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World War II Online Reloaded - Can MMOs Be Rehabilitated?
Thanks to FiringSquad for its article revisiting the state of PC MMO World War II Online, as the writer asks: "Three years ago I uninstalled World War II Online and lamented a good idea gone bad. Now I can barely force myself to write this article for fear of losing Maastricht to a British counter-offensive." With FiringSquad's original review stating "the vast majority of you will simply feel cheated", things seem to have changed, from the same reviewer's perspective: "Somewhere along the way, World War II Online got good. The game isn't so much better than it used to be because the graphics got some sprucing up or because of new weapons. It happened in the community." Can a keen, well-organized community and post-launch patching rehabilitate an MMO, or will a sub-optimal launch doom it?
I play SWG right now and I can barely stand to play on the live servers because of the constant whining and bickering. The forums are un-bearable. I play test center now and it is like playing a whole new game, people help each other out and it is like the game used to be on live servers back at launch.
I like it when the lame people disappear so only the serious are playing the games. Of course, it costing money helps, because chances are only the serious fans are going to pay to continue playing, and since they are paying, they are going to go the little extra to keep it going. hopefully.
Be seeing you...
Woukld have worked 20 years ago. Now days all the 12 year olds have daddy's credit card. Not to mention there's a huge problem with 30 year olds acting like two year olds.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I've played a few; Asheron's Call(AC), which I still log into now and again. AC 2, which I don't touch for fear of plague DAoC, didn't get into it much. Star Wars Galaxys, which I played for a while then stoped. Yo-ho-ho Puzzle Pirates, play and love. Now the last three I have all stoped. I didn't like the people in AC 2, and frankly they had it right with the orginal. DAoC had problems with my computer at the time (or vise versa) so with a frame rate of about 4/min. I tossed it into my bottom desk drawer never to be seen again. SWG was fun, but people were spread out, I didn't get to know many and without a comunity hold I ended up quitting. Now AC 1 has some great people, I probably added about 30 people to my messenger lists because of that game. Many times I'd find myself logging in just to talk to people. now YPP (Puzzle Pirates) is a game all about community. Unlike the previous 4 games; had less fan-fare, started small, wasn't in a retail box, and started with many problems. Because of the communities in AC and YPP I stuck with those games, the lack for me in the others killed the fun of them. Really, would you play a solo game for over 80 hours total (a long rpg game length)? So the community does matter, it is the lifeblood of MMO games. And like YPP a game can have a small release, but can build a comunity later.
Indeed.
I've found that most greifers I meet are actualy much older.
Twelve year olds can get away with being bad durring the day, but adults will use the anonyminity of the games for this release since they cannot.
I agree with this sentiment, there are way too many cranky and therefore annoying people on the MMOs these days. RPGs aren't nearly as bad as FPS's though. partially because of the higher fee, but also because i feel those cranky and irritating indviduals don't have the patience for RPGs. I mean, when you get onto something like Counter Strike, you'll be gamin along having a relatively civilised fragfest/bloodbath when some little squeaky voice (or older one for that matter) starts streamin curses like a southern sailor and callin everybody cheaters and hackers among everything else every time they run out guns ablazing and die. It's getting so that the only place to have a civilised war is in elite servers! and even then it can be bad. and as far as fee's go, they don't even work that well either, take Rainbow Six 3 for X-BOX for example, you get on those servers and you're always switching servers because of some annoying kid or TKer. It's rediculous! Civilise the Fragfests People!
Can someone please tell me which MMORPG did NOT have a sub-optimal launch?
This is a tough one. On the one hand, I can understand the phenomenon the article talks about. I've never played WW2 Online, but I remember the publicity when it launched; easily horrible enough that I never felt any inclination to try it. I'm sure this dissuaded a lot of other potential customers from ever picking up the game. I'm also sure that a lot of those who did pick it up dropped it again after a month (obviously, I don't know for sure, but I'd guess it gave you the first month's subscription free when you bought the game, as most MMORPGs seem to).
However, those that were left after the initial exodus were probably those whose interest in the game was deep and genuine enough that they were prepared to stick with it through the initial difficulties. Once the problems start getting patched out, it's easy to see these players forming a pretty deep bond with the game. However, what I'm less sure about is whether a MMORPG which suffers a terrible launch can then draw in new players at a later date. Obviously, there's going to be a certain word-of-mouth effect surrounding the people who still play the game; many of them will try to sign up friends. However, this alone won't be enough to have a huge effect on the player-base.
The other approach to drawing in new players after a horrific launch is to release a massively hyped expansion. Witness SW Galaxies and the forthcoming space expansion. With Galaxies, they may well have some success, because the pre-release interest in Galaxies was like nothing I've seen before for a MMORPG and I know the number of players who lost interest when it was announced there would be no space combat at release was pretty large. Whether this will actually work in practice and whether the technique can be adapted by other games without the huge license to support them remains to be seen.
Developing a MMORPG is a huge risk for a developer, as demonstrated by the number we've seen cancelled before release lately. It's a difficult market to break into, not least because of the relatively high initial costs for players when the game is released. (On a side note, I have NO sympathy for those who claim a MMORPG shouldn't charge both a purchase charge and a monthly fee. Developers need to do this, it's simple economics. After the years spent developing the game, the developers will almost certainly need some hefty cash-flow straight after release just to stay afloat, hence the box-costs. The monthly fees then pay for continuing support). With some recent MMORPGs such as FFXI proving that you CAN do a good roll-out, patience for sloppy MMORPG releases is at an all-time low. Sure, it's possible you can recover if things go pear-shaped, but why take the risk?
The same thing with gaming. Everyone talks about how Counter-Strike can be a really awesome and strategic game 'when you play on a well moderated, private server'. Thats like saying 'Iraq is a really safe place if you stay inside a military bunker in the Green Zone.' You may think 'oh well thats just one or two bad cases' but there are roughly 50,000 players playing the game at any given time, do you REALLY think that my bad experiences won't be replicated by other people?
I've played a lot of MMOGs and I can honestly say, none of them held my interest for long. Perhaps its because I've been spoiled on WWIIOL and nothing comes even close to what it does. Did WWIIOL have a really bad launch? Yep. No one disputes that at all. But CRS (the developers) have quite literally taken on the likes of a pheonix, rising from the ashes of destruction to produce IMHO a brilliant game. Despite claims by other companies, WWIIOL *IS* the largest battlefield. No zones. No loading. Once you are in, you can fly, walk, swim, drive across all of europe. Hop in a HE-111 bomber deep within Germany, fly to England and bomb some factories in a raid, and pray you don't get shot down by scrambling fighters. Anyways, I wont bore you guys with another review, as most of the community feel that the firingsquad review was quite fair. There is a free trial at filefront (14 days) and obviously I highly suggest you join the war and see why this game has survived, and grown for 3 years despite the disaster launch: http://files.filefront.com/3406002;/pub2/World%20W ar%20II%20Online/Official%20Demos//
had a horrible launch, but through patching it became better, and more popular game.
Games are complicated to make and MMORPGs are even harder because of the added technical, socialogical and (in-game and out) economic hurdles. Since gamers have proven that they are willing to wait around for the developers to work the bugs out, the practice of releasing an MMORPG at the point of minimal stability has become an industry standard.
It's also the reason that these games will never reach main-stream acceptance. Only a bunch of geeks would be willing to put up with this sort of behaviour.
I've played quite a bit of City of Heroes lately and what really makes it brilliant is not so much the game play (which is good) but rather the way the game is being managed. First - and this is the key to their success - they avoided "feature creep." City of Heroes does one thing - combat - and does it very well. It's tight, fast and resonably balanced but that's it - that's the entire game. No crafting, no economy, no loot, No PvP. THey've avoided 90% of the trouble most other MMORPGs get into by making the choice to put it in at a later date. I'm sure that each of these areas will be added eventually, but in the form of expansion packs and additional revenue.
Next, they planned a staggered release. Rather than delivering boxes to all the stores at once and throwing open the servers, they let the pre-order customers ( read "the hardcore") start three days before the official launch. THen they staggered the delivery of the boxes to retails over the period of about a week. SO there was no real launch day rather they planned and executed "launch week."
Cryptic Studios ( the developers) also did a very bright thing by lopping off a good bit of the game (levels 41-50) and patching it in to the game about 6 weeks after launch as it's first official content patch. Most of the player population couldn't get near level 40 in that time period so patching this bit in later gave Cryptic a chance to focus on the the newbie experience for launch and polish the high end game for later. It also made them look good by adding a good chunk of content just a few weeks after launch.
I could cite a few more examples suffice to say that I consider City of Heroes the first true "second generation" MMORPG not because of any game play or technological innovation but because they're the first MMORPG to look at the predecessors and impliment the lessons learned.
If WWIIOL and the other troubled MMORPGs had been managed so well, I'm sure they would have no trouble surviving.
I play Battlefield Vietnam and occasionally there will be people griefing on there. Mostly, you hear people who can't fly bitch about people who can. I was on a server last night, and some guy kept going on and on about how happy he will be when the helicopters are nerfed. Of course, I'm sure if this person could actually fly a helicopter then they would have a completely different view on it.
quick plug here for my favourite game:
n t_promo. jsp
h p?f=8
didn't want to bother creating an account, but anyone who want to try the game out for free can participate in the 2 week trial:
http://www5.playnet.com/bv/wwiiol/filefro
if your having any issues with the trial be sure to check: the community support forums:http://discussions.playnet.com/viewforum.p
-Drallo
As somebody who just left WWIIOL last month because I got a bit burned out, I'll back up everything the reviewer said in his article. WWIIOL is dated in a lot of areas, but the days of the botched release are long, long behind it. CRS has a pretty good relationship with most of the playerbase, as well.
The interesting thing he barely touched on is that the warring armies--British and French on one side, German on the other--have command structures completely staffed by players. For example, I played in a squad called 3CD (Third Canadian Division). 3CD and its internal subunits were part of the Corps de Cavalrie, 1re Armee, Armee Francais. At each intermediate level, there were player COs, XOs, and subordinate officers, all the way up to a Supreme Commander for each side, Allied and Axis.
CRS codes the org charts for each side into the game, to a point. But the leadership positions are staffed by players who volunteer to take the time and do it. And it's on those players' shoulders that much of the success or failure of an entire "army" rests. Army CinCs probably spend more time out of the game working on "administrative" things than they do actually playing...it's practically a second job.
"Settle down, Beavis. We've got an experiment to do."
"some guy kept going on and on about how happy he will be when the helicopters are nerfed."
Yeah, since helicopters played almost no role in the war to begin with...
WWIIOL is a unique situation in that you have a developer-run outfit that deeply believes in it's vision and runs a tight enough ship to keep it afloat through the tough times.
Moose4 has it right, the players create content by running the virtual army organizations and attacking each other with different tactics and combinations of equipment. Since the terrain is immense and varied every attack is different even using the same tactics because the ground changes and situations change. And if you get bored with a certain nation's equipment or fighting style, you can simply switch over. And the Rats are constantly introducing new equipment and play changes. The replay value is immense.
The community has stuck by CRS during the tough times because they believe in the vision as well, and have an incredible level of access and direct communication with the developers. And enough of the vision has come true to keep most interested.
If the Rats were doing this for someone else this very unique game would not exist- I think that is the most important part of WWIIOL's phoenix story.
BTW, the reviewer is showing a bit of Axis bias and ahistorical expectation- the German tanks ARE suppossed to be fragile in 1940. If you expect to recreate the Tiger killer tank experience that will probably come with a later release, and even then the German High Command will have to decide to research for it, which might be affected by the strategic bombing campaign constantly going on.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
No helicoptors suck when your NVA becuase there isn't a good way to shoot it down. The viet-cong have the anti-aircraft missiles to balance it out. Trying to shoot it down with a machine gun is impossible when the spinning helicopter is camping the spawn. Plus when 75% of your team is waiting around for a stupid helicopter it really sucks. Yeah I can fly a helicopter but I am not waiting around to get killed by my own team member to fly the stupid thing.
Well, the helicopters shouldn't be able to withstand the abuse from several RPG's and machine gun fire. The armor is way too powerful. They should have damage specific zones.
i agree with that one, i think damage zones would greatly improve the game in that respect. there's now way shooting the wing stub has the same effect as shooting the tail rotor. But i also think that not every hit should cause damage, a pistol round the bottom of the chopper, where there isn't so much vital stuff, shouldn't do damage. and if it does, only a very tiny amount.
are you kidding? the choppers were often a decisive weapon in the vietnam war, it would have been a much bigger disaster had we not had them. of course if we didn't have them we may not have gotten so involved in the first place...