What is The Cost of an Early Release?

Everguide writes "Sony Online Entertainment recently announced that they would be releasing EverQuest 2 on November 8th, ahead of their main competition World of Warcraft (last predicted release date: Week of November 22). SOE is notorious for launching games with content that is not finished or buggy, and Blizzard is known for at times delaying a game just to work out minor bugs. Is it worth launching a game early, yet buggy, to grab market share from the competition? I know the Themis group thinks a poor launch can cost a company millions of dollars but will the benefit of launching early exceed the costs?"

Comments

I can't remember the author...

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

but I found a quote several years back that went something like this...

A late game is only late until the moment it launches
A bad game is bad forever.

Games like Anarchy Online that ended up being decent games, suffered drastically at launch and word got around that the game had issues, wasn't worth trying, etc. and they no doubt lost a lot of potential customers over this.

Get the game right and then launch. You're always going to have isssues with someone who is using a 4 MB video card or only 64 MB of RAM on their mobo, or some other issue - that's going to happen - don't let the people who bothered to read the minimum requirements and have met them suffer because you wanted to get the game out first.

Re:I can't remember the author...

[HAKdragon]

The author of that quote is Shigeru Miyamoto

Re:I can't remember the author...

[HawkingMattress]

exactly, i was in the anarchy online boat when it launched. I quit after maybe one month, and never looked back. The thing is, when you looked at the screenshots, or read early reports you could easily be fooled into thinking that you could do this and that in game. Even if they didn't clearly said you could, lots of things were implied in what they (or the stupid zealot players who refused to admit their game sucked) said.
Bottom line: you can be sure that i'll never buy a funcom game again, and that i'll recommend others to go somewhere else. When i buy something (and pay a monthly fee, on top of that !), I want it to work like it's advertised to do. I don't want any excuses or whatever, if the thing isn't finished, then don't let it out. Treating its customers like shit is the worst thing a business can do, and those customers will remember they were fooled, and make the worst things they can to turn that business into worthless crap.

So, i'd say the cost of an early release is not calculable, it's just the worst thing you can do to your business. (On the other hand, the cost of realeasing a finished product is easily calculable, and i understand it's not always easy to feed enough money in the machine without any return, but still... if the venture capitalists listened to what the people who knows what they are doing are telling them, they'd earn much more money in the end. But like allways the silly mindless pricks take the decisions, then call the developpers incompetents.)

Re:I can't remember the author...

[Lowtekium]

A wise man once said

"When the money runs out, its time to launch!"

Re:I can't remember the author...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness was late and bad.

Re:I can't remember the author...

[Starsmore]

See, that's where the second part of the quote comes in...

A bad game is bad forever.

Both of those games were just bad, period, no matter when they came out. :)

Depends

[the morgawr]

My $.02:

Obviously, having a game out nets you short term cash, and long run you can eventually patch it.

However, if your company has a reputation for releaseing buggy games, gamers are going to just not buy them for a few patches (to get the bugs worked out) or not buy them at all because they have a limited budget.

I'm in favor of the wait until the game is finished approach.

I think...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is more of a detriment than a benefit. The bugs invariably create word of mouth downturns for the product. Besides, this is assuming that SOE can even get people to transfer from their more established EQ1 for the harsher strictures imposed for things like dying in EQ2. I see players as more likely to transfer between worlds, as opposed to merely playing the same game with slightly better graphics.

Rarely yes, often no

[MMaestro]

will the benefit of launching early exceed the costs?

Yes in the case of the Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2 argument. Doom 3 lacked polish when it went beyond single-player which hurt it badly (deathmatch only? fun, but lacks variety). But in anyway you look at it, Doom 3 put a dent in Half-Life 2's fanfare. Fancy graphics and physics? Doom 3 did that, so Half-Life 2 only has storyline and gameplay (arguably the two hardest things to implement in a game).

No in the case of EA Games's style of releasing buggy games. We KNOW they're pretty much the Microsoft of developing games, we KNOW they have a stranglehold on developers, we KNOW not to play a version 1.0 of any EA game now. In the case of EA Games, they need to stop putting these games out so quickly and just polish them up. We don't need a BF1942/Vietnam clone/sequel/expansion only to have it even more buggy than the previous one.

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[fireduck]

Doom 3 may have gotten the early spotlight, but the real question, is "1 year from now, which game will still be played, and still selling for near full retail price?"

The fact that at any given time the total number of people playing HL and it's various mods often exceeds the total number of people playing all other FPS games online is amazing. What's absolutely insane is that it's a game that's 5 years old. And it's still taking up retail shelf space and selling for near full value (granted that's a boxed version including various mods, expansions).

HL2 is shipping with an updated version of the single most popular multiplayer FPS. (while Doom3's is multiplayer is lacking) I'd be surprised if even with it's late start HL2 doesn't sell more total copies than Doom3 by Christmas.

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[exhilaration]

1 year from now, which game will still be played, and still selling for near full retail price?

Funny you mention that. DOOM III is already down to $27.

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[Dirtside]

Yes in the case of the Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2 argument. Doom 3 lacked polish when it went beyond single-player which hurt it badly (deathmatch only? fun, but lacks variety). But in anyway you look at it, Doom 3 put a dent in Half-Life 2's fanfare.

This is somewhat tangential, but don't make the mistake of assuming that Doom 3 was "hurt" at all by lacking polish beyond single player. id Software isn't in the business of selling games: they're in the business of selling game engines. They make far more money doing that than they do from selling copies of a game like Doom 3. Don't get me wrong, game sales are a nice side benefit, but essentially Doom 3 (and every id game since Quake) has been released in order to demonstrate the new engine they've created. id then licenses the engine to numerous developers, who wrap their own content around it.

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[djRobbieB]

Your attach on EA Games is a little unnecessarily caustic. You have a point regarding some titles -- many of the EA Sports titles, and Lionhead's Black and White come to mind. But some, like The Two Towers and Return of the King games, were exceptional and polished.

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[ildon]

A bit misleading, as Id tried to make it very clear that Doom3's purpose and intention was single player, with multiplayer only being a little side benefit like it was in the original Doom games. Single player games by their very nature do not produce many post-release sales. People play it once or steal it and are done. Add to that the fact that Doom 3 (apparently) does not appeal to a very broad audience. Most of the old Doom players were looking for something more like Doom/Quake (action shooter) and most of the new FPS players were looking for something like Half-Life (slow paced story driven shooter), and it was neither. Oh and it has very high system requirements (which is something that also hurt Quake3 when it came out).
Counter-Strike is a sort of its own seperate animal. I think part of the reason it's so big is BECAUSE it's on a 5 year old engine. I don't know if CS:S will be enough to get the entire CS base (and face it 95% of all HL servers are CS, NOT HL) to buy HL2. It will be very hard to determine what percentage of HL2 purchasers are truly ONLY looking for the HL2 single player experience versus those looking for CS:S, TFC:S, DoD:S, NS:S, etc. etc. Yes I realize there were some Doom 3 purchasers thinking there would be a bevy of mods for it or that it would be a great DM game, but they were certainly in the minority, I think.

What were we talking about again?

Re:Rarely yes, often no

[gid]

Reminds me of this penny arcade strip.

I worked for a very wise man once

[MerlynEmrys67]

He said.
A year from now no one will remember that it was a year late.

A year from now they will remember that it was completely useless - and never buy from you again.

This was business software so it had a slightly longer lifetime - but the principle still applies - if you have a reputation for bad software - it will follow you forever.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[Monkelectric]

And for proof of that quote simply take a look at Fable. Its basically ruined Lion Head studios.

I was a huge fan of Black and White and Creature Isle (even though they were hugely flawed). So naturally I was excited about their first XBOX game.

"Fable" was supposed to be a massively complex RPG/Adventure game with a complex social system, hundreds of hours of game play, side quests... etc. The idea was to model a complex society where your interactions with people altered the way the game unfolded.

What Lion Head delievered to the 300,000 people who preordered (thankfully I knew better) was a buggy, choppy, video-abortion with 12 hours of play with none of the promised features. Peter Moenylux (sp?) the main designer -- even issued an apology for Fable.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[Breakfast Pants]

"All I know about Bush is I had a job when Clinton was president."

I hate bush too but are you seriously expecting empathy when you haven't found a job IN FOUR YEARS? Jesus Christ.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[ajd1474]

"Its basically ruined Lion Head studios."
How do you figure that?

Fable has been one of the most successful games ever for Xbox. It netted lionhead a mint. Sure it didnt live up to expectations, but it was hardly a failure, and you could hardly suggest that it was rushed to market, OR that it was buggy.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[scribblej]

I dont' know about the OP, but here's how *I* figure Fable ruined Lionhead.

Before I bought Fable, I'd have rushed out to buy anything and everything with Lionhead and/or Peter Molyneaux's name on it. I've been looking forward to Black and White 2, because I've heard about all the way it will beat the pants off Black and White 1, which was an excellent game in it's own right.

But now that I've played Fable, I'm not going to be so anxious to buy Black and White 2. For Fable, I was willing ot buy the hype, run out, and put my money down on the game, "site-unseen".

It won't happen again. There's no way in hell I'm buying another Peter Molyneaux game without checking it out first to be sure it really does 1/4th of the things we've been told.

So would I say they've lost a sale of Black and White 2? No, maybe not -- but they've definately lost $50 worth of pre-launch money. And that's just me.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[budgenator]

I'm not really a gamer, i did love Myst, but the boys seemed to blow through Fable pretty quickly. I might even give it a try as it seemed essentialy beginner-level. Since Fable was the 2nd game i've ever seen on Xbox, I thought the buggy, choppy, video-abortion was the way Xbox was supposed to be. After that I have seen a couple other games running much better.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[Monkelectric]

I thought the buggy, choppy, video-abortion was the way Xbox was supposed to be.

Hehehe... i just expect more from lionhead. Black & White was *gorgeous*.

Re:I worked for a very wise man once

[DrSkwid]

There's no way in hell I'm buying another Peter Molyneaux game without checking it out first

how do you figure that this action will "ruin Lionhead"?

only if they ever release crap games from now on.

