WoW was released 7 YEARS ago - It is NOT the standard for MMO Release

[Daeada]

So one game fails and that means that no one can try anything different again? What about WoW clones that fail? Does that mean that SWTOR's end game fails automatically by that?

 

No, I'm saying that the typical MMO gamer now knows how WoW works, is used to how WoW works, and is uncomfortable with major changes to the formula. Is it possible to make a game with a completely different endgame? Sure, but you have the deck stacked against you as far as keeping a large playerbase.

 

One of the main reasons MMOs stick with the WoW formula is that it works, you always need to have a carrot on the stick dangling in front of the player. If you don't then people have no incentive to remain subscribed, and the game fails. Easiest carrot to program, proven to work for long periods of time for vast amounts of people? Gear treadmills.

 

To clarify, I'm on your side, I would like to believe that some company will create a game with some new endgame purpose... but from a creative standpoint, and considering proven business practices, there aren't many options. You have to have a "best ______" so that people can chase after it. Be it best gear, best spot on the pvp charts, whatever.

 

FFXIV didn't fail because it wasn't a wow clone. It failed because the game was laggy, buggy, and for the most part straight up unplayable. Bad code ruined it, not bad design.

 

I'd say it was equal parts of both. The game is much better these days, plays much more smoothly, and has some endgame content that is actually worthwhile. Suspicion tells me most people wouldn't play it, even if it had released the way it is now.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Daeada

[darthdoll]

That was an issue with the netcode protocols for client to server access, and it was fixed within 5 days with the help of an independent security consultant.

 

However apparently their servers were vulnerable yet again in december.

 

I never said Rift was a GOOD game. I'm just saying the mmo release standard is very high now, and a no-name company's first MMO met almost all expectations AT release.

 

Wrong good sir.

 

I was there, playing, talking on the Forums. The player just so happened to have his own company which was a security firm.

 

Rift released march 1st.

 

March 16th and still no update on the accounts, I remember when we got coinlock. People were still being hacked as proof here.

[_Verja_]

No, I'm saying that the typical MMO gamer now knows how WoW works, is used to how WoW works, and is uncomfortable with major changes to the formula. Is it possible to make a game with a completely different endgame? Sure, but you have the deck stacked against you as far as keeping a large playerbase.

 

One of the main reasons MMOs stick with the WoW formula is that it works, you always need to have a carrot on the stick dangling in front of the player. If you don't then people have no incentive to remain subscribed, and the game fails. Easiest carrot to program, proven to work for long periods of time for vast amounts of people? Gear treadmills.

 

To clarify, I'm on your side, I would like to believe that some company will create a game with some new endgame purpose... but from a creative standpoint, and considering proven business practices, there aren't many options. You have to have a "best ______" so that people can chase after it. Be it best gear, best spot on the pvp charts, whatever.

 

I find that fairly hard to believe for a few reasons. One there are so many games out there that doesn't require a carrot on the stick, but are just played for fun. MMO players are not so different from other gamers for this rule to break.

 

Second I think many people are ready for a change. You can't help but hear or read people who desperately want something different.

 

I didn't want to bring it up, but just look at the hype level of GW2. People are so excited to have something different from the WoW formula.

[SarahR]

Wrong good sir.

 

I was there, playing, talking on the Forums. The player just so happened to have his own company which was a security firm.

 

Rift released march 1st.

 

March 16th and still no update on the accounts, I remember when we got coinlock. People were still being hacked as proof here.

 

 

Mmm, I thought it was 5 days AFTER they officially announced they were aware of it. It may have been longer.

 

And yes, the player that helped them was an independant security consultant assisting Trion - I believe he was compensated afterwards. They didn't hire any help to fix the issue though.

 

However this issue differed in that only your in-game portion of the account was vulnerable due to injection. They didn't actually have your password, or even your account name - just a blind number. It was widespread and worrying though.

[kalexkhan]

No, I'm saying that the typical MMO gamer now knows how WoW works, is used to how WoW works, and is uncomfortable with major changes to the formula. Is it possible to make a game with a completely different endgame? Sure, but you have the deck stacked against you as far as keeping a large playerbase.

 

One of the main reasons MMOs stick with the WoW formula is that it works, you always need to have a carrot on the stick dangling in front of the player. If you don't then people have no incentive to remain subscribed, and the game fails. Easiest carrot to program, proven to work for long periods of time for vast amounts of people? Gear treadmills.

