worst launch ever?

hercules

I got to go with roma victor.It been about a month(yes i will count the pre order week since it was paid and same server) because after all this time there has been at best only a couple of days it been playable.

Rest of the time its serious memory leaks that causes you to reboot after just 5 mins even with 2gb ram,unable to log in,very frequent crashes.Basically almost unplayble most times.

I been at the launch of WoW,EQ2,UO,SWG,AC2,planetside,AO,DAoC,EvE,horizons and yeah they all had some issues with only planetside and EQ2 having an okish launch and been playable on day 1.But after a week even SWG ,AO and UO was playable to some extent even though totally bug ridden and laggy.

Still i not been at all launches so they might be some mmorpg out there with a worse launch.I hear WW2 online was just as bad but at least it has the excuse it was released in 2000 when the technology was not as great and MMO was a new thing

Beatnik59

Seed never really had the time to germinate properly, but there are a lot of players there that are willing to stick it out and be patient, because they believe in the game's post-launch potential.

Dark and Light also had a notorious launch.  The community there is pretty bitter though, and they are losing faith that Farlan can turn it around.

Solusek

despite the beliefs world of warcrafts initial launch was soooo horrible that its still taking them about two years to release their first expansion pack.

MaeEye

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Originally posted by Solusek
despite the beliefs world of warcrafts initial launch was soooo horrible that its still taking them about two years to release their first expansion pack.

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hahah, whatever!

I would have to say Everquest 2. . .but they got their shit together now though.

Solusek

EQ2 was just a crappy game, they are not talking how good a game was but how bad its launch was, WoWs launch was terrible. LAg, servers down ALOOOT. WE didnt get our first patch till 5 months after the release of WoW.

BuZZKilgore

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Originally posted by Solusek
EQ2 was just a crappy game, they are not talking how good a game was but how bad its launch was, WoWs launch was terrible. LAg, servers down ALOOOT. WE didnt get our first patch till 5 months after the release of WoW.

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Well let's just see how long until this POS called Roma Victor is patched up and fully playable, I bet it never happens.

So I vote for RV=worst launch ever, it's still in alpha state if you ask me.

Shadus

Originally posted by hercules
I got to go with roma victor.It been about a month(yes i will count the pre order week since it was paid and same server) because after all this time there has been at best only a couple of days it been playable.
Rest of the time its serious memory leaks that causes you to reboot after just 5 mins even with 2gb ram,unable to log in,very frequent crashes.Basically almost unplayble most times.
I been at the launch of WoW,EQ2,UO,SWG,AC2,planetside,AO,DAoC,EvE,horizons and yeah they all had some issues with only planetside and EQ2 having an okish launch and been playable on day 1.But after a week even SWG ,AO and UO was playable to some extent even though totally bug ridden and laggy.
Still i not been at all launches so they might be some mmorpg out there with a worse launch.I hear WW2 online was just as bad but at least it has the excuse it was released in 2000 when the technology was not as great and MMO was a new thing

If you missed Dark and Light's launch you missed a truely bad launch, i went through all the launches you metnioned plus eq1 and shadowbane... and dark and lights launch was amazing. I didn't really think it was possible to completely screw up as bad as they did.

Edit: A buddy of mine played WW2O at launch and it was pretty bad, but after watch me play D&L he said he treasured his time in WW2O :P

seabass2003

Hmm, worst launch ever would have to be the space shuttle back iin 84 or 85. I was in 5th grade and watched it live. Wow, that was so sad. We actually had counsellors come to our classroom to explain what happened.

Shadus

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Originally posted by seabass2003
Hmm, worst launch ever would have to be the space shuttle back iin 84 or 85. I was in 5th grade and watched it live. Wow, that was so sad. We actually had counsellors come to our classroom to explain what happened.

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1986, I was in... *thinks* uh... 4th grade, we saw it on the tube too. Say seabass, did you happen to play eq as keryath?

EQTarbos

yea i seen that on the tv also. I guess the myth is true about  NASA  the reasion why they named it NASA that is   
Need Another Seven Astronauts = NASA
















shrug

abbaba

D&L...no contest. More of an overall horrible game then just a bad launch.

DeletedAcct

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Originally posted by EQTarbos
yea i seen that on the tv also. I guess the myth is true about  NASA  the reasion why they named it NASA that is   
Need Another Seven Astronauts = NASA
















shrug

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Heh, or how about: How many astronauts can you fit in a Volkswagen? 2 in front, 3 in back, 7 in the ashtray.