Fable isn't a crap game even, its just not what you thought it would be based on early interviews. It is eminently playable and a fun time to be had doing so.

Peter is carving his original niche, doing brave games and the gaming world is far better off for him tryin to do so.

Perhaps he should do :

"Lionhead Cart Racing" with all of your favourite Lionhead characters in head to head carting mahem. Battle your way through the Lionhead lands of the Dungeon Keeper, Pupulous, Black and White and Fable and show the Big Cow who's Boss at carting!

I don't think anyone will mind.

[NashCarey]

I don't really think it amaters much when dealing with this kind of game. Patches are available anytime, and you never know what patches are needed sometimes until you get the thing started,

The Cost is your Reputation

[glowimperial]

Regarding Sony, specifically, they have lost their reputation as a MMO developer over the SWG fiasco. Jump to Lightspeed is apparently causing all sorts of bugs in the looting tables for the ground game, and people's items have been randomly disappearing since they started patching the code, I hear. The word on the street is that EQ2 is not ready yet either, although not as catastrophically bad as SWG at release. Given that Sony never got the 1 million customer base they predicted for SWG, they are hurting and in need of both market share and operating cash to keep their boats afloat. Tons of players are not going to play EQ2 (which will be a decent game, for its genre), due to their experiences with their other buggy releases. This is going to be a tough holiday season for game developers. A lot of the products they are putting out are extremely well made and very time consuming, I suspect a lot of players may only be able to tackle 2-3 of them until the end of the year. A lot of people will take a "wait and see" attitude on early MMO releases, given that they have a boatload of solid single player console and PC games to keep them busy until the mess sorts itself out. Blizzard can sit on WoW as long as they want. It has massive hype, and is in better shape than any MMO I have ever played, and it is still in Beta. They have a built in base of single player and online gamers waiting for their product, and a mountain of disgruntled MMO players who can bide their time in their less than satifactory worlds, until WoW comes out. Blizzard also drips with credibility regarding their quality control process, an increasingly important asset for anyone in the MMO market.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[LincolnQ]

Blizzard can sit on WoW as long as they want.

They're not, though. They're pushing themselves to release it in November. Recently they posted a rather large list of features that weren't gonna make release (things like hero classes, plus it looks like they are dropping any decent organized PvP) - a bunch of gamebreakers for me. I'm in the beta, but I'm not going to purchase WoW until they make the game massively better, which will probably be several months into 2005.

Have you played it? It's vaguely fun, but there's nothing really compelling about it. (Or EQ2 for that matter.)

Now, I think Guild Wars will be totally sweet, and I'm going to massively play it this weekend. Check it out. (Windows only right now, I hope they port it!)

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[glowimperial]

I know that they may be giving into market pressure to release early in the holiday season, but I think that they have a pretty solid product, and a development team and attitude that will work well towards improving their product in the long run. I haven't been in the EQ2 Beta, but what I did see in te WoW stress test was pretty promising. I think that they will have a good product, even if they go with the November 22nd launch. I have some of the same PvP concerns, but feel that Blizzard will address those concerns rapidly, with clean code, either before or after launch.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep I really enjoyed WoW for a month. By far the most fun I had in an MMORPG for that month. Then I realized there was nothing else to do at all really...

It has a lot of potential. It was a faster leveling track and a great quest system which will open up the market to non-MMORPGers (a great move by Blizzard). But it needs a lot of work as an MMORPG.

That first month I thought WoW would be my next MMORPG, now I am not even sure I will buy it since I figure I got everything out of it in beta already.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[photon317]

Specifically, Sony is banking on their successes with EQ1 to bring them EQ2 customers. For all of it's flaws (believe me, I ranted and railed about EQ1 plenty), it was still one of the best-designed and successful MMORPGs to date. They still have a healthy population that trounces most other games even after all these years and expansions and competitors.

What most people don't realize, and what Sony hopes they don't realize until it's too late (e.g. already bought EQ2 retail box, and signed up for a few months, and maybe even got hooked on the shitty game) - is that the guys who built EQ1 are not building EQ2. Your SWG references are pefect, because in terms of development/release/gameplay talent, EQ2 has more in common with SWG than EQ1.

Designing a really good MMORPG is a very hard thing, and there's a very small pool of talent who can really do it right. They (Verant, Sony) has the right guys doing the right stuff when EQ1 was built. The EQ2 team is not the same guys.

Incidentally, some of those magically talented guys that brought EQ1 into this world are currently working on a new games at http://www.sigilgames.com

Their new game is promising, if nothing else because of the guys behind it, but it's considerably behind the schedule of games like WoW and EQ2.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Lowtekium]

Blizzard also drips with credibility regarding their quality control process, an increasingly important asset for anyone in the MMO market.

I disagree with you there. People often forget about Battle.Net when it comes to Blizzard's portfolio. Battle.net is probably the worst multiplayer community/experience I've ever had (as well as all of my friends). Remember when they had deleted 112,000 Diablo II accounts (June 2003) due to hack and cheating programs? They patted themselves on the back in an effort to drum up more financial competence. Then not even 6 months later they deleted ANOTHER 400,000 accounts(Oct 2003). It only took them what, 4 or 5 years to recognize that the community as a whole sucked? The cheating was so rampant an honest player like me could never enjoy a complete round of Warcraft or Starcraft. When I played people were either cheating or turned off their computer when I was about to annihilate them so the loss wouldn't reflect on their ladder score. It was worse than CounterStrike (another game I hold with disdain).

Please don't forget the infamous Bnetd case.

Yeah. WoW is awesome. I'm in the beta and its tons of fun and I'll probably buy it once it hits the shelves, but I don't trust them any more than I do SOE/Verant for business practices. They may be the lesser of two evils, but are they still far from perfect.

If there is any game that I'm jonesing for it would be Tabula Rasa. Made by Richard Garriott and his team, the same people who practically invented the MMORPG. After seeing everything that E3 had to offer this year TR is probably the most innovative game to hit the MMORPG genre since well... Ultima Online. =]

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Rallion]

While I think Guild Wars also looks awesome, it's not really a MMO in the same way as EQ or WoW. In practice it works the same way as Diablo II, just with more limitations on how you enter games, and with a big 3D town with stores and the like instead of the chat rooms.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Rallion]

So it's Blizzard's fault that people break into their games and cheat? I don't think it is. They've limited the number of ways that people can cheat as much as possible while keeping actual gameplay reliable, but until running games all serverside is cheap and everybody has zero-latency net connections, it's not possible. It's equally impossible to tell whether a disconnect is legitimate or not. They get a HUGE number of complaints no matter how they deal with disconnects. Even though the system isn't perfect, I fail to see how it could be better.

They take efforts to maintain and support their fan community. I challenge you to name a large game company that does as much to support their games after release.

About Bnetd, that was almost certainly a decision of Vivendi, not Blizzard. You know, the same people who are screwing up HL2? From all reports I've heard, Blizzard does not enjoy being under Vivendi's thumb, by the way.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with the parent poster. I have played WoW for one month and am now struggling to find anything worth doing. My character very easily reached the level max within three weeks. With no hero classes or serious PVP battles there is really not much to do other than complete quests I have already done.

So much is going to be missing from WoW at release that I will not buy this game. Furthermore, all the people worshipping Blizzard should be very knowledgeable about Blizzards track record with online games. Diablo and Warcraft are one of the buggiest and most hacked games on the planet and Blizzard does nothing to stop it.

Furthermore, to the person that was speaking of the stress test and calling it an incredible success. The stress test was only a success to the developers as they realized that they are going to need to make serious changes to the game in order to sustain the level of people in the game world. Notice how they are doing an incredible amount of work on the graphics and the servers continuously. They are now frantically trying to fix the large number of problems in order to be able to release in November. Sony is releasing EQ2 a few days ahead of its schedule. Do you really think the few days would make that much of a difference? WoW is also being rushed to be done. One thing that I have to commend Sony about is at least holding to a release date while Blizzard can't even set a data for Open Beta sign-ups.

By the way, when did Slashdot start posting stories from Battlenet kiddies.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

LincolnQ, that's bull and you know it. Blizzard never posted this mythical list of yours, and you're just pulling that out of your ass. Hero classes will probably be ready about a month or two after release. PVP is already in game and is well above decent, and Battlegrounds(Actual PVP war), will be in around the same time. You're just mindlessly bashing WoW and providing lies to strengthen your case. How about providing a source next time?

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

"LincolnQ, that's bull and you know it. Blizzard never posted this mythical list of yours, and you're just pulling that out of your ass."

Another mindless Blizzard fanboy. Go check www.worldofwarcraft.com and you will see that lots of features that were originally planned are not being included in the game at release time.

"Hero classes will probably be ready about a month or two after release"

That's interesting to say as Blizzard has said that they have no definite date for hero classes. The only thing they have said about it, is that they are going to include them sometime after release. The same has been said about the full implementation of battlegrounds. The month or two figures you have are nonsense.

"You're just mindlessly bashing WoW and providing lies to strengthen your case. How about providing a source next time?"

You really are a brainless fan boy. How about you provide some sources for what you're saying. It is known by almost everyone in the beta that there are boat loads of features that were previously planned for release that are going to be cut from the game in order to release early. Blizzard has also given no time frame as to when these features will be included. For that matter they haven't even given a definite date on release or even on Open Beta signups.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Anonymous Coward]

"So it's Blizzard's fault that people break into their games and cheat? I don't think it is."

Yes actually it is. What you fail to understand is that if they had coded their game more effectively these cheats/exploits would not be such a problem. The raw number of exploits in games like Diablo tells you that there is something seriously wrong with the underlying infrastructure of the game. I am a programmer and I understand how difficult it is to program such an enormous games but to try and say that it is not the programmers fault that the games are riddled with exploits is just nonsense. Yet you are trying to blame it on Vivendi, a company that doesn't even go near the source code, and one that is providing almost all the financial backing for Blizzards projects.

"About Bnetd, that was almost certainly a decision of Vivendi, not Blizzard. You know, the same people who are screwing up HL2? From all reports I've heard, Blizzard does not enjoy being under Vivendi's thumb, by the way."

Do you have any proof of this? I know several people that work for Blizzard and they say that Vivendi is great as they are very flexible and have large financial backing. Not very many companies are this flexible with release dates and this generous with their artists and developers. If you actually knew any of their staff you would know this.

"You know, the same people who are screwing up HL2?"

Once again, any proof of this or is this more of your incoherent rant. Why is it Vivendi's fault and not the producer of the game? You do realize that Vivendi is primarily a financial backer don't you? "From all reports I've heard, Blizzard does not enjoy being under Vivendi's thumb, by the way."

All reports you have heard honestly mean less than nothing. You clearly have no idea how the game industry works and have no knowledge from an inside source. Basically I would give more credit to something I read on the bathroom wall.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[Lowtekium]

So it's Blizzard's fault that people break into their games and cheat?

Yeah. Pretty much. Why make a press release and a big ruckus to announce to the world that you've done a great justice to the community by deleting 112,000 accounts from your service for a game has been out for 3 years?! Only to admit that nearly their ENTIRE lineup of up games for the past 5-6 years are equally as buggy and delete nearly 4 times as many accounts within a 6 month period of time.

Yes sure it's difficult to figure out if a disconnect is legitimate or not, but about all the Diablo I hacks that gave you insanely powerful items? or the exploit that allowed you to kill people in town? Or the map and macro hacks that existed in Warcraft 2 for years? And yes, they do get a lot of complaints, the real question is if they ACTUALLY do anything about it. I stopped playing Starcraft in 1998 because of the community of cheaters, a fix for that 5 years later is WAY too little WAY too late.

Re:The Cost is your Reputation

[theRiallatar]

Let's not be petty now. If you have a game that's got all of the server-side code on the client (Diablo II, Warcraft III, Starcraft), of course it's going to be hackable like this. Every single player game in existence has trainers/hacks/whatever. MMOs are a completely different ballgame in that there's a expansive swath of code the players never get to process on their PC let alone attempt to disassemble.

bugs dont make you cancel, sony only wins

[Anonymous Coward]

the cost is unhappy players that will still keep playing because bugs and the bug related unhappiniess is not what drives you away from a mmorpg:

as long as it is buggy and servers crash and you can't continue playing the desire to play grows and you wont cancel
cancelation comes when everything works and you get bored...

the win is a lot money from gamebox sales even if people leave for wow some weeks later

As a matter of fact

[Otter]

You know those "PHBs", "marketdroids" and the rest of the nontechs you guys are always ridiculing? Well, that's why their jobs exist -- because there's no one answer to questions like this and making the right call is vitally important.

Re:As a matter of fact

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know those "PHBs", "marketdroids" and the rest of the nontechs you guys are always ridiculing? Well, that's why their jobs exist -- because there's no one answer to questions like this and making the right call is vitally important."

How exactly would a useless PHB/market droid be able to make any more of the right call in this case? Unless you want the decision made by someone who is useless and clueless then I would advise against a PHB. A PHB knows nothing in terms of game development or game life cycles in general and is almost always a huge waste of time and resources. What area of expertise does a PHB have that could help in this decision? Honestly, PHBs are nothing but a warm body in the office. Good for nothing and there's nothing there good at.

Re:As a matter of fact

[putaro]

A PHB knows nothing in terms of game development or game life cycles in general and is almost always a huge waste of time and resources. What area of expertise does a PHB have that could help in this decision?
Precisely! The complete lack of understanding allows them to make a decision that has no right answer. Of course, a Magic 8 ball or coin toss would be about as useful as well....

i'm in the beta

[Naikrovek]

along with the other tens of thousands of folks that are in beta.

it seems that the consensus among the beta testers is that the game is ready. there are no major known bugs that i've ever come across, and there are very few glitches to speak of. there are a few lag issues in key zones, but they've taken care of that in a way that i'm happy with.

the bad rep that SOE got was from SWG, and it was deserved in that case. that game still isn't ready for production, mainly because they're still altering the game design on a monthly basis. if they would just stop changing things they'd be doing okay.

Everquest 2 is a very good game, imho. I never played Everquest but I know that I like and enjoy EQ2 a lot.

in my opinion it is ready now. in 10 days when it is released, it will even be more ready. they're literally working 24/7 to get everything fixed before the release that they can, and i'm certain that you can expect a not-insignificant patch the first time you launch the client.

this is my honest opinion. I play it every day and I enjoy it every day. There are no showstopping bugs that I've come across and very few that I know about. Those are higher-level things and they'll have those fixed by the time anyone gets up to that level i'm sure.

so yeah i'm cool with the game as it is now.

and fyi, the game is huuuge. the lands are huge. the vocally active (read: speaking, as in you hear them) NPCs really add a lot more than I thought they would. the scenery is grand. on my pc (which is kinda wimpy -athlon 3000 @ 2.1ghz, 1.5gb ram, ati radeon 9800 pro 128mb) it runs at about 30fps, at 1600x1200, running at the setting just above "balanced." I forget what that setting is called now, but that's where I'm running. I have also turned on a few things like specular highlighting that aren't turned on in that performance profile.

the heroic opportunities are fun, and there are somewhat subtle visual clues, telling you what you need to do to continue the chain. the end of the chain is usually a "devastating blow" to your opponent, or sometimes it is a buff or a heal to yourself. so its not just a "double-click the enemy and wait until one of you dies" which is how I find a lot of mmorpg games. Meaning that if you want to fight anything above your own level you have to think about what you're doing before you even begin to engage the enemy. that's a kind of challenge that i enjoy in a game like this.

Everquest 2 is fun. I'll be buying it on release day and I'll be playing it that night. And I'll have a lot of fun doing it.

YOUR mileage may vary.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Lowtekium]

the bad rep that SOE got was from SWG

No the bad rep that SOE was from Everquest, back when they were known as Verant. Remember if you claimed that your account was hacked, they just deleted your account? They had a bad reputation to begin with, SWG just added to that weight.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Naikrovek]

didn't know that. i never played EQ much, at most for 6 hours in total.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Warped1]

I agree Naikrovek. I just got into beta a few days ago, and I hold the same opinion. No major bugs. Personally, I really enjoy the game design. I think the archetype/class/subclass system is nice. The content seems ample (I can't speak for mid-high level content yet, though), as I've done nothing but quests up to level 10 already.

Then you have tons of posts on the EQ2 related item yesterday saying how this game is like 6 months away from release. Of course, no one ever says WHY. I wish they would, because I'm honestly curious.

I've really enjoyed the game at the moment, and bet that it should be able to survive Release Day without too much pain (barring networking issues from too many players of course ...).

Re:i'm in the beta

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever notice how the vast majority of people posting that the game is spectacular and fairly bug-free are among the most recent additions to the beta?

Keep playing, guys. You'll hit the glass ceiling of content in no time.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Warped1]

I admit that I'm new to the beta and only experienced low-end content.

So what's this 'glass ceiling' you talk about.

Really, I am curious. I'd rather not waste time on a MMORPG that has a lame end-game.

Examples people ...

Re:i'm in the beta

[stanmann]

Yes, I remember, Every person who griped about that admitted "OH, well I only shared my password with all 70 guys in my guild, and this guy, and these other people".

Re:i'm in the beta

[dubl-u]

it seems that the consensus among the beta testers is that the game is ready. there are no major known bugs that i've ever come across, and there are very few glitches to speak of. [...]

the bad rep that SOE got was from SWG, and it was deserved in that case. that game still isn't ready for production [...]

And to me, that's the important distinction. If you wait until your grand vision is done, it never will be. I think the optimum is to get something minimal but solid out ASAP, and then let your future development be influenced by the early adopters, rather than designer fantasies of what people will want.

There's a fine MMORPG called Puzzle Pirates that took this approach. They have a massive vision that will take them years to finish. They got something out early, first as a free beta and then as a for-pay 1.0 version. It's perfectly fun as is, and they add new features often enough that things are always getting more interesting. And because many of their users have been in on it and been listened to for quite a while, they're hugely supportive.

Re:i'm in the beta

[CountBrass]

the bad rep that SOE got was from SWG, and it was deserved in that case. that game still isn't ready for production, mainly because they're still altering the game design on a monthly basis. if they would just stop changing things they'd be doing okay.

They did *exactly* the same thing with EQ; and I bet they do exactly the same thing with EQ2.

Everquest 2 is a very good game, imho. I never played Everquest but I know that I like and enjoy EQ2 a lot.

I thoroughly enjoyed EQ when I first started playing. I played it for 2 years. And during that time it got worse and worse and worse. Two reasons: First they pander to the high levels at the expensive of the low level players. Two they consistently release bugged content and then spend forever "fixing" it which inevitably introduces new issues. Oh actually there was a 3rd reason: Verant's astonishing arrogance. They really meant it when they said "You're in Our World Now". And you'd better behave!

Bet the same thing happens with EQ2.

Re:i'm in the beta

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll take that sucky computer off your hands, and pay for shipping for you too!

EQ 1 and Sony

[lobsterGun]

Ther blerb neglected Sony's original suck ass expansion Shadows of Luclin. Not only were 3/4 of the features listed on the box incomplete, but much touted the graphics engine brough most PCs to their knees. The load times to travel between zones went from seconds to minutes and frequently resulted in a game crash.

It took them nearly a year to fix the most severe problems, and to this day much of the content introduced in the game remains incomplete.

Early release in a saturated market

[Dachannien]

Unfortunately for SOE, the market for fantasy-based MMOGs is all but saturated currently. The companies making these games are squabbling over each others' former customers to a large degree. Because of the significant cash outlay associated with these games, most players don't maintain more than one or two accounts total (and frequently, those accounts are for the same game, and are used to multibox).

What's more is that MMOGs are unplayable if you don't pay, and the result is that the $50 initial payment for the box game seems like wasted cash if the player decides the game isn't worth it. In this case, the better the beta experience, the better the sales, and from the various reports I've heard, Blizzard has that contest won hands-down.

WoW open beta will also likely begin before EQ2 goes live, and "free" will most definitely distract people from rushing out and buying SOE's latest offering, right up to the point where WoW goes live. An ingenious marketing tactic on Blizzard's part, if they don't drop the ball.

Re:Early release in a saturated market

[Have Blue]

Of course, if any other company tried that (give away their product for free to get people hooked on it, then tell everyone to buy a subscription), Slashdot would be screaming bloody murder.

Re:Early release in a saturated market

[ahsile]

What are you talking about? I've seen tons of open betas before... most notibly (for MMORPG discussions) is Guild Wars. They had an E3 for everyone event earlier in the year, and have another coming up if I remember correctly.

Re:Early release in a saturated market

[startled]

Unfortunately for SOE, the market for fantasy-based MMOGs is all but saturated currently. The companies making these games are squabbling over each others' former customers to a large degree.

This is where Blizzard's reputation for well-executed, polished games (or more to the point, their massive, dedicated fan base) is going to help a ton. SOE may be targeting their current and past customers, but Blizzard's got a whole base of MMOG virgins that'll give WoW a try because they loved Craft and Diablo.

(Add to that the free open beta as you mentioned, and it could be a killing.)

Re:Early release in a saturated market

[Anonymous Coward]

"WoW open beta will also likely begin before EQ2 goes live, and "free" will most definitely distract people from rushing out and buying SOE's latest offering, right up to the point where WoW goes live."

That's a possibility however since Blizzard is so inconclusive on release dates or on the open beta date no one really knows. They posted a message on the website over 3 weeks ago talking about open beta and no one has heard a word about it since. Blizzard hasn't even announced a release day for it yet. The organization at Blizzard is terrible and that can mean a lot to a MMORPG community. If you don't believe me go to the forums and read the posts from the moderators. They clearly have no actual information on the release date or game and they very clearly have little to no interaction with the developers.

Re:Early release in a saturated market

[Disevidence]

Indeed. My first MMORPG experience will be WOW, because I liked Diablo and Warcraft heaps.

Running into the arms of another...

[antigrimace]

Why is it a bad move in this case for EQ2 to realase early?

If the game is at all buggy and people get frustrated with it, WoW will have 1 superfantastic launch.

I believe people in general are getting tired of "testing" early released MMO and having to pay for them. WoW may be the bar that other companies need to set in order to deliver a MMO to market.

EQ

[Aggrazel]

EQ sucked its first month of release. The servers were down so much they gave everyone an extra free month. That being said it turned out to be the most successful MMORPG in America, despite a rocky launch, many think mainly because it was first.

Today however, there's a different climate. This is arguably the third generation of 3d MMORPGs. A buggy release won't cut it. That being said I have no idea of the quality of EQ2, it may very well be ready. I gave up playing MMORPGs when I signed off of DAoC last year.

Anarchy Online however, I was excited about, played it for 1 week, and threw away. Thats how bad that game sucked. It might be cool now but man... if you release a beta to the public and charge for it, many people will remember and won't come back and it will haunt you for years to come. I know I won't play anything with the name "funcom" on it. Then again, "Sony" is a bit bigger than funcom...

Re:EQ

[Anonymous Coward]

"EQ sucked its first month of release. The servers were down so much they gave everyone an extra free month."

The servers were fine. They blew out the entire internet connection into the city due to the vast amount of people playing, thousands and thousands more than they ever thought would play.

I think it's a good idea for SOE

[vhold]

There are a few things that I think make this decision logical (enough) for SOE.

1) Huge Everquest installed base. As a whole, they've probably been marginally following WoW, but they are naturally going to be very aware of EQ2. If WoW were to come out first and start getting acclaim and siphoning users off of EQ before EQ2 had a chance to do the same, a lot of people who are currently only kinda aware of WoW would suddenly be -very- aware. By beating WoW to market, they get all the early natural transition people.

2) Long term hook associated with MMORPGs, changes the rules a bit. Unless EQ2 is also a massively sucking game, a lot of people are simply going to get hooked as long as it's at least somewhat better then EQ. Once hooked you don't really care so much if there is a better game, because all the stuff you've built up is there, so whatever is released first is going to have a long term advantage as a result. (.. obviously a problem EQ2 is going to have against itself?? I don't know how they are dealing with that )

3) Blizzard has the weird advantage that it seems like, at least from my perspective, that every gamer knows a few WoW beta testers. They are already totally hooked and play it basically as if it were a released game. There is this huge existing sentiment that EQ2 is going to suck relative to WoW no matter what, so what difference does it make if they wait to make it better?

Re:I think it's a good idea for SOE

[Kaenneth]

EQ2's target market, as stated by Sony, is People who tried EQ1, and left.

It's a different game.

Re:I think it's a good idea for SOE

[Squozen]

Many of the established EQ1 players are now just playing because they've invested so much time in their characters. The last few expansions have been horrible (the Gates of Discord one was bad enough to break my addiction; I'd been playing for over 2 years) and SOE really don't have as much goodwill from their customers as you suggest.

What I've noticed with my old EQ guild is that most people are far more aware of what's happening in WoW, partly because of friends with beta accounts, partly because we've been able to read the beta forums. Compared to Blizzard, Sony's NDA made it appear that they had something to hide.

Re:I think it's a good idea for SOE

[ElleyKitten]

" EQ2's target market, as stated by Sony, is People who tried EQ1, and left."

Haha! Yes, people who try a game and don't like it, always buy the sequel!! Haha!

Not to mention, most of the people that leave EQ, leave because it steals their fricking life away. EQ2 will probably be no different, or else it's not worth the subscription price.

Re:I think it's a good idea for SOE

[Ghent99]

3) Blizzard has the weird advantage that it seems like, at least from my perspective, that every gamer knows a few WoW beta testers. They are already totally hooked and play it basically as if it were a released game. There is this huge existing sentiment that EQ2 is going to suck relative to WoW no matter what, so what difference does it make if they wait to make it better?

I'm a tester for both, and I have 2 strong biases:

• I love Blizzard
• I hated EQ

Those having been stated, I was extremely surprised at EQ2. I went into it expecting to have the same reaction I had to the original EQ. On the other side of the coin, having been a Blizzardite since the original Warcraft, which many would say, defined the RTS world, I've had WoW on preorder since... late 2001/early 2002 I think. Now, sadly, I am confused and ashamed to admit that I am so. EQ2 is much better than I expected it to be, and I do feel that is it as production-ready as it's going to get. WoW is just as fantastic, but in a different way, which leads me to my point:

Having played both extensively, it's my opinion that the demographic that each targets is a tad different. There is most certainly a large amount of overlap, but in my opinion, WoW is easier to play, while EQ2 is more involved. Don't mistake involved for engrossing. They are both extremely engrossing and very fun to play. But I feel that if someone weren't a hardcore gamer, like myself, and they wanted to get into an MMORPG, then WoW would be what I would recommend if asked. On the other hand, if a hardcore gamer came to me and wanted suggestions on something they could put into an IV and attach to their arm, I would probably say EQ2 (though, I love WoW enough to say both >;) I won't say that one is going to suck compared to the other, because I think if one were to look at it objectively, you'd see that while they are both MMORPG's and they have similar playstyles (quests, crafting, yadda yadda), the approaches that each uses to accomplish these tasks are vastly different, and therefore affect different people differently, and I think that's an important distinction.

In all fairness to SOE

[Rallion]

I'm an absolutely rabid Blizzard fan, and yes, they usually delay the hell out of games, and I like it. But this is an exception to that rule.

WoW is most definitely not going to release at a 'finished' state, at least not by the conceptions of the developers. This list of things they plan to add in patches is fairly massive, and is growing as things that they wanted to include simply get pushed back by more important things.

That said, it seems to me that they're under quite a bit of pressure from Vivendi right now...I wonder if Blizzard has a say at all. Still, from what I've heard (mostly from biased people, I freely admit) WoW is more polished than EQ2 anyway.

Re:In all fairness to SOE

[Dirtside]

Still, from what I've heard (mostly from biased people, I freely admit) WoW is more polished than EQ2 anyway.

I've been playing WoW beta for about five months now. It's a great game, lots of fun; my favorite way of describing it is, "WoW is like EQ with all the stupid shit taken out." (And lots of cool stuff added.) EQ2, though, I knew nothing about until last weekend, when I was over at a friend's house. He showed me EQ2 and let me play around with it a little bit.

Before I describe what it was like, let me say that the single thing that will most keep me from playing EQ2 is that I played EQ for three years and SWG for six months (after beta testing it for 9 months), and I'm intimately familiar with SOE's significant tendency toward cluelessness. There was a lot good about EQ (and some, though less, about SWG), but there were so many times when they just screwed the pooch one way or another, that I'm not willing to trust that they're going to run EQ2 right.

That said, the actual play experience with EQ2 was a bit underwhelming. The graphics are fantastic -- I love how you can actually see terrain reflected in water, a feature I wish they'd add to WoW. But graphics aren't enough, and a few specific things turned me off. One, EQ2 still seems to feature lengthy loading screens when you go between zones, or even when you transit between parts of the same city. I'd have hoped this would be a thing of the past; I'm so used to the lack of loading screens in WoW that it was jarring the first time it happened.

(To be fair, WoW does have loading screens for when you enter an instanced dungeon, and when you switch between the two continents, but in either case the loading screens take no longer than 10-20 seconds, and that's on my 2-year-old, not-all-that-fast machine. When I was playing EQ2 on my friend's machine, which is a top-of-the-line Alienware gaming box, it still took a good 30 seconds to go from one part of Qeynos to another. I can't imagine how long it would take on my machine.)

The voice acting was, well, goofy; I wasn't especially impressed. Some of the NPCs sounded okay, but others just sounded annoying. They should use Blizzard's casting director when hiring voices. The interface didn't seem nearly as polished as WoW's, either. Granted, I only played for about ten minutes, so I'm sure a longer experience would really be necessary to make a fair judgment.

I'm sure I'd have fun playing EQ2, but I'm virtually certain I'll have more fun playing WoW, and I don't have time for more than one MMOG right now. Odds are I'll be sticking with WoW when it goes live.

