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30 days to launch, still under NDA?
happydan20
Member UncommonPosts: 260
in Fallen Earth
Does anyone else find this to be odd/troubling? I don't have the advantage of being in the beta, and I do like getting pre order bonuses, but id like to know what im getting into first.
why is the NDA still up?
Comments
Usually the NDA doesn't drop until Open Beta. That's about 2 to 3 weeks before launch for most games.
I didn't even know this game was still under development.
So people can't tell you what you're getting into?
Champions online will be released in less then a month and the NDA is still up.
-> Standard procedure
So people can't tell you what you're getting into?
This!
And for those who call this "Standard Procedure", almost every game that held its NDA until launch has proven to be a bug ridden mess.
Games w/o something to hide show more of what they're proud of.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If they cancel the open beta, then panic. Until then, stick a sock in it. You may not like it, but it is standard practice to keep the NDA up until the open beta, nothing conspiratorial here. They just had a nearly open stress test on saturday that anyone who was really gung-ho to get in could sign up for.
If the open beta rolls around and it has a ton of bugs and they start talking about how some magic patch at launch will fix everything or that the problems are only because of some mythical debugging routine they have running...then panic. Until then, chill...you'll know when the open beta hits.
In the life of every young MMO there comes a time when some troll accuses it of "Delayed NDA Removal Syndrome".
Please help us here at MMORPG.com to combat DNDARS by not feeding the troll.
""But Coyote, you could learn! You only prefer keyboard and mouse because that's all you've ever known!" You might say right before you hug a rainforest and walk in sandals to your drum circle where you're trying to raise group consciousness of ladybugs or whatever it is you dirty goddamn hippies do when you're not busy smoking pot and smelling bad."
Coyote's Howling: Death of the Computer
argh you are 100% right sir. sorry for feeding ...
I am in the beta now, and at the risk of breaking NDA I will just say there's no reason to panic.
On the NDA topic, while I understand it's SOP not to drop it until the open beta starts, I can say with complete confidence that no MMORPG in history has ever seen noticeable gameplay improvement between the last third of closed beta and open beta/launch day. Critical bug and stability fixes yes, overall game quality no.
I can also say with complete confidence that, whenever closed beta testers have told developers that a game is unfinished and needs significantly more time in development before release, the game always gets pushed out the door anyway.
So it's just pointless to keep the NDA up so close to launch, in my opinion. The only possible practical reason could be to sucker more people out of their money by hiding a bad game until the last minute, and I know that's conspiracy theorizing, but it has happened in the past, the possiblity is always there, and thus there are negative connotations associated with ninja NDAs.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
In response to your second paragraph, that is incorrect sir. In fact Champions Online pushed back its release precisely because the beta testers told them they needed to work on it more. And that's just a recent example I know of.
I'm not a troll for bringing this up, it's being completely ignored that the reason i brought it up has to do with having enough time to preorder the game for whatever bonses are available, while still having the time to get real information about whether I want to pre order.
Also many people say that it would drop 30 days to launch, so theres that.
I also think its funny so many people have the montra the NDA doesn't drop till open beta so shut it... What if they decide to drop it a week before release? I don't understand why a devoloper announcing a stage makes it the golden time to drop NDA and so acceptable to the followers.
Like someone said, they don't make major stability changes between closed beta and launch, so there really is no reason to keep it up so long.
Many people have already said this but, " They do what they said they will". So pretty much all you need to do is go to the site and look at the features. Oh and by the way just to give you a recent example on NDA lifting, crimecraft is in open beta with a NDA and the game releases on Aug 25.
Well, that's what you get for listening to "many people". Seriously, the only voice about that that matters is Icarus's. Until you see it on their website for yourself, only a fool would put their trust in heresay. It's not like typing www.fallenearth.com one time and bookmarking the site and clicking on that bookmark once a day to glance at their news section absorbs so much time out of one's day.
As for why they keep up the NDA...well, honestly, it's their choice just as it's yours and other's choice to get all bent out of shape about it. In the end, none of it matters.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
You might as well have given them. The NDA is linked in the public forum of the FE site and it specifically states saying you are in beta is an NDA breach.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
I'm sure there have actually been a few, but I regard them as incredibly rare exceptions that prove the rule.
And as an aside, from what I've been hearing and seeing on the grapevine, they need to push Champions Online back another few months, and put more content and polish in there.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
WAR was delayed by 6 months and still released unfinished. Box sales are still very important if not just as important as the subscriptions. Bad press of any kind usually hurts box sales. Very few MMO's have ever been released in a polished state, hence the current practice of NDA longevity.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Yeah, but that wasn't due to feedback from closed beta testers. Mythic knew the game needed more time in production without having to be told... sadly, some of the most annoying issues still exist today, though I haven't been following WAR in recent months, so some things may have changed.
And well it should hurt them. Everyone expects MMOs to lack polish at release nowadays, though, so there's no reason to hide that from customers. The real issue, currently, is games that are simply turds, like Tabula Rasa. You can't polish a turd (the Mythbusters proved that you actually can polish a turd, but you see my point).
The stakes are higher now. There are far more crappy MMORPGs being released per year now than there were in the UO and EQ days, and frankly, the number of GOOD MMORPGs released per year hasn't changed since EQ. Developers now spew out half a dozen or more per year, and you're lucky to get a decent game every second or third year.
It's not just about polish, it's about irredeemable suckage. Publishers want to sell as many boxes as possible based on hype, so that once customers discover a game sucks, it's too late and they're screwed. Their money's simply gone. And I don't buy that developers might not realize how badly their game sucks when they push it out the door, since many developers are gamers themselves, have been for years, and they know cow hockey when they see it just like the rest of us do.
I know that throughout human history, craftsmen don't want to show the public their work until it's actually finished. But MMORPGs are never actually finished when they're released anyway, and you can get a refund for an unfinished chair. This is a different playing field, and we need some transparency in the development process.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
I'm sure there have actually been a few, but I regard them as incredibly rare exceptions that prove the rule.
And as an aside, from what I've been hearing and seeing on the grapevine, they need to push Champions Online back another few months, and put more content and polish in there.
I think you need to choose better people to listen to.
For OP:
Yes. I just got a warning from mmorpg for something I unwillingly said about the game and was considered NDA breach.
Better to be crazy, provided you know what sane is...
I can't think of any good reason why, but this has pretty much become SOP for most MMOG companies now. It used to be that games had multiple closed/open beta phases, the servers were open 23/7, these lasted many months and the last couple months the NDA was lifted... I am fairly certain that the bean counters and marketing people call the shots with regard to these things for the most part, and have found that keeping people in the dark and hungering for more beta time and more information helps with initial box sales and subscriptions. Call me pessimistic... personally I think more beta time and more player feedback helps the game. If the game sucks so badly that spending a few months in the beta makes people not want to play it anymore when it goes live, then the problem is not marketing, it's the game, sorry to break it to you marketing gurus...
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"Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places..." ~ H.P.Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Member Since March 2004
We'll see about that. My predictions for whether a game is going to succeed or fail are usually correct, whether or not I have insider information (i.e., I'm in the closed beta, or I've seen leaked information from a closed beta).
In 2003-2004, shortly before World of Warcraft was released and while I was playing FFXI, I knew when I researched WoW's feature list and various other available information about the game that it was going to succeed in a big way. The fact that Blizzard always delivers on its promises with polish assured me the features would in fact be there, and so it was an easy prediction. I didn't know that it would be the juggernaut of the genre, of course, but I damned sure knew it would succeed handsomely.
After my first twenty minutes of playing the Tabula Rasa open beta, I knew the game was a turd and that it would fail. I posted as much in the TR forums here on MMORPG.com, and of course got flamed to high Heaven. Sure enough, it's among the top four shortest-lived MMORPGs of all time.
Those were easy, though. There are plenty of other examples. I've been gaming since the 1980s, and I have a nose for these things. I can read between the lines just seeing public information, dev blogs, screen shots, and rumors. In its current state, Champions Online won't be a CoX-killer, and if it stays online for more than a year or two, I'll be surprised.
I'll bump this thread in a year or two so we can continue this conversation then.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
We'll see about that. My predictions for whether a game is going to succeed or fail are usually correct, whether or not I have insider information (i.e., I'm in the closed beta, or I've seen leaked information from a closed beta).
In 2003-2004, shortly before World of Warcraft was released and while I was playing FFXI, I knew when I researched WoW's feature list and various other available information about the game that it was going to succeed in a big way. The fact that Blizzard always delivers on its promises with polish assured me the features would in fact be there, and so it was an easy prediction. I didn't know that it would be the juggernaut of the genre, of course, but I damned sure knew it would succeed handsomely.
After my first twenty minutes of playing the Tabula Rasa open beta, I knew the game was a turd and that it would fail. I posted as much in the TR forums here on MMORPG.com, and of course got flamed to high Heaven. Sure enough, it's among the top four shortest-lived MMORPGs of all time.
Those were easy, though. There are plenty of other examples. I've been gaming since the 1980s, and I have a nose for these things. I can read between the lines just seeing public information, dev blogs, screen shots, and rumors. In its current state, Champions Online won't be a CoX-killer, and if it stays online for more than a year or two, I'll be surprised.
I'll bump this thread in a year or two so we can continue this conversation then.
I guess we'll agree to disagree for now...lol. I think many people knew that WoW was going to be huge and that TR was going to be a bomb, though. At least I did when I played in those betas.
As for feelings....I'm getting good ones about Champions, but I'm no soothe sayer. I think Champions will do well. I never said it would "kill" anything. I just disagreed with your previous comments. See you in a year.
That would make you a certifiable psychic then, because TR was nothing like that bad. TR had a rather solid release and was actually a fairly "polished" game on the scale of things. What killed it was a complete and tragic lack of depth, cookie-cutter zones and the same 8 monsters re-used in different shades over and over again. There is simply no way you could "see" that in twenty minutes.
If TR had a more dedicated effort post-launch to add and update content along with a more "stable" producer and publisher it would still be out there today - not dominating the market or anything but certainly able to limp along and keep the servers open.
It's deathknell came because Garriott is a class-A flake and no one else sold NCSoft on doing the work to stick with it.
(Same thing that killed AutoAssault really, fun game just no depth whatsoever...but a lack of depth *can* be fixed post launch, a crappy basic system can't)
That means devs are not proud of their game, and count people will buy cat in the box. That also mens that the cat in the box is not only dead, but half rotten and stinks.
http://www.teraonline.info.pl Polski Poradnik Gry Tera Online