seriously though in regards to devs magically changing a near finished product massively before launch... I want a dev to just give you a game and just go "Alright, change this then and you can have it before launch in a month.' I'd bet most people would still not have it changed within a year time. It takes so much time and money to do massive changes to a game.
The worst thing though is just the players. Hype is so easily garnished and when unrealistic expectations aren't made, they abandon ship and don't give it a chance. With MMO players spoiled by such a large market of today, I have a feeling World of Warcraft released today would end up actually being a relative flop, standing on par with Rift or just below, unless of course we talk about vanilla wow maybe around its final patch before BC, then it would fail.
you are right.
but the manner examine the pre release of a MMO title, is by observing how much Hype a game is getting and why its getting it.
I like to scratch out the hype from the pre-release info.
whats left over is usually far closer to reality of post release.
in Reality, WoW was nothing but a Copy Paste of EQ with the removing of annoying time sinks. no reason that would blow up in the genre. (actually to this day, no other developer has taken this approach to taking on WoW as WoW did to EQ1.)
many MMO now days thrive off the hype. and I dislike the hype. I dont want to use GW2 as an example, but I posted some examples in other threads.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design