All MMO suck at launch?

[Sosseres]

I have come to the conclusion that the only fun MMOs I have played have been about a year after launch (or even later). Then they have patched the most serious issues and the community has stabilised into one that is suited to the game instead of the initial hype.

Anybody else have an opinion on this?

[xfreidax]

These are the games I've played at launch.

Age of Conan - Played for 5 months from launch. Was terrible once people started hitting close to level cap (Lack of content), first 50+ levels were fun. After 2 months, massive population drop which killed the game for many. But from what I've been reading FC has since managed to turn it into a decent mmo. Probably true in this case. Btw AoC started out as a pvp heavy game but has since been changed by FC into a raiding focus game.

Warhammer - Played for about 8 months from launch. The best times I had in warhammer were the first 2 months. 30sec Scenario queues. Plenty of world pvp at all levels, epic zone and keep caps happening all the time. Biggest complain, a little zergy. Then people started hitting T4 en masse and the game died. Players unlocked the city sieges and discovered a mess of half finished encounters and broken mechanics. End game was close to unplayable. Players left in droves. IMO warhammer never recovered from that. Even now, they are still tinkering with the end game trying to fix it. The only upside the last couple months I was playing was that the zergs died and there was plenty of small group roaming pvp. In the case of warhammer, best time to have played the game was probably at launch because the game just kept going downhill, for a very long time. Mythic started with something like close to 40 servers I think. Now it's down to 2 servers. That's how bad it's been...

Aion - Played for about 6 months from launch. Definitely better now. Lots more content and way less grindy. And they finally decided to fix loot drop rates, which was ridiculous at launch. The biggest problem now though is again player population. And for a pvp mmo, that just kills the game.

I think what you described is probably true most of the time with the exception of pvp centric mmo's. Getting in late means going up against players that have been sitting at cap for ages and in many cases, you will never be able to catch up. Unless you join at an expansion launch, when the old loot gets outdated.

[vuzedome]

Depends, but you normally stick with something new for a few months first, if nothing improves then you mind as well try something else.

[xfreidax]

I think the biggest problem for mmo developers these days is this.

Back when the genre was new and shiny. Player expectations were low. We were happy grinding mobs, camping named and place holders, hunting rare spawns. Simple tank and spank boss encounters. It didn't take much for us to consider something as "content". A game zone was just a map filled with mobs.

Then World of Warcraft came along and blew all our expectations out of the water. Even at launch, vanilla WoW was expansive and full featured. With lots to do, heaps of quests, multitude of dungeons, lots of open world pvp. And shortly after launch, bg's were added and all the 40 men raids etc. There was never a lack of things to do. In fact, there was too much to do. More than what most people have time for. And wow attracted a lot of players new to the genre. Which was a good thing. But the bad thing is, when these players move on from wow to try new games they expect the same level of content and discover the truth. That wow is an exception to the rule. That most games launch feature lite and gradually grow over time.

Now the older generation of players know this. They have more patience and are willing to wait for a game to grow. The newer players though have different expectations. Expectations that few developers can meet right off the bat at launch.

And so we have the situation today. Where games launch to massive numbers and great hype, fall flat then empties out within 3 months. I can't think of a single mmo launch since World of Warcraft that has not been like this. And a lot of these games never recover.

[vuzedome]

I thought once you got on WoW, there is no escaping.

[Khundes]

I would say it depends. It's true World of Warcraft blew our expectations out of the water but only because it KNOWS grinding is boring as all heck and added addiction mechanics into its grinding so that you just keep coming back, even though you can't really say why.

Every other MMO that I am aware of presents grinding as a "Necessary Evil", and then leaves it at that, offering a combat system that stops being original after 15 levels and that fails to truly renew itself when new skills are added.

I played FFXI extensively since launch, but I quit it about 6 months ago, not long after they introduced the new level cap. I have seen the opposite of what this thread suggests, what with the game becoming progressively LESS fun as time went by, the devs had no idea what worked with the original game and just kept trying to patch it with fluff that undid some of the original appeal. Then they got unable to properly update the game when they started working on FFXIV, and as it turns out, XIV sucks from the get-go. I'd even go as far as saying the FF MMO team is the MMO version of Sonic Team.



