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Is ANY MMO finished?
terrant
Member Posts: 1,683
Honestly, I keep hearing this, "Blah blah I'm not paying for a game that they're still working on" stuff on this forum, and it made me think. So many gripe about AoC being unfinished.
Is ANY MMORPG finished?
First off, let's look at a definition: From dictionary.com
fin·ished 
Show Spelled Pronunciation[fin-isht] –adjective
| 1. | ended or completed. |
| 2. | completed or perfected in all details, as a product: to pack and ship finished items. |
| 3. | polished to the highest degree of excellence: a dazzling and finished piece of writing. |
| 4. | highly skilled or accomplished: a finished violinist. |
| 5. | condemned, doomed, or in the process of extinction: The aristocracy was finished after the revolution. |
| 6. | (of livestock) fattened and ready for market. |
1. Is there an MMO that is completed? Ended? By definition, no MMORPG should end. The idea behind MMOs is to create a persistant, evolving world that constantly adds new challenges and adventures to the player. When an MMO ceases to add new content, it is finished. It usually loses all or most of its subs at this point. Reference UO or EQ1.
2. Completed and perfected? Name me ONE MMO right now that is perfect. That has NO bugs. That was released with NO bugs. There's not a one. They all had problems to start, and they all still have problems. Be it memory leaks, graphics glitches, imbalances in pve or pvp content, or wierd database quirks that cause data to be lost, they all have something wrong with them. Every time you fix something or add something, something else will break. It's the way of things.
3. Polished to the highest degree. OK, I grant you, some games can make this claim...from certain standpoints. Some would claim EVE meets that degree, though I would find gaping flaws in its design. Ditto for WoW, DAOC, or anything else you can name. And mostly, that comes down to opinion. I'm no more right or wrong than you are.
4. Accomplished: This one takes time. But frankly, 400k subs in a week ain't bad. It ain't WoW...but it's still nothing to shake a stick at. I'd like to see where the game is in a year.
5. I can't wait for people to hack number 5 apart. This one's gonna take time to answer. Yes it's a flawed game, but so was Vanguard, and that POS still manages to get new people. WoW does, too. Again, I'd like to see where the game is in a year, but I don't see it dying out in a hurry. It may not grow as exponentially as WoW did...but I don't want it to, either.
6. Ready for market? Eh, arguable. There's definately some things that should have been fixed (traders, anyone?) by release. BUT, I understand why companies do this. You can't blame the developers. You ahve to blame te financial backers. The people who paid money to build this game want to see their efforts rewarded, and they could NOT have been happy with the many, many delays AoC had in launching. So they pressured Funcom to release a product faster than perhaps advisable. At least FC isn't sitting here doing nothing. Some serious problems (traders, Lachesis plains freezing) have been fixed already. We can only hope there's more to come.
Anyway, what I'm saying here is yes, AoC is NOT a finished game. But by definition, no MMO really can be finished. Now, it's also not a perfect game...but I doubt any really ARE perfect, either. I think this one started decently and will continue to improve though, in time.
Comments
Honestly haven't seen such a great example of stating the bleeding obvious for a while. What a load of self-indulgent pretentious drivvel and unnecessary waffle, total waste of website space.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Come back when you can bring some actual discussion to the table.
Also, were it all obvious, tehre wouldn't be this much argument about it, neh?
Everyone knows MMOs evolve, and are constantly updated. You and your ilk don't need to keep saying that like its everyone's first day on the block.
Calm down, and realize some people have higher expectations than you. They expect things to work properly, and as advertised. You may think that is all fine and dandy when key features don't work or are missing. GREAT!!!! Don't jam your low expectations down everyone's throat by pointing out a MMO constantly receives updates. WE KNOW THAT SHERLOCK HOLMES.
I admit to a bit of smartbuttery in my post. I'm well aware of the definition people use, and in fact touched on it in that post. I'm also not asking you to accept what you don't like. I'm just annoyed by people that act like unless 100% of quests work, 100% of game features implemented at launch work the way they were supposed to, and all classes are perfectly balanced from the onset, a game is "still in beta".
That's not going to happen. By definiton, it can't. NO amount of testing is gonna find every bug, be it years in the process. And players will invariably find something the developers never intended on, or some combo of skills/items/moves that suddently shift the balance dramatically. And the developers of said game will do their best to correct it, and the cycle will go on.
