It is kind of funny that as I read the blurb about Tabula Rasa, I can't help but think how much it sounds like Archeage. Discord between the various publishing aspects and the overlong PR cycle that seems to have moved into the "eh, so what?" realm. And then how many people played it and gave it up quickly.
I do not know much about the game - I am just making the observation that it sounds oddly familiar.
AA will settle into it's fan base and the same people who complained about FF, ESO, SWTOR, AA will move on to the next big game and start bitching about it.
Originally posted by VicDynamo It's funny how most agree that Tabula Rasa was doomed before it ever launched but then try to use NCSoft's closure of the game as a reason to bash the publisher.
People bash the publisher because they shafted Garriott (while he was in space) and pushed to release the game early. Nobody in the testing phases thought the game was ready, but NCSoft pushed for release anyways.
NCSoft is a shit company and their only saving grace (Guild Wars series) wasn't even made by them.
I am going to assume this article's timing has nothing to do with the impending release of Archeage. I do have a couple of thoughts on the subject.
Vanguard was indeed doomed from launch, and yet it still managed to attract a core following. I was never much of a PvEer so that title wasn't for me, but many players loved it. I still run in to guilds on recruitment threads that say they got their start in Vanguard.
As for Warhammer Online, I never get tired of reminding people who were responsible for dooming this title. Paul Barnett, Jeff Hickman, and the satanic cult...errrrr, um, game studio EA (I refuse to call it EA Mythic) were responsible for that disaster. I will never, ever touch a project that these turds are involved in. They screwed Marc Jacobs over big time.
Kickstarter and crowd funded games is a great way to bypass evil publishers that are only concerned about profit. I am a backer for several of them including Marc Jacobs's Camelot Unchained (He would want me to say City State Entertainment's Camelot Unchained, but screw that, he deserves some good publicity dammit), Star Citizen, Novus AEterno, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It's undecided how well these companies are going to be able to compete against large studio's bankrolls but it's looking good so far.
As someone who played in beta and was there at launch with a lot of friends, we ALL knew and we very vocal from day one we had no idea how the game would sustain itself. The hilarity in how poorly the game ran on a brand new expensive custom built PC when it came out was just mind boggling. Turned out to be a great game in my eyes, but it was far too late to save itself.
Agreed, the intense lag doomed Vanguard, perhaps one of the poorest optimized games of all time
E&B was around for two years before it got sundowned. Why should it be on the list? It's like saying everyone is doomed to die.
It was doomed because EA went in expecting EQ like numbers at launch. When it didn't happen they pretty much put it on cruse control to milk a bit more money out of it and shut it down. That game could have really developed a stable fan base if it was run by a company willing to grow it into something.
E&B was around for two years before it got sundowned. Why should it be on the list? It's like saying everyone is doomed to die.
It was doomed because EA went in expecting EQ like numbers at launch. When it didn't happen they pretty much put it on cruse control to milk a bit more money out of it and shut it down. That game could have really developed a stable fan base if it was run by a company willing to grow it into something.
Wildstar, it never had a chance. It started development during the WoW boom years and was designed to capitalize of WoW's success. 6 years ago, no one could have guessed that today, Blizzard and WoW would have lost half (or more) of it's player base, and there would be such a swell of "Been there. Done that. Don't want to do it again."
Well, calling it "doomed" might be a stretch, but they definitely positioned themselves to be a mMO (minor Multiplayer Online) game with decisions around art direction, subscriptions and fees, and following the gameplay model of WoW and many other existing MMOs.
omg yes. How could this NOT be on the list? This was so hyped and so looked forward to, but th emore players learned about the game, they more fear there was
The engine was terrible. The servers couldn't handle the load half the time. The quest bugs that never seemed to be fixed...such promise but suuuuch a bad beta and release...
I think FFXIV 1.0 should be the top of MMOs that were doomed to fail before launch, I remember in the Beta everyone and I mean everyone was angry on how bad it was, biggest flop ever
I never thought TR would fail,easy to say after the fact but until i played it i thought it was going to be a solid game.
Dark N Light was a game often called vaporware then when it finally was about to release it got caught in a scandal of stealing.
Here is one that might boggle everyone's mind,i actually thought Wow might fail.Obviously the MMORPG scene was still VERY small but having played FFXI then there on launch day for EQ2 i had already played what i considered 2 pretty good games.Then when Wow was released,again i was there and when i set foot in the game ,i thought "Wow" literally ,i thought it looked awful and offered NOTHING to entice me to get excited right away or to even go on.
One of the reasons as well was having played FFXI and EQ2 i played back to back games that started us in very large cities,so i saw immediate effort by the devs,in Wow they plopped me down in a field ,i thought what a lazy cheap ass developer.I also at the time never knew how big a following Blizzard had ,i always considered their games low budget so how could i know.
