Originally posted by kasta Anarchy Online was the worst launch I've seen. Vanguard wasn't bad for me. AoC ran smooth as glass. I wasn't in on the launch as I was playing EQ at the time but SWG generated a lot of hate on the SoE boards at its release.
No, AoC did not run "smooth". Many quests didn't work and I dunno how many times I had to delete some files to get rid of the "falling through the earth" issue. It wasn't the worst launch though but if FunCom had listened to us beta testers and waited a few months until the worst problems were fixed the game would have done a lot better.
Originally posted by kasta Anarchy Online was the worst launch I've seen. Vanguard wasn't bad for me. AoC ran smooth as glass. I wasn't in on the launch as I was playing EQ at the time but SWG generated a lot of hate on the SoE boards at its release.
No, AoC did not run "smooth". Many quests didn't work and I dunno how many times I had to delete some files to get rid of the "falling through the earth" issue. It wasn't the worst launch though but if FunCom had listened to us beta testers and waited a few months until the worst problems were fixed the game would have done a lot better.
Anarchy Online had the worst launch ever, but that was back in the day when we only had a handful of MMO's. So it was able to correct its problems and two years later was a top notch MMO. Yes I said two years later. Today if a MMO has more than teething problems at launch that is Game Over for the MMO.
The plethora of MMO's out there is one of the main reasons MMO's are struggling today. You will hear posters talk about natural section and the like. But rather than survival of the fittest this is throw away consumerism at its worst. MMO's are played for a couple of months and thrown in the bin.
I never had any major major issues with AOC myself.. the game enver crashed for and ran pretty well.. sure it had a shit ton of other bugs but it was stable for me at least..
I think vanguard as got to be up at the top for the worst AAA mmorpg launch. There have been numerous indie launches a lot worse..
I've got it but can't remember its name. Awful open world pvp game that died a death very quickly. Was a TPS with absolutely no redeeming features. What was it called?
(Puts on his codger hat and pulls out his corncob pipe)
Freaking Ultima Online was the worst game launch that I ever experienced. The game was literally unplayable on the majority of machines that were being used at the time of its release.
City of Heroes ran a close second. Beta tested that game for months and months, launch day there was so much lag that everyone was moving in slow motion and that went on for a while too.
Age of Conan runs third and holds a special place in my heart as it's developers literally took down their forums on launch day so that no one could complain LOL (Anyone remember that?)
But no, really, Ultima Online really was the worst, because not only was the lag horrific, but there were already people in there (who had brand new machines) pk'ing you two seconds into the game. I never experienced that game because of those reasons, was so bad that I put the CD on a shelf and never, ever, tried it again.
Also, for the record, I was in the beta of both Vanguard and Warhammer, and I think that those went pretty well compared to the three listed above. Compared to each other though, I think Vanguard wins for a lot of the same reasons that UO makes my all time worst. I just happen to have had a new rig when it came out so it didn't affect me as badly.
pretty much, across the board, every mmo has had a rocky launch. Some regain their balance quicker than others and some never recover. They are getting better what with open beta tests that last a year or longer before they actually launch... I guess that's improvement?
Xsyon was very bad, constant roll-backs making it very hard for guilds to stake a claim as we couldnt get to the right area, turns out the servers couldnt handle more than the number in beta. They even tried to Kickstart it recently, pointless as it's a launched sub game, and everyone with any interest already gave more than it deserved.
Gods and Heros was kinda sad, it wasnt in a bad state considering but no one bought it, those few of us who did where left to dream of what could have been, till the last downtime turned out to be be perminant.
STO was bad not due to a buggy state or bad design but due to no content.
Some I can think of had launches tarnished not by the game but the players, filling general chat will the same tedious crap for the first few days, some have trouble seperating the game from the atmosphere.
Mortal Online, launched what 2 years ago? And is still trying to launch, they have tried every trick in the book to launch, but now its down to either a priest or a necromancer to get that dead heap of game to fly again.
I could say VG because at the time it was making my computer crash horribly for the first couple of days due to a graphics bug and the insane speccs it seemed to need back in the day. It was super unstable and I don't think I even got to play much of anything for the first two weeks or so?
I didn't play WAR at launch but man did I hear about it...
FFXIV 1.0 was also terrible, not even so much for how the servers or bugs for me but how dead and empty it was. The story was also insanely boring and not even close to up to par with any other FF series. Literally at launch there wasn't anything to do...so bad.
Originally posted by BrucyBonus I've got it but can't remember its name. Awful open world pvp game that died a death very quickly. Was a TPS with absolutely no redeeming features. What was it called?
Originally posted by tedgar I remember something with this zombie game cant remember either if it when to launch or not The War Z may that was the title still cant remember.
I think some criteria needs to be mentioned when talking about LAUNCH.
If we are talking bugs ,WOW's one xpac was really bad,so bad they shut down forums to stop the complaining.
VG of course had a few bugs imo not nearly WOW's or EQ2's.VG main problem was the game just didn't run at good frame rates and players would fall through the floor sometimes,other than that not a lot wrong.In WOW's xpac there were large areas of maps that were totally glitched graphics wise and players could also fall through to areas they weren't meant to.BTW that same xpac many quests did not work,you were not able to update them.
EQ2?? Wow bugs bugs and more bugs.Creatures stuck under ground,models not drawing properly ,small map glitches like Nmars Decent,creatures would go through walls some quests not working.
Then there is yet another criteria....QUE ues.
You can't really say you are a success if you can't even get the paying customer in your game.Rift had an enormous successful Beta,yet even knowing they were popular ,there were not enough servers.Other games also had que ues,Rift just stuck out the most because they should have known.
Flip side FFXI the ONLY game i have ever started in with no bugs,glitches and no que ues or problems of any kind.It did have the benefit of first starting in Japan a year prior,so i am sure there were some problems but for NA's it was all smooth .10 years later ,i have still yet to encounter one bug/glitch,it really is amazing ,yes there has been some glitches/exploits but i have never seen one.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Darkfall 1 was rather bad at launch not only server crashes it took some to get client specially europeans becouse only payment was credit cards several weeks to finally buy the game.
26feb 2009 launch some still trying to get client end of march.
Even many pre-purchase could not enter game at launch.
Then from launch day all the exploits and cheating.
I never had any major major issues with AOC myself.. the game enver crashed for and ran pretty well.. sure it had a shit ton of other bugs but it was stable for me at least..
I think vanguard as got to be up at the top for the worst AAA mmorpg launch. There have been numerous indie launches a lot worse..
AOC's launch wasn't bad because of the bugs, it was bad because they hosed a whole buttload of people with some fancy boilerplate language.
Not to mention they wiped and kicked all of their beta testers to the curb forcing them to buy early access keys from FilePlanet to get back into open beta, shut down their website so that these testers could not complain, came back and called everyone who did complain a bunch of whiners, and all other manner of brutal "we don't need your business because our game is so cool" kind of stuff. And then they had the nerve to put up a faulty client, not even the one that was tested, for open beta, and then their account server stopped working so people who purchased the game couldn't even log in and pay to play it.
It was a mess.
But with all that said it still was a pretty solid client after they got it all straightened out. And the game was even entertaining for a minute. But then we all leveled through up to the buggier content and that was it. There were too many other fish to fry at that time to hang around.
For pure technical issues i'd say AO. Simply was a hot mess of nothing working.
But outside of technical issues i actually have to say Champions Online who did a massive game system change right at the same time they launched, the game launched with a pretty much untested system in place and it did not really work for them.
Now WaR (in europe) at least did not have that bad of a launch, but prolly have one of the bumpiest post launch period ever.
Also you can not avoid to mention Matrix:Online. Simply a broken game on every level.
Not sure if it is fair to bring up Darkfall... But i heard they had a pretty rocky start too.
If we are speaking bad queue Aion is worth mentioning.
Bad queue started during prestart with 30 minutes time in queue but once the game went live the queue went ballistic. They had a cap for queue at 2k and during the first week you had to hammer login button to get into the 2k queue. Once they removed the cap on queue my server reached 3.5k queue during primetime and you couldn't start playing until midnight. It took 2 weeks for the queue to go down, and 1.5 months after release people asked for server merges.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Anarchy Online.... Although... The launch was not really the major issue, but when they started patching... Oh my god the patching... From first patch to... two years later, that is where my back broke. I could play quite fine, as long as a patch had not been installed within the last two weeks, or the MA neutralizer patch where all MA attacks did 1 damage, which was active for a month or more.
SWG
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
Comments
MXO
AOC
Defiance
in that order for me.
No, AoC did not run "smooth". Many quests didn't work and I dunno how many times I had to delete some files to get rid of the "falling through the earth" issue. It wasn't the worst launch though but if FunCom had listened to us beta testers and waited a few months until the worst problems were fixed the game would have done a lot better.
So many games I could apply that sentiment to.
Anarchy Online had the worst launch ever, but that was back in the day when we only had a handful of MMO's. So it was able to correct its problems and two years later was a top notch MMO. Yes I said two years later. Today if a MMO has more than teething problems at launch that is Game Over for the MMO.
The plethora of MMO's out there is one of the main reasons MMO's are struggling today. You will hear posters talk about natural section and the like. But rather than survival of the fittest this is throw away consumerism at its worst. MMO's are played for a couple of months and thrown in the bin.
I never had any major major issues with AOC myself.. the game enver crashed for and ran pretty well.. sure it had a shit ton of other bugs but it was stable for me at least..
I think vanguard as got to be up at the top for the worst AAA mmorpg launch. There have been numerous indie launches a lot worse..
(Puts on his codger hat and pulls out his corncob pipe)
Freaking Ultima Online was the worst game launch that I ever experienced. The game was literally unplayable on the majority of machines that were being used at the time of its release.
City of Heroes ran a close second. Beta tested that game for months and months, launch day there was so much lag that everyone was moving in slow motion and that went on for a while too.
Age of Conan runs third and holds a special place in my heart as it's developers literally took down their forums on launch day so that no one could complain LOL (Anyone remember that?)
But no, really, Ultima Online really was the worst, because not only was the lag horrific, but there were already people in there (who had brand new machines) pk'ing you two seconds into the game. I never experienced that game because of those reasons, was so bad that I put the CD on a shelf and never, ever, tried it again.
Also, for the record, I was in the beta of both Vanguard and Warhammer, and I think that those went pretty well compared to the three listed above. Compared to each other though, I think Vanguard wins for a lot of the same reasons that UO makes my all time worst. I just happen to have had a new rig when it came out so it didn't affect me as badly.
pretty much, across the board, every mmo has had a rocky launch. Some regain their balance quicker than others and some never recover. They are getting better what with open beta tests that last a year or longer before they actually launch... I guess that's improvement?
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
Xsyon was very bad, constant roll-backs making it very hard for guilds to stake a claim as we couldnt get to the right area, turns out the servers couldnt handle more than the number in beta. They even tried to Kickstart it recently, pointless as it's a launched sub game, and everyone with any interest already gave more than it deserved.
Gods and Heros was kinda sad, it wasnt in a bad state considering but no one bought it, those few of us who did where left to dream of what could have been, till the last downtime turned out to be be perminant.
STO was bad not due to a buggy state or bad design but due to no content.
Some I can think of had launches tarnished not by the game but the players, filling general chat will the same tedious crap for the first few days, some have trouble seperating the game from the atmosphere.
I could say VG because at the time it was making my computer crash horribly for the first couple of days due to a graphics bug and the insane speccs it seemed to need back in the day. It was super unstable and I don't think I even got to play much of anything for the first two weeks or so?
I didn't play WAR at launch but man did I hear about it...
FFXIV 1.0 was also terrible, not even so much for how the servers or bugs for me but how dead and empty it was. The story was also insanely boring and not even close to up to par with any other FF series. Literally at launch there wasn't anything to do...so bad.
I've just remembered... Earthrise. Oh dear .
For your amusement:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/856/view/reviews/load/260/The-War-Z-A-Painfully-Executed-Parody-of-a-Survival-Game.html
I think some criteria needs to be mentioned when talking about LAUNCH.
If we are talking bugs ,WOW's one xpac was really bad,so bad they shut down forums to stop the complaining.
VG of course had a few bugs imo not nearly WOW's or EQ2's.VG main problem was the game just didn't run at good frame rates and players would fall through the floor sometimes,other than that not a lot wrong.In WOW's xpac there were large areas of maps that were totally glitched graphics wise and players could also fall through to areas they weren't meant to.BTW that same xpac many quests did not work,you were not able to update them.
EQ2?? Wow bugs bugs and more bugs.Creatures stuck under ground,models not drawing properly ,small map glitches like Nmars Decent,creatures would go through walls some quests not working.
Then there is yet another criteria....QUE ues.
You can't really say you are a success if you can't even get the paying customer in your game.Rift had an enormous successful Beta,yet even knowing they were popular ,there were not enough servers.Other games also had que ues,Rift just stuck out the most because they should have known.
Flip side FFXI the ONLY game i have ever started in with no bugs,glitches and no que ues or problems of any kind.It did have the benefit of first starting in Japan a year prior,so i am sure there were some problems but for NA's it was all smooth .10 years later ,i have still yet to encounter one bug/glitch,it really is amazing ,yes there has been some glitches/exploits but i have never seen one.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Darkfall 1 was rather bad at launch not only server crashes it took some to get client specially europeans becouse only payment was credit cards several weeks to finally buy the game.
26feb 2009 launch some still trying to get client end of march.
Even many pre-purchase could not enter game at launch.
Then from launch day all the exploits and cheating.
Terible launch Darkfall 1.
Sorry man but I just gotta say this. I frikken love you guys! LOL
Good string! Carry on.
AOC's launch wasn't bad because of the bugs, it was bad because they hosed a whole buttload of people with some fancy boilerplate language.
Oh yes Funcom, we still remember.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/179248/Funcom-marketing-Scam.html
Not to mention they wiped and kicked all of their beta testers to the curb forcing them to buy early access keys from FilePlanet to get back into open beta, shut down their website so that these testers could not complain, came back and called everyone who did complain a bunch of whiners, and all other manner of brutal "we don't need your business because our game is so cool" kind of stuff. And then they had the nerve to put up a faulty client, not even the one that was tested, for open beta, and then their account server stopped working so people who purchased the game couldn't even log in and pay to play it.
It was a mess.
But with all that said it still was a pretty solid client after they got it all straightened out. And the game was even entertaining for a minute. But then we all leveled through up to the buggier content and that was it. There were too many other fish to fry at that time to hang around.
For pure technical issues i'd say AO. Simply was a hot mess of nothing working.
But outside of technical issues i actually have to say Champions Online who did a massive game system change right at the same time they launched, the game launched with a pretty much untested system in place and it did not really work for them.
Now WaR (in europe) at least did not have that bad of a launch, but prolly have one of the bumpiest post launch period ever.
Also you can not avoid to mention Matrix:Online. Simply a broken game on every level.
Not sure if it is fair to bring up Darkfall... But i heard they had a pretty rocky start too.
This have been a good conversation
If we are speaking bad queue Aion is worth mentioning.
Bad queue started during prestart with 30 minutes time in queue but once the game went live the queue went ballistic. They had a cap for queue at 2k and during the first week you had to hammer login button to get into the 2k queue. Once they removed the cap on queue my server reached 3.5k queue during primetime and you couldn't start playing until midnight. It took 2 weeks for the queue to go down, and 1.5 months after release people asked for server merges.
Dark and Light
Anarchy Online.... Although... The launch was not really the major issue, but when they started patching... Oh my god the patching... From first patch to... two years later, that is where my back broke. I could play quite fine, as long as a patch had not been installed within the last two weeks, or the MA neutralizer patch where all MA attacks did 1 damage, which was active for a month or more.
SWG
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"