And to agree with you, there are some disappointments. DX10 not implemented was an irritatant, and seige warfare not being in is also a big letdown. Mind you, there's no guild cities ready AFAIK right now capable of participating in sieges yet anyway. And despite all the powerlevelling exploits, the majority of players are still below 50 in level. One hopes by the time there ARE larger numbers of 80s with larger cities, seiges will be in. Despite your claims of fanboism, I'm well aware of what's wrong with the game, and am concerned as many of the more vitriolic posters on this board. I'm still in my 30-day trial, and still unsure if I want to give this product my hard-earned money. I just don't resort to cliched statements of 'I'm not paying for a beta". If my standards aren't as big as yours, so be it.
To turn that last bit around, is it possible YOUR standards are well above what any MMO developer is reasonably capable of right now? I'm not trying to diffuse your absolutely justified dislike of things the way they are, but perhaps you're just as polarized against the game as some people are for it. Just a thought.
No MMORPG is "finished" because companies add new content on a regular basis.
However, in AoC's case most players say the game unfinished because Funcom promised certain important aspects of the game and upon release did not have them in the game. Thus making it unfinished according to some of the upset players. So, the complete package was not delivered.
STOP WHINING!
Once again AoC is waaaay overrated
Way to make yourself look like an idiot. No, no MMO is ever finished. But at least most of them at least LAUNCH with the main features intact. The last game that didn't have their main features in at launch was Vanguard, and that STILL has a bad reputation even though its been fixed.
They promised huge sieges, they're not even in the game yet and they're limited to small groups of people.
No drunken brawling? That was promised in there too.
8 direction combat, reduced to 3/5...
Player cities not working correctly.
Bad performance.
These were the MAIN DRAWS of the game! They're not even done.
Oh yeah, I remember when they said there'd be fewer quests, but they'd have more meaning. Haha. It looks like WoW quests to me!
Darkfall Travelogues!
If one likes the game then play it. Nothing containing millions of lines of code is going to be perfect.
A finished product is one that launches with all the bells and whistles that were promised. The product runs as promised with very few interuptions. An adjustment or two may be needed to deal with unexpected problems, but the game is as advetrised, or complete.
Personaly I can't think of any MMO that has reached the lofty goal of launching Finished.
This however does not mean that the product does not grow. In my opinion that is the essence of what an MMO is, growth. To me at least, the general "I want a finished Product" complaint is based on two things;
I. games advertising A and B and only delivering B. II.advertised performance
So delivering a relatively bug free game that runs at the min rec specs, with everything promised would, in my mind would be a "Finished Game" and again I can't think of a game that can claim this accomplishment.
I have no opinion on AoC, since I don't have a computer that can run it, but most MMO's, in my opinion have "growing pains" and take a month or two to iron out.
"One word, Thundercougarfalconbird."
Thank you. This was pretty much the point of my discussion sans my usual wall of text.
Again, I'm not undermining people's right to be unhappy with a product, but I think a few take it a bit too far.
I like AoC, but this excuse doesn't work for them.
No, no MMO is finished, but some of the core of this game was just left out. The quests begin to dry up later on in the game and you're left being forced to grind out lvls. It's not fun.
The least they could do is drop in some repeater quests for xp. XP is gained through quests in this game. Grinding is more painful here then most.
WoW fanboi: "lolz 11.5 million customers, itz obviously da best"
McDonald's: over 1 billion burgers served
Now this, I'll grant you. The quest situation is pretty ugly that high up, and I can understand people being upset. According to Gaute's message they're adding content to fix that. I can only hope it will be soon.
Is Conan finished ? Well ... I mean complete to a high standard? I don't know for sure as I have not played the game HOWEVER I do feel that many posts here and on the offical forums have worrying points which seem very valid. Namely :
1. Large areas of game features promised are non existant at this time. DX10, seige combat, bar brawls
2. Glaringly obvious content is not working. Whats all this about the stats not working? And the PvP zone switch thing ? Oh dear...
Promising some of the above later is ... well... a bit naughty.
Overall, outside of AOC, I think that companies get away with what they can get away with and always look for savings, quick profit and the dwindling amount of cash to develop with. If a image problem occurs they can always try more marketing later for the company as a whole.