Mouserq

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Originally posted by Beatnik59

Seed never really had the time to germinate properly

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Hehe...clever.

CleffyII

WoW had a terrible launch.  They were cursed with being "too popular" and no method in place to distribute players across servers.

DeletedAcct

Have to go with DnL. No contest.

DamonVile

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Originally posted by MaeEye

I would have to say Everquest 2. . .but they got their shit together now though.

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EQ2 had probably the best launch of any mmo ever..... I don't remember a single day in the first month that the servers crashed and the game was very lag free....it sucked ass but it had a smooth launch.

Of the games I've played I'd say wow I guess. The game wasn't buggy ( crash wise ) they just had too many people wanting to play.

holythough

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Originally posted by hercules

I got to go with roma victor.It been about a month(yes i will count the pre order week since it was paid and same server) because after all this time there has been at best only a couple of days it been playable.
Rest of the time its serious memory leaks that causes you to reboot after just 5 mins even with 2gb ram,unable to log in,very frequent crashes.Basically almost unplayble most times.
I been at the launch of WoW,EQ2,UO,SWG,AC2,planetside,AO,DAoC,EvE,horizons and yeah they all had some issues with only planetside and EQ2 having an okish launch and been playable on day 1.But after a week even SWG ,AO and UO was playable to some extent even though totally bug ridden and laggy.
Still i not been at all launches so they might be some mmorpg out there with a worse launch.I hear WW2 online was just as bad but at least it has the excuse it was released in 2000 when the technology was not as great and MMO was a new thing

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Oh you mist the worsed one Dark & Light takes the cake of worsed launch ever

just look at there current rating that says it all

Enigma

I would have to say Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

Roin

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Originally posted by Enigma
I would have to say Anarchy Online and Star Wars Galaxies.

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Out of all the MMO's i've played at launch.  I'd have to say WoW, AO, and Shadowbane.

Nadril

I'd go with wow. I don't have a first hand experience, but from what I had read in all the magazines (I read), I heard that the first few months were horrible. Tons of downtime, ect. ect.


Personaly I haven't been in a game for it's launch .  I sadly was only actualy able to get into MMORPG's "somewhat" recently (Don't think playing runescape back in the day counted), because as I'm only 17 right now, back when MMO's were coming out I didn't have the ability to pay 10-15$ a month .

kahnz

I don't remember WoW having a bad launch.  I was about to say that WoW and Asheron's Call are the only games I have played that had a decent launch.  MMORPG companies are horrible about releasing games before they are ready. SWG, AO, AC2, RFO, and DAoC were not complete games when they were first released.  The first 4 had serious technical stability/interface issues and DAoC didn't even beta test Hibernia.  They added the entire realm at the last minute.  Of course some post-retail tweaking will be neccessary in any MMORPG, but it should be absolutely minimal.

IMO indy companies are our only hope for the next great game.  I hope they will invest in getting a business manager who can create a budget that goes beyond one or two weeks into beta, and then force the developers to stick to it.

Of course, like most of the problems in the MMORPG world, we created this problem by accepting these horribly low standards.  I mean if you bought a new car that broke down before you got it off the lot, you would go demand your money back right?

Elnator

AO had the worst launch.  I'm sorry, unless you were there to experience it you just cannot comprehend what a truely BAD launch is.

EQ1's launch was bad too but that was just because Verant/SOE had NO CLUE how popular the game would be (at the time).  Servers were swamped within hours of going live.  It was pretty scary.  Fennin-Ro was the worst... a BUNCH of RP guilds had declared that Fennin would be the 'RP Server' of choice and wow did that impact it's growth... it had tripple the players of any other server before it just outright crashed under the strain.   It wasn't just the servers either.  Verant/SOE had to upgrade to an OC3 within days of launching the game... it was ugly... they ended up giving all players an extra 30 days of free play to compensate for all the server load and bandwidth issues at release. 

holythough

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Originally posted by kahnz

Of course, like most of the problems in the MMORPG world, we created this problem by accepting these horribly low standards.  I mean if you bought a new car that broke down before you got it off the lot, you would go demand your money back right?

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Wrong you just forgetting that mmorpg's are still at the beginning stages.  If you take your example you should compare it with the cars at the beginning of this age people where glad to even had something like a car it was new and if it broke you just tryed to get somebody that fixed it you wouldn't dream of asking your money back. And WoW is like the early ford a company that makes a still underdevelopt crappy thing finally avaible to the big masses. It will still take a few years until they bring mmorpgs out that work withouth flaws from the start and even longer until you get them standard with something compared to a powered steering wheel(like almost no grind). At the moment developers are just glad that they have a general concept that works well enough to make people play

Elnator

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Originally posted by holythough

Originally posted by kahnz

Of course, like most of the problems in the MMORPG world, we created this problem by accepting these horribly low standards.  I mean if you bought a new car that broke down before you got it off the lot, you would go demand your money back right?

Wrong you just forgetting that mmorpg's are still at the beginning stages.  If you take your example you should compare it with the cars at the beginning of this age people where glad to even had something like a car it was new and if it broke you just tryed to get somebody that fixed it you wouldn't dream of asking your money back. And WoW is like the early ford a company that makes a still underdevelopt crappy thing finally avaible to the big masses. It will still take a few years until they bring mmorpgs out that work withouth flaws from the start and even longer until you get them standard with something compared to a powered steering wheel(like almost no grind). At the moment developers are just glad that they have a general concept that works well enough to make people play

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Exactly how are MMO's still at the beginning stages?  NWN for AOL came out in 1992.  MPBT for GEnie came out in 1992 or 93... can't remember exactly...  M59 was out by 1995 and UO was on shelves in 1998.  EQ1 came out in 1999....

So the "Modern" "graphical" MMORPG's began over 10 years ago, were refined over 7 years ago and were polished over 5 years ago (DAOC's release was FLAWLESS).

Accepting craptacular MMORPG's out the gate with the excuse that "they're new" is total crap and anyone that denies it really needs to take a long long hard look at the industry.

holythough

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Originally posted by Elnator

Originally posted by holythough

Originally posted by kahnz

Of course, like most of the problems in the MMORPG world, we created this problem by accepting these horribly low standards.  I mean if you bought a new car that broke down before you got it off the lot, you would go demand your money back right?

Wrong you just forgetting that mmorpg's are still at the beginning stages.  If you take your example you should compare it with the cars at the beginning of this age people where glad to even had something like a car it was new and if it broke you just tryed to get somebody that fixed it you wouldn't dream of asking your money back. And WoW is like the early ford a company that makes a still underdevelopt crappy thing finally avaible to the big masses. It will still take a few years until they bring mmorpgs out that work withouth flaws from the start and even longer until you get them standard with something compared to a powered steering wheel(like almost no grind). At the moment developers are just glad that they have a general concept that works well enough to make people play

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Exactly how are MMO's still at the beginning stages?  NWN for AOL came out in 1992.  MPBT for GEnie came out in 1992 or 93... can't remember exactly...  M59 was out by 1995 and UO was on shelves in 1998.  EQ1 came out in 1999....

So the "Modern" "graphical" MMORPG's began over 10 years ago, were refined over 7 years ago and were polished over 5 years ago (DAOC's release was FLAWLESS).

Accepting craptacular MMORPG's out the gate with the excuse that "they're new" is total crap and anyone that denies it really needs to take a long long hard look at the industry.

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Your actaully making my point.

DAoC was made by a company that made games that where already pretty similar to mmoprg's so on the experienced lvl they where well prepared although the release went very smooth i played this game from released it it was far from flawless. Also if a game with as little content came to the market as DAoC was in the beginning we would find it craptacular. I remember forums filled with content cries after 2 months after release of DAoC the only reason it didn't come earlier because DAoC was at launch for todays standards a mega grinding fest to lvl up in taking peeps playing 8 hours a day well over 2/3 months to get to max lvl. They actaully have made exp spots to help peeps get there because a lot of people had problems even getting to max lvl. Horizons had more content on release then DAoC but for the none crafting community it was way too little and it got flamed alot

Most companys that start on mmorpg atm are totally new to the genre.Many of those companies just have no idea from the scope of the needed programming to make a mmorpg to a working viable and lag free worthwhile mmorpg. And because of this they make mistakes. Also because there alerady prior games like DAoC the bar of content needed from astart is become much higher. When DAoC came out the standard wasn't to high sins there where only a few mmorpg's out there and most of them where already a few years running with people playing them just dying to have some new to get there hands on. You can't expect with the higher standards that the new companies will all come out with a good game from start unless they have prior experience or have a good big company supporting them.