On the other hand, it's hard to predict what will make a large pool of people with different mentalities stay in a large social virtual world and play together. Devs try stuff, some of it works, some of it doesn't. It's only at release when your players aren't testers that you can see better what makes them stay and especially what makes them quit. Some devs try their best to pick up on that, or keep trying to pry their players for that information. Other devs try to guess it, and it results in disaster. And even then, it's not like having the information in the first place saves you, FFXI devs are always prying their still-active players for info, and look where that got them.

[NaRu]

I played WoW from launch and the biggest problem with that game at the beginning was what you need to do to level up. It took so long and the quest line was boring as hell. You felt like  you were doing a job without a reason behind it and it didn't seem to go with the story line of the game. After like 3 years of the game it got better with burning crusade and even better then lich king. Now the game is awesome. The quest line is more stream line and you feel like you are making a difference in the game.

[Soryon]

I thought once you got on WoW, there is no escaping.

Fuck wow.
EQ is the original beans. wow is just a dumbed down version of EQ with slightly different graphics.

[mgz]

I thought once you got on WoW, there is no escaping.

Fuck wow.
EQ is the original beans. wow is just a dumbed down version of EQ with slightly different graphics.

FUCK EQ
EQ is just a shittier digital version of D&D...

[Mcgreag]

Both Pirates of the Burning Sea and Perpetuum launched without any glaring problems. PotBS did have some issues that hurt long term playing but those did not manifest themselves until later.

[GoGeTa006]

population-wise. . .alst time I checked WoW was on top with 12+ million and the next best thing was Aion with like 4+ million. . .how cool is that? 8 million difference
Aion was rummored to kill WoW (same as Warhammer) . . . but you just cant beat such a beast as blizzard. . .they got mr. T . . .nuff said

[TMRNetShark]

Well, it's not like I can back this game up much (seeing as how it's not out yet), but I'm pretty damn excited to play Star Wars The Old Republic (was able to reserve it at my local gamestop the other day). They say "March".... I say "March 2012". Two months or 14 months, I don't care. I want to play as a trooper so badly and beat up on n00b Jedi (because EVERYONE will be one... and I will be the badass Tropper kicking all the lightsaber classes' asses.

That, and I can rifle butt people in the face. Take that you stupid Pally!

[xfreidax]

I think SWTOR is going to be the biggest flop ever in mmo history. Bioware makes decent single player rpg's, but they have no experience at all in mmo's. And their first project is already the most expensive ever mmo in development and their production cost keep going up. They are biting off more than they can chew.

A huge part of their budget is dedicated to voice acting the entire game. MMO gamers don't care for things like that. 90% just click past the quest text and skip cinematics if they can. And bioware is spending how much on this? The voice acting in SWTOR is supposedly the single biggest voice acting project ever of any medium. It will all go to waste, mark my words...

I think they are making a massively single player online game, instead of a massively multiplayer online game.  

And I've seen their latest pvp videos. It looks about as exciting as watching paint dry...

[Sosseres]

I think they are making a massively single player online game, instead of a massively multiplayer online game. 

That is why I am looking forward to the game.

[avatarl]

They should have gone for KOTOR 3... But no, they want to make their own golden egg goose... Fail...

[xfreidax]

I think they are making a massively single player online game, instead of a massively multiplayer online game. 

That is why I am looking forward to the game.

I'm sure many are. I think bioware will pull in a lot of their existing fanbase, the single player rpg gamer. SWTOR is basically KOTOR on steroids. With the kind of developmental funds mmo's get, they get to create a world 20 times larger than the old KOTOR games.

But in the MMO department, it depends to be seen if what they are trying to do with SWTOR will take off with the mmo crowd. I've seen videos of SWTOR combat and it doesn't look very exciting to be honest. The pvp looks even worse like I said in my previous post. They showcased space combat to great hype recently and it was basically a single player 3D rail shooter...

Voice acting in MMO's is not new. Age of Conan did it to a certain extent with their storyline quests. Further back in time, EQII did it as well. EQII had optional quest voice packs for some of their older expansions. I think SOE stopped doing the voice overs at a certain point, because it just wasn't very popular with the players. I know I didn't download them. And in my guild of over 50+ players, only a handful ever did.

