Originally posted by Fendel84M Sad when actual gaming sites don't even know the facts. SoE didn't even own Vanguard when it was "pushed out the door". They bought it after it had already bombed. Christ...
They weren't the IP owners at that stage, but they were funding the last part of development and publishing it. So technically they did push it out the door. The article was a bit unkind about the situation though. The game needed longer development than SoE was willing to offer, but Brad took that risk because the other option was vapourware.
Originally posted by Zhauric Not really seeing the point of the thread. What other MMO's did (or in this case didn't do) is irrelevant to the issue for some players that they are having with TESO. Poor service is poor service. Because someone did worse does not make the situation better in shape or form. None should settle for poor quality no matter what. So if those guys wish to be upset they have the right to do so. They made an investment and expect delivery on the other end. It's not happening right now and that is all that matters. Game can be great when you play it and everything else. Doesn't give a company the right to screw the pooch in other areas.
They paid for access to the game starting 4.4.14
They received the privilege of early access to the game.
Their right to complain starts on 4.4.14 and even then it is
not entirely justified unless there is significant downtime.
I bought WoW two weeks after launch and had almost no problems. It must have been really bad before I got there. AoC was the only other one of those I played at launch, I didn't even open my wife's copy it was so bad.
They received the privilege of early access to the game.
Their right to complain starts on 4.4.14 and even then it is
not entirely justified unless there is significant downtime.
Really? Early access wasn't a selling point, wasn't a bullet point on the list of things you got for pre-ordering?
Bullshit.
And, frankly, comparing the launch of a game ten years ago to a launch today -- given the amount of experience available now that didn't exist then, not to mention vast improvements in server and networking tech -- is idiotic.
WoW should not have been in that list..... why? because now every mmo developer is going to have a rough launch to try and get WOW numbers since Blizzard clearly showed you dont need a perfect launch to wear the crown for ages.
It only had the success it did because it is a "gateway MMO"
Weak and easy to get into but leads to harder stuff that requires more sacrifice and involvement :-P
OP... I was laughing at you quite a bit before this post... now I am trying not to shit myself while doing it... no offense intended and I loathe WoW but easy it isn't unless you mouth breath your way to endgame and quit in which case yeah but spend some time with a vanilla or TBC vet and you will get an idea how much of a gateway MMO it is even today with far less harsh endgame ( if memory serves Naxx in its original form was seen by less than 10% of the population in WoW at that time, compare that to all the MMOs out at that period and you get an idea that it was pretty freaking intense ).
WoW should not have been in that list..... why? because now every mmo developer is going to have a rough launch to try and get WOW numbers since Blizzard clearly showed you dont need a perfect launch to wear the crown for ages.
It only had the success it did because it is a "gateway MMO"
Weak and easy to get into but leads to harder stuff that requires more sacrifice and involvement :-P
OP... I was laughing at you quite a bit before this post... now I am trying not to shit myself while doing it... no offense intended and I loathe WoW but easy it isn't unless you mouth breath your way to endgame and quit in which case yeah but spend some time with a vanilla or TBC vet and you will get an idea how much of a gateway MMO it is even today with far less harsh endgame ( if memory serves Naxx in its original form was seen by less than 10% of the population in WoW at that time, compare that to all the MMOs out at that period and you get an idea that it was pretty freaking intense ).
i completed all of the Vanilla WoW endgame content, and the EQ1 content, EQ2 Content, UO Content. Shit I could go on for a while...
WoW was intense for people without previous MMO experience (Hence "Gateway MMO"), or poorly set up guilds.
Sell your "WoW's hardcore" nonsense to someone who hasn't been around for a while.
*Side note* Looks like some proper Forum PvP is starting :-D Finally, something to do :-P
WoW should not have been in that list..... why? because now every mmo developer is going to have a rough launch to try and get WOW numbers since Blizzard clearly showed you dont need a perfect launch to wear the crown for ages.
It only had the success it did because it is a "gateway MMO"
Weak and easy to get into but leads to harder stuff that requires more sacrifice and involvement :-P
OP... I was laughing at you quite a bit before this post... now I am trying not to shit myself while doing it... no offense intended and I loathe WoW but easy it isn't unless you mouth breath your way to endgame and quit in which case yeah but spend some time with a vanilla or TBC vet and you will get an idea how much of a gateway MMO it is even today with far less harsh endgame ( if memory serves Naxx in its original form was seen by less than 10% of the population in WoW at that time, compare that to all the MMOs out at that period and you get an idea that it was pretty freaking intense ).
i completed all of the Vanilla WoW endgame content, and the EQ1 content, EQ2 Content, UO Content. Shit I could go on for a while...
WoW was intense for people without previous MMO experience (Hence "Gateway MMO"), or poorly set up guilds.
Sell your "WoW's hardcore" nonsense to someone who hasn't been around for a while.
*Side note* Looks like some proper Forum PvP is starting :-D Finally, something to do :-P
UO was not a themepark and considering the content in it was mostly PVP: gg on that one, EQ 1 was a proto-themepark with a ever so slight tinge of sandbox by way of the need to explore the world. For comparison I play EVE-Online and found WoW to be frustratingly difficult in the "you gotta do it this way and no other" sense when I did play it out of curiosity for a month in early Cata. Granted WoW didn't have a boss purposefully created not to get beaten like EQ 1 had ,and then there's the 24+ hour boss in FFXI ( I believe ) , considering the social aspect, the influx of people and the need to depend on one another you're excused for not knowing better (considering your mention of EQ1 and UO endgame I suspect you hit WoW with a group in which case you bypassed a good deal of shit).
Oh and forum PVP? No, just love pointing at people too far up their own opinion to realize it isn't fact.
The problem with Launch is that it is a launch! Well, not even a Launch yet. You know what I mean.
People forget how bad other launches were. Sad, but true. IMO, its because the game is good and they just want to play.
Then theres the haters. You know what they say about them.
Pre-launch is just a cool catchphrase that has become an MMO marketing strategy for most games. It is a launch. More people started playing the game at pre-launch than will start the game on the official "launch" day. "Launch" is just the last of the fence sitters and everyone who got screwed over by gamestop. You won't even notice the launch in terms of new players.
Darkfall definitely should have made the list. As an avid launch junkie I have been through a lot of poor launches. This one doesn't rank in my worst list at all, yet. BUT the longer the server is down, the higher up that list it will go. For now, I don't mind the down time. I have a bunch of stuff to do today. But after I get back, I expect to be able to play the game. If we fast forward eight more hours and the servers are still down, then we start talking about failure launch 2014.
Originally posted by Mardukk I bought WoW two weeks after launch and had almost no problems. It must have been really bad before I got there. AoC was the only other one of those I played at launch, I didn't even open my wife's copy it was so bad.
Truth about WoW was that it was such a good game, that so many people wanted to play it. This caused huge lag, especially on the continent where TM/SS zerg was. Remember early on, WoW's "PvP" were those massive zerg runs between towns, no rewards, no BG's, no arenas. The amount of players zerging in TM/SS caused the whole continent to crash at times.
Also notably WoW also went through a period of instance lag issues, where it could take 5-10 seconds to cast a spell, or worse yet part of your raid couldn't enter the correct instance when you're trying to raid Molten Core. At times the whole instance would crash and dump your raid outside the instances. You should've experienced this, unless you were not raiding when you played WoW. Other small but important issues like crashing while riding the boat, or worse getting dumped in middle of the ocean, yup they were part of the technical issues in WoW early on since boat riding was how you got between continents back then.
With that said, vanilla WoW was a very good game, it was to many an Everquest on steroids. It took away the tedium of EQ, but kept the holy trinity, hard dungeons, large scale raids, embraced PvP that SOE never did, and heck it even had multi-groups dungeons like upper BRS remember? With pulls that could wipe everybody if CC/puller didn't do a good job. Good times. Vanilla WoW was a really good game. Its technical issues had a lot to do with the success & popularity of the game.
So it probably deserves to be on the list of worst MMO launches in the past 10 years. But it goes to show you people really didn't care much about crashing, lag, bugs, or exploit issues, as long as the game was fun and that the game got improved as time went on. It's an important lesson, as how players view this game will be totally based on how Zenimax deals with early launch issues and whether they could improve the game as the game goes on. No one would remember this long downtime if they come back with a lot of bugs fixed, and that they have plenty of new content & updates ready to go shortly after launch to please the players.
WoW should not have been in that list..... why? because now every mmo developer is going to have a rough launch to try and get WOW numbers since Blizzard clearly showed you dont need a perfect launch to wear the crown for ages.
