Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Expectations
Serelin
Member Posts: 7
Many of the posts I see about people being unhappy with the progress of this game, IMO seems to be based on the "industry standards".
I've seen alot of people yelling vaporware and the like, but you have got to realize that this company is not running as your average "Big Name" company. The companies that have hundreds of people spitting out boring games every now and then have clouded your perception. I admit there was a time when the forums became very redundant, alot of flame wars and such, but that was the responsibility of the community, not the company.
I've seen a large turn around in the conversation on the forums for TC, and we actually have real conversations, all in the spirit of furthering a game that we hope to help succeed. If you've been there and didn't like it, that is your decision (and probably due to your own impatience) but if you haven't been there I recommend at least giving it a try so you can form your own opinion.
Serelin
Comments
If The Chronicle ends up being a great game then i'm sure many people will be grateful that RR used the time they needed to release a quality game even if it meant ongoing delays. Sure, some people will lose interest the longer it takes but if the game ends up being great then i'm sure those/some of those people will be interested in trying it.
On the other hand, if the game ends up being bad then the extra time spent really wouldn't make a difference either way but just imagine how much worse it would be if they did rush it.
Granted, I'll give you the fact that a company, any company has full right to do what they want, when they want on a timeline they feel is needed.
That's fine, no arguments there, we close our eyes and hope they can push something out that has quality, innovation and is more importantly, fun!
Now, that being said they need to re-tract much of what has already been said, they need to clearly state they have little or no interest in involving the community and then they need to have a solid, well rounded plan for when they are ready to get everything out there and get everyone into the game. Very simple, direct and honest.
None of which, they have done so far.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
I think part of the problem is that their first community manager may have been spreading a lot of misinformation (perhaps unintentionally), and they've been cleaning up the mess ever since. It's unfortunate, but apparently they've learned SOMETHING from the experience. Unfortunately, what they seemed to have learned has made them very tight lipped about what's going on. I think they've already admitted that the original timetable was overly optimistic, and they seem to not be saying much of anything now that isn't carved in stone. Since it is still pre-beta, there's little that is carved in stone, so there's not a lot of info coming out, and the information that is coming out isn't being disseminated very well, mainly due to the lack of a website where official information is kept free of forum sludge. Clear statements of where they are at and what the plan from here is, with some disclaimers about what might have to change, placed somewhere out in front, would be nice.
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I agree Neschria, hopefully they will get beyond that once bitten twice shy thing. from the times that I have talked with thier community manager, he is as frustrated with the inability to put out information, as the rest of us are. Now that there has not been erroneus information being put out, the community is more relaxed about having discussions knowing that it is all speculation at this point.
I know when I first went over there to check it out I found myself upset many times because some of the things I thought were absolute in the game turned out to be speculation. However now that things have calmed down a bit it is much better.
Serelin
I personally have zero expectations for any MMORPG in development, there are 3 problems with the MMORPG Industry:
1- MMORPG Developers with money want to make homoginized, bland, and "safe" crap.
2- Developers with innovative ideas are completely broke.
3- WoW's success is misinterprated. WoW succeeded because Blizzard has a ton of fans for their Warcraft genre, it has nothing to do with the MMORPG industry's subscriber base as a whole. WoW fans were Blizzard fans first, WoW is successful because Blizzard created an environment where fans became loyal to their products. .....So basically, MMORPG developers are swimming up the wrong stream if they think copying WoW is going to net them Millions of loyal fans.
Anyway, back to the point of the post, reason number 2 makes me believe that this will be another DnL at the best or really vaporware most likely. I really wish they could build this game, I really wish they had the resources, but they don't and wont.
Well I can say I hope I'm wrong, but I almost garuntee I'm not.
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
They all say "Wow!!!" Unfortunately, they can't say much else right now because of the NDA they signed.
But it makes me feel a lot better since not ALL of the hype in coming from the company itself.
As far as having the resources, RR has been fighting off investors with a stick! They turned down contracts from EA, SoE, and a lot of other big publishers that I can't even remember. These guys are big-time without having the stereotypical big-time apathy toward thier fans.
Whilst I agree with your first and second point, there certainly seems to be a lack of investment capital for original gaming ideas, unless you have a massive name behind the developement team, I don't particularly agree with you on the third.
Without a doubt, Blizzard had a large fan base to begin with, which came from developing and releasing solid, playable and fun games. I just don't personally feel that attributes to all of WoW's success, a good name helps no doubt but had there been no substance to WoW, I think they had just as much potential to fall flat on their face as any other game.
A name is great, but it's certainly not everything. For perfect examples, you need not look any further then SWG, SOE had quite possibly the largest gaming fan base to fall back on, so why did it never reach numbers even remotely close to WoW? What about DDO? Here's a game that's been being played for what now? 20 Years ? So why it's failure now? The answers are quite simple, the games are just not solid, their not fun, the community backs away and thus the game either hits a peak and dies or just simply stops to grow.
Of course, none of this is to say that WoW is the perfect game, far from it but it took very solid gameplay and made if fun for a wide audience, that's why it is so succesfull and I'm sorry but if other development teams want to follow that mantra, I really don't think it's all that bad an idea. The trick is of course, doing it in a different way and not creating yet another clone of a clone, why play a WoW clone when you can just simply play WoW?
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Whilst I agree with your first and second point, there certainly seems to be a lack of investment capital for original gaming ideas, unless you have a massive name behind the developement team, I don't particularly agree with you on the third.
Without a doubt, Blizzard had a large fan base to begin with, which came from developing and releasing solid, playable and fun games. I just don't personally feel that attributes to all of WoW's success, a good name helps no doubt but had there been no substance to WoW, I think they had just as much potential to fall flat on their face as any other game.
A name is great, but it's certainly not everything. For perfect examples, you need not look any further then SWG, SOE had quite possibly the largest gaming fan base to fall back on, so why did it never reach numbers even remotely close to WoW? What about DDO? Here's a game that's been being played for what now? 20 Years ? So why it's failure now? The answers are quite simple, the games are just not solid, their not fun, the community backs away and thus the game either hits a peak and dies or just simply stops to grow.
Of course, none of this is to say that WoW is the perfect game, far from it but it took very solid gameplay and made if fun for a wide audience, that's why it is so succesfull and I'm sorry but if other development teams want to follow that mantra, I really don't think it's all that bad an idea. The trick is of course, doing it in a different way and not creating yet another clone of a clone, why play a WoW clone when you can just simply play WoW?
Hmmm Shae... I'll tackle #3 for ya:
The difference between WoW and SWG is simple:
WoW isn't a great game. It is simplistic, shallow, has weak graphics (they're pretty from a distance, zoom in see how poor the textures are, they low poly... ie: low cost. And low overhead. It's a GOOD game... not really better or worse than most games on the market. It's not even close to DAOC's league, however. But all that said there isn't much about wow that would drive a user away running and screaming in terror after trying it out. It's fairly easy to learn and has adequate, if not stellar, gameplay. In short... it's not great.... but it's not bad either.
Because of that WoW was able to tap into their HUGE following and draw in tons and tons and tons of players because, while it ain't a GREAT MMO it's the only thing they tried. From day 1 true MMO vets said it wasn't all that great and had a boring end game. The thing about WoW is it drew NON MMORPG players into the genre.... yeah it stole players who were tired/bored with their old titles away from a few MMORPG's but the vast majority of WoW's subscriber base is players who had never before tried an MMORPG. Thus they had nothing to compare it to. Everyone I know who had WoW as their first MMO and tried DAOC or EQ2 or a number of other titles (including Pre-CU SWG) has been like "how come WoW doesn't do this or that". Not that they necessarily liked them better (your first MMO will always hold fond memories) but they recognized immediately that WoW wasn't any better than any other MMO out there, and was worse than several.
On the flip side there is SWG:
Another title with HUGE popularity. SWG's problem was that, at release, it sucked. There wasn't much to do... no quests... nothing that would attract your typical single player gamer. Most single player gamers don't WANT a sand box... or they do... but they want content as well. SWG just didn't provide that. SWG provided a world to play in. This appeals to veteran MMORPG players a great deal... but to your typical casual gamer who likes to hop on, do a quest, hop off.... no real appeal (especially since there were almost no quests back then). There were also major bugs in the game that caused stability problems etc. Then there was the holo grind and every iteration of patches just introduced more bugs and didn't seem to fix a thing. In short: Anyone who tried SWG ran away screaming. There is the key difference. Word got out that SWG wasn't a great title. In fact the word started leaking out about SWG even as far back as Beta. Most of us who beta tested SWG said, RIGHT AWAY, that it was a HUGE mistake not to include space flight in the initial release. The single LARGEST Star Wars community that wasn't "JEDI" oriented were the Tie/Xwing players. They were left out in the cold with SWG until a full year later. Huge mistake by SOE/LEC.
So, in short: SWG failed miserably at attracting it's core audiences at release:
1) No jedi at release, so no draw for the jedi knight crowd
2) No spaceflight at release, so no draw for the X-Wing/Tie-Fighter crowd.
So SWG pulled in just people who were either interested in it as a sandbox MMORPG or people who were curiious because they liked the movies but didn't really know much about MMO's. Then the screaming began:
Bugs... bugs everywhere..... unstable servers (you'd think SOE would have at LEAST gotten that part right after the debacle of EQ1's launch).... Not much to do.
The bugs immediately pissed off the MMO Vets because to us it was immediately apparent that they were bugs that should have been dealt with during the beta. The lack of things to do pissed off the movie crowd. Thus despite tons of initial box sales SWG never hit more than 300k users. Then they had the brainchild of introducing the HOLOGRIND... THAT pissed off the roleplayers.... And the timeline officianado's....
In short:
WoW had name recognition out the wazoo and a stable, decent (but not awesome) game. Thus netted huge dividends.