As mentioned FFXIV,i knew WELL before launch it was not going to be a good game,i saw how rushed and lazy the product was but i also knew it would not fail,Square Enix doesn't toss in the towel as easy as EA or SOE.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Here is one that might boggle everyone's mind,i actually thought Wow might fail.Obviously the MMORPG scene was still VERY small but having played FFXI then there on launch day for EQ2 i had already played what i considered 2 pretty good games.Then when Wow was released,again i was there and when i set foot in the game ,i thought "Wow" literally ,i thought it looked awful and offered NOTHING to entice me to get excited right away or to even go on.
I never thought any game would "fail" back then but when I first looked at wow I thought pfft that looks stupid and bought EQ2 instead. After about 2 months in eq2 and everyone I know going on about how great wow was I decided to finally give it a try. 4 years later I quit that stupid game!!
I think EQOA was doomed before launch -- not based on concept or console as a destination. Sheerly due to the hardware... if the console didn't ship with a built-in way to connect to the internet, it just wasn't meant to be. Just even having internet wasn't even a guaranteed thing back then.
Tabula Rasa, on the other hand, just wasn't fun. It was missing something fairly basic even in beta and I never quite figured out what it was. During my ~6 weeks of beta testing, I never once felt like purchasing.
Wildstar, it never had a chance. It started development during the WoW boom years and was designed to capitalize of WoW's success. 6 years ago, no one could have guessed that today, Blizzard and WoW would have lost half (or more) of it's player base, and there would be such a swell of "Been there. Done that. Don't want to do it again."
In what world did WoW have 14 million subs?
Earth, at WoW's peak of subs... granted it'll nor any MMO will ever reach that number again though since the market is way too diverse now.
Matrix Online failed for two reasons. One, it was released after two pretty badly received sequels to the original. Two, its combat system was a complete and utter failure. It was almost completely luck-based, with very little input involved.
A shame, because it did have some good ideas. Such as the dynamic story where NPCs were actually controlled by the game devs, essentially acting it out in real time and even on some occasions allowing for player assistance or intervention. A true living story, not like Arenanet's poor facsimile of one.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
Truth is the only reason WoW got to 12 million subs was its remarkable advertising campaign during Wrath of the Lich King. Vivendi spent untold millions to get personalities like Ozzy, Mr. T, and Jean Claude Van Damme to do commercial spots and the developers changed modes and targeted the 12 year old age group like many Chinese flavor of the week MMOs do.
Prior to Wrath WoW only had about 2 million Subs, up from its 100k subs in its first year. So remember kids... its all in the marketing...
Did Stargate ever make it too launch? I remember briefly playing an alpha version of that game (or some type of pre-beta) and just thinking "theres no way in hell this is gonna make it?" I was interested in the stargate lore and the idea of an MMO seemed to gather some hype for alittle awhile but as usual fizzed out.
I played the beta in both TR and MxO. Matrix Online was pretty bad, combat was just weird - I don't remember too much but remember not being very impressed (although the super jump was fun :P)
TR was another game I played in beta and I thought it was awful. Bad combat, bugs up the wazzo. I played it really wanting to like it, but just didn't see it happening. I heard it got a little cult following though before it shut down.
I enjoy undercutting people in the market place - it's the only PvP a crafter gets.
I totally disagree with the author's opinion on EQOA. At the time it came out, I didn't even own a PC that could play any MMOs although I did have several PS2s and TVs. EQOA introduced me and my family to MMOs. I also have run across other players in MMOs of today that got their start in EQOA.
Comments
AA will settle into it's fan base and the same people who complained about FF, ESO, SWTOR, AA will move on to the next big game and start bitching about it.
i think 12 million was the peak - i have seen no blizzard sources for 14 million
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/10/07/world-of-warcraft-reaches-12-million-players/
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276601/number-of-world-of-warcraft-subscribers-by-quarter/
no other sub mmo has made over 5 million anyhow
EQ2 fan sites
People bash the publisher because they shafted Garriott (while he was in space) and pushed to release the game early. Nobody in the testing phases thought the game was ready, but NCSoft pushed for release anyways.
I am going to assume this article's timing has nothing to do with the impending release of Archeage. I do have a couple of thoughts on the subject.
Vanguard was indeed doomed from launch, and yet it still managed to attract a core following. I was never much of a PvEer so that title wasn't for me, but many players loved it. I still run in to guilds on recruitment threads that say they got their start in Vanguard.
As for Warhammer Online, I never get tired of reminding people who were responsible for dooming this title. Paul Barnett, Jeff Hickman, and the satanic cult...errrrr, um, game studio EA (I refuse to call it EA Mythic) were responsible for that disaster. I will never, ever touch a project that these turds are involved in. They screwed Marc Jacobs over big time.
Kickstarter and crowd funded games is a great way to bypass evil publishers that are only concerned about profit. I am a backer for several of them including Marc Jacobs's Camelot Unchained (He would want me to say City State Entertainment's Camelot Unchained, but screw that, he deserves some good publicity dammit), Star Citizen, Novus AEterno, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It's undecided how well these companies are going to be able to compete against large studio's bankrolls but it's looking good so far.
Agreed, the intense lag doomed Vanguard, perhaps one of the poorest optimized games of all time
It was doomed because EA went in expecting EQ like numbers at launch. When it didn't happen they pretty much put it on cruse control to milk a bit more money out of it and shut it down. That game could have really developed a stable fan base if it was run by a company willing to grow it into something.
