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MMO Potential (an excuse for crap)
toddze
Member UncommonPosts: 2,150
I get so feed up with people these days defending garbage thats released. Why is the majority of the MMO community OK with games being released in a poor state? Is it the Immaturity level of the group of people that MMO's target? Thats what I think anyways.
The overwhelming theme for a crappy release is "It has potential", well duh everething has potential, its just the devs dont have the ability to maximize the potential. For example I have a stack of blank printer paper with a computer that has a word processor. That paper has all the potential in the world to become the number 1 selling novel on Earth. Guess what? I dont have the ability to turn these blank papers into the number 1 selling novel, thus my paper that has endless potential will never reach its potential.
Another point we all should be able to agree that MMO's are entertainment right? Well then lets look at another industry that thrives on entertainment. The movie industry. Lets take a look at the movie " The lord of the rings" Lets just say that when the first movie hit theaters it was lacking special effects In the big fight scenes. Even some major scenes were left out(for technical reasons). IF you could stomach watching that mess just imagine if the movie projector crashed and the movie attendant coming out telling you to come back tomorrow, and it should be up and running then. Would you come back tomorrow or would you demand a refund? Do you even for 1 minute think that the next 2 LOTR movies would make it out? Hell no they wouldnt. Ahh but this movie has potential, lets come back and watch it after 3 months then after 6.
The movie and MMO industry both have multi million dollar budgets yet the movie industry on whole turns out complete well done products. IMO more goes into a movie than an MMO. So why is it that MMO's get a free pass when it comes to it hitting the shelves in a piss poor state? Because the majority of the target audience does not care and will support a paid beta. If the MMO audiance cared enough about what they were getting and choose not to support crap I guarntee we would get much better MMO's because the devs know they wouldnt get away with it and their company would go under. They have no insintave to actually release a polished game because they know they can start bringing in money from a game thats not ready for release. If I was a dev I would do the same thing because sooner you can start bringing in money the better. Its better for the company but worse for the MMO players. At the current rate were going this is not going to get any better, but just worse.
Now dont get me wrong I understand a few bugs but come on theres no excuss for sever crashes, advertised features not working, and other major problems. I could write alot more but stop here for now
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Comments
The reason why it is meaningful to say that a game has a lot of potential is that many games do not. If you take the average Aeria or IGG item mall grinder and fixed all the bugs, it would still be an item mall grinder, and hence no good. The same applies to a typical WoW clone.
People who care if the game they play is any good typically wait until well after release to try a game for the first time, so as to give the company time to fix the serious problems present at launch. If you're not one of those people, then stop complaining.
Whats beta for? Is part of its function to work out the serious problems before launch? This attitude you portay here is exactly what I am refering to. becoming complacent with crappy launches so much so you just wait until it gets fixed. You and the others who wait should demand more. Push the industry to improve but instead you sit on the sidlines and wait. Be a leader not a follower.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
If I wouldn't play a game until, say, May 2010 anyway, then I don't care if it releases today or in September 2009.
It seems that the OP is someone who is a relative newcomer to MMOs and doesnt understand the long term aspects of this growing industry.
If all there was to a game is what was released....then why would anyone play after the 1st month. The potential of an MMO is what sets it apart from a console game.
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Toddze I agree with you man, we live in a society of sheeples, and until people stop grazing in the pastures eating up all the lame game grass, this will continue forever.
You are correct though, there really is no excuse at this stage of gaming for the garbage we get nowadays.
In the pioneer days of pong, maybe, I could see cutting a dev some slack. But in 2009 after 30 years of computer gaming.
No excuse really for such poor product.
In your eagerness to patronise the OP I think you missed his main point that the MMO community is too tolerant of sub standard launches and that only encourages more developers to release their game before it is ready.
Quizzical has a point too though, as MMO players the only way we can show that we will not put up with this is to stop jumping head-first into each new release and wait a few months before deciding whether to play.
Well maybe the OP is new or not but he certainly has the right attitude that most games should have when purchasing games. You see in the real world people expect their products(whatever they buy) to work like they should. Gaming is real world and should have no exceptions. In all honesty, if you can't make a complete working product then perhaps companies shouldn't make anything at all.
This is an easy one to respond to. They accept it because the industry gives them no other choice. After awhile it becomes the stockholm syndrome of identifying and sympathizing with your captors. If you really love MMOS but forced to accept them in a half finished state then you gulp it down hoping it will be fixed soon. Once they become so acustomed to it then they start thiking..poor developers they are doing the very best they can. It's not their fault or the game companys fault. It's those evil investors.
They fail to realize if they actually stood up against it and refused to buy these products, you would see less but more quality polished product on release. Since a lot of gamers happily would spend hundreds of dollars just to be the first to play a beta, you basically give 100% of the power to the industry. Since there will always be junkies looking for a fix there will always be drug dealers willing to sell.
The word "potential" is kind of used in 2 ways.
The first is kind of what the OP is referring to when a game that could have been great is released as total crap, or way too early, unfinished etc. Vanguard was like that. It had a ton of potential, but because of financial concerns they had to release way too early, and eventually sell altogether to soe.
The other potential which is if a game is released that was pretty solid, good, maybe even only decent, but had room to grow and a team dedicated to making it happen. So basically that would be a good game, but perhaps the first expansion offers a new race or class, and some housing, more crafting, etc. More features are added into an already good game, making it even better.
That kind of "potential" is less often used though. I don't even see it used that way anymore. mostly I see potential as a word of doom in an MMO. It had potential and what is often left unsaid is it failed to meet that potential. Vanguard has/had potential. It may even realize it one day, but the problem about starting horribly is, you may not get a second chance or be quick enough to take advantage of it.
I don't know much about AoC, but from what I do know, it had a lot of potential. Numbers dropped drastically, but I've heard recently there has a been a resurgence. The crux is, is it enough? Time will tell.
I do agree there have been a lot of really poor games released in the passed few years and it will continue as long as people jump at the chance to play anything new or different. Look at darkfall and all the people spending several hours just trying to buy the game. While it is a relatively low number to most MMOs, that is just absurd to deal with such a poor company.
Oh no console games are a whole different story now. Downloadable content is getting just as bad as what the MMO's are doing. Console games are leaving out content that should have been there at release, just to release it later via DLC. Perfect example of this was Soulcalibur IV PS3 had Darth vader exclusive and XBOX 360 had yoda exclusive. 3 or so months after release 360 got to buy the vader DL for 5 bucks and ps3 could DL Yoda for 5 bucks. What a rip off that was especially since the game at release had the empty slot for the respective character. consoles are getting in their nickle and dimeing now.
As for my MMO background, I dont see that is of any relivance but i have been playing MMO's for 7years now. I am not the biggest MMO vet but I dont see that as a newcommer either. Wanting better products at release should not be too much to ask for, if it was accomplished no one here would complain that an MMO launch was too polished.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Worst analogy ever.
Here's why:
1. I expect more than two hours of entertainment out of an MMO. Most movies last two hours or less. If you can't get two hours of entertainment right then you should /wrists. But (potentially) years of entertainment perfected on day one? OK. Ask for more.
2. We've been making movies for seventy or more years. We better know how to do them right most of the time. People still get them done terribly wrong though. We've been making MMOs for what? Ten years? Maybe a few more? Go back and look at some of the movies that were made in the first years of film making. Some of them don't even have sound! Would you demand your money back these days if a movie got released without sound?
3. The technology for delivering movies is controlled by the theatres. And they are all essentially the same. 35 mm projectors. Some might be 70 mm projectors. And if it's not in the theatre, it's on a DVD or a Blu-Ray disc. Sometimes they still get that wrong, but it's the same technology in every DVD player and every Blu-Ray player. An MMO has to run on an unpredictable variation of platforms, as PCs can vary in volatile memory capacity, processor throughput, graphics processing, operating systems, etc., ad nauseum.
4. The only interaction you have with a movie is watching it. The interaction you have with an MMO is whatever you might try to do in it. When is the last time you watched a movie that required you to press upwards of thirty different buttons to get it to respond in a way you hoped it would?
