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Can an MMO ever truly recover from a bad launch?
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
So, I started thinking about this when reading about how bad Wildstar is doing. Even though it isn't made for 1% raiders anymore, and is (supposedly) more improved. I don't play it, but another MMO in similar circumstances DID 100% improve and I had first hand experience with it.
That is Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Its launch was very bad (not the worst, but people coming from WoW expected perfection and because WoW launched with so much polish, that is what people wanted for a launch)...but it did also have a lot of other problems besides a bad two week launch. Bugged quests, crashing for many people, broken endgame and not easily soloable (which most themepark players (outside of MMORPG.com) always really like the option to solo even if they group most of the time, as seen by the WoW playerbase.
So the game really had a bad first month which lost most of its players during that time.
However, like Wildstar (if what I read is true from that), Vanguard fully "recovered" after that first month and was barely buggy at all and performance was far better. Over time, the game came out just as they wanted it to. Vanguard itself was touted as a hardcore not solo friendly MMO, which right there will always be a niche MMO as far as themeparks go. However, if it saw 300-500k subscribers, that would have been a success for a niche MMO.
However, the subscriber base was far below 100k, and by the end of its life the servers were nearly completely dead...the playerbase (including myself) heavily tried advertising for it on massively, MMORPG.com and many other places. But, people never stuck with it because the game was empty and lifeless after getting past the first initial levels.
And that is really true for every MMO with a bad launch. I've only seen ONE MMO with a bad launch recover pretty well, that being Anarchy Online the worst launched MMO in MMO history. It was so bad, two weeks after release I picked up AO for 1 dollar at Frys Electronics rofl. 1 single dollar, and I got 30 days free...that was how bad it was. But, it DID recover, the only MMO I can think of with such a terrible launch actually recover from.
Granted, there wasn't any other MMOs like AO (there still isn't) and it was back when the MMO industry was a lot less crowded and very few choices.
But can an MMO with a bad launch in todays world, ever recover its playerbase? Wildstar and Vanguard Saga of heroes both seem to prove that its actually nearly impossible if not outright impossible in todays world of tons of choices to choose from.
What do you guys think?
That is Vanguard Saga of Heroes
Its launch was very bad (not the worst, but people coming from WoW expected perfection and because WoW launched with so much polish, that is what people wanted for a launch)...but it did also have a lot of other problems besides a bad two week launch. Bugged quests, crashing for many people, broken endgame and not easily soloable (which most themepark players (outside of MMORPG.com) always really like the option to solo even if they group most of the time, as seen by the WoW playerbase.
So the game really had a bad first month which lost most of its players during that time.
However, like Wildstar (if what I read is true from that), Vanguard fully "recovered" after that first month and was barely buggy at all and performance was far better. Over time, the game came out just as they wanted it to. Vanguard itself was touted as a hardcore not solo friendly MMO, which right there will always be a niche MMO as far as themeparks go. However, if it saw 300-500k subscribers, that would have been a success for a niche MMO.
However, the subscriber base was far below 100k, and by the end of its life the servers were nearly completely dead...the playerbase (including myself) heavily tried advertising for it on massively, MMORPG.com and many other places. But, people never stuck with it because the game was empty and lifeless after getting past the first initial levels.
And that is really true for every MMO with a bad launch. I've only seen ONE MMO with a bad launch recover pretty well, that being Anarchy Online the worst launched MMO in MMO history. It was so bad, two weeks after release I picked up AO for 1 dollar at Frys Electronics rofl. 1 single dollar, and I got 30 days free...that was how bad it was. But, it DID recover, the only MMO I can think of with such a terrible launch actually recover from.
Granted, there wasn't any other MMOs like AO (there still isn't) and it was back when the MMO industry was a lot less crowded and very few choices.
But can an MMO with a bad launch in todays world, ever recover its playerbase? Wildstar and Vanguard Saga of heroes both seem to prove that its actually nearly impossible if not outright impossible in todays world of tons of choices to choose from.
What do you guys think?
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
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My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
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The first time I played Vanguard was more than two years after launch. At that point, it was still a mess, so it shouldn't be surprising that it was still unpopular. Improving from catastrophically awful to merely rather bad is a long way to go, but had it been rather bad at launch, it still would have been a commercial failure.
To this day, I cannot imagine how the folks at SOE could think they could take a game that's built from the ground up to be a pure sandbox, and make it more like a game that was built from the ground up to be a pure themepark, and somehow think they could profit off the latters success. Changing the very core of a design language to conform to a completely different breed of creation just doesn't work. Talk about fake personality issues, and a failure to recognize the distinct demand for what they already had.
SOE definitely should have polished what they already had with SWG, and developed a brand new mmorpg if they wanted to try and compete with the elephant.
This thread being about successful recoveries, however. I'd say FFXIV for sure. I played through the beta and early launch of XIV 1.0 and while I did enjoy the FFXI nostalgia, it wasn't supposed to be a FFXI v.2, and I could see how the archaic pandering wasn't what would drive the most success. So good on them for turning things around and doing what needed to be done. A ground up remake, not an ugly/botched face-lift like what SOE attempted. It seems that at least some developers have learned what not to do from the NGE mistake, and I'd say there's some value in that.
So no, MMOs never really recover from a bad launch. They can acquire new people, but even in the best case scenario they will get only a shadow of what they would have had had they launched in the better state.
FFXIV. ESO. etc.
Maybe that is wrong, but that is what I read from various sites and posters that it was Lucasarts who had the heavy hand in ruining SWG, not so much SOE.
Though with that said...I'm sure SOE was eager for that WoW money as well, but it was Lucasarts supposedly calling the shots.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
But it is still possible, one game that did is Eve Online. It took a lot of work and long time but it became one of the larger games eventually. Anarchy Online never got as large but it did recover pretty well after the worst launch in MMO history.
So, you can admit the launch sucked, make the game free and relaunch it fixed up or you can spend a lot of hard work and slowly win ground.
Both are lousy alternatives to launching in good shape though, it is far cheaper and better to do it right from the start then to put millions into fixing things up.
Also, FFXIV would certainly have more subs if it launched in great shape from the beginning, they did minimize the damage but their name got still hurt somewhat.
So don't launch until the game is ready, while you save money at this moment you will be losing that money fast and most games never recover from a bad launch.
Vanguard is a good example of almost making it but fumbling the ball at the 1yd line. SoE took it from a buggy and shelf-ready title to something that was stable and playable, something to build upon. Unfortunately they didn't give it enough love post stabilization for it to flourish (music, sounds, animations, etc.). It wasn't until around the time of F2P and wanting to promote the conversion that they introduced new content and by then most had left.
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EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
And judging by Vanguard - no, that kind of recovery doesnt happen, ever.
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