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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'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.
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?