Market Timing

[blainn]

I suspect the main factors in whether this turns out to be a good move for SOE will be:

1. Is the hardware required to play their pretty game mainstream enough?
2. Will the game experience be "good enough" to retain users?

I'll leave to the active MMORPGers to say if Sony has judged these factors correctly.

Marketing, Not Quality

[EngineeringMarvel]

An early release is all about marketing and not so much about the state of the game. SOE made a choice to release their game earlier than expected in order to take sales away from Blizzard and into their pocket. SOE believes that EQ2 is in a good enough shape to have an early release.

To me the answer relies on the company's reputation. If I know a game is being released early, I will buy it on the earlier release date only if I have confidence in the software company. This all relies on previous experiences I have had with other game titles they have published. In the case of SOE, I would suggest staying away from EQ2 because of my experience with SWG. Another example is EA/DICE. They have released buggy games and up until recently, the early releases weren't a problem until Battlefield: Vietnam. After BFV, DICE's reputation dropped dramatically due to the intense game play inbalances in the game that had not been worked out. Next DICE game I buy now will not be until several months after the game release instead of the day of the release as I did with BF1942, Road To Rome, and Vietnam.

If a game, upon release, is fun to play with just a few issues, then the early release will be good for the company. If the game has just one major issue, word will get around, and the company's reputation will suffer and then consumers are much less likely to buy a game without hearing about it first (thus hurting sales). It's a big risk to have an early release, but if the company is good, it's a risk worth taking for them. It's all about management making a wise decision on how to market their product. We all know that game producers have made some pretty bad moves latetly, maybe EQ2 will be different.

Lineage

[meggito]

There is a third game that should be included in this discussion and that is Lineage 2. It is a MMORPG produced by NCSOFT (another story about them today) and is based on the Unreal engine. Pushed out almost 6 months before EQ2 or WOW it was all kinds of buggy. Memory leaks, people falling though the world, or its occasionally taking up any and every resource it can find. The game itself is full of bugs and in game errors. There are places where you can get stuck and cannot move. You can still breathe under water. You can use a bug to break into castles as well as private clan houses. These are just a few. However, they've managed to build a big fan base and they're releasing Chronicle 2: Age of Splendor to compete with the new rivals. Lots of the holes have and will be fixed and new features and levels will be everywhere. It should be by far the furthest ahead and fullest of any of the MMORPGs. The problem is, there are a lot of fundamental flaws in Lineage 2 that cannot be fixed because the game has been released and must be kept running. That leads to long term flaws and limits on the game engine itself. As a player myself I feel that it was rushed and could have been vastly cleaned up before release. However, unlike other games constant patches and updates based on real players beta testing has and does work effectively as the holes that can be fixed are. EQ can have holes and bugs everywhere but they can be fixed as the game is updated. There is a fee for playing these games and that is so they can update and add to these games on a regular basis. This blows previous models out the window because patches are automatic and required to continue use. That means that the game is in constant production throughout their lifetime. If Lineage stays on pace its set to be about a 6 year game (12 chronicles). That means that increases in memory can process speed can be taken advantage of and new features can be added and improved. So, 6 years from now we'll have a very well developed game to close it out.

Re:Lineage

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem comparing Lineage to any other MMORPG is that it is far worse than any of the others. Playing Lineage 2 is about as much fun as bashing your head against the wall until you fall unconscious.

Re:Lineage

[Babbster]

My question to you: If you're going to tout NCSoft, why not tout their GOOD MMOG (City of Heroes) instead of the one that's been a mess (Lineage)?

Re:Lineage

[Anonymous Coward]

Lineage 2 isn't mentioned because it can only be summed up as the worst MMORPG ever made.

This is all well and good but....

[ccarter]

it's an apples and oranges comparison. WoW and EQ2 are very different games that will find very different audiences. Thier similarities start and stop with the MMOG acronym.

If you really like WoW you will hate EQ2 and if you like EQ2 you will hate WoW.

But that said MMOGs are different from normal games in regards to how much crap a player will put with in theri game of choice. As horrible as it is Anarchy Online still has players who have been playing since launch day. People started and stuck with ranger and rogues in EQ even though they were for all intents and purposes they were completley useless classes for the first 2-3 years.

Sure every one remembers BC3K is the text book example of gaming at it's worst but MMOGs are different from single player games. You have to think of them more like you would the stuff the drug dealer on the corner is selling. The driver of releasing before the competition is to get you hooked on thier "crack" first because once they have you hooked they know they have you for a long time and they know that the chances you'll jump to another game drop tremendously.

Re:This is all well and good but....

[Fareq]

If you really like WoW you will hate EQ2 and if you like EQ2 you will hate WoW.

This is not a hard-and-fast rule as one of my friends who is a rabid EQ player loved the WoW beta, and is probably going to buy EQ2 as well...

Launch is Everything (But it Doesn't Have to Be)

[MiceHead]

I'd like to see the industry place more emphasis on what happens over product's lifetime than on its initial launch.

As a former developer of Palm entertainment software, and current developer of Windows software, my perception is that the PDA market encouraged post-release support, whereas the desktop market strongly focuses on the initial "bang." The juciest press in desktop gaming are the previews and the initial review, (and in some cases, games are reviewed before they're released). By comparison, little mention of a game is made after it's released, even if substantial improvements are made.

Passage like, "...if they'd only spent more time polishing off this game, it'd have been fantastic!" should be a sign to a developer that they need to go and polish off the damn game. As an independent studio, we're able to do that; but I'm not sure we'd be rewarded for it. Even large companies making content available such as Unreal Tournament 2004's Community Bonus Pack receive minimal press. That free (community-produced, even) expansion made the game an even better purchase; I'd go so far as to suggest that the initial review should be upgraded as a result.

Traditionally, we 1) develop a game, 2) release it, and 3) add to it/improve it over its lifetime. Players love to see new content, especially if it's free. With our upcoming title, my perception is that we have to get it right on the first try, or we'll receive poor reviews. Developers are given incentive to move on to a new title, rather than improve an existing one, as it means another round of previews and another full review. I'd much rather listen to what the community says, tweak as needed, and be recognized for it.

WoW's release date is not official!

[antdude]

See Blue's News (direct link to Blizzard's forum thread). Don't trust anyone's words on release dates except Blizzard's.

Re:WoW's release date is not official!

[Everguide]

Yes everything is a prediction right now but the best prediction comes from the Detroit Free Press article in which publisher Vivendi Universal Games, said:

"The game will actually launch a week after the company's other hot holiday title, "Half-Life 2," which debuts Nov. 16."

Re:WoW's release date is not official!

[antdude]

Everguide: I still don't trust that article.

Re:WoW's release date is not official!

[krunchyfrog]

I remember Blizzard had trouble getting Diablo 2 out!

Re:WoW's release date is not official!

[Disevidence]

The timing is extremely interesting. From what I can recall, all of Blizzard's previous releases were released in June/July.

Hell, I pre-ordered Diablo 1,and if I remember correctly, it came out somewhere near the middle of the year over here.

Re:WoW's release date is not official!

[Pofy]

Actually Diablo 1 was released a few days before New Year (96 I think).

Depends on how bad the bugs are

[MobyDisk]

Releases should be timed by the percent completion and bug status, not any fixed date. The date is a target for measuring your development processes and budgets. For example: Black and White was released late, but it had some bugs that actually made it impossible to beat the game! DOH! It should have been released even later rather than make it borderline unplayable.

No software is ever released with an empty list of bugs. There are always bugs. But will they affect major portions of the software? If no, then ship it. If so, then don't ship it. The hard part is determining what bugs are important and what bugs are not.

Re:Depends on how bad the bugs are

[Anonymous Coward]

The dates are set months out in time to give the retailers a heads up that they're coming. Promotions, give-aways, incentives, coupons, advertising, etc, is all setup months in advance. So at some point, the ship date is The Ship Date.

For a game to slip this close to the launch date is a huge catastrophe, from a marketing perspective.

/knee deep in launching HL-2 and WoW

Take a look at City of Heroes

[Nick of NSTime]

CoH had a very successful launch this past April. In July, they rolled out a major (and free) update that added new features. Then in September, they rolled out another huge (and free) update that added capes, new villains, new mission types, and a whole bunch more.

It seems like Cryptic looked at the previous MMORPGs and learned from other's mistakes, as CoH has been a pretty solid product since day one. Despite a few bugs here and there (and some major complaints from users about game difficulty after Issue 2 went live), the play experience is consistently pleasurable.

All this is to say that, if an upstart like Cryptic can release a quality product, then why not Blizzard and SoE, both of which have experience with this sort of thing? Maybe Cryptic had beginner's luck, or maybe I'm giving them more credit than they deserve.

Re:Take a look at City of Heroes

[servognome]

One of the smart things CoH did was not over-promise. The game at launch provided a polished core gameplay, and they have added more and more fatures later.
Contrast this with SWG that had crafting, housing, mining, pets, wide variety of character classes... and most everything was broken at launch.

Re:Take a look at City of Heroes

[Babbster]

I started playing CoH about a month ago and it's a friggin' blast. Over the first two weeks, I played through the first 10 levels of five different characters and kept going back to the same places because it was just plain old fun. This afternoon, I died (or was rendered unconscious, if you prefer) several times in a mission and didn't mind because the mission itself revealed some gameplay elements I hadn't seen so far (a month in) and the battling is fun.

The reason CoH works, I think, is because they managed to craft a fun combat system - fun because you're actually DOING something all the time and because the fun stuff isn't limited to just "casters" as it often is in fantasy RPGs - and wrapped a pretty cool comic book world around it (reading the various clues and such is like reading classic comic books with yourself as the star character).

I won't be playing EQ2 or World of Warcraft because I've become bored with the fantasy thing. I played D&D as a kid and every single-player computer/console fantasy RPG (plus about six obsessive months of Everquest) I could get my hands on up until now, but I think I need a long break. I couldn't even get into Neverwinter Nights despite feeling like it was a great system.

Unless the folks at Cryptic and NCSoft actively try to ruin City of Heroes, though, I see myself playing that one for at least the next year. Maybe by that time I'll be ready to fight an orc again.

having never played an MMORPG...

