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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?
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.
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?
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."
I think that games like Eve Online, Meridian 59 and the other smaller MMORPGs have all proven that attentive developers and a dedicated community can keep any game alive.
;) (I'm one of the devs on Meridian 59.)
Thanks for the compliment. I think.
It's suprising how often people forget that online RPGs change, especially since that's supposed to be one of the bigger selling points. Many online games change radically as the game gets older and more content is added. The Meridian 59 you can play today is rather different than the game you could have played back in 1996 thanks to 7 updates to the game. Especially after we finish the new client upgrade, the game will be more modern.
The biggest problem is that most game reviewers don't really pay much attention to a game past launch. Most of them are stuck in the mindset of single-player games, where you want to review the game as soon as possible after launch, then you ignore it. It makes some sense; who wants to read a review of Warcraft 2 these days? Yet, a review of Meridian 59 might still be of interest to some people, since the game has changed. The same reviewers that eagerly want to review the newest sequel won't even pay attention to the latest expansion to an online game. (It's even worse for those of us that don't put boxes in stores, since it's often not seen as a "real" expansion [or even a "real" game!] without the box. Yet another reason why you have to pay $40 in the store in addition to a monthly fee for the majority of games.)
I've been marginally involved with an upcoming site that is looking to change how games are reviewed. A new perspective on how to review online RPGs should help solve some of these problems.
As for City of Heroes, it is a good game. I'll counter your assertion that focusing on one aspect is a good thing, however. While the combat is fun, it ultimately comes off as very shallow. Many games have had to endure complaints that there's a "lack of content" when they've trimmed back the game to plan for a more stable launch. The novelty of the superhero genre and CoH's highly customizable character costume creation system gave the game a bit extra time, in my opinion. Initial success is one thing, but retaining customers is very, very important to the long-term health of the game.
It's also interesting to note that the publisher of CoH, NCSoft, is a very experienced online game publisher. NCSoft has plenty of experience to share, and they've hired on some of the more experienced US online game developers.
Some more information for those interested.
Have fun,
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog