Thoughts

[Gulthaw]

So,

 

As many of you, I've been playing MMOs for 12+ years.

Some of you started with EQ, others with UO, I myself started with LoM (legend of mir) and tried UO afterwards.

 

Among all these years I've grinded like a madman and I can give examples that would make you think I should be in a mental institution, will leave that for another day; but the important thing is how all those games were.

 

Let's ignore WoW and others and take a look to the ONLY game that still today I play when everything else bores me, Ragnarok Online.

 

RO is damn hard to get to max level, I think I only managed to do that on private (pirated) servers with the drop and xp modified (x5, x10 and so on); on the official servers I think I made it to 92 (cap level currently is 100, then you reborn and go til 150 iirc).

 

What did I learn here? That "end game" is a mistake, but that wasn't the point of this post.

 

The really important thing that I think all those games we loved had was, they were ready.

There were bugs, of course there were bugs! But a game at launch with so many issues? That wasn't even considered before SWG (pre-NGE).

 

So, how come now "is ok" if a game has a lot of issues at launch?

 

Imagine you want a new car, yours is already old and you think it'll be "fun" to get a new one; then you see this add, talking wonders about this new car that will come out in a few months.

You start drooling, your behaviour changes to that of a 6 year old (i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!!) and life becomes difficult until THE day, the day when they tell you that you can go and pick up your new car.

 

On your journey home, your going by the highway feeling it; the car is smooth, the smell is fantastic but... there's something wrong with the engine, you cannot go faster than 80 km/h no matter what you do.

The moment you get home you call them and no one picks the phone, you're being redirected to a voice mail.

You check online and discover you're not alone in these, a lot of people is suffering the same issues, but some fanboy tells you "well, is a new and modern car, they are probably still working with some software related issues that can affect the engine"

 

I think you all see where I'm going here.

 

When did this started? When did we decide "it was ok" to pay for an unfinished product?

Sorry but that's just horrible.

 

I work in IT, and have worked as a programmer for years (yes, half the MMO population works in IT related works because... is what we do! is what we love!), I can only imagine the screams if I ever delivered an unfinished product and ask the world to pay for it.

 

"Is a new game" is not an excuse, is the wrong way to look at things.

[iheartnyc]

Imagine you want a new car, yours is already old and you think it'll be "fun" to get a new one; then you see this add, talking wonders about this new car that will come out in a few months.

You start drooling, your behaviour changes to that of a 6 year old (i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!!) and life becomes difficult until THE day, the day when they tell you that you can go and pick up your new car.

 

On your journey home, your going by the highway feeling it; the car is smooth, the smell is fantastic but... there's something wrong with the engine, you cannot go faster than 80 km/h no matter what you do.

The moment you get home you call them and no one picks the phone, you're being redirected to a voice mail.

You check online and discover you're not alone in these, a lot of people is suffering the same issues, but some fanboy tells you "well, is a new and modern car, they are probably still working with some software related issues that can affect the engine"

 

This isn't a car, it's a game. Cars are regulated by the government. Cars can kill you, and have killed millions. SWTOR won't kill you.

 

I can only imagine the screams if I ever delivered an unfinished product and ask the world to pay for it.

 

You couldn't get the world to pay you millions for a game if you tried. Otherwise, you'd be making millions making games instead of posting here.

[SamuraBob_Fl]

So what I got from this was "Bugs are ok in other games, but bugs are not OK in this game."

[pzljug]

dead horse is.....dead

[Gulthaw]

So what I got from this was "Bugs are ok in other games, but bugs are not OK in this game."

 

 

Where did I say that?

 

You couldn't get the world to pay you millions for a game if you tried. Otherwise, you'd be making millions making games instead of posting here.

 

In fact, me and some friends are still working on it, but I don't think it will be around anytime soon, why? Because is unfinished!!

[masternating]

dead horse is.....dead

 

 

Agreed,

 

Some of us need to start complaining to bioware that theres no way to fliter out WoW comparisons and "buggy-est" game ever threads. This isnt game really isnt all that buggy, I havent encountered a bug yet that stoped me from playing. A few graphics glitches?!?!... really?

 

Look, I'd prefer the game to be prefect too, but,... tell me you havent played a game where you found a glitch that stopped you from continuing. Thread after thread of people going over the top, claiming this game is unplayable. OMG weird camera angle during the explination of a quest! Show stopper! Beta! I'm beta testing!

[xSighKo]

You compared an MMO to a car. I was seriously tearing up from laughter dude thank you.

[Gulthaw]

You compared an MMO to a car. I was seriously tearing up from laughter dude thank you.

 

Take a few (ok, maybe more than a few) steps back.

I compared two products.

 

Change the car for a tablet, an operative system, whatever works for you; delivering an unfinished product is fraud, no matter how you look at it.

 

But I'm glad at least it made you laugh ^_^

[iheartnyc]

Take a few (ok, maybe more than a few) steps back.

I compared two products.

 

Change the car for a tablet, an operative system, whatever works for you; delivering an unfinished product is fraud, no matter how you look at it.

 

But I'm glad at least it made you laugh ^_^

 

OMG let's not get started on buggy OS's (anyone remember Windows ME??? OMG). Bugs with Windows XP? OMG. All the manufacturing defects in tablets? Poor battery/reception in the iPhone? Please. Don't get me started on Apple products.

[callousparade]

#fail at myself. deleted Edited February 9, 2012 by callousparade
duh

[Maxlord]

You can't compare an MMO to any other type of game.

 

HOWEVER

 

Take some single player games out there. They supposedly ship "Finished", but yet people actually HAVE to download patches, etc to fix errors that were made! Do people complain long and loud about losing play time because of that?

 

No.

 

In reality, it's the same thing. You pay to play, and lost time via having to have something fixed. The problem is, when you tack on a Subscription fee, somehow people think this means a game should be "Finished" to the point where nothing EVER goes wrong.

 

Haven't seen a single MMO accomplish that yet. I sincerely doubt I will in my lifetime. Or that of my kids, or grandchildren. Perfect doesn't exist, even though we think it should.

[SamuraBob_Fl]

 

Where did I say that?

 

 

The really important thing that I think all those games we loved had was, they were ready.

There were bugs, of course there were bugs! But a game at launch with so many issues? That wasn't even considered before SWG (pre-NGE).

 

I don't really see what your standard is. WoW is the only other MMO I played at launch, but it had (and continued to have) roughly an equal amount of trouble.

[Gulthaw]

OMG let's not get started on buggy OS's (anyone remember Windows ME??? OMG). Bugs with Windows XP? OMG. All the manufacturing defects in tablets? Poor battery/reception in the iPhone? Please. Don't get me started on Apple products.

 

That's what I'm saying!!

 

Windows ME (and Vista) were so outrageous it wasn't even funny, I don't know about Apple because I never had and never will have a Macintosh computer product.

 

When did we start letting them rip us off?

Because, honestly, when I was studying IT if any of my programs was buggy my teacher would laugh and make jokes about it, and if it was as messy as some things I've seen he would have shouted at me and make feel embarrased.

 

And people still defend them! ><U

[Pink_Saber]

The car analogy again?

 

I swear I immediately tune out as soon as someone starts comparing any game to a car. How anyone ever thinks it's a good idea is beyond me.

 

It's like the "slap in the face" of 2012. As soon as I see it I'm just done.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Pink_Saber

[Gulthaw]

I don't really see what your standard is. WoW is the only other MMO I played at launch, but it had (and continued to have) roughly an equal amount of trouble.

 

My standard is Ragnarok Online (I thought it was obvious).

 

I've seen some bugs in it, specially when they added new classes (Tae Kwon were a pain at first) but there are bugs that feel like small mosquitoes and others that make you feel Ungoliant is going after you.

 

I'm not going to keep comparing TOR with WoW, that is the mistake we've all been doing; I will compare it to other games I enjoyed (and still do).

 

edit:typos

Edited February 9, 2012 by Gulthaw

[Catharsian]

Games ship with major design flaw now for one of several reasons

 

1) it is about quick money. Most MMO's are not long lived now because player level them faster than the dev's can create content. So why bother fixing things if you know most players are going to level out of your game in 2 months ..My example is RIFTS, my guild had guy who had hit max level between PRe-release and full release.

 

2) Players are whiners (yes, me included) so no matter your game is screwed so why worry about it. The Cult of DAOC will attempt to turn anyt game with a PvP portion into DAOC. See WAR and RIFTS. WoWheads want everything to be BC, and complain if it's not.

 

3) Having bugs affects nothing in game popularity outside of the first 3-6 months (then see #1) and having a seemeless release gets you no loyalty (again RIFTS)

 

4) Dev cycles are insanely short now, Look at how fast Mytthic had to rush WAR or NCSosft pushed AION out the door. Late to date games (which software is always late) costs you players and possibly kills your release.

 

5) Fanboys will always defend you so you have a great excuse not to worry about it.

 

I agree some of this is the Dev's fault (they allowed this to become the stad) some is the companies fault because they want the fast money. But we the players have to accept some of the responsibility for our "We Want it perfectly, how we believed right now or we'll whine and leave"

 

That being said. The S/W houses should have more pride and more foresight than what we see. In short despite the above factors and the player bases portio of fault it's not accpetible for the S/W houses to skate by with inferior products just because they can.

[Gulthaw]

I agree some of this is the Dev's fault (they allowed this to become the stad) some is the companies fault because they want the fast money. But we the players have to accept some of the responsibility for our "We Want it perfectly, how we believed right now or we'll whine and leave"

 

Here I disagree. In fact that's why I left the "programming world", grew tired of some marketing/salesman agreeing with the client with impossible dates and sentences like "this is only a button!" when that "button" changed the behaviour of the whole app.

 

If someone is at fault is the project managers, who don't defend their product and people as they should.

 

That being said. The S/W houses should have more pride and more foresight than what we see. In short despite the above factors and the player bases portio of fault it's not accpetible for the S/W houses to skate by with inferior products just because they can.

 

Again, they don't care. Is all about money, not being proud of their product; and I know some people who did an amazing job and refuse to put that on their CV because, in the end, it sucked due to marketing decissions.

[JeremyDale]

So,

 

As many of you, I've been playing MMOs for 12+ years.

Some of you started with EQ, others with UO, I myself started with LoM (legend of mir) and tried UO afterwards.

 

Among all these years I've grinded like a madman and I can give examples that would make you think I should be in a mental institution, will leave that for another day; but the important thing is how all those games were.

 

Let's ignore WoW and others and take a look to the ONLY game that still today I play when everything else bores me, Ragnarok Online.

 

RO is damn hard to get to max level, I think I only managed to do that on private (pirated) servers with the drop and xp modified (x5, x10 and so on); on the official servers I think I made it to 92 (cap level currently is 100, then you reborn and go til 150 iirc).

 

What did I learn here? That "end game" is a mistake, but that wasn't the point of this post.

 

The really important thing that I think all those games we loved had was, they were ready.

There were bugs, of course there were bugs! But a game at launch with so many issues? That wasn't even considered before SWG (pre-NGE).

 

So, how come now "is ok" if a game has a lot of issues at launch?

 

Imagine you want a new car, yours is already old and you think it'll be "fun" to get a new one; then you see this add, talking wonders about this new car that will come out in a few months.

You start drooling, your behaviour changes to that of a 6 year old (i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!! i wanna!!) and life becomes difficult until THE day, the day when they tell you that you can go and pick up your new car.

 

On your journey home, your going by the highway feeling it; the car is smooth, the smell is fantastic but... there's something wrong with the engine, you cannot go faster than 80 km/h no matter what you do.

The moment you get home you call them and no one picks the phone, you're being redirected to a voice mail.

You check online and discover you're not alone in these, a lot of people is suffering the same issues, but some fanboy tells you "well, is a new and modern car, they are probably still working with some software related issues that can affect the engine"

 

I think you all see where I'm going here.

 

When did this started? When did we decide "it was ok" to pay for an unfinished product?

Sorry but that's just horrible.

 

I work in IT, and have worked as a programmer for years (yes, half the MMO population works in IT related works because... is what we do! is what we love!), I can only imagine the screams if I ever delivered an unfinished product and ask the world to pay for it.

 

"Is a new game" is not an excuse, is the wrong way to look at things.

 

I skimmed your post and I think I agree with you.

 

There is a disturbing new trend with recent MMORPGs and being released "unfinished". I don't like it much. So i'm with you on this.

