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Sucktacular launch=death of a game?
severity3
Member Posts: 264
I have noticed something in mmorpgs. If a game launches badly, it is doomed. No amount of correction seems able to resurect a game with bad launch reviews. Vanguard for instance. By all accounts the game is VASTLY improved over launch. Eq2 also released badly but is said to have shown dramatic improvement. Yet, both of these titles languish in very modest subscription numbers.
That said.....I really really really hope AoC is polished at release. The community will hopefully be prepared for SOME bugs ...but things that are gamebreaking...even if fixed down the road will kill this game permanently.
Please guys....push it back if it isnt ready. Or better yet, get it ready by the stated time. Godspeed devs...godspeed.
Comments
thx for pointing out the obvious..dont know where i would be without you
thx for pointing out the obvious..dont know where i would be without you
and thank you mr "elite member" for your sarcastic meaningless reply. Don't know where we would be without you. I was actually hoping to spark a discussion about why gamers aren't more able to overlook a poor launch if the devs get it fixed. I know first impressions mean a lot, but it seems our community (the mmo gamers) are harsh to the point of scaring off potential releases.
thx for pointing out the obvious..dont know where i would be without you
and thank you mr "elite member" for your sarcastic meaningless reply. Don't know where we would be without you.
no problem dude...happy to help....
edited my above message to maybe go beyond the obviousness of my initial post.
Ok so bad launch = bad rep. This much is true.
Super hyped game with bad launch = well, you can probably guess. AoC and WAR need to have good launches. Although because both are so popular (both have popular IPs) I dont think they'll be quite like Vanguard if they do screw up. Especially if they get better over time! A sucktacular launch will probably kill the game at first though... only a few people will play it. Personally, if I really want to play it and have been waiting a long time to do so, I can grind my teeth and get through the bad launch
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A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
thx for pointing out the obvious..dont know where i would be without you
and thank you mr "elite member" for your sarcastic meaningless reply. Don't know where we would be without you. I was actually hoping to spark a discussion about why gamers aren't more able to overlook a poor launch if the devs get it fixed. I know first impressions mean a lot, but it seems our community (the mmo gamers) are harsh to the point of scaring off potential releases.
i think most people just think that it takes the piss that they have payed good money for a game thats they haven[t even finished properly...kinda take the piss...if you know what i mean
This isn't completley true as much as people say. Vangaurd may not be able to recover but that is only one game. EQ2 as far as I know, doesn't have WoW numbers but it's in competition with LOTRO for the number 2 spot (in the US I believe). It's not a dead game and it has a pretty good population, nothing like WoW but really not many MMO's are going to match WoW at this point. AoC and WAR might but we have to wait and see of course. Actually AoC probably won't match WoW because less kiddies will be able to play but maybe.
There is many games out there with bad launches that made it.. One of the worst launches ever was wow, and today i hear quite a few people are playing it. I have no clue why they are but the launch didn't kill the game.
It will fail if it's a bad launch for one simple reason. People do not, nor should they tolerate paying to beta test a game. The idea that they can't push back production is absurd.
Remember all those free days extra subscription time due to the vast amounts of server downtime anyone?
Well, you have to consider what a "bad launch" is. It goes beyond just not being able to log into the game the first few days.
If things really are that badly screwed up, as was the case for Vanguard, it can take more than a few months, upwards of a year or more, if ever, to just rectify that situation. No one want to pay for beta, especaily if they've been burned by it before (in my case, SWG -- i quit after about 10 weeks from launch).
Now consider that momentum for a game is probably at its maximum during launch, that's when you're most likely going to notice a decent-sized community because everyone is on top of each other. 6 months to 12 months down the road, if/when people trickle back in, I think it's just not going to be as noticeable and therfore more difficult to rope more people in. Call it the "drop in the bucket" mentality -- "I feel like I'm the only one here...." versus "wow, look at everyone I have to play with". This can be compounded by a game that focuses on directing players to progressively more difficult areas (and thus abandoning low-level zones) and endgame content. Arriving at a game 12 months in when everyone is seemingly lightyears ahead of you can have the same demoralizing affect.
I think if a game were to try and recover, there would have to be a major re-release with lots of public fanfare and incentives just to get the players to look at the game again. If the game is fixed and good, it will be worth it in the long haul. In my experience though, good ideas implemented badly typically don't get fixed and therefore there's no reason to go back.
Yeah, gamble by Funcom. One of their biggest selling points now is "Hey look we have a SET RELEASE DATE OMG YAY WOOOOO!!!!" so they're putting pressure on themselves and if they screw up at launch well it's their fault.