The biggest problem however, is the audience which will lap up a new product (and even upgrade there PC for one title). I think its this attitude which let games companies (MMO developers or something else) push the release state towards poor as opposed to trying to set the launch state higher. Launch may not be have to be uber polished but its should be somewhat refllective. From the dissent on basic things in AOC I will decide to buy (or not) until the third month after release. I am not paying for beta or any game which seems to hint at this, I have standards which may companies funcom aside do not seem achieve one month into release. If funcom have messed up AOC then 3 months is enough for me and my wallet to find out.
Hey ... plus any upgrades I do between now are usually cheaper !
Gotta love fanbois...
Yeah no MMO is "finished" but remmeber before AoC release the devs pull 75% of the content, and barly any content past level 40...This game is not even close to being out of beta... face it.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
Originally posted by Zinzan
Honestly haven't seen such a great example of stating the bleeding obvious for a while. What a load of self-indulgent pretentious drivvel and unnecessary waffle, total waste of website space.
/agree
____________________________
CASUAL CONFESSIONS - Draccan's blog
____________________________
QFT. it's not reasonable to release a BETA game with TONS of obvious bugs/exploits and content holes and EXPECT customers to pay you while you fix them.
i am not surprised they are losing tons of subscribers and have gone into panic mode as we've seen with the recent developer announcements on the main website and in the forums.
You forgot a lot of stuffs. Let's just forget about what was promised. Just focus on what are in the game.
- Character stats have no meaning. I am trying not to use the word broken. Although Funcom admitted on the official board that it's "something need checking". By this, I don't mean just a stat is bugged. The majority of character main stats (str, dex, int, wis, ...) across all classes currently contribute nothing to your character. You do realize that AoC is still being advertised as an RPG right? Character stats is a foundation of any modern RPG. If this is broken, you can throw everything else out of the window. Everything they do to adjust balance now will have to be done again once this is fixed.
- The above leads to item system also have no meaning. A sword with +str is just as good as a white sword store bought. This, in addition to the generic looking of equipment right now, killed all incentive to get new items. While someone could argue that AoC is trying to focus on "skill" instead of "item", in an RPG, "item" still play a big part in character development.
- Crafting is very buggy and not working for the most part. A lot of factors contribute to this one. Trainer NPC not available in player city, broken recipes, bugged harvesting, and oh, this one is good, un-rewarding craft results. Player city is also incomplete. You cannot level up your city therefore keep siege is impossible.
- Many feats do not work, as in do nothing. This is across the board, found on all classes, not just one particular class. This is another foundation feature of an RPG. If this have problem, everything they do now to adjust the balance will be out of whack after this is fixed. Like character stats, this is one of the core elements of the game that should be functioned when the game is released. Bugged, as in sometimes it does not work right, is ok. But flat out not functioning is not.
- Many skills also does not function like they are intended to. Most regen skills fall into this category.
- Lacking of contents, although Funcom already admitted this but let's look at it again. The amount of quests in low level zone is not enough. Yes, low level. Now, a lot of people might jump right on this but let's calmly look at the situation. From level 20 to level 40, you cannot just stay in your race area, there is simply not enough quest to do, you are forced to move to other race areas to do green or lower level quests if you don't want to grind. This will kill the re-playability because if you level one character pass 40, you basically have seen pretty much everything and do most quests in all 3 races area. After 40, the amount of contents drop sharply from where it was. After 50, the amount of contents drop exponentially.
- Bugged contents, there are many bug quests especially above level 40. There are many dungeon/instances that allow you to do the wrong things (allow you to go into area that you not suppose to go until a certain trigger, allow you to kill some key quests mobs before you can get the quest....) just to realize at the end of the dungeon that you just simply cannot proceed anymore and the whole time you invested in the dungeon was just wasted. These are logical flaws in addition to many many technical flaws like mobs disappearing ...
- Chat, communication system is very bad, very hard to use.
- Guild system is primitive, in complete. Why put the guild roster and the friend list together?
The list could go on. Mind you, most of these issues have been found in beta, Funcom knew about this, yet decided to do nothing. Contents were withhold from closed beta testers and basically, contents pass level 40 were largely untested, hence a lot of bugs pop up in release.
You can like the game, I know I do, but honestly, you think this is ready for market? Either you just too easy to please or you just plain ignorant about the state of the game.
PS: Oh, I forgot to mention, the closed beta NDA still exist. It has never been lifted.
Come back when you can bring some actual discussion to the table.
Also, were it all obvious, tehre wouldn't be this much argument about it, neh?
thats rich after your massive dictionary liaison.anyway I agree the OP is a very long chunk of waffle (didn't read all of it). no, no mmo is really complete, but then some are more complete than others. so when someone says aoc is not complete theyare saying aoc is not very complete, happy.
My blog:
MMO's are only as finished as they have to be to get you people to buy them. You guys can keep this debate going as long as you like, but let that little tid-bit soak in for a minute. Let me assure you that, were it MY development money on the line, I'd offer you as little of it as it would take to get your money.
You've all had the power to decide how well done these games are for years, and decided for yourselves to keep accepting it as it is.
WOW, more and more people with sense are starting to get on these boards. Thank you, and I hope you can teach these idiots that NO MMO IS COMPLETE AND PERFECT AT LAUNCH.
Its entirely your fault, you know. But, do go on. I'm sure you have a perfectly reasonable excuse as to why it isn't, and why nothing is wrong with that concept.
Not only many are released too early, some missed the release date and many still not finished, even after 3-4 years... hehe
Well, true.
At least AoC have dvd's in boxes that we get to take home when we buy the game.
It could be worse. We could just have gotten like a piece of paper where Njarglar Njarlgarson had written in small, scribbly letters that he *pwomised* us a dvd and a box, "somewhere in the future", and that "they were working on some awesome content", finishing with the magical exclamation of "boobies!".
So. Lucky us.
You forgot a lot of stuffs. Let's just forget about what was promised. Just focus on what are in the game.
- Character stats have no meaning. I am trying not to use the word broken. Although Funcom admitted on the official board that it's "something need checking". By this, I don't mean just a stat is bugged. The majority of character main stats (str, dex, int, wis, ...) across all classes currently contribute nothing to your character. You do realize that AoC is still being advertised as an RPG right? Character stats is a foundation of any modern RPG. If this is broken, you can throw everything else out of the window. Everything they do to adjust balance now will have to be done again once this is fixed.
- The above leads to item system also have no meaning. A sword with +str is just as good as a white sword store bought. This, in addition to the generic looking of equipment right now, killed all incentive to get new items. While someone could argue that AoC is trying to focus on "skill" instead of "item", in an RPG, "item" still play a big part in character development.
- Crafting is very buggy and not working for the most part. A lot of factors contribute to this one. Trainer NPC not available in player city, broken recipes, bugged harvesting, and oh, this one is good, un-rewarding craft results. Player city is also incomplete. You cannot level up your city therefore keep siege is impossible.
- Many feats do not work, as in do nothing. This is across the board, found on all classes, not just one particular class. This is another foundation feature of an RPG. If this have problem, everything they do now to adjust the balance will be out of whack after this is fixed. Like character stats, this is one of the core elements of the game that should be functioned when the game is released. Bugged, as in sometimes it does not work right, is ok. But flat out not functioning is not.
- Many skills also does not function like they are intended to. Most regen skills fall into this category.
- Lacking of contents, although Funcom already admitted this but let's look at it again. The amount of quests in low level zone is not enough. Yes, low level. Now, a lot of people might jump right on this but let's calmly look at the situation. From level 20 to level 40, you cannot just stay in your race area, there is simply not enough quest to do, you are forced to move to other race areas to do green or lower level quests if you don't want to grind. This will kill the re-playability because if you level one character pass 40, you basically have seen pretty much everything and do most quests in all 3 races area. After 40, the amount of contents drop sharply from where it was. After 50, the amount of contents drop exponentially.
- Bugged contents, there are many bug quests especially above level 40. There are many dungeon/instances that allow you to do the wrong things (allow you to go into area that you not suppose to go until a certain trigger, allow you to kill some key quests mobs before you can get the quest....) just to realize at the end of the dungeon that you just simply cannot proceed anymore and the whole time you invested in the dungeon was just wasted. These are logical flaws in addition to many many technical flaws like mobs disappearing ...
- Chat, communication system is very bad, very hard to use.
- Guild system is primitive, in complete. Why put the guild roster and the friend list together?
The list could go on. Mind you, most of these issues have been found in beta, Funcom knew about this, yet decided to do nothing. Contents were withhold from closed beta testers and basically, contents pass level 40 were largely untested, hence a lot of bugs pop up in release.
You can like the game, I know I do, but honestly, you think this is ready for market? Either you just too easy to please or you just plain ignorant about the state of the game.
PS: Oh, I forgot to mention, the closed beta NDA still exist. It has never been lifted.
i like how heaps of people are not even attempting to counter this guy's voluminous post.
the FC viral marketing team are hard at work today...