 

To clarify, I'm on your side, I would like to believe that some company will create a game with some new endgame purpose... but from a creative standpoint, and considering proven business practices, there aren't many options. You have to have a "best ______" so that people can chase after it. Be it best gear, best spot on the pvp charts, whatever.

 

But until someone starts asking the right questions about where wow doesn't work, we won't be getting better mmos. Did blizz go with corpse runs just because it worked for eq? Or arduous travel patterns, camp grinds and world rare spawn/drop combo's because eq had them? Nope, they avoided those things by asking how to make that former juggernauts design better. The answer was accessibility.

 

It's 2012 now, and until we start asking what will make wow's tired old design better we are just gonna keep getting clones

[Blackardin]

WoW's launch was much more clean than SW:TOR's launch in terms of technical issues and bugs.

 

Seems to me that many of the people arguing this did not participate in the Wow beta or release.

 

The release was, in a word, painful. There were constant server crashes, world crashes, hours and days without the game at all. There were 8 hour queues, quests, skills, talents that did not work. People were falling through the world, getting stuck everywhere, limited content, and a PvP system that was a mess. There were exploits all over the place, and a number of the classes were either way OP (Pally PvP), or completely broken (Hunters, rogues, pally LOL tanking).

 

Wow had more then 10 years of exactly what the OP is arguing SW had. They built upon UO and EQ, taking the good from those games and leaving the bad, or attempting to.

 

....and they had just as many trolls posting, "this game suckers" as we see here. ;p

 

 

If you don't like the game, OP. Don't play the game, but ranting on a board, and arguing that you personally hate this game, based on little more then self indulged logical fallacy is, well its childish. Move on and stop making our eyes bleed with this nonsense. The game is great. We are enjoying it greatly.

[Senatsu]

Blizzard has had 7 years of a live game to root out it's bugs, and half of the bugs that existed at launch are still present to this day.

A freshly released game, cannot possibly be anywhere near the "bug-free"-area that a game like WoW is after 7 years of fixes and tuning. Even if this game would have been released 7 years ago or 7 years from now, equally as many bugs would have been in the game.

 

Just because another game as rooted out bugs in THEIR coding, doesn't mean a game on a completely different coding can "copy-paste" the fixes. It's just stupid to even think that.

 

PS:

 

From hands-on experience, WoW wasn't even CLOSE to as smooth at launch as SWTOR was. For 2-3 months after the game launched, the servers still crashed every day, people are STILL falling through the world on a regular basis, bugs that existed in beta are STILL in the game. SWTOR had one of the smoothest MMO launches in history, they had some capacity problems which was fixed within a week or so after launch, and that was their biggest server problems.

To say WoW had a smooth launch would be like shooting someone in the street, with dozens of witnesses staring you in the face as you did it, and blaming it on some homeless guy on the other side of the world.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Senatsu

[darthdoll]

Mmm, I thought it was 5 days AFTER they officially announced they were aware of it. It may have been longer.

 

And yes, the player that helped them was an independant security consultant assisting Trion - I believe he was compensated afterwards. They didn't hire any help to fix the issue though.

 

However this issue differed in that only your in-game portion of the account was vulnerable due to injection. They didn't actually have your password, or even your account name - just a blind number. It was widespread and worrying though.

 

Ahh, found the link where everyone was praising the person here.

 

So, the 18th is where everything was fixed. I guess my initial estimate is wrong about 4 weeks, guess I was including their early access.

[Sinfulpotato]

Do you know how many lines of code this game has? Do you know that fixing a small bug that seems big to you can have devastating effects to other parts of the game. Stop complaining. Seriously, NONE of you have any clue the type of work that needs to be done to squash even the smallest bugs.

[stupidhero]

A company named Square Enix tried to do that last year with a game called Final Fantasy XIV. Guess what? It tanked HARD. So hard they gave *everyone* a YEAR of free playtime while they got it to be at least somewhat closer to a WoW-style MMO, and are spending the next year REMAKING THE GAME COMPLETELY to make it more in line with what people expect out of an MMO these days (aka, like WoW.)

 

At GC (cologne, germany one year prior to FFXIV release,they let us play the (then most recent) build of the game. It wasn't more than tech-demo, and my guess would have been 3 years till release. They opted for a release but one year later.

 

The reason was more or less, that the Lead Designer wanted to release HIS game, the way HE wanted it, ignoring all player feedback given during beta. Only the fanbois were happy with the game as it. End result: basically recreating the entire game.

 

Now - the complete ignorance of player feedback during the testing process sounds familiar, doesn't it? Or the complete lack of communication?

 

SWTORs only advantage is the I.P.

 

Fun Fact:

Even FFXIV has a proprietary engine - yet SWTOR doesn't

[IMABUNNEH]

I am sick of people bringing up WoW being released with bugs as a rebuttal to people saying how buggy SWTOR's release is. Let's bring up some facts:

 

• WoW was released nearly a DECADE ago.
  
• WoW did not have nearly as much resources as SWTOR
  
• WoW had nothing to use as a "perfect" standard - EQ/UO/SWG/etc were nowhere near what WoW was at release. SWTOR has 7 YEARS of WoW's dos and don'ts, what gained and lost customers, what people hated and liked. WoW didn't have this kind of feedback on aspects of the game.
  

There are probably many more, but this is enough to make your argument a moot point. Comparing WoW release to SWTOR release is utterly retarded, as the difference in not only time, resources, etc. is massive, but the fact SWTOR has a game so huge to simply "copy/paste" from (which they did, you can't deny it, unfortunately they didn't do it in the areas that count) that is 100% proven to WORK, yet didn't take advantage of it, just shows poor development. They took bits and pieces of a working system and instead of making it their own, literally left it as bits and pieces. That creates bugs.

 

 

Post me a good MMO (good being the operative word) SINCE WoW's release that wasn't pretty damned buggy?

 

Rift was.

AoC was.

LotrO was.

The various Superhero ones were.

EQ2 was.

Vanguard was.

 

You see what I'm getting at?

[Daeada]

I find that fairly hard to believe for a few reasons. One there are so many games out there that doesn't require a carrot on the stick, but are just played for fun. MMO players are not so different from other gamers for this rule to break.

 

Of course, some gamers will stick with a game for the fun of it, but there are just as many, if not more, gamers that need an incentive to keep paying that sub fee.

 

Second I think many people are ready for a change. You can't help but hear or read people who desperately want something different.

 

Yeah, they want something different, but provide me with some ideas that would keep players playing (and paying) for any decent length of time (3+ years).

 

I didn't want to bring it up, but just look at the hype level of GW2. People are so excited to have something different from the WoW formula.

 

GW2 doesn't really count, as it won't have a sub fee. People will play as long as they enjoy it and then they will be done, the company has no incentive to *keep* them playing, cause as long as they bought the box, the company got their money.

 

Sorry, I should have clarified I was referring to subscription based games. They are a whole different category, and require a different business strategy.

[SarahR]

Post me a good MMO (good being the operative word) SINCE WoW's release that wasn't pretty damned buggy?

 

Rift was.

AoC was.

LotrO was.

The various Superhero ones were.

EQ2 was.

Vanguard was.

 

You see what I'm getting at?

 

I'm curious how lax you are with "buggy".

 

Rift didn't have gamebreaking issues, and it's optimization wasn't THAT bad either. Couple quest bugs here and there, class balance, etc - those will happen in any game, it doesn't even have to be an MMO.

[Blackardin]

Do you know how many lines of code this game has? Do you know that fixing a small bug that seems big to you can have devastating effects to other parts of the game. Stop complaining. Seriously, NONE of you have any clue the type of work that needs to be done to squash even the smallest bugs.

 

Exactly. If they did they would understand how foolish some of these complaints are....but they don't, they won't.

[_Verja_]

GW2 doesn't really count, as it won't have a sub fee. People will play as long as they enjoy it and then they will be done, the company has no incentive to *keep* them playing, cause as long as they bought the box, the company got their money.

 

Sorry, I should have clarified I was referring to subscription based games. They are a whole different category, and require a different business strategy.

 

Oh well if we are only comparing sub games then I suppose I could see your point. I'm pretty darn excited for GW2, and I know for quite a few people the lack of monthly sub is a big plus.

 

I guess when it finally gets released we will see if people really are ready for something new and different. Perhaps it can even show that B2P can work well. I mean it did for the original guild wars, and that wasn't even really a MMO.

[SarahR]

Exactly. If they did they would understand how foolish some of these complaints are....but they don't, they won't.