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A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
I was looking forward to AoC but... I've heard some things.
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USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST
I wouldn't say EQ2 numbers are langusihing. However, I will say that a poorly launched SOE product will generally suffer more and longer than others.
Dare I ask what?...
I remember WoW having connectivity and server problems, owing to the outrageous number of people trying to play. But I don't remember there being any showstoppers in the game itself. That is to say, the game was solid and fun but the network infrastructure was lacking. It's a problem easier to fix than recoding the game. (It's a problem publishers wish for!)
In any case, no game can risk a bad launch anymore. The players aren't as tolerant. No one wants to pay to beta test a game. Well, no one besides the fanbois.
your vast base of knowledge is based on 1 launch...vanguard.
Vanguards launch was much better than UO and arguably better or at least the same as WoW.
WoW is the most popular mmo of all time and UO is the longest running and is still popular.
Yes the launch is important, and im worried about it simply because I know funcom from AO, which had the worst launch ive ever seen. But, mature patient people recognize that there are always going to be unforseen problems upon the launch of a game. If the game is good, the type of people I like to game with will still be around after the problems are resolved. Other the other hand, Immature and impatient people will throw a fit and run to the boards crying foul and threatening lawsuits if the launch isnt perfect.
The bottom line is if the game is good, the game will do fine. Vanguard runs fine now, and the game is still junk. If the release was today and it went perfectly people still wouldnt flock to it because it just is not a fun game.
I remember a game where you could get stuck in crouching harvester mode after gathering from a bush. if a mob attacked you, you where doomed. Only relogging helped. Word is that today about 10 mill. people play the game
One-off bugs like that (no matter how many) which can be patched quickly don't really make for a bad launch in my opinion. Systemic, unavoidable bugs and design decisions that linger would.
Remember all those free days extra subscription time due to the vast amounts of server downtime anyone?
I remember WoW having connectivity and server problems, owing to the outrageous number of people trying to play. But I don't remember there being any showstoppers in the game itself. That is to say, the game was solid and fun but the network infrastructure was lacking. It's a problem easier to fix than recoding the game. (It's a problem publishers wish for!)
In any case, no game can risk a bad launch anymore. The players aren't as tolerant. No one wants to pay to beta test a game. Well, no one besides the fanbois.
I remember it being very frustrating at the time, but you're right there weren't any real 'showstoppers' as you call them.It didn't take them that long to solve the problems iirc.
I think it always comes down to general gameplay.
If age of conan has just as much fun combat as wow had it will win, and that counts for all parts of the game, because let's be honest wow had allot of bugs at it's release but the gameplay was just amazing.
It's that little touch that atracts the human race ^_^
Man I Really do not know what all these people are talking about with WoW having a bad launch.
I for one despise world of Warcraft now, with a passion, but It by no means had even a bad launch.
It didnt feel like a beta game at all, it didnt have any major issues with textures or anything like most games, it was all around great, the one bug I do remember which i believe some people have mentioned was the looting bug where you would stand there looting for minutes until it loaded.
That only happened to me for a couple days and they fixed it thought so im sure thats no reason to say the game had a bad launch.
-Jive
Some of the most popular games had bad launches. A smooth great launch helps tremendously, but it dose not guarantee The death or success of a game.
Conservatism.
Just old white men trying to find ways to legalize discrimination, and make the poor poorer
Yeah, I'm not really sure where all of this bad launch talk has come from with WoW either. WoW was very polished, log-in issues were very minor around launch time... I don't remember it affecting me at all, in fact.
Now, post-launch, login issues became major, but launch was for the most part smooth.
The only bad thing I remember about WoW's launch was some typical server lag for an opening week, not much to be done about that really, happens in every new game or server.
Servers might have crashed a couple times(if it did it wasn't so much that it stands out to my memory) but it wasn't an overwhelming problem... just typical new server crap.
I'd say WoW's launch was 85-90% smooth. And, arguably, the most thoroughly tested, polished game at release.
I was in WoW beta and at release. I do remember some of the issues people are citing (such as the permanant kneeling when looting bug) but I do not remember them being constant enough to be game breaking. And I remember it being addressed quickly, perhaps within a week or two?
Compared to other games the WoW release was relatively smooth. I think Ultima Online and Anarchy Online were the worst I experienced. DAoC and LOTRO were the smoothest. SWG and POTBS were somewhere in the middle.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.