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The more times a game is delayed, the better?!!??? WTF?!??
Zaxx99
Member Posts: 1,761
Okay. I keep hearing this over and over and over... (and over). You get the idea.
"It's a GREAT thing {said game} had been delayed again, I'm glad they are taking the time to get it right, Bravo! Bravo!"
..And they totally look past the fact that perhaps this game is on its 13th delay and like three or four years past it's original release date goals.
Look, I can understand people being tired of seeing so many mmos being released and having to patch and fix so many bugs after release. What I don't understand however is how delaying any game like 15 freakin' times and totally pissing off all their loyal fan base is such a good thing. What if the game releases and still needs a lot of patches and downtime due to unexpected problems or bugs? Wouldn't that just be like the feather on the camels back to all the fans who are already furious by all the delays? Or furthermore, wouldn't it be better to go ahead and launch a year earlier and have some bugs that take two months of hard work to fix and patch then to wait another year, delaye said game three more times, and still launching with a considerable amount of unexpected bugs/problems??
I dunno. Maybe it's just me but delay after delay after delay just pisses me off more then a buggy release I think. Some of these games get delayed so many times that they constantly get called "vaporware" and all that stuff. I just think too many delays could probably be worse for your games success then actually just launching and fixing the bugs. I'm not saying that I wanna pay $50 for a totally broken game, but I'd rather pay $50 for a half broken game that gets fixed in a few months then to wait seven damn years and still pay $50 for a game that should have launched five freaking years ago.
I dunno, maybe it's just me. Maybe Asheron's Call which launched with a few bugs would have been so much better if they would have taken todays mmo approach and delayed the game until it was absolutely perfect in their eyes and it finally launched here in 2008 instead of back in 1999. (Sarcasm) ...Anyways, I think you get my point.
- Zaxx
Comments
This really is a no brainer
Delaying it enables you to enjoy a more polished enjoyable experience when playing the game, releasing it when that polish has not been completed would result in people like you, then whining about how buggy the game is
Companies who invested over $50 million in a product can't afford a bug resulting in alot of their potential subscribers from ditching the game when they first play it. It has to be as polished as can possibly be, to ensure a successful launch and thus happy customers. First impressions count for nearly everything in this world, and a bad impression can cause people NEVER to return to your product e.g Vanguard
On your point of fixing bugs on release, it would be ALOT harder fixing bugs with tons of players in the environment, and if you know anything about bug fixing, sometimes you can fix 3 bugs only to produce another alternative bug, it takes alot of reboots of servers etc, its just not practical in a live environment, hence the need for test servers
Patience is a virtue, learn it
I'm pretty sure you're right, it is just you!
Believe it or not, they are more eager than you to get your money. They run a business, not a hobby (it's us the gamers that confuse the two). The more they keep the game away from us, the more potential money they lose. The natural thing would be to give the product to the customer as soon as possible, provided the customer can accept the quality of the product provided.
Why there is a latest trend not to rush MMOs any more?
Any AAA title that plans on staying viable for more than the first couple months can't afford a bad launch any more. We, the customers, have become very unforgiving on that regard. Also the difference is that they (Game companies) noticed exactly how much unforgiving we can be.
Many a times its a marketing ploy.I wonder how the community blindly believes every word they say
I dont buy it for a moment when the management said it was decided a weekend back.They must hjave know it last year But if you announce publicly the game is going to be delayed too early people might lose interest
So its better always a few months before to say its delayed because we need to polish it further.
Its also a positve HR exercise with positive resonse from the community wow they are delaying the game coz they want to fix it ..
Had it been a normal corporation and true the shareholders would have F***d the CEO All they care is return on investments.The thread opener has a point If the game has been delayed n no of times not always it can be equated for better game in return
I would not be suprised If in April they will say product is ready just needs tweaking so 2 - 3 weeks more.
I was planning to take up AOC in March so I decided not to go for POBS coz it was only 2 months away now its May .Lets see
After the 6th or 7th delay seems like the word polish takes on a new meaning,, polish = we really don't have our sh## together like we said we did.
I really don't think you can call someone out for taking either side of this arguement...There's really a double-edge to this.
Delaying gives them time to polish and in some cases completely revamp things proven to be flawed in beta or alpha testing.
However, there is definitely a medium to be reached in this. A majority of bugs and issues won't be found by your select few developers and alpha tests. A large portion of those bugs won't be found by the more expansive beta testers. The real test for a game is when it's released and probably the biggest surge of users the game will ever see being to rip and tear at the content.
I really wouldn't want to play a game on the proposed release date if I knew they just revamped a signifigant portion of gameplay or content. I'm perfectly content waiting, but that could be because of my situation. Whole other story.
This is the reason why developers shouldent give release dates. People have a hard time to understand delays. Take Blizzard for example, everyone asked when WoW would be released......and they just answered "when its ready". I fully respect that.
Companies that delay over and over can also be companies that simply have poor organization and will never get it right.
You are making a bad assumption. That they are competent.
Delays can be sign they just need a little work and have the werewithal to deal the problems a delay will cause. Or it can mean they simply have no idea what they are doing and are bad at planning and QA.
People who expect a game on launch to be ready are the very same people who took Qbasic in college and went "screw that". They don't understand the time and effort it takes to produce a game. The enormous amount of bugs and problems that can arise are just staggering. I'm surprised anyone EVER makes MMO or gets them working simply because of the massive effort and things that need to be done in order to get the servers to run properly in sync with the game engine, let alone a customer's computer properly.
The VERY reason why we have so many shite MMO's recently is because of the mentality "release it now, fix it later, it's all good, release dates are the key to everything!"
The suits behind MMO's such as Vanguard, SWG, Gods and Heroes, blah blah blah, are what kill MMO's because they want to release when the game is not ready and is still buggy as hell. I praise the devs for pushing the game back another 2months (after I finished weeping in the corner for 3hours) to polish AoC up. After much soul searching, I'd actually wait until October for AoC if it means the best gaming experience EVER!!
Your insane for thinking otherwise
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Companies that delay over and over can also be companies that simply have poor organization and will never get it right.
You are making a bad assumption. That they are competent.
Delays can be sign they just need a little work and have the werewithal to deal the problems a delay will cause. Or it can mean they simply have no idea what they are doing and are bad at planning and QA.
Your points are null and invalid, because your saying in your reply that they are incompetent and should be given no benefit of the doubt or even a chance.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
I think most MMOs are released too early.
Who would argue that Vanguard was released when it should?
What about Roma Victor?
I haven't played a MMO on release day that shouldn't have delayed release until a few more bugs were
fixed or a little more content was added. Sure you can say that there is always more bugs to fix or more content to add, but there has to be some compromise that the developers must make.
I'm glad that WAR is being delayed as well as AOC. Contrast this to WoW's WOTLK. Blizzard hasn't set a date yet, but you know it is later than most people expected. When it's ready, is when it'll be released.
Your points are null and invalid, because your saying in your reply that they are incompetent and should be given no benefit of the doubt or even a chance.
Actually, he didn't say any such thing, and his points are absolutely valid. A delay *can* be a good thing if it's for the right reasons. However, a string of delays can indicate a problem with the company's management of resources.
I agree with some of the other posters. Release dates are the devil. If a company is willing to put up an actual date for release, they had better know that they can do it. Otherwise, they are just shooting themselves in the foot.
Roma.....wha?
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
WOTLK <====whats this?
[edit]: nvm, had coffee and looked at it again
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
There's also a lot of gamesmanship going on with the various timings.
The fantasy/leveling MMO genre has three big market events (expected) in 2008 -- respectively, the releases of AOC, WAR and WotLK. Let's assume that neither Funcom nor Mythic wants to release their game at the same as the two others (we all know what happened to EQ2 in 2004, and everyone in the industry is *keenly* aware of that asskicking and has no interest in being on the receiving end of it again) -- Blizzard probably doesn't care much, given how well TBC sold, and they assume WotLK will sell well anyway, I think. So for Funcom and Mythic, there isn't really an advantage to releasing a product substantially earlier than WotLK if it is going to be buggy-ish, because this will only highlight again the differences between Blizzard's product and everyone else's (and I think we can assume that WotLK will not be buggy, TBC was not buggy either). So, if it looks, for example, like WAR and WotLK are going to slide towards late 2008 at the earliest, there's no incentive for Funcom to release AOC now -- may as well polish it more in-house and go for a midyear or even early 3q release (saying May now, but that could slip again as we know) -- there is no downside to doing that if the two other market events haven't happened yet. Funcom's product is clearly the closest to being release ready, so they have the luxury of timing their release and deciding to focus on polish more since the market is giving them more time to play with.