SWG had name recognition out the wazoo as well but had an unstable and (to some) unfinished game. Thus paid the consequences. What proves this is that DESPITE all it's problems SWG was, at the time, the #5 MMO on the market. Despite all the problems with SWG it was in the top 8 MMORPG's until last november. And is STILL in the top 10 or so (if MMORPGCHART.COM is to be believed that it's still at 190k subs).
So #3 is correct. WoW did a better job of taking advantage of it's name recognition. SOE & LEC made a huge mistake ignoring the beta testers. We all told them that they absolutely had to get smugglers working and spaceflight in at release... they chose to ignore us, to their dismay.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
On the Original Topic (since I got side tracked by Shae's post
The reason MMOCENTER is taking so much heat over the constant delays around "The Chronicle" is because they have continually said (up till recently) that they were going to produce MMORPG's quickly and efficiently. And they've done anything BUT that. Their development has been about the same speed (actually slower than most) as any other MMORPG on the market at this point. Furthermore they insist on developing multiple titles at the same time (which is fine) but don't report anything about the state of things currently.
On top of that they held a pre-order and told people who pre-ordered that the beta was imminent and that they'd be the first to get in. Now people are PISSED (and rightly so). They paid money for a game that is now delayed after delay after delay and STILL aren't in a Beta. And evidently can't get a refund either?
I said it to the guy who first posted about MMOCENTER way way back, can't remember his name, he was an MMOCENTER rep though, even had a forum title to prove it
People flamed me for it.
Now maybe they'll look back and realize that it's never wise to put too much faith in an anouncement about any MMORPG that isn't in beta condition, at least.
Come to think of it... I got flamed for saying Mourning was vaporware way back when too.... and flamed for saying Irth wouldn't be as good as people were hoping... and flamed for saying D&L would be horrid at release... And flamed for saying AC2 would get cancelled. I recently said that if AC1 doesn't turn it around, FAST, it's going to get cancelled as well... Got flamed for that one too.
Owell I'm used to the flames. Fortunately I'm also used to being proven right (usually) in the long haul
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
El,
I agree with pretty much everything in your reply and I think it's an awfuly good point when you say that although both games (SWG and WoW) had a good following due to their brand name, WoW just managed to capatalize on it better through solid (not perfect) game mechanics.
What I don't get though is how your agreeing with the previous poster and the #3 point. Your said yourself, what WoW did was put together a solid experience and didn't make any gigantic mistakes to send people away, those players in turn brought more people to the game, thus setting the stage for WoW's success.
SWG on the other hand, did the exact opposite, IHMO SWG was primmed for massive success and I feel it could have reached much higher then 1 mill subs. But unfortunately like you said, TH and company decided us beta testers were not to be listened too, release was a disaster of epic scale and as it turns out it was all going to go down hill from there.
So after that being said, how can WoW's success be stricly attested to it's brand name being Blizzard and or WoW? I'm not sure if you were appart of WoW's beta, I was (aswell as SWG's), but I'll tell you one thing, Blizzard staff were amazing considering it's size and scope. Release was solid, if only sometimes problamatic and the game was incredibly easy to get into.
Anyways, I don't know, maybe we're agreeing here but I just can't see the sense in saying that all of WoW success is because of it's brand name, no matter how anyone slices it.
And again, I can't honestly think that if any other developers are taking's Blizzard's success and direction as an example is a bad thing? I'm not saying, let's copy WoW until it's a dead horse, but I say let's encourage those dev teams that want to produce quality games there are fun to get into and open up doors to players who may have otherwise skipped over the MMO's in general.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Wow was okay, SWG sucked........... what was the dev time on those?
You agree that WoW is okay even though it is not a great game, because it was stable at release, I think I understand the delay on MMOcenter's part. Thanks for the insight.
Serelin
Depends on what you mean by dev time. If you mean from very start to finish, SWG took a little less then 5 years from project conception to final release. I think WoW was a little less then 4 but not positive on that one.
As Elnator pointed out, RR's big mistake isn't that it's taking it's time at developing it's MMO, which is a great thign to do, but it's over selling from word "go" about it's own projects and leaving it's community in the dark has been the biggest attribute towards the critics.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
We agree "sort of".
I agree with the poster that WoW's KEY to success was it's name recognition. Without it WoW would have been "just another MMORPG". They capitolized on their name recognition by making a relatively unambitious game that was fairly solid gameplay. Thus not driving folks flocking to the game away with problems and boredome.
SWG failed in that regard. Huge name recognition.... bad implementation. But given any "average" MMORPG:
Name recognition is HUGE. If Warhammer is merely "average" it'll still rocket up in numbers because, like WoW, it has a huge non-MMORPG following. If "The Chronicle" is merely "Average" it'll trundle along with comparatively low subscriber numbers because it has no name recognition. People just don't know about it outside the mainstream MMORPG community (in fact most people who PLAY MMORPG's don't even really know about it.)
Name recognition is HUGE. But with a big name comes a requirement that you live up to expectations.
SWG didn't.
WoW did.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas