Play time will probably suck, but I’ll take it anyway.
So it is the dreaded suits who are to blame! If this is truly a practice that is to blame rather than unfortunate circumstances, then it sucks more ass than I first suspected. The consumer is caught. We can:
A. Support the, most times, friendly and responsive developers (like Raph) and stick it out. This results in the practice becoming more entrenched in the corporate S.O.P.
B. Desert games we have look forward to, followed and/or helped to test so that we can teach the evil suits a lesson. This will result in good people losing out on something they have poured years and their heart into.
Booo…hissss. I am off to download stolen music and movies and games from the internet. That’ll learn 'em.
Suits? I meant everyone.
I suggest we kill all the consumers.
Don’t bother. Cleve’s race war apocalypse is just days away, after all.
Ya’ll really do have too much time on your hands. :)
First day was a disaster. And we’re not being charged for it. Most MMORPG launches are rocky and having only one day of disruption, so far, doesn’t seem that bad. Today everything seems to be running smoothly. I’ve been playing for hours and having a really good time with some great folks. Of course, that’s just me. I could be easy to amuse.
I’ve come to the conclusion that in most cases it makes little difference to the bottom line whether the launch of a major MMOG is smooth or not. At least, the companies involved seem to be betting it doesn’t.
You can insure a good launch by throwing money at it. More hardware, more reduncancy, more bandwidth, more people. It’s not rocket science, especially for a company that already has some of these things under their belt. But why spend the money?
I mean, the people who rush to register the day the freaking game comes out are, by definition, likely to be hardcore players, fanbois, zealots, or just phenomenally interested and aware gamers. They aren’t just casual gamers in all likelihood. These folks will bitch and moan and complain about the delays and crashes and time outs and whatnot, but in the end, as soon as they get in the game, voila! It’s all forgotten.
Besides, you can’t generally take these games back for refunds, so you’re kinda stuck with it. And face it, only a small minority would even consider returning the game before actually getting a chance to play it–remember, these folks are the ones most interested in the game after all. Once you’re in, even if it takes two days or so, you have your month to play. What happens in that month–not what happened on day one or two, will determine whether the sale turns into a subscription IMO.
Sure, a bad launch is bad publicity and might scare away folks who would otherwise have bought early. But it won’t scare away the folks who were going to wait anyhow–they’ll still wait a week, or a month, or two. And if gamers like the game after 30 days they won’t care about the launch.
So the reason IMO we get these debacles is because, well, they’re only debacles to us, and to the developers probably (I’m sure Raph Koster didn’t want it this way either). To the guys counting the beans, it’s not a big factor I’m guessing.
How’s this for conspiracy theory? The horrific launch is really just a planned distraction from the fact that the GAME IS COMPLETELY CRAP. If reviews whine about the launch, it probably won’t stop those who have been really anticipating the game to buy it, because frankly, everyone EXPECTS a problematic launch.
So now you’ve delayed real reviews of the game itself and word of mouth getting out about how broken, buggy and empty the game is even when the servers are cooperating.
Okay, probably not, but the fact remains: forget the launch woes, the game is shite. The sorriest part is Raph Koster’s been on here posting that he’s been in crunch mode for months, doesn’t see his family, etc. All for this game. Wow.
That’s pretty harsh, lurker.
I think the economic model and the interdependence of the character classes are pretty exciting myself.
I’m not sure what to think of the supposed random terrain, and I’m sure it’s buggy, but it still seems pretty ambitious to me.
Naturally no one’s going to be happy about the lack of space flight, but jeez, why don’t you just call Raph a pederast?
I only played a little in beta, and it didn’t really grab me. Might look into it at some point. It seemed way too convoluted, group-centered, and stereotypically MMORPG-ish, down to the baby MOBs on the outskirts of town ready to kill stormtrooper wannabees in a single blow or whatever. From what I’ve heard from folks who played a lot more in the beta, you either love the way the game works or hate it. For everyone who says the interdependent classes are cool, there’s another who says it’s irritating as hell to have to go watch cantina dancers for thirty minutes after every few hours of fighting, and that the in-game economy is fuxored.
I dunno from experience. My time in beta was limited and the game usually didn’t work then. Which is ok in beta.