I hope I'm wrong about bioware because the genre badly needs another hit. But I'm just not seeing it with SWTOR. I can see it enjoying great success for a couple months as players burn through the quest content. So far not much has been revealed about the endgame. The endgame is going to be crucial because that's what keeps players subscribed to a mmo.

[TMRNetShark]

I think they are making a massively single player online game, instead of a massively multiplayer online game. 

That is why I am looking forward to the game.

I'm sure many are. I think bioware will pull in a lot of their existing fanbase, the single player rpg gamer. SWTOR is basically KOTOR on steroids. With the kind of developmental funds mmo's get, they get to create a world 20 times larger than the old KOTOR games.

But in the MMO department, it depends to be seen if what they are trying to do with SWTOR will take off with the mmo crowd. I've seen videos of SWTOR combat and it doesn't look very exciting to be honest. The pvp looks even worse like I said in my previous post. They showcased space combat to great hype recently and it was basically a single player 3D rail shooter...

Voice acting in MMO's is not new. Age of Conan did it to a certain extent with their storyline quests. Further back in time, EQII did it as well. EQII had optional quest voice packs for some of their older expansions. I think SOE stopped doing the voice overs at a certain point, because it just wasn't very popular with the players. I know I didn't download them. And in my guild of over 50+ players, only a handful ever did.

I hope I'm wrong about bioware because the genre badly needs another hit. But I'm just not seeing it with SWTOR. I can see it enjoying great success for a couple months as players burn through the quest content. So far not much has been revealed about the endgame. The endgame is going to be crucial because that's what keeps players subscribed to a mmo.

To each their own? You say you skip through quest text, right? So do I... it's sooo boring and mundane to read through texts of useless information. But wait... that's what Bioware is countering by making cut scenes the quest text! Sure, you can skip 'em if you just want to level fast to get to endgame, but then we hit another problem! Leveling. Leveling in MMO's was half (even even a third) of the battle. That's why Bioware is making sure that leveling from level one to level cap will be in adventure of itself. Making sure people will remember that one time at level 32 how that Republic fleet invaded the very same ship that you just took command of and now you have to defend it. True, I remember doing shit with my druid at one point... then again... I remembered doing the SAME shit with every other class, almost the exact same way in games like WoW.

Under it all though, SWTOR will not be drastically different from WoW. The two things that WoW really had going for it was the Raiding Endgame for gear, and the PvP. SWTOR will have both of those (with the lack of World PvP I believe... but come on, you really gonna bitch about no ganking lower levels? I believe that is called griefing too), on top of leveling that you will ACTUALLY wanna do. Oh, and did I mention this all takes place in the Star Wars Universe (Warcraft lore is just about dead after Cata was released. The Lich King was SUPPOSE to be the most powerful being, but noooooooo... Deathwing is back bitches! Took a couple of years).

I will say, I understand you are skeptical about the game because you have not seen much of the game (none of us have!). Understand though, generalizing about what people will do is something that no one... and I mean NO ONE... can predict. The game can be a great hit with all the Bioware fanbase and Star Wars fans... this will catch the eye of all the people who are semi-fed up with Blizz and WoW and will make the switch. On the other hand, all the Bioware fanbase and Star Wars fans will buy the game and are disappointed by the game... and people will continue to play WoW... sadly.

Just don't count a game out before it's released. WoW wasn't an overnight success at launch, hell... Battlegrounds wasn't even in the game AT launch. So complain all you want, it won't change my expectations of the game whatsoever.  

[Khundes]

The two things that WoW really had going for it was the Raiding Endgame for gear, and the PvP.

WoW is much more then that, in terms of things both big and small. In the eyes of someone who has never played WoW before, there is MUCH more then that.