 

It can be as simple as changing a 0 to a 1, adding a break, adding a call to the previous function. Or it can be rewriting everything. It's true, none of us know anything about how to fix the issues as far as coding since it is an in-house engine built from the ground up.

 

I think the main issue is that it feels like they spent 90% of their development time getting lip-syncing to work and paying off voice actors and slapped a game together on top of that.

[Mookz]

Lol this post went over so many peoples' heads, and in turn they instantly go to their defend SWTOR til death modes, that or are just so ridiculously argumentative that you read what you want to see, and not what's actually posted.

 

I think the SWTOR fanbois are worse than the WoW fanbois that play this game, srs. At least the WoW fanbois have legit complaints, the SWTOR fanboi "defense" are so out there that they always bring some irrelevant argument in to try to defend what they say.

 

Also, I'm not saying this game is better than that, or vice versa. I was simply stating that using WoW as the standard for a release game is retarded at best.

 

Also, I played WoW at release - Bleeding Hollow server. I know how buggy WoW was. I also know what worked in it. Comparing a 2004 release to a 2011/12 release is apples to oranges.

 

You guys are idiots (srs).

[Daeada]

Oh well if we are only comparing sub games then I suppose I could see your point. I'm pretty darn excited for GW2, and I know for quite a few people the lack of monthly sub is a big plus.

 

Yeah, I will be playing it, but I'm not all that hyped. Maybe it's my years of mmo playing and the cynicism that came with it, but I know the more I hype myself for a game, the more I'm ultimately let down. One reason I didn't really care too much about this one until I got to play it in beta.

 

I guess when it finally gets released we will see if people really are ready for something new and different. Perhaps it can even show that B2P can work well. I mean it did for the original guild wars, and that wasn't even really a MMO.

 

Indeed we will.

 

 

Also, I played WoW at release - Bleeding Hollow server. I know how buggy WoW was. I also know what worked in it. Comparing a 2004 release to a 2011/12 release is apples to oranges.

 

Ehhh, not necessarily. Coding in a given language doesn't magically get easier and less bug-prone the older the language is. Sure, technology has gotten better, but 2 games written in the same language, both by people new to the language at the time of writing the games, will still be equally buggy even if they are a decade apart.

 

If it worked that way, everyone and their mother could write perfectly bug free programs in BASIC, with minor studying of the language.

Edited January 4, 2012 by Daeada

[AlkalineKitten]

I am sick of people bringing up WoW being released with bugs as a rebuttal to people saying how buggy SWTOR's release is. Let's bring up some facts:

 

• WoW was released nearly a DECADE ago.
  
• WoW did not have nearly as much resources as SWTOR
  
• WoW had nothing to use as a "perfect" standard - EQ/UO/SWG/etc were nowhere near what WoW was at release. SWTOR has 7 YEARS of WoW's dos and don'ts, what gained and lost customers, what people hated and liked. WoW didn't have this kind of feedback on aspects of the game.
  

 

I agree!

 

...for the WoW of seven years ago.

 

MMOs should strive to compete with the competition at hand. As in, WoW right now.

 

Guild Wars 2 sure is.

 

ToR is more like early Burning Crusade WoW from 2007, and clings to it's KotoR nostalgia...also an eight year old game. It lacks some of the modern polish ME2 and DA brought to the genre.

 

And this in particular:

 

SWTOR has 7 YEARS of WoW's dos and don'ts, what gained and lost customers, what people hated and liked. WoW didn't have this kind of feedback on aspects of the game.

 

That's where things go wrong. ToR didn't really learn from any of that.

 

ToR feels dated becaus e it is dated. My opinion as a gamer.

Edited January 4, 2012 by AlkalineKitten

[Oneiros_IV]

Such as?

 

Driz

 

 

First off you don't look very bright signing every post. And on the matter I can bring class focus as example.

 

Early version paladin/shaman were bad at every role tank/heal/dps because they were jack of all trades. Blizzard's idea was "It's fun for players to do random fun stuff bit of this and bit of that" players proved them wrong leaving those classes only for roleplayers. After that roles and talent trees became focused and well thought out (Burning crusade and onwards) class restricted gear lost useless and situational stuff (Like spirit or fire resistance on warrior tier)

 

Now let's have a look at sith warrior it's talents buff every spell warrior has focusing on none of them, so essentially it makes you fill all bars with spell duplicate clones with different animations making each of them a necessity. Here we go, a vision of "Alot of random fun to do"

 

Blizzard replaced it with abilities becoming a token one for a skill tree, fewer (6-7), more unique but well interconnected in it's effects. Then they included skill check for every class in the use of them wich will distinguish good player from average.