I’m watching with utmost curiousity however.
Am I the only one who remembers how much everyone complained every time Verant announced a delay or a feature cut? And now everyone’s saying that they pushed it out the door too soon. Geez.
Well, for what it’s worth, I did get on today and, so far, have made it through character creation and the tutorial. Pretty slick so far, as far as these things go. Now we’ll see how the rest of the game goes.
I don’t take back my rant though. There was no excuse for yesterday.
From what I hear, alien languages are the same as they were in beta, ie - a complete waste of code. Am I wrong?
In beta, everyone could teach every language they knew without any penalties so it all ended up being basic in the end.
I think you guys are missing the reality here…
On launch day and the following week the subscription servers will see a load that they will NEVER see again. Why would Sony dump a ton of money on enough servers to handle that 5-day-crush when they’ll just sit idle for the rest of the game’s lifespan? It absolutely does not make economic sense to do so. Thus, you get a damage contol and apology campaign together and ride it out. It’s obvious that admitting this publicly would just feed the fires of the frustrated, so the classic statement is “we didn’t expect this many” when really they did, but they know you’ll all get in eventually anyway and when the storm calms down everybody’s happy and they’ve saved a ton of money.
You’d assume that the features they did leave in would be complete. Like the “sign in and play” feature.
“On launch day and the following week the subscription servers will see a load that they will NEVER see again. Why would Sony dump a ton of money on enough servers to handle that 5-day-crush when they’ll just sit idle for the rest of the game’s lifespan?”
Subcontracting, sir. Microsoft doesn’t constantly keep the bandwidth and servers around to handle the rush whenever there’s a SP release; they keep a baseline, and rent server farms (Akami? I think) for the occasional peak load.
Well, there’s also this explanation (may have been posted elsewhere):
Sony knew that something like this had a good chance of happening, and, thinking that whoever is going to buy the game is also going to keep trying to get in no matter what, just didn’t see the need to spend the money on outsourcing, extra servers, etc.
I just think that the launches of WW2OL and AO showed that this isn’t the case. I am not disagreeing that Verant may have THOUGHT it was the case though. But with those other two games, the same kind of problems happened (perhaps on a greater scale). I, for one, stopped playing both and have NOT gone back since. I have too much pain associated with it. I have talked to many other people who have said the same thing. I mean how many “it’s getting better” posts do you even bother reading after something like that. Star Wars MAY be different, but believe me, there were a lot of fanbois for WW2OL. A lot of people wanted that game to work. Apparently it does now, though no one is playing it. Well, no one compared to whom they could have had, if they had pulled off a better launch.
Perhaps it was sabotage.
In fact that seems like the most likely explanation. Hardware failure at an inconvenient time? Well, I guess we could blame God…
“Star Wars: Galaxies was so highly anticipated that, despite SOEs experience garnered from multiple successful MMOGs, the login servers were swamped with so many eager players on launch day that technical difficulties were encountered. The problems were rapidly resolved and tens of thousands of Star Wars fans are now happily role-playing in the most immersive Star Wars simulation ever available to humanity…”
George Lucas leant back in his chair, resting his feet on the back of the lackey-droid who had finishing read aloud the electronic message.
“They like my brand. They really like my brand!”
etc
I just think that the launches of WW2OL and AO showed that this isn’t the case. I am not disagreeing that Verant may have THOUGHT it was the case though. But with those other two games, the same kind of problems happened (perhaps on a greater scale). I, for one, stopped playing both and have NOT gone back since. I have too much pain associated with it. I have talked to many other people who have said the same thing. I mean how many “it’s getting better” posts do you even bother reading after something like that. Star Wars MAY be different, but believe me, there were a lot of fanbois for WW2OL. A lot of people wanted that game to work. Apparently it does now, though no one is playing it. Well, no one compared to whom they could have had, if they had pulled off a better launch.[/quote]
That is what I was trying to say, dog gone it! I guess actually playing the games one cites as examples adds a teensy-weensy bit more creedence to the arguement. :) Thank you Mr. Sharp. You have given my life meaning where there once was none. Peace be with you. And I guess, while I’m at it, the Force, too.