[Llevar]

I know that Everquest has a stigma associated with it such that it is likely to suck the life out from you.

I also know that SOE has had some pretty rough launches in the past.

On the other hand, I know that every game that Blizzard has made in the last ten years has been excellent and beyond.

I also know that battle.net is rock solid and can handle the stress.

Bottom line, if I buy one MMO game this year it will be WoW.

If I was an MMO player beforehand though, I would most likely end up buying both games.

Re:having never played an MMORPG...

[Anonymous Coward]

I also know that battle.net is rock solid and can handle the stress.

battle.net is not the networking platform for WoW, but I suspect it's been built with the lessons learned from battle.net.

Re:Launch is Everything (But it Doesn't Have to Be

[Rallion]

For a large company, at least, your preference is achievable, and profitable. Blizzard does this. They know that the most important thing for sales of a game is initial release, yes. That's quite obvious.

Still, a huge part of what creates fan loyalty, and hence increased sales for the next game, is their incredible post-release record. They patch bugs like no one else. They release expansion packs that revitalize their games, but are by no means mandatory to continue enjoying them. In the cases of StarCraft and Diablo II, they even added fairly major features in VERY post-release patches. I think it was 1.07 or 1.08 for SC, and of course it was 1.10 for Diablo II. The D2 patch was big enough news to actually cause a massive spike in game sales, starting even before it was finished.

I'd guess that Blizzard's excellent support and follow-up on their games is an indispensible part of their success. But still, you DO need to get it right on the first try, as well. Post-release support is useful is that it keeps the game fun even as it ages. It doesn't help when a game is no good to start with.

Blizzard's prior record makes me wonder how incredibly good their support will be for an MMORPG.

What is the cost of an early release?

[Muad'Dave]

What is the cost of an early release?

The respect of your girlfriend?

Re:What is the cost of an early release?

[koi88]

The respect of your girlfriend?

Respect of your, umm, girlfriend?
I looked this one up. As I realize most readers will be confused, too, I provide the link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlfriend
Seems to be a kind of a buddy, but more female. Strange idea.

That's easy!

[Just Some Guy]

$200 at the local massage parlor, plus tip.

Blizzard's No Longer The Same Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that the Blizzard of today isn't even close to the Blizzard of StarCraft, Diablo and the earlier Warcraft series.

Vivendi Universal owns it and has been openly doing everything it can to try selling its game developers off for as much as it can get. In such a climate, it's all about maximising short term value until the sale rather than longterm value for a healthy company.

Add in the fact that most of the founders and senior management who were involved in all of those classic games and the early phases of WoW left to form their own company a while back. The same guys who were legendary for never releasing a buggy product didn't seem to want to stay under VU's ownership. That kind of says something.

So, maybe WoW will be the ultimate bug free MMO everyone's ever dreamed of. Or, maybe, it'll be the ultimate short term experience that garners the hype with none of the sticking power that VU's accountants need for a high sale. Whatever the case, it's not being developed by the same Blizzard with the same management team that earned such a great reputation in the past.

Re:Blizzard's No Longer The Same Blizzard

[Rallion]

It IS true that many of the first members of Blizzard left. Not all, not most. But some. I think one of the two founders, and one or two senior designers out of about five. (Don't quote me on the numbers!) Chris Metzen, the man who practically invented the WarCraft universe, is still there. Those who left did specifically cite Vivendi telling them what to do as the reason, however (and now they're working on Guild Wars! Woo!). I know that. But those who left were more involved in making Diablo II than StarCraft or WarCraft III. They weren't in themselves the lifeblood of the company, or solely responsible for making their games great. Having played WoW, I think the game is doing just fine. Even with the limitations that Vivendi is placing on them, it looks more than finished to me. Not as finished as Blizzard would like, but not rushed to the point of being bug-laden.

Re:Blizzard's No Longer The Same Blizzard

[Anonymous Coward]

Vivendi has been more than generous with the Blizzard developers on this project. They have delayed the project significantly a number of times and Vivendi has allowed them with no hassle what so ever. Vivendi is now pushing for a November release as they have been advertising this (based on Blizzards development schedule) and they are dumping millions of dollars a month into its production. Perhaps if you were investing millions of dollars at a time into a project and you were advertising it continuously to keep peoples interest up you would also want to see some results.

Most people don't get to delay projects continuously and it is not Vivendis fault that Blizzard cannot establish a timeline they can keep even remotely close too. This game has already been delayed over 8 months from when it was originally projected to be released. If I told my boss I needed another 8 months to complete my software I'm sure he wouldn't be too happy about it either. Blizzard is just terrible when it comes to being on time and having some clue as to how long production is going to take.

Not only has the game been delayed significantly they have even removed aspects from the game realizing that they are not going to be able to get them in before release. Great job Blizzard! You Blizzard fan boys keep blaming Vivendi, one day you will grow up and realize that these companies need to make money to survive and that a game in constant development makes them nothing and is extremely costly. Perhaps, you should be mad at Blizzard as they're the ones responsible for projecting project completion dates to Vivendi and they can't seem to even narrow it down to a definate year. The game will probably come out next month and they still haven't announced a definite release date as Blizzard is scrambling to patch it up so that it is playable on release. This is not even to mention Blizzards incredibly poor handling of Open Beta.

Time Honored Development Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't lose with my strategy:

1. Get your hands on a good license. It doesn't have to be top-notch, as long as it has decent brand recognition.
2. Get the development done as quickly as possible in order to minimize your development costs. You can save money by cutting out most of the testing, which is a major expense.
3. Hype the thing up as much as possible in the industry mags and trade shows.
4. If there are too many complaints, issue patches later. Remember, you can always patch later!
5. If sales are decent, you should have no trouble financing a sequel.

The cost is...

[hsoft]

"Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed Launches"

I'm not buying that. Here's the cost of your early SWG release, SOE.

Let's define loss of money

[krunchyfrog]

It doesn't cost them. They just don't sell like they anticipated to sell.

wow not quite ready either

[truffle]

I alpha (pre-beta) tested both eq2 and wow

Without a doubt wow is the more polished game, however it is not really ready. More explicitly, class balance, PVP, class talents, racial abilities, and more are incomplete.

While many people will say "MMOs are never complete" those of us playing WOW every day know that the game feels like it needs 1-2 more months and then it truly would be done.

Releasing Nov 22nd is a business decision, and it's probably the right one, but WOW isn't truly done.

I think both Everquest 2 and WOW have a great chance at success. The reason is that while EQ2 is far far far less polished than WOW, EQ2 gameplay appeals more to hard core gamers, the kind who obsessed over Everquest 1 and played the game for 3+ years.

Currently there is a lot of debate over WOW's ability to retain players for more than one year. The game is very easy, and the basic concern is that because it's so easy the player base won't be able to handle difficult challenges, Blizzard's content production team won't be able to keep up, and people will become bored and move on to other games.

People talk extensively about how much they hate the grind of EQ2, but it may be the case that grind is the secret ingredient to EQ2's long term success. After all, Sony doesn't need to be popular, they just need to get $15/month from as many people as possible.

Re:wow not quite ready either

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently there is a lot of debate over WOW's ability to retain players for more than one year.

Well, obviously this is working from a single data point, but I personally have been playing WoW for a year (well, 11.5 months, alpha first, beta second), and I'm still quite hooked. It's been a real pleasure watching the content grow, and I'm looking forward to release and to continuing to play the game for quite some time yet.

Sounds unpolished

[MMaestro]

I've been in beta tests before, and its very easy to tell if a person either goes around just playing in the beta for fun, of if hes trying to find bugs, break the game, and then reporting it.

there are a few lag issues in key zones, but they've taken care of that in a way that i'm happy with.

In a beta, if YOU the beta tester experience a 'few' lag issues, upon release the THOUSANDS of users will take lag issues like a bulldozer to a sand castle. Less than 20 people? Pfft, try 2000 people suddenly entering the area to see whats new.

i'm certain that you can expect a not-insignificant patch the first time you launch the client.

See, now thats a BAD thing. Betas are supposed to fix these things BEFORE the game gets released.

Those are higher-level things and they'll have those fixed by the time anyone gets up to that level i'm sure.

Most beta testers are generally hardcore gamers who will push and shove their way through a game in order to find every bug and balance issue. If you're still considered to be low level this late in the beta, chances are you haven't seenen much.

on my pc (which is kinda wimpy -athlon 3000 @ 2.1ghz, 1.5gb ram, ati radeon 9800 pro 128mb) it runs at about 30fps, at 1600x1200, running at the setting just above "balanced." I forget what that setting is called now, but that's where I'm running. I have also turned on a few things like specular highlighting that aren't turned on in that performance profile.

So its the Doom 3 of MMORPGs? I skipped Doom 3 due to its system requirements, sounds like I skipping this game too. (30 FPS with that kind of rig is horrible, especially since you're not dealing with the thousands of users who will join when the game is released.)

This is a pretty bad report from a beta tester. You've basicly said what 1 hardcore gamer could find out about a game in 1 week. You've found little/no bugs (its a MMORPG beta I doubt that), you don't seem to have seenen much in the world, and you don't seem to consider your framerate from the perspective of your gaming rig. (Athlon 3000 ~= $100. 1 gig stick of RAM ~= $150. Radeon 9800 Pro ~= $150. Total = $400, not including motherboard, hard drive, or monitor which would come out to about $600-800 not including anything non-essential.)

Re:Sounds unpolished

[Ghent99]

In a beta, if YOU the beta tester experience a 'few' lag issues, upon release the THOUSANDS of users will take lag issues like a bulldozer to a sand castle. Less than 20 people? Pfft, try 2000 people suddenly entering the area to see whats new.

I have been involved in several MMO betas, along with several non-MMO betas and this particular comment really makes me wonder. People always seem to forget that when games are in beta, the servers are typically running debug versions of the software. Thus the game is going to be much more laggy and slow than it will be when it is running optimized (release) code. MMO's are not some sort of ground-breaking network technology, they don't have to invent new ways to handle the traffic. Its slow and laggy because the software running on the servers is logging everything to an extreme amount, and any programmer will tell you that running debug code is guaranteed to cause tremendous overhead. You can rest assured that when the game releases they will be prepared. They may be big software companies and money grubbing bastards, but they're not stupid, well, not totally anyways. ;)

So its the Doom 3 of MMORPGs? I skipped Doom 3 due to its system requirements,

I myself have a midrange system, and I did some investigating of EQ2 (I am also in the beta). The game was designed to support a wide range of computers. The minimum requirements for EQ2 are not that high, but that's exactly what they are, _minimum_ requirements. Running the game in High Performance mode turns off a lot of the visual aspects and as expected, the game runs extremely fast and smooth. So, the comparison to Doom III isn't particularly valid, because the minimum specs on that were very high. EQ2's are much less so, but if you want to run the game with all the visual options, then they've certainly added some really beautiful stuff into the game. Of course, you need the hardware to support it. But, that's how the world works. You want big guns? You need big arms to carry them.

Radeon 9800 Pro ~= $150

Can you tell me where you found that price? That's a lot cheaper than any price I can find, so if you can point me, I'd love to buy a few :)

Re:Sounds unpolished

[MMaestro]

People always seem to forget that when games are in beta, the servers are typically running debug versions of the software. Thus the game is going to be much more laggy and slow than it will be when it is running optimized (release) code. MMO's are not some sort of ground-breaking network technology, they don't have to invent new ways to handle the traffic.

You're not thinking on the macro level. Tell me this, if the game is laggy for you and your beta friends, how laggy do you think its gonna get when you throw in a couple extra hundred users? You can't justify a problem that exists with a 200 person test with an 'optimized' version with 2,000 people. MMO's MUST develop new forms of handling large amounts of data packets being sent and recieved hence the whole 'Massive' part of MMO. I have yet to see someone run a dedicated BF1942/Vietnam server above 64 players and not have it grind to a halt due to lag.

As for the video card price, check pricewatch.com . The price is currently $131 with shipping.

Re:Sounds unpolished

[Ghent99]

Tell me this, if the game is laggy for you and your beta friends, how laggy do you think its gonna get when you throw in a couple extra hundred users? You can't justify a problem that exists with a 200 person test with an 'optimized' version with 2,000 people.

You've made the same point again. :) The beta is running debug code, which causes more overhead on the server, which induces lag into the client. Let's be clear here and say that lag is a slang word that is typically defined as slowdowns experienced during gameplay, which may also be issues client-side with overzealous graphics settings, server side with overloaded servers, etc. True network "lag" is really latency, and people tend to think that lag is latency (all network based) when it's really not. The only part that the company can control directly is the server side and the to a lesser degree, the network side. The can recommend certain things to me as a client, but ultimately it's my perogative how I want to handle it. If I choose to jack my graphics settings all the way up, and download files in the background, and play mp3's and login to the game and get 2 fps, I can't really blame them for that, I'm the one who's sucking up all my bandwidth, processor, memory and disk i/o with other tasks. So, we can sit here and complain about these companies, their software and their lag, but really, how much of that is caused by our own actions? I play EQ2 and WoW with my graphics set to mid levels, I don't run any programs in the background and I suffer slim to no lag at all, even on the beta servers. I don't have a powerhouse computer, as I've stated before.

When the game goes live, the debug server software will be removed, and replaced with optimized server software. This will produce drastically less overhead, and therefore will not induce nearly as much lag, which is to say that the server will more resources available to handle the transactions between the client and server instead of wasting resources logging extreme amounts of data to disk, or however else it may be recording it. Because it induces less lag, it will be able to handle more clients, not mention that there will probably be more servers and other load balancing techniques that may or may not exist in the beta environment.

I have yet to see someone run a dedicated BF1942/Vietnam server above 64 players and not have it grind to a halt due to lag.

A comparison between an MMO an FPS wouldn't really be considered valid; it's apples to oranges. The dynamics of the game, and how that information is transferred between clients and server are completely different.

There is not much innovation here, when it comes to client/server data transfer & processing, this has all been done before. There are many MMORPG's that have done this: EQ, DoAC, FFXI, WoW, Eve to name a few. They probably all do it differently, and I'm sure they all strive to do it better, but it's not new, it's simply improvement on something that already works.

Thanks for the link to pricewatch :) I was aware of the prices there, but generally I have problems actually purchasing from some of the sites listed there.

Re:Sounds unpolished

[pikakilla]

i'm certain that you can expect a not-insignificant patch the first time you launch the client.

See, now thats a BAD thing. Betas are supposed to fix these things BEFORE the game gets released. When a game goes gold they cant fix new bugs that are found and magically place them on the disk :P. Be happy that they will have a patch come out instead of letting you discover the bug yourself.

Re:Sounds unpolished

[deanj]

Can you tell me where you found that price?

Check pricewatch.

Just be careful which vendors you choose.

Launch Comparisons

[WoBIX]

Ultima Online: I missed out on the UO launch because I was a hardware whore who couldn't justify spending (OMG!) a monthly fee. I did get a week long trial at one point, and it was interesting but by then I'd heard of Everquest and was drooling at the mouth.

Everquest: Wow! Check out these locations! The gnomish cities, the dwarven statues, the elven city in the trees! But where are all the features they talked about. Smart mobs that call for help or circle around to flank you? Seems like a few reporters got hoodwinked. Interface made me want to chew off my fingertips and smear a new layout on the screen in blood.

Anarchy Online: Oh god, the pain! (It did get better apparently, just didn't stick around long enough to find out)

Dark Age of Camelot: Wow, this is pretty stable. Models aren't anything to freak out over but the PvP is pretty neat, and these combo buttons are kind of neat. Holy crap! Realm lag is killing me! (I've heard recent reports from friends who still play that Realm warfare is virtually lag free now, with hundreds of players, and that PvP is really where the game shines)

Star Wars Galaxies: Oooh! Star Wars! Wait a minute?!? I have to WALK everywhere? Where's the vehicles? The space ships to pilot?? Why are all the quests to just kill random infestations of critters and pirates? Why don't any of the theme parks work? Man this is frustrating, it's just a huge grind. I think I'm going to quit and sell my character on eBay! (cha-ching! nice profit!). 8 months later: Maybe I'll give the game another chance. It's been a week, some of the stuff is fixed. The badge system at least gives you a lame reason to explore the planets. Too bad there's still no real quest system to encourage that exploration. Oooh Jedis are revamped! 15 MILLION XP OF GRINDING out the same repetitive tasks with nothing to break up the monotony? Time to hit eBay again. Oh crap. Demand for characters has bottomed out, took a big loss on that one.

World of Warcraft Beta: Hmmm, this is pretty polished for a beta. Heck, it's in better condition than most retail releases. The quest system is half decent too. It offers rewards relevant to your character, and grooms you to move on to more challenging areas. The hardware demands are pretty low, and it STILL manages to look great. They could probably convince me to start paying now if they launched it as is.

Re:Launch Comparisons

[will_die]

The problem with DaOC and realm vs realm play is that you are required to two or three box running it so that you can have buff bots. You play some classes and people come up to you and ask who your main character is.
If you don't have that second character to buff you RvR will be quickly over.

Re:Launch Comparisons

[Elsebet]

Buffbots were an issue, but certainly not the only one in DAoC.

Mythic wasted far too much time on PvE and close to nothing on PvP expansion in DAoC. Out of 4 expansions (SI,Homelands,ToA,Frontiers) only 1 (Frontiers) was explicitly for PvP and most of the PvP community agreed prettier keeps was not what they requested over the previous two years.

WoW is being rushed, too

[feed_those_kitties]

But not by Blizzard. Blizzard still has the "we're not going to release a game until it's ready" mentality. But, Vivendi (Blizzard's parent company) is of the "damnit! We need money NOW!" mentality.

Thus, World of Warcraft will be released earlier than Blizzard prefers.

Not to worry, though - it will still be n times more polished and stable and fun than almost any other online game.

I've had the chance to play some WoW beta. I can tell you it will definitely be the first online game I'll buy, and will probably be the only one I buy for a good long while.

(Although, "City of Heroes" looks like a lot of fun, too!!)

Re:WoW is being rushed, too

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've had the chance to play some WoW beta. I can tell you it will definitely be the first online game I'll buy, and will probably be the only one I buy for a good long while."

I thought that at first too. Then I maxed out my character after three weeks and now I can barely find anything I haven't completed in the game.

Re:WoW is being rushed, too

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not to worry, though - it will still be n times more polished and stable and fun than almost any other online game."

What if n equals 0?

Re:WoW is being rushed, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, more reasonably, 0<n<1

Diablo II launch anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't anybody remember the Diablo II launch? That was a total disaster for Blizzard. You couldn't play online for weeks.

Some fanbois definately have some selective memory about Blizard's product quality...

Re:Diablo II launch anyone?

[Disevidence]

I remember having loads of fun for months after Diablo II's release, on the realms.

I had no lag issues or any major bugs, bar the obvious character balancing.

But then again, the Asia realm wasn't inherited with as many idiots as the American servers.

Re:Diablo II launch anyone?

[Japong]

Except that Diablo II had no monthly fee, so you really can't knock Blizzard all that much. MOst people were pretty occupied with the game's single player portion or hadn't purchased the game by the time the multiplayer had settled down anyway. And fanbois? Head over to gamerankings and look at the reviewer scores for Blizzard games... they deserve their fanbase.

WoW Will Win

[Pugio]

I have been a fan of Blizzard games since Warcraft I. I have also played a number of MMO's as well as had a friend who had a major Everquest addiction. Based on all of this I would say the following:

WoW will win. If EQ2 worked well without any issues then yes, an earlier release date would greatly benefit them. However, I seriously doubt that EQ2 will be bug free while Blizzard has an impeccable reputation in that regard.

With that being said, WoW has (already) an extremely loyal following who will gladly wait a few more weeks for the game. Blizzard was also been very smart with the marketing when they ran the one week+ stress test. This allowed word of the game to propogate through all circles as over 100,000 people participated.

Also don't forget the Open Beta, which should be out soon. That will also serve to create interest for the game. If people are able to play in the Open Beta by the time EQ2 comes out, I think Blizzard will have no problem in keeping the market share.

One last thing in response to a post on City of Heroes: Character creation is AMAZING but the game does not have enough content as of yet to keep one intersted for any period of time (say, a week).

Re:WoW Will Win

[Anonymous Coward]

"WoW will win. If EQ2 worked well without any issues then yes, an earlier release date would greatly benefit them. However, I seriously doubt that EQ2 will be bug free while Blizzard has an impeccable reputation in that regard."

I disagree that they have an impeccable reputation in terms of bug free games. Diablo 2 had more bugs in it then I have ever seen in any other game.

"With that being said, WoW has (already) an extremely loyal following who will gladly wait a few more weeks for the game. Blizzard was also been very smart with the marketing when they ran the one week+ stress test."

EQ2 also has an extremely loyal following. I would disagree with the stress test and open beta helping WoW. If the open beta lasts more than two weeks you can easily experience almost the entire game. I started playing around the time of the stress test and just after the stress test ended I had maxed out my character. I really think that Blizzard is going to have a hard time keeping enough content in the game. Getting to the maximum level will take most players 1 month tops. If you read the closed beta forums you will see that many of us will not be buying the game as it simply was to short, way to easy and lots of the more interesting things like Hero classes have been delayed to some unknown date in the future (knowing Blizzards track record with release dates this could be anywhere from 1 year to never). I can't even think of one instance zone or area in the world that caused us any difficulties at all.

"Also don't forget the Open Beta, which should be out soon. That will also serve to create interest for the game. If people are able to play in the Open Beta by the time EQ2 comes out, I think Blizzard will have no problem in keeping the market share."

Except that they announced open beta about three weeks ago and said more news in the next few days and we are still yet to hear anymore news of it. If this is a sign of how Blizzard is going to be communicating with the community it is an extremely bad one. I had told lots of people about the WoW open beta however everyone has just forgotten about it and moved on as no one is going to check the website everyday to wait for Blizzard to finally drop us some word about it. I would rather go spend my money elsewhere where they can actually manage a schedule. I don't mind a few days here and there but Blizzard is consistently delaying things months at a time.

"One last thing in response to a post on City of Heroes: Character creation is AMAZING but the game does not have enough content as of yet to keep one interested for any period of time (say, a week)."

WoWs character creation is almost non existent and there is very little content. If someone can complete almost all of the quests and max out their character in 7-14 days it is a clear indicator that the game is lacking content.

Too late can turn a good game bad

[tepples]

A late game is only late until the moment it launches

Unless it's, say, an N64-caliber game that gets delayed until well into the GameCube's life cycle. Look at Daikatana; had it been released when people were expecting it, its Quake 1-caliber graphics would have got the game some more respect than when it finally came out.

SOE go down the drain

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Let's see, do I trust SOE, with a LONG history of bad customer service, poor implementation, last minute design work, and a penchant to destroy what players like most about their games in order to fit their widely known about yet unknown "visions" or do I trust the Themis group with a history of being able to clean up some asshats mistake with ungodly efficiency.

Themis group studies this shit for a LIVING, you think SOE knows more than the Themis group and I'll get the "SOE Fanboi" cattle prod out for you along with the pile of shit with a bow on it they want to shove in your face and tell you it's Cracker Jacks.

But seriously, why would you trust anything SOE says? Or anything one of the fanbois says about ANYTHING related to SOE, their games, or their customer service? I constantly hear the prattle of teen angst screaming in the background saying "but the game is ready, it's so awesome and WoW is already old and tired!". Give me a break, I hear that shit EVERY SINGLE TIME before a SOE release and for months afterword all I hear is "OMG Sony sucks so bad, they won't fix anything and their CS is crappy...blahblahblah".

The cycle happens everytime boys and girls, stop sticking your hand in the fire just because they tell you to and learn there are other things out there, like stoves and microwaves. (sorry if that went too deep for anyone :)

Re:SOE go down the drain

[Anonymous Coward]

ow. OMG, teh stove still burns it!1!! wtF?

The Zero-Sum Fallacy

[NLJR]

This is a problem fundamental to marketing folks looking at video games. These guys in suits think "Market Share" and visualize getting a bigger slice of a limited pie. Releasing earlier gets you a bigger slice of the pie so it must be a good thing.

The truth is that the market for games is not anywhere close to reaching the limits of the pie-tin. The hope of an early release is you'll steal the thunder from the competition, which is actually true. The competition loses business when you release a product ahead of theirs, but if you rush it out, so do you! A lot of the folks not who haven't bought a game before look at a buggy, early release and stay away from MMORPGs. Everyone loses!

On the other hand, Sony could wait, watch WoW attract a lot of new gamers to the MMORPG fold, continue to refine their own masterpiece and release it to a larger audience with more confidence in the industry to produce good games. Blizzard makes more money, Sony makes more money, gamers get more great games.

This same fallacy shows in the approach to piracy. If people pirate a game, the fixed-sized-pie crowd screams because that looks to them as a piece of the pie they can't sell. In fact, it's probably someone who wasn't in the pie to begin with, and once they play a pirated copy are likely to become icing on the mixed-proverbial cake.

Sony is a large corporation with a lot of marketing folks who need to prove their worth. I wouldn't expect them to understand.

It's unnecessary to "release early" do open beta

[Zphbeeblbrox]

My absolute favourite MMO game "Shattered Galaxy" Followed this approach. An open beta while the game was being polished. They got an huge playerbase doing that and most of them went pay after release. People don't expect perfect games in beta and you can build a playerbase. Shattered Galaxy is hands down the best MMO rpg/rts you can play. In no small part because of the community and the smooth gameplay. They took their time and polished the game all the while using the beta to build a base of players.

Different Audience

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a complete different audience. CoH caters to the casual crowd although Issue #2 is starting to make the game more difficult.

CoH will be around in a couple of years but they won't have a user base like WoW and EQ2. Believe me, those games are targetted at people who have more time on their hands.

Late releases are a godsend

[vanourek]

From my point of view, you should be praying for a late release. My last early release produced a son.

Seriously though, it's cold in Montana.

From personal opinion

[phorm]

Why would anyone buy a game on day one. I've always preferred to wait about a month or more. That way I can let others try the game, make comments, and submit bug reprts. Unless a game is getting rave reviews within week one, it's not likely I'll grab it until a few months after. I don't think that I'm in the minority of gamers here.

Releasing a game early is fine. Releasing a game prematurely (as in, not properly tested) ensure that the extra time between $now and $proper_release_date gives lots of people time to bitch about it. Lots of people bitching==less later buyers. Sure, you might corner more of the hardcore players choosing between your product and another, but you'll lose more of the later joiners if your product turns out to be buggy or just not as good as the competition. It also kills off even the hardcore gamers for your next product, as they'll be leery of buying too early as well.

Of course, there's a flipside too, as you can wait spend too much time playing catch-up with the competition so that your product because dated: Duke Nukum Forever, anyone?

Releases

[Anonymous Coward]

All MMORPGs should take a page out of Dark Age of Camelot's how-to book. It was the best release that I remember in a long time.

EverQuest 1 had some severe design flaws and bugs, but it took so damn long to get anywhere in the game that some people didn't notice for months or even years (1h vs 2h damage is a prime example). Additionally, they had a slew of Guides that could address issues on the fly -- mostly through pacifying the customer.

What you absotutely CANNOT do in the first 30 days of launch is have severe connection or zone problems like Anarchy Online did. When you can't log in for hours or days because a zone is bugged, or a server is down... people quit. How long did it take for them to fix the "apartments" bug?!

I haven't been in the EQ2 beta... so I have no idea what's going on. I guess I'll have to read more on the game since the NDA was lifted. My guess will be that SOE will release a better game than EQ1 because the ROI is more likely than with EQ1 (ie: who would have guessed how big EQ got?) However, I'm also guessing that the power-levelers will find missing content VERY quickly; or even top out in levels within a few months.

However, I don't think SOE has much choice with Blizzard's reputation. If SOE releases EQ2 after WOW, it probably won't be that much better -- and they'll have lost the $ that most COH players are waiting to spend.

I see what you mean

[AllenChristopher]

Like Animal Crossing!

Oh.

Re:I see what you mean

[tepples]

Animal Crossing fanboys would reply that the issue of a delayed game's graphics looking dated doesn't apply to cartoonish games as much as it does to games with "realistic" graphics.

You're absolutely right

[AllenChristopher]

They might reply that way but they'd be selling the game short. The reason the graphics don't matter in Animal Crossing is that they create a consistent, believable universe. Yes, in the universe everything is cartoony. There are other games which have cartoony graphics... say, Quest 64, that look like shit.

It's all about the art, not the graphics power used to render it. I'm looking at some daikatana screenshots right now. The character models are wretched. In trying to push way too much detail in for the systems of the time, the artists made spindly, blotchy creatures with strange faces.

Consider the uproar over cel-shading in zelda... everyone preferred the older "realistic' Zelda at first. But then, that realistic Zelda had been almost perfeclty realized on the N64. The model in OOT had implied the existence of a shiny, uber-realistic anime world. So when we saw the original Spaceworld demo we said "Yes, that's what OOT looked like in my head."

Half-life, Goldeneye, the original Unreal... all very old games that leave a realistic impression in our heads in spite of their graphics.

So the delay and the dating of the graphics really weren't the biggest problem with daikatana. It was the poorly made art assets. I think they were so badly made because as the programming of the game slipped, the artists kept aiming their textures and models for a slightly higher level of hardware sophistication. This made the level of detail uneven.

Late-cycle Nintendo console games always have incredible graphics, despite five year old hardware, because the artists know what they're doing. People often ascribe this to knowing better "programming tricks" but it's just as much knowing the feel and character of the graphics that system displays.

You can buy $500 worth of oils or you can use a marker. Either way you need to know what you're doing.

Anyway, main point.... I like Animal Crossing. I just don't think it's a choice between a cartoony game and a game that uses all the graphics power available, even when released to compete with games that do.