ac2 was released to early now its gone:(
Better take time and dont be rushed, bring game to market done when its done, then with alot of bugs and less content.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
I think there needs to be a happy medium though. AoC is now on it's 5th delay, and it's original release was supposed to be in 2006
Sorry, that's excessive.
without an open beta tests how can they make sure the game is good
After dealing with numerous crappy launchs (e.g. Vanguard and HGL), I'd rather wait a bit for a more polished game then play a piece of crap. That being said, I agree that a dev shouldn't perpetually delay a game. There's a fine line between releasing crap and releasing a polished game years late.
All I know for sure is that the development cycle for MMOs has serious issues. Whether this is because the devs have very little business "know-how" or because they have terrible managers, I don't know. But in the end it appears the only MMO company with even an ounce of business sense is Blizzard. The rest don't appear to have a clue how to properly manage and produce their product. It's truly laughable.
The problem is not that a game is delayed.
A game should never be 'Postponed' or 'Delayed'.
The problem is that the release should not be announced until the Open Beta shows that it is really ready.
Companies should STUDY the World of Warcraft Development, PR, Beta Test, Stress Test, and Release path in order to see how it should be done.
EVERY one of the MMORPG games that has released in an unfinished state has failed. They may still be around (and many are not), but they are but shallow shells of the games they could have been.
Learn from other's successes and failures, or fail.
The choice is theirs.
Delaying game due to the game being far from unfinished is bad. I'd rather see a game being delayed for some time instead of seeing a crappy release. Constantly pushing the date later and later is not acceptable. If the game isn't finished enough to have a determined release date it shouldn't get one either.
NOW you've got me nodding my head as I read. Don't set a release date if you aren't close enough to release to set one. Certainly don't set FIVE release dates over TWO YEARS. I'm the first one to say, I want a game ready to really play, full of enough content and strong systems...as a DDO fan, we still suffer from a light content release and the word of mouth that it generated. But come on, sooner or later you have to put the excuses aside...if AoC can't manage to make any of it's 5 previous release dates, why would they even bother setting a new one???
It's absolutely amazing how people in the MMORPG community can completely forget recent history . I guess the lessons of Vanguard ("Release it NOW, we can fix it later!") weren't learned after all.
And trying to boost your argument with extremist claims doesn't help. The most recent release date announcements were for games that were not 3-4 years past their original release dates. You talk about waiting 5 or 7 years later in your post - are you talking about Darkfall? Because that's the only game that has been delayed that much and DF is an exceptional (some would say pathetic) case.
If you have been following recent MMORPG releases you'd realize that first-impressions are critical for a game. Suggesting it would only take 'two months' to fix the bugs is ridiculous, Vanguard tried to follow your idea. It's been more than two months and they're still having problems.
Maybe you'd be willing to pay developers for a half-finished piece of trash. That would only encourage them to put LESS effort into their games.
Thankfully, the vast majority the MMORPG customer base has learned not to pay developers to play their beta.
I'd say Age of Conan is getting close. 5 delays starting in 2006 stretching to May of 2008 now. I don't care how much stock people are putting in all the fantasies about this game, removing classes...removing prestige classes...AND delaying the game again...are not something to be excited about.
Close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear weapons
That's 2 years of delays, not the 5-7 years of delays the OP rants about.
I'm not trying to argue the point of your doubts regarding any particular game, I'm just saying that the OP's post tries to artficially inflate numbers to make his case.
If you've actually been waiting 7 years to see a game, then I'd agree that you need to move on. But the recent delays announced by the major titles expected in 2008 are not something that deserve the kind of reaction from the OP.
The MMORPG community has finally convinced Developers not to release half-finished, garbage games. Just because the OP is willing to throw away his money to eat complete trash doesn't mean the rest of us should follow suit.