 

For instance energy pooling for a certain spec rogue, rogue who didn't do will be viable, those who do become really good. (not sure about current state of events regarding rogues) timing with procs, extra damage oportunities, triggering this and that.

 

So we see a complicated system with only a few abilities, while in swtor mundane pressing 1-9 and ctrl 1-9 on sith warrior does not make game more challenging. It's fighting vs UI and class design rather than enemies doesn't take skill or situational awareness. An example of swtor using already scrapped ideas.

[Xynth]

That's why you're dumb.

 

SWTOR didn't release 7 years ago, it released last month and is going up against today's WoW, not the WoW from 7 years ago. Bioware had plenty of time to iron out issues that the vast majority of MMO gamers want and like.

 

When you release a MMO *now* - you know what you need to deliver to keep subscriptions rolling and make it a successful franchise. For some reason, developers haven't caught up yet. Subscription based games require a higher level of quality at release due to the subscription itself. The majority of gamers are NOT going to continue to pay monthly fees for inferior gameplay experiences when they can go back to a formula that works.

 

Before you spout off idiotic comments like "good let them go so we can have our game" - that's been said many times before, and in each of those cases the game has died and turned F2P.

 

As a developer you have four weeks to get your MMO up and running to acceptable standards, after the free month is up you've lost a huge chunk of potential subscribers with another massive group leaving a few weeks later. But hey, if you want to play a game that only has 300k subscribers then more power to you - but news flash, EA/Bioware stated they needed 500k or more to keep this game running and profitable. Most MMO's quickly dwindle to the 250k range after a few months of not being "acceptable".

 

Reading comprehension fail.

 

So you expect a game that just came out to have more content than a game that has been out for 7 years and has had 3 expansions with a fourth on the way?

 

Also, in the 3 weeks it's pretty obvious that swtor has done that. The game is playable except for some bugs here and there which no game comes without. The only thing wrong with it is people complaining that it's not up to some high unattainable standard that NO mmo has ever reached not even wow in it's 7 year old state, and anything that still has major issues is getting patched every week with a big patch coming soon that will more than likely fix the rest of the problems that people complain about, and not only that, but also it has been said that another raid will be added shortly, and if I'm not mistaken i will be with the first major patch. That is pretty huge imo.

 

Where exactly are you getting your numbers from? Swtor has well over 1million subs and that was taken from the first day after the grace period ended, as of now most of the people that pre ordered have subbed which would make the sub number around 2million if not more. No official number has been released but Bioware has already said they are well over their mark, and the fact that they gave us 2 extra days of early game access proves it because they weren't prepared for that many people on the first day.

 

So really people are just complaining to be complain, and I for one can not wait until the free month is up so these people that feel entitled to the "most perfect game evar!" will go away and move on to the next big mmo bandwagon.

[_Verja_]

Yeah, I will be playing it, but I'm not all that hyped. Maybe it's my years of mmo playing and the cynicism that came with it, but I know the more I hype myself for a game, the more I'm ultimately let down. One reason I didn't really care too much about this one until I got to play it in beta.

 

I have just seen what ANET wan'ts to do, and how uncompromising they are. That and NCsoft just let's them do whatever they want, however long it takes them. Guess I'm kind of getting to fanboy status for anet lol.

[Zmidponk]

One question for the folk saying that MMOs should be WoW clones because 'the WoW model works', and so on - if that's the case, why did WoW's subscriptions drop by about 2 million in 2011? From what I can see, people are simply getting tired of WoW and WoW clones, and want something new. SWTOR is something new.

[Sinister-Sith]

Why would Bioware want to copy and paste WoW's coding? That's ridiculous.

 

They're starting from scratch, on their own terms.

[krinaman]

 

Also, I'm not saying this game is better than that, or vice versa. I was simply stating that using WoW as the standard for a release game is retarded at best.

 

You guys are idiots (srs).

 

So give us another recent MMO to compare it to.

 

Most recent I played was Rift and it was buggy when it released as well.