It only had the success it did because it is a "gateway MMO"
Weak and easy to get into but leads to harder stuff that requires more sacrifice and involvement :-P
OP... I was laughing at you quite a bit before this post... now I am trying not to shit myself while doing it... no offense intended and I loathe WoW but easy it isn't unless you mouth breath your way to endgame and quit in which case yeah but spend some time with a vanilla or TBC vet and you will get an idea how much of a gateway MMO it is even today with far less harsh endgame ( if memory serves Naxx in its original form was seen by less than 10% of the population in WoW at that time, compare that to all the MMOs out at that period and you get an idea that it was pretty freaking intense ).
MMO's as a rule are not difficult, WoW was no different. The figure you pulled out can easily be considered "more than 90% of the player base dont raid and couldnt give two shits about raid content." or "more than 90% of the playerbase are complete and total noobs" depending on the way you want to view it.
Either way the figure doesnt prove WoW was hard. EQ2 was by far a more difficult game at the time, and they released very close to each other. That and EQ2's higher system requirements were probably a big factor in why they couldnt compete with WoW for the casual audience.
The problem with Launch is that it is a launch! Well, not even a Launch yet. You know what I mean.
People forget how bad other launches were. Sad, but true. IMO, its because the game is good and they just want to play.
Then theres the haters. You know what they say about them.
Pre-launch is just a cool catchphrase that has become an MMO marketing strategy for most games. It is a launch. More people started playing the game at pre-launch than will start the game on the official "launch" day. "Launch" is just the last of the fence sitters and everyone who got screwed over by gamestop. You won't even notice the launch in terms of new players.
Darkfall definitely should have made the list. As an avid launch junkie I have been through a lot of poor launches. This one doesn't rank in my worst list at all, yet. BUT the longer the server is down, the higher up that list it will go. For now, I don't mind the down time. I have a bunch of stuff to do today. But after I get back, I expect to be able to play the game. If we fast forward eight more hours and the servers are still down, then we start talking about failure launch 2014.
I agree Darkfall had a pretty terrible launch. If not quite in the top 10 its is extremely close to it. And they did it twice with the same game lol.
BTW, ZOS posted an ETA of 1-2 hours about 15 minutes ago.
Edit: Im also kind of surprised to not see WAR on that list. I loved PvPing in that game, played it on and off a lot over the years, but the launch was pretty craptastic.
- Missing 4 classes
- Missing 4 of 6 captial cities, which were never added in later
- Lots of bugged mobs
- Mail system that took 5-10 minutes to open your mailbox
- Fortresses causing entire servers to crash
- Extreme class imbalances
- bugged pets
- bugged stealth
- Scenarios bugging constantly, both joining into them and the queue itself constantly breaking
The game is launched and if you think otherwise you're delusional. The marketing teams can call it pre-play, pre-launch, early-not-launch-access-status.... whatever but if they're taking money from people and letting them play without any wipes or otherwise then the game is launched.
Have you not noticed that EVERY single game these days does an early access pre-launch or whatever? And every single game (more or less) is a mess for weeks/months?
Calling this or any other title not launched yet is just stupid. it is launched, they are just calling it something different and attempting to filter the number/types of people playing while they fix it.
Just accept that this is the launch and it's bad like all other launches have been. Software world is all about bugs and fixing them. Microsoft and Apple are massive, larger than any of these game developers and they have to release fixes constantly. They tend to have more stable products out of the gate but they still have bugs!
The game is launched and if you think otherwise you're delusional. The marketing teams can call it pre-play, pre-launch, early-not-launch-access-status.... whatever but if they're taking money from people and letting them play without any wipes or otherwise then the game is launched.
Have you not noticed that EVERY single game these days does an early access pre-launch or whatever? And every single game (more or less) is a mess for weeks/months?
Calling this or any other title not launched yet is just stupid. it is launched, they are just calling it something different and attempting to filter the number/types of people playing while they fix it.
Just accept that this is the launch and it's bad like all other launches have been. Software world is all about bugs and fixing them. Microsoft and Apple are massive, larger than any of these game developers and they have to release fixes constantly. They tend to have more stable products out of the gate but they still have bugs!
No way bro. Windows 8 it is the epitome of perfection!
Nothing changed much really. People will still gladly pay and play a game they have fun in. Gamers will tolerate launch issues as long as issues are fixed, games are updated, and new content is released.
That no software, including video games, has ever launched without having bugs and various technical issues and probably never will. There are companies that have been at this much longer than these game devs, have tons more money, much better technology, and are pushing products that don't even require network connectivity and thousands of player sinteracting with eachother at all times and STILL can't get it right no matter how many times they remake the same product with a new skin on it.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
So, you're implying because there have been buggy and/or failed launches in the past, by other developers, that I shouldn't be annoyed that I purchased a product that is currently not working? What kind of bizzaro world are you living in son?