What makes WoW keep people that start playing are manyfold. First, and most important, WoW has powerful addiction mechanics. You always have unfinished quests, you always have someone willing to give you quests, and while everyone loves taking potshots at the crappy writing the quests offer, the writing is just a decoration of a set of objectives, and just that mechanic alone is a powerful tool to addict people. But most importantly with that system, and with what it requires to be functional, WoW's EXTREMELY well-polished in terms of progression curve. And this applies to the whole package. The number of quests you could be doing, the number you only really need to complete to level, and the fact quests always give you something beyond experience, even if it's just a sack of junky gear you'll sell for change, WoW has struck a really solid balance, and this is even more true with Cataclysm.

The size of the WoW is also humongous, and that means people who like to explore have a crap ton of exploring to do before they're really done. This is not something that can be overlooked. Even at level 10, you have multiple regions you can be leveling in, and this is not entirely race-locked. That's not something most MMOs can brag about. This is one of those things that truly gave Blizzard a leg up, they already had a giant world set up from their Warcraft series, they didn't have to spend time developing it, which is why most MMOs tend to have a much smaller world in comparison. (If you're thinking about TOR, chances are this will be true of TOR too.)

The battle system WoW offers keeps changing as you get new abilities and have to learn to use them in your current strategy. You can read a wiki and get the best build possible at every turn, but provided that you don't, trying things out with the new toys you get keeps things fresh. This is not something MMOs tend to get, and that's the core part of not making the grinding dull and repetitive. By the time it gets repetitive, you get a new thing you can work into your skill patterns and, hey, this is worth using more of, how can I best utilize it...? By the time you figure it out, the cycle restarts.


WoW is a lot of polish on top of well-designed addiction mechanics, truly nailing it as World of Warcrack. And even this post doesn't capture a fraction of what makes WoW so well-designed. Every single WoW clone or attempt at usurping WoW tends to fail because designers fail to grasp what makes the whole package of WoW so successful. Hate on it all you want, but it'll be a while still until an MMO overcomes WoW. Everyone still tries too hard to claw at its fame to try new things on their own. TOR might have a chance at shining next to it, but from what I get in this thread, TOR is going to be WoW with voiced quest texts. If they're lucky, they'll get the rest of the formula right, but I'm betting on them stumbling somewhere else along the way, as much as I love Bioware.

[TMRNetShark]

The two things that WoW really had going for it was the Raiding Endgame for gear, and the PvP.

WoW is much more then that, in terms of things both big and small. In the eyes of someone who has never played WoW before, there is MUCH more then that.

What makes WoW keep people that start playing are manyfold. First, and most important, WoW has powerful addiction mechanics. You always have unfinished quests, you always have someone willing to give you quests, and while everyone loves taking potshots at the crappy writing the quests offer, the writing is just a decoration of a set of objectives, and just that mechanic alone is a powerful tool to addict people. But most importantly with that system, and with what it requires to be functional, WoW's EXTREMELY well-polished in terms of progression curve. And this applies to the whole package. The number of quests you could be doing, the number you only really need to complete to level, and the fact quests always give you something beyond experience, even if it's just a sack of junky gear you'll sell for change, WoW has struck a really solid balance, and this is even more true with Cataclysm.

The size of the WoW is also humongous, and that means people who like to explore have a crap ton of exploring to do before they're really done. This is not something that can be overlooked. Even at level 10, you have multiple regions you can be leveling in, and this is not entirely race-locked. That's not something most MMOs can brag about. This is one of those things that truly gave Blizzard a leg up, they already had a giant world set up from their Warcraft series, they didn't have to spend time developing it, which is why most MMOs tend to have a much smaller world in comparison. (If you're thinking about TOR, chances are this will be true of TOR too.)

The battle system WoW offers keeps changing as you get new abilities and have to learn to use them in your current strategy. You can read a wiki and get the best build possible at every turn, but provided that you don't, trying things out with the new toys you get keeps things fresh. This is not something MMOs tend to get, and that's the core part of not making the grinding dull and repetitive. By the time it gets repetitive, you get a new thing you can work into your skill patterns and, hey, this is worth using more of, how can I best utilize it...? By the time you figure it out, the cycle restarts.


WoW is a lot of polish on top of well-designed addiction mechanics, truly nailing it as World of Warcrack. And even this post doesn't capture a fraction of what makes WoW so well-designed. Every single WoW clone or attempt at usurping WoW tends to fail because designers fail to grasp what makes the whole package of WoW so successful. Hate on it all you want, but it'll be a while still until an MMO overcomes WoW. Everyone still tries too hard to claw at its fame to try new things on their own. TOR might have a chance at shining next to it, but from what I get in this thread, TOR is going to be WoW with voiced quest texts. If they're lucky, they'll get the rest of the formula right, but I'm betting on them stumbling somewhere else along the way, as much as I love Bioware.

Damn, you nailed some of what WoW is perfectly there, although I think you slightly missed the point about those two things. Raiding is done by a guild every Tuesday... what else is there to do the other 6 days of the week? PvP/Heroics for better gear... or leveling another toon. The thing with leveling another toon is that you tend to level in the same areas you leveled your main in (cause you knew where to level the fastest). I mean, of course their addiction mechanics works great... but I personally feel like it got stale after awhile of leveling alts and raiding for gear. Like the end goal of getting gear/mounts kinda left a bad taste in my mouth whenever I hit 60/70/80. The leveling part is what really kept me going, but even after going through an area for the 3rd or 4th time, I got bored of it. Plus the whole group mechanics (the whole point of an MMO, right?) was vastly off. There were too many dps and not enough healer/tanks. I would constantly see dps in /2 saying "DPS LFG" and tanks/healers whoring themselves to the highest bidding dps just to run ONE heroic. Uhhh, I was a Resto Druid myself (HoT'em up, baby!) and I NEVER accepted gold from anyone just to run something that I would want to run ANYWAYS. That, and PUG groups have costed me more than I would like to admit in repairs cause of a dumb tank who wasn't armor capped.

Now on the other hand (this is purely speculation, basically if Bioware has all this in game), Raiding and PvP are the end game. That's the stuff you will go to right after you hit level cap. The instance themselves will be what I'm looking forward to, battling armies of droids or sith (I'll be a Trooper ranged tank thank you very much!) and loot will be just an added bonus. I'll have complete PLANETS to go to (16 planets at launch I believe) while 2-4 zones in each planet. Plus size doesn't make an MMO, it's about how it uses that size. The sheer amount of game mechanics that they promise in the game will be great. One notable game mechanic I particularly like is the elimination of the original group mechanics. So you can have 4 Jedi Knights or Troopers in an instance without the need of a healer. I like that because it means groups can be assembled faster and you won't get penalized for not having a dedicated healer. This also means people can spec whatever way they want for leveling, and it won't effect how group dynamics will work in instances. People will claim that players will just "turtle up" and solo everything til level cap. With that group game mechanics, it wouldn't matter what spec or class is, everyone will be able to group up and tackle awesome instances (what MMO's are all about!).

[AceHigh]

I think SWTOR is going to be the biggest flop ever in mmo history. Bioware makes decent single player rpg's, but they have no experience at all in mmo's. And their first project is already the most expensive ever mmo in development and their production cost keep going up. They are biting off more than they can chew.

A huge part of their budget is dedicated to voice acting the entire game. MMO gamers don't care for things like that. 90% just click past the quest text and skip cinematics if they can. And bioware is spending how much on this? The voice acting in SWTOR is supposedly the single biggest voice acting project ever of any medium. It will all go to waste, mark my words...

Ah I see you read the blog of a laid off employee in EA.
The Blog

This part made me laugh back when I read it the first time.

And Bioware? Don’t make me laugh. They’ve spent more money making the Old Republic than James Cameron spent on Avatar. Shit you not. More than $ 300 million! Can you believe that?

And you know what they’re most proud of? This is the kicker. They are most proud of the sound. No seriously. Something like a 20Gig installation, and most of it is voiceover work. That’s the best they have. The rest of the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas,they’re panicking , and so most of Mythic has already been cannibalized to work in Austin on it because they can’t keep pushing back launch.

On a side note, there is one MMO that I am waiting for that hopefully will not suck too badly on the release. Anyone heard of 40K Dark millenium?

Dark Millenium
Why is there a slim hope that this will not suck? Because Games Workshop is keeping developers on a tight leash and developers are also tabletop fans. So at least it will be authentic and true.