 

Finish the game THEN release it. It's getting really old forking out 60+ bucks for unfinished games.

[TonyIommi]

Buggy game releases are a result of a confluence of factors that have more or less resulted in the position we as consumers are at today.

 

1) The demand for software that does more has lead to more and more complexity. Even single player games such as SKYRIM are riddled with bugs. Even on the standardized platforms of consoles we still have this issue. I cannot remember the last time I put in a console game and didn't have to patch it right from the start. Skyrim is a fairly good example of this again as it literally crashed for ps3 users and the patch meant to fix that made it worse. Yet for some odd reason we accept this in skyrim which is comparatively simple compared to an MMO like swtor.

 

2) The investment required to make these games has sky-rocketed over the past decade. This is in part because consumers demand X Y and Z. At the same time consumers want and expect products ASAP. Now on the one hand you have the demand by investors to recoup the initial investments but you also have the demand from the players who want to play the damned thing.

 

Couple these facts with the widespread adoption of the internet as a means for patching and we are left with the situation as it currently stands. This is the new standard for software development. Bioware has chosen to release a tabula rasa. It has the bare minimum features so that it also has the bare minimum bugs. As a network administrator myself and some time programmer I can tell you that the code behind this game is immense and massively complex. The car analogies are ill suited and they should really stop. Christ people use these analogies but then fail to recognize that even that industry has recalls. Yet people still buy Corollas.. Go figure

[SmokyButton]

hmm all that debate on how buged swtor is, i think pll have a tendency to forget how bugged other games were, both in graphic and game play, when I think back hard, and remember wow start, I was not better, lot of game balance problems to!

can hardly remember the other mmo’s I played start!

Is good that games comes out whit a lot bugs? I don’t think so, like anyone else I would like that works right from the get go!

But the best way to regulate this is if game annoys you more than you enjoy it, STOP PLAYING IT!

Simple but effective, pll quitting the game lost income for corporation that made game, and nothing they hate more than that, and they will fix the game or make a better one next time! Simple as that!

 

[Gulthaw]

This is in part because consumers demand X Y and Z. At the same time consumers want and expect products ASAP.

 

I disagree.

The typical MMO player (from what I've seen) will be perfectly happy to wait until the game is finished.

That same person will try to be part of the development phase, getting into alphas and betas; some want to see the game, some want to try it, some want to help.

The good majority, the ones that will keep coming, are the ones that are ok to wait; the ones that want to be in the beta to know the game so they can rush to end-game later are the ones that are destroying this games.

 

In the end, the decission is money driven. I understand the process and I cannot imagine how much money is needed (only thinking about the infrastructure makes me tremble).

 

The car analogies are ill suited and they should really stop. Christ people use these analogies but then fail to recognize that even that industry has recalls. Yet people still buy Corollas.. Go figure

 

Well, I wanted to give an example that non-IT people could understand.

As a network administrator and ex-programmer I kind of imagine how big the whole system is, I even had a WoW and RO private servers to understand more the system and, let me tell you, is quite difficult and expensive.

 

But the problem still remains, we are given unfinished products, paying for them and involving as much as we can in the process; what do we get in return? Bad (almost unexistent) customer service and the feeling that they are ignoring us.

 

I would pay to see my programming and system teachers telling them a few things

[Catharsian]

Here I disagree. In fact that's why I left the "programming world", grew tired of some marketing/salesman agreeing with the client with impossible dates and sentences like "this is only a button!" when that "button" changed the behaviour of the whole app.

 

If someone is at fault is the project managers, who don't defend their product and people as they should.

 

 

 

Again, they don't care. Is all about money, not being proud of their product; and I know some people who did an amazing job and refuse to put that on their CV because, in the end, it sucked due to marketing decissions.

 

AS a PM, I have to disagree with the fault being the PM. AS a PM you have to balance what marketing and the loggies and fiance guys say with the "pure vision" of the devs. Everyone thinks that they are the PM's ppl, not realizing that so are all the other Depts and clients and .. (we call them Stakeholders for those outside the Project world)

 

It's easy to blame Marketing or Fiancne..and boy do Programmers love to, they never llok inthe mirror and go, oh yeah maybe I shouldn't have decided to program this really cool extra widget that wasn't necessarya nd put the