While there might be a case for having higher expectations from an MMO at release, comparing it to the movie industry is ludicrous.
Playing | GW2
Wanting | Pantheon
Watching | Crowfall
Retired | WAR, Cabal, MO, CO, SHK, WoW, FFXIV: ARR
If I correctly understand what you're saying here, then I definitely disagree.
A single player game has just as much potential for growth and nearly as much for change as any MMO does. Expansions work for single player games as well as MMOs.
I'm not sure that comparing MMOs to SPs in this way is a good idea, anyways. MMOs kind of have an inflation of content compared to SPs. Look at EverQuest, for example. Technically speaking, it is one game. Realistically though, the original game is so totally different from the most recent expansion that you can hardly call EverQuest a single game like you would NWN2 or Starcraft.
your opinions don't mean shit. lotr movies were fine, cry somewhere else.
haha I know the movies were more than fine they were great.
The point totally flew over your head (wheater you agree with the analogy or not). Theres absolutely no point in explaining it to someone with an IQ of a chimpanzee.
I wish I could say that I was shocked that more people do not agree with me. The outcome would be better MMO's and would in turn be better for all of us gamers. But hell even African Americans ridiculed Martin Luther king Jr for thinking things could change and be better (just an example dont get your panties in a knot over this analogy). But hey just continue to follow along the path thats laid in front of you by the devs and nothing will change. launch after launch after launch will be riddled with major bugs, missing content, broken promises, horrible PR, hellish customer service. If we dont demand more we wont get more. MMO business is where the moneys at for the time being people are just begging to throw money at you for a sub-par product.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Which is more likely to get the result you're after:
1) ranting about it on a forum that game developers don't read, or
2) refusing to buy games until they're reasonably polished, even if you have to wait several months or even years after release?
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There are two different types of players in this regard. Some players are more interested in playing a game soon than in waiting for it to be ready. Others are more interested in playing a polished game than in when they get to play it. The former buys games at release and then complains about the bugs but pays and plays them anyway. The latter waits until well after release before picking up the game.
And it's quite possible to give both sides what they want. Release a game before it is ready and the first type of players gets to play it early, which is what they're after. Once the game is really ready for release, the second type of players can join in later. Players who want polish thus get the polish they're after, so I don't see how those players are hurt.
To delay a game's release until it is really ready to launch could be said to hurt the first type of players, though. Instead of getting to pay to play what is essentially a beta, they can't play at all. And then they rant about how the game is a failure because it didn't release soon enough and move on to demanding that some other game be released before it is ready so they can play it instead.
I think it's kind of a double edged sword. Right now we are getting nothing but crap. It just seems that MMO after MMO leads to total disappointment. This is bad because now the game companies have to be wondering why they even bother. How many more failed MMO's will there be before they start pulling out of the genre? On the other hand, they would have to pump even more money into a game to get it "polished" and HOPE it's a good enough game to get a return on. So, they might be wondering if it's even worth the risk. Throw in sites like this that are full of peeps ready to bury a game on the first hint that it might be published and you have even more turmoil.
Our genre is in trouble guys and gals. Yes, games should be polished at release, no question. Why aren't they? Many reasons I'm sure, from devs to publishers to whoever. Another bad thing is that with WoW's numbers, 300k players doesn't mean squat anymore and is far from successful (not really, but you know what I mean). Can you imagine the boardroom after Blizz's next MMO launches and it settled in at 300k players? LMAO, now that would be fun!
http://www.TheIronZ.com
"Potential" is rationalization.
The people that spout off "potential" like a mantra are convincing themselves that the MMO they have invested years into before the launch may be crap now but it will become good later.
Look at the Darkfall people. Some of these people have followed this game for about 8 years and now that its actually released and a flop they are convincing themselves that it will be good so the past 8 years they invested into Darkfall wasn't wasted.
to respond to in the same manner u respond .... Quizzical
1. your first so callled point about "ranting" on a site no dev's read ..... well Imo he is not adressing to dev's ... he is adressing to players ....
2. if u still missed the point being made .... try readding again .... who know maybe u'll get it second .... or third .... possibly fourth time. He did not specify to just "wait" to buy till they are polished .... he called gamers to pressure the companies to stop making false claims and lie to us, gamers, and thus realease finished products ... i believe it was another post who launched the idea of waitting for a "polished" game.
I totally agree with the original argument .... and I wish to add another "guilty" party for the current situation - sites that claim they are composed of gamers that actually get the so called "hype" up for certain games while demolishing other titles.
I know I will probably get a lot of comments for what I'm going to say but .... here it goes .... Did any of u looked at the titles that the asian companies release only for their market .... I know more than a few ppl's like to call them - grindding games - and with good reasons .... but did u even checked the quality of the realeases - graphic that other realease only dream of, little or no connectivity problems, stable running on very different PC configurations and so on.
P.S. I apologize for my english .... probably missed a few expression in my post.
Sempera Vinci & Carpe Diem all in one !!!
I'd like to object on the basis that the manner in which I post intrinsically means avoiding a plethora of ellipses.
As for the item mall grinders, the salient feature is the item mall, more so than the grinding. And what's this have to do with Asians? I cited two companies, one of which (Aeria) is based in California. I couldn't find out where IGG is based.
Your 2 points were right on target with what I was trying to get across. My faith on MMO forums is not totally lost it seems some people can still comprehend what they read.
Waiting for:EQ-Next, ArcheAge (not so much anymore)
Now Playing: N/A
Worst MMO: FFXIV
Favorite MMO: FFXI
Since its an analogy thread here goes:
We all want hot chicks and corvettes but we are stuck with fat chicks and escorts.
But for real. I am not at all happy with the current crop of todays MMO's either It may be me I been playing MMO's for 9 years. I really loved EQ,DAOC and AO...so putting that into perspective I really thought the genre would be alot further along. MOST of them seem more like shallow quickie video games and not true worlds but just my opinion.
If I was younger though I would probably be a little more fiery but I have put it into perspective in my life. If I go see a movie or buy a movie its probably going to cost me around 10-20 bucks for 2-3 hours of entertainment but a MMO gives me around 720 hours a month for my entertainment dollar. If I am having fun I will play if not I will move on. Im not rich but its till just 15 bucks. I have seen tons of movies I hated that I paid for also.
I am still waiting for the next big thing though so I read boards hoping that the fickle overzealous MMO crowd that we all love can finally get close to agreeing that the next big thing has arrived! Right now though it seems alot of the MMO crowd is splintered across alot of semi decent MMO's or playing the older ones but realizing they are more shells of there former selves.
I know someone will tell me its already been done by WOW the 11mill that are playing have spoken! but I do not feel like getting into all the reasons that while yes WOW is an MMO and a very nice one that I played for a good while it has ALOT of gamers that are not really into MMO's and certain MMO slang is lost on them.
I disagree. My personal experience is that I enjoy a greater percentage of MMO's than movies.
Some years your lucky if the movie industry produces 1 good movie. There are lots of movies that were not popular. Just check the ratings on one of the movie online sites such as http://www.imdb.com .
MMO's are much more complex to produce than movies. Ideally we would like an MMO to have:
I do agree that movies have some common ground with MMO's. They are both entertainment and individual releases will appeal to some people and not others.
my asian mmo products comment wasn't meant as a response to your post Quizzical .... sorry if it left that impression ....
Sempera Vinci & Carpe Diem all in one !!!
I agree with the OP. I have say that myself like a zillion times (specially against AOC)
What I dont agree is teh movie comparation
This is a great topic and should be discussed alot more. Many good posts here. Hopefully the devs and the PR ppl are taking notes.
There is a certain trend in the MMO industry now that the gamers simply will have to stop. Building games on potentials alone is simply not acceptable. You buy a game out of the box and that game should be fully tested. MMO games are the most tested games - yet they are released the most unfinished. And saying they are more complicated to make is simply not true. If the core systems have had proper testing - proper basic thought of how it will effect the future growth of the game - then that system is pretty much self supporting. Or at least it wont need major overhauls 10 weeks after release.
I will come back to this topic later - hard at work atm