Glad you can still ply it.
Well, calling it "doomed" might be a stretch, but they definitely positioned themselves to be a mMO (minor Multiplayer Online) game with decisions around art direction, subscriptions and fees, and following the gameplay model of WoW and many other existing MMOs.
omg yes. How could this NOT be on the list? This was so hyped and so looked forward to, but th emore players learned about the game, they more fear there was
The engine was terrible. The servers couldn't handle the load half the time. The quest bugs that never seemed to be fixed...such promise but suuuuch a bad beta and release...
I never thought TR would fail,easy to say after the fact but until i played it i thought it was going to be a solid game.
Dark N Light was a game often called vaporware then when it finally was about to release it got caught in a scandal of stealing.
Here is one that might boggle everyone's mind,i actually thought Wow might fail.Obviously the MMORPG scene was still VERY small but having played FFXI then there on launch day for EQ2 i had already played what i considered 2 pretty good games.Then when Wow was released,again i was there and when i set foot in the game ,i thought "Wow" literally ,i thought it looked awful and offered NOTHING to entice me to get excited right away or to even go on.
One of the reasons as well was having played FFXI and EQ2 i played back to back games that started us in very large cities,so i saw immediate effort by the devs,in Wow they plopped me down in a field ,i thought what a lazy cheap ass developer.I also at the time never knew how big a following Blizzard had ,i always considered their games low budget so how could i know.
As mentioned FFXIV,i knew WELL before launch it was not going to be a good game,i saw how rushed and lazy the product was but i also knew it would not fail,Square Enix doesn't toss in the towel as easy as EA or SOE.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
pretty sure EQOA was mildly successful, and EQ1 would have been god awful if they ported it to PS2. Who wrote this article???
also no mention of wild star? the old republic? the elder scrolls online?
I never thought any game would "fail" back then but when I first looked at wow I thought pfft that looks stupid and bought EQ2 instead. After about 2 months in eq2 and everyone I know going on about how great wow was I decided to finally give it a try. 4 years later I quit that stupid game!!
And while it may not have done as well as SoE expected, it wasn't a flop either.
Great world + good classes + Great AA system
Ahead of its time and definitely a risk, SoE doesn't get the credit it deserves for EQOA.
I think EQOA was doomed before launch -- not based on concept or console as a destination. Sheerly due to the hardware... if the console didn't ship with a built-in way to connect to the internet, it just wasn't meant to be. Just even having internet wasn't even a guaranteed thing back then.
Tabula Rasa, on the other hand, just wasn't fun. It was missing something fairly basic even in beta and I never quite figured out what it was. During my ~6 weeks of beta testing, I never once felt like purchasing.
WoW never had 14 million subs....
Matrix Online failed for two reasons. One, it was released after two pretty badly received sequels to the original. Two, its combat system was a complete and utter failure. It was almost completely luck-based, with very little input involved.
A shame, because it did have some good ideas. Such as the dynamic story where NPCs were actually controlled by the game devs, essentially acting it out in real time and even on some occasions allowing for player assistance or intervention. A true living story, not like Arenanet's poor facsimile of one.
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
#IStandWithVic
This.
Truth is the only reason WoW got to 12 million subs was its remarkable advertising campaign during Wrath of the Lich King. Vivendi spent untold millions to get personalities like Ozzy, Mr. T, and Jean Claude Van Damme to do commercial spots and the developers changed modes and targeted the 12 year old age group like many Chinese flavor of the week MMOs do.
Prior to Wrath WoW only had about 2 million Subs, up from its 100k subs in its first year. So remember kids... its all in the marketing...
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Did Stargate ever make it too launch? I remember briefly playing an alpha version of that game (or some type of pre-beta) and just thinking "theres no way in hell this is gonna make it?" I was interested in the stargate lore and the idea of an MMO seemed to gather some hype for alittle awhile but as usual fizzed out.
I played the beta in both TR and MxO. Matrix Online was pretty bad, combat was just weird - I don't remember too much but remember not being very impressed (although the super jump was fun :P)
TR was another game I played in beta and I thought it was awful. Bad combat, bugs up the wazzo. I played it really wanting to like it, but just didn't see it happening. I heard it got a little cult following though before it shut down.
I enjoy undercutting people in the market place - it's the only PvP a crafter gets.
beyond mmo data source - i have these sources
April 2005, WOW claimed 1.5 mill
http://news.softpedia.com/news/World-of-Warcraft-1-5-million-subscribers-1549.shtml
June 2005, 2 million
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=5696#.UJEWi4aM-yo
July 2005, WOW claimed 1.5 mill in Asia contrast to 2mill US/EU
July 21, 2005 Blizzard's China Success Spawns 3.5 Million WoW Userbase
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=5989
Jan 2006, 5 million announcement -- before Burning Crusade released
http://www.totalvideogames.com/World-of-Warcraft/news/WoW-Passes-5-Million-8612.html
EQ2 fan sites