You see mmorpg as one thing but it are actaully a whole number of companies jumping on the bandwagon of mmorpg all by themselfs. You could blame devs not sharing there programming and learned mistakes so other companies won't make them but for obvious reason no right thinking company would do this

Elnator

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Originally posted by holythough

Originally posted by Elnator

Originally posted by holythough

Originally posted by kahnz

Of course, like most of the problems in the MMORPG world, we created this problem by accepting these horribly low standards.  I mean if you bought a new car that broke down before you got it off the lot, you would go demand your money back right?

Wrong you just forgetting that mmorpg's are still at the beginning stages.  If you take your example you should compare it with the cars at the beginning of this age people where glad to even had something like a car it was new and if it broke you just tryed to get somebody that fixed it you wouldn't dream of asking your money back. And WoW is like the early ford a company that makes a still underdevelopt crappy thing finally avaible to the big masses. It will still take a few years until they bring mmorpgs out that work withouth flaws from the start and even longer until you get them standard with something compared to a powered steering wheel(like almost no grind). At the moment developers are just glad that they have a general concept that works well enough to make people play

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Exactly how are MMO's still at the beginning stages?  NWN for AOL came out in 1992.  MPBT for GEnie came out in 1992 or 93... can't remember exactly...  M59 was out by 1995 and UO was on shelves in 1998.  EQ1 came out in 1999....

So the "Modern" "graphical" MMORPG's began over 10 years ago, were refined over 7 years ago and were polished over 5 years ago (DAOC's release was FLAWLESS).

Accepting craptacular MMORPG's out the gate with the excuse that "they're new" is total crap and anyone that denies it really needs to take a long long hard look at the industry.

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Your actaully making my point.

DAoC was made by a company that made games that where already pretty similar to mmoprg's so on the experienced lvl they where well prepared although the release went very smooth i played this game from released it it was far from flawless. Also if a game with as little content came to the market as DAoC was in the beginning we would find it craptacular. I remember forums filled with content cries after 2 months after release of DAoC the only reason it didn't come earlier because DAoC was at launch for todays standards a mega grinding fest to lvl up in taking peeps playing 8 hours a day well over 2/3 months to get to max lvl. They actaully have made exp spots to help peeps get there because a lot of people had problems even getting to max lvl. Horizons had more content on release then DAoC but for the none crafting community it was way too little and it got flamed alot

Most companys that start on mmorpg atm are totally new to the genre.Many of those companies just have no idea from the scope of the needed programming to make a mmorpg to a working viable and lag free worthwhile mmorpg. And because of this they make mistakes. Also because there alerady prior games like DAoC the bar of content needed from astart is become much higher. When DAoC came out the standard wasn't to high sins there where only a few mmorpg's out there and most of them where already a few years running with people playing them just dying to have some new to get there hands on. You can't expect with the higher standards that the new companies will all come out with a good game from start unless they have prior experience or have a good big company supporting them.

You see mmorpg as one thing but it are actaully a whole number of companies jumping on the bandwagon of mmorpg all by themselfs. You could blame devs not sharing there programming and learned mistakes so other companies won't make them but for obvious reason no right thinking company would do this

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Sorry, you're wrong again.  While the companies themselves may be new most of the people involved in the projects are long time veterans of the industry.   And even the supposedly "experienced" companies have had craptacular MMO launches and released games that lacked content.

You're telling me that companies like Blizzard (who has massive experience in the RPG genre as well as the online market) are 'new' to the environment?  They had a pretty craptacular launch and it took 5 months before they addressed a single bug at launch.

How about... oh... SOE?  They are probably the single most experienced MMORPG producer around and their launches, while they've gotten more stable, still involve games that either aren't complete (EQ2) or are heavily bug ridden (SWG).

Or oh... lets say... NCSOFT?  Lineage 2's launch wasn't all that spectacular either.  They're VETS if there ever was one.  Guild Wars, made by Arena Net, was one of the most complete games at launch in this industry... and it is constantly berated for not 'really' being an MMORPG.

It's NOT just the 'new kids' that are having issues with releasing craptacular products.


Heck... lets look no further than Turbine:  Yet another long time vet of the MMORPG industry.  AC1 was solid at release and full featured... yet AC2 was a drag out the door and we won't even discuss how bad DDO was.


Yet... CCP, a company that's never done an MMORPG (hell even a GAME) before released EVE flawlessly, addressed bug issues quickly and effectively and is using cutting edge technology in their product.

I'm sorry... there is *NO* excuse for releasing a product with bugs that were reported in very early phases of beta.  And even less excuse for not even implementing half the features you planned on.  (I can name more than a few games).  And companies WOULDNT if the CUSTOMERS would stop buying garbage just because "oh it's a new industry, it's understandable".