That article is simply terrible. Shadowbane anyone, SB.EXE errors were rampant. DAOC released with some of the worst balance of any game I've ever seen, huge chunks of the world were completely unitemized, siege stuff didn't work etc.
EQ's launch was pretty bad too simply because of all the infrastructure problems.
Thing is old technology wasn't really ready for MMORPG so you can kind of excuse it in the old games, a bad launch these days is just bad programming.
Comments
They weren't the IP owners at that stage, but they were funding the last part of development and publishing it. So technically they did push it out the door. The article was a bit unkind about the situation though. The game needed longer development than SoE was willing to offer, but Brad took that risk because the other option was vapourware.
You are kidding, right?
They paid for access to the game starting 4.4.14
They received the privilege of early access to the game.
Their right to complain starts on 4.4.14 and even then it is
not entirely justified unless there is significant downtime.
Really? Early access wasn't a selling point, wasn't a bullet point on the list of things you got for pre-ordering?
Bullshit.
And, frankly, comparing the launch of a game ten years ago to a launch today -- given the amount of experience available now that didn't exist then, not to mention vast improvements in server and networking tech -- is idiotic.
OP... I was laughing at you quite a bit before this post... now I am trying not to shit myself while doing it... no offense intended and I loathe WoW but easy it isn't unless you mouth breath your way to endgame and quit in which case yeah but spend some time with a vanilla or TBC vet and you will get an idea how much of a gateway MMO it is even today with far less harsh endgame ( if memory serves Naxx in its original form was seen by less than 10% of the population in WoW at that time, compare that to all the MMOs out at that period and you get an idea that it was pretty freaking intense ).
i completed all of the Vanilla WoW endgame content, and the EQ1 content, EQ2 Content, UO Content. Shit I could go on for a while...
WoW was intense for people without previous MMO experience (Hence "Gateway MMO"), or poorly set up guilds.
Sell your "WoW's hardcore" nonsense to someone who hasn't been around for a while.
*Side note* Looks like some proper Forum PvP is starting :-D Finally, something to do :-P
UO was not a themepark and considering the content in it was mostly PVP: gg on that one, EQ 1 was a proto-themepark with a ever so slight tinge of sandbox by way of the need to explore the world. For comparison I play EVE-Online and found WoW to be frustratingly difficult in the "you gotta do it this way and no other" sense when I did play it out of curiosity for a month in early Cata. Granted WoW didn't have a boss purposefully created not to get beaten like EQ 1 had ,and then there's the 24+ hour boss in FFXI ( I believe ) , considering the social aspect, the influx of people and the need to depend on one another you're excused for not knowing better (considering your mention of EQ1 and UO endgame I suspect you hit WoW with a group in which case you bypassed a good deal of shit).
Oh and forum PVP? No, just love pointing at people too far up their own opinion to realize it isn't fact.
Pre-launch is just a cool catchphrase that has become an MMO marketing strategy for most games. It is a launch. More people started playing the game at pre-launch than will start the game on the official "launch" day. "Launch" is just the last of the fence sitters and everyone who got screwed over by gamestop. You won't even notice the launch in terms of new players.
Darkfall definitely should have made the list. As an avid launch junkie I have been through a lot of poor launches. This one doesn't rank in my worst list at all, yet. BUT the longer the server is down, the higher up that list it will go. For now, I don't mind the down time. I have a bunch of stuff to do today. But after I get back, I expect to be able to play the game. If we fast forward eight more hours and the servers are still down, then we start talking about failure launch 2014.
Truth about WoW was that it was such a good game, that so many people wanted to play it. This caused huge lag, especially on the continent where TM/SS zerg was. Remember early on, WoW's "PvP" were those massive zerg runs between towns, no rewards, no BG's, no arenas. The amount of players zerging in TM/SS caused the whole continent to crash at times.
Also notably WoW also went through a period of instance lag issues, where it could take 5-10 seconds to cast a spell, or worse yet part of your raid couldn't enter the correct instance when you're trying to raid Molten Core. At times the whole instance would crash and dump your raid outside the instances. You should've experienced this, unless you were not raiding when you played WoW. Other small but important issues like crashing while riding the boat, or worse getting dumped in middle of the ocean, yup they were part of the technical issues in WoW early on since boat riding was how you got between continents back then.
With that said, vanilla WoW was a very good game, it was to many an Everquest on steroids. It took away the tedium of EQ, but kept the holy trinity, hard dungeons, large scale raids, embraced PvP that SOE never did, and heck it even had multi-groups dungeons like upper BRS remember? With pulls that could wipe everybody if CC/puller didn't do a good job. Good times. Vanilla WoW was a really good game. Its technical issues had a lot to do with the success & popularity of the game.
So it probably deserves to be on the list of worst MMO launches in the past 10 years. But it goes to show you people really didn't care much about crashing, lag, bugs, or exploit issues, as long as the game was fun and that the game got improved as time went on. It's an important lesson, as how players view this game will be totally based on how Zenimax deals with early launch issues and whether they could improve the game as the game goes on. No one would remember this long downtime if they come back with a lot of bugs fixed, and that they have plenty of new content & updates ready to go shortly after launch to please the players.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
MMO's as a rule are not difficult, WoW was no different. The figure you pulled out can easily be considered "more than 90% of the player base dont raid and couldnt give two shits about raid content." or "more than 90% of the playerbase are complete and total noobs" depending on the way you want to view it.
Either way the figure doesnt prove WoW was hard. EQ2 was by far a more difficult game at the time, and they released very close to each other. That and EQ2's higher system requirements were probably a big factor in why they couldnt compete with WoW for the casual audience.
I agree Darkfall had a pretty terrible launch. If not quite in the top 10 its is extremely close to it. And they did it twice with the same game lol.
BTW, ZOS posted an ETA of 1-2 hours about 15 minutes ago.
Edit: Im also kind of surprised to not see WAR on that list. I loved PvPing in that game, played it on and off a lot over the years, but the launch was pretty craptastic.
- Missing 4 classes
- Missing 4 of 6 captial cities, which were never added in later
- Lots of bugged mobs
- Mail system that took 5-10 minutes to open your mailbox
- Fortresses causing entire servers to crash
- Extreme class imbalances
- bugged pets
- bugged stealth
- Scenarios bugging constantly, both joining into them and the queue itself constantly breaking
The game is launched and if you think otherwise you're delusional. The marketing teams can call it pre-play, pre-launch, early-not-launch-access-status.... whatever but if they're taking money from people and letting them play without any wipes or otherwise then the game is launched.
Have you not noticed that EVERY single game these days does an early access pre-launch or whatever? And every single game (more or less) is a mess for weeks/months?
Calling this or any other title not launched yet is just stupid. it is launched, they are just calling it something different and attempting to filter the number/types of people playing while they fix it.
Just accept that this is the launch and it's bad like all other launches have been. Software world is all about bugs and fixing them. Microsoft and Apple are massive, larger than any of these game developers and they have to release fixes constantly. They tend to have more stable products out of the gate but they still have bugs!
No way bro. Windows 8 it is the epitome of perfection!
Ugh. I just made myself cringe even typing that.
WoW=2004
TESO=2014
What have we learned in 10 years?
Nothing changed much really. People will still gladly pay and play a game they have fun in. Gamers will tolerate launch issues as long as issues are fixed, games are updated, and new content is released.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
1. That we still complain far too much about first world problems.
2. People demand immediate satisfaction for their complaints
3. MMO launches are rarely ever smooth
yep
EQ2 fan sites
That no software, including video games, has ever launched without having bugs and various technical issues and probably never will. There are companies that have been at this much longer than these game devs, have tons more money, much better technology, and are pushing products that don't even require network connectivity and thousands of player sinteracting with eachother at all times and STILL can't get it right no matter how many times they remake the same product with a new skin on it.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Given the first world price I paid (in first world money) for this first world game, then I would expect first world service.
Instead we have servers made of wood.
The threads about "best launch ever" have crumbled under their own weight, though. So your point 3 isn't a given for everyone apparently.
ZO are going to pay the price though, unfortunately for them.
That article is simply terrible. Shadowbane anyone, SB.EXE errors were rampant. DAOC released with some of the worst balance of any game I've ever seen, huge chunks of the world were completely unitemized, siege stuff didn't work etc.
EQ's launch was pretty bad too simply because of all the infrastructure problems.
Thing is old technology wasn't really ready for MMORPG so you can kind of excuse it in the old games, a bad launch these days is just bad programming.
Meanwhile, back at ZM
Polishing their infrastructure I see!