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LOTRO vs AoC launches - what can we learn from them?
Skatty2007
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 231
What can we learn from the launches of the Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan?
They are basically the same 'style' of game: Lots of well thought out quests both solo and team-based. They both have very strong IPs. They both have wonderful graphics and fantastical environments to explore.
One had a flawless launch, one had not so flawless launch.
One seems to be thriving beyond expectations, one seems to be performing well below expecations.
In hopes of giving future MMO shops a better chance of success and progressing the MMO industry, what are everyone's thoughts on what it takes to have a so called "successful" launch? Also, the outlook of an MMO in the <immediate/long term> future of an MMO that has a <wonderful/troubled> launch?
I'm not creative enough to have a signature
Comments
i'm going to jump the gun and point out the obvious
1. have a flawless launch.
aside from that make sure you deliver on your promises and try to reduce bugs (though this is quite hard).
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
What can "we" learn?
If you will allow me to rant and vent a little, I'd like to share my thoughts. Maybe in the process i'll work out some of my frustration i've been having with MMOs lately.
AoC never really had a serious chance. Was Funcom gonna suddenly release a A+++ Game? No ofcourse not. It's FUNCOM! (While i'm ranting lets talk about specs.. The box says 32 GB free space!!)
I like Turbine, and people seem to like the way they created LoTRO.. plus that free beta prolly helped a little bit too.
Turbine vs Funcom... C'mon. Ofcourse Turbine is gonna produce a better game. Unless they get bought out by EA I'd play anything Turbine releases.. I'd think long and hard before buying another PoS Funcom product.
Will we one day realize we wasted the best years of our lives on online video games? Heres a topic for you to discuss.. Is it possible that MMOs can make us dumb and unhappy after years of playing? We're not gaining any productive skills from the countless hours we spend infront of our monitors living the lives of our selected digital avatars. Could someone argue that we're not willing to take a look at ourselfs close enough to see that this is a very unhealthy habit, Causing both mental and physical atrophy. No ofcourse not.. let's just forget i said anything about that all together.
MMO's are not a 'good deal' bottom line. It takes a LOT to rationalize $14.95 a month. I asked myself.. Is Conan/LoTRO worth $180.00 + $50.00 for the first year to play? That's 230.00 bones.. for ONE game!! In the end.. what do you have to show for your money? My PC didn't cost too much more than that.. And it's not JUST the game.. there's other cost involved.. The chance you could have been doing RL stuff and met the girl of your dreams.. Or finally moved out of your moms house.. Or found a 'real job' .. i can go on and on about the consequences of fulfilling our contractual obligations to our chosen game. I would be interested to see one of thse B games lower their price to 5 dollars a month. I'd play AoC for $5 dollars a month.
Hate to go here.. but If WoW has some 11 million players playing.. Is there room for AoC or LotRO to have a couple million too??? The fools and there money theory.. How many fools are out there that are untapped? I have this theory The next big MMO will have to be on the consoles... AoC would have done better if they released on xbox360, I promise you that's the main reason i bought it.. the rumors it was gonna be released on xbox360. Finally! A chance to connect with my console buddies without having to learn how to be good at Halo or CoD.
Aoc and LOTRO are both really good games that deserve respect. I would like to honor these games right now.. They're good games. They don't hold a candle to the games we're currently subscribed to however. I'm kinda tired it's 4 in the morning.. just a thought, The most successful games.. they have different races that start in there own home towns/regions. Think the games that start all characters in same spot are doomed so to speak? Think about it for a minute. EQ, WoW, LotRo, Few others.. had starting citys for each race.. While conan had that retarded starting quest of an escaped slave.. How can you RP if everyone is a x-slave? After the quest everyone spawned in the same spot. Vanguard had the race/city thing.. but there problem was cause the game ran like shit. I dunno.. i might be on to something.
Why do I get the hunch these corporations are playing us like fools... If you take offense to this post.. I apologize upfront and Perhaps it's a defense mechanism and you're not ready for what i'm saying.
Lesson here... We waste alot of time and energy analyzing bullshit.
If you're gonna copy WoW then copy it's seamless world design, great character models & animation work, fun to play classes and combat.
Both of these games failed on these points.
As much as many people hated AoC for their launch. AOC is now 6 months old ..the game is a lot more stable and seems to have a growing population.
The problem with WoW is that its still WOW. You canot treat Warcraft fatigue with more warcraft. Thus players will bleed out to other games ...even games like AOC which are obviously inferior
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
LOTRO had extremly little content at launch, maybe you wanted AoC to release with only Tortage and patch the rest in later? They had few buggs though, I give them that.
And the expectations for LOTRO was millions of players, not something around 250.300K as it have now.
We can learn from both games that it is a bad idea to copy as much as you can from Wow and no IP, no matter how famous will make a game a big hit.
Both games sold well at launch but lost most of it's players fast, LOTRO have gotten some back and a lot better reputation now but that is because the pre launch work was well done. However check old forums before launch, many were talking about that it was the game that would kill Wow and it is not even in the same league.
We can also learn that great graphics is not enough to make a big hit.
The MMOs need to be more fun and less like exisisting games, they need to have their own solutions, not be made so Wow players will recognise how things work.
The irony is that I thought LotR was, to this date, the most boring MMORPG I ever played. It encourages me to think that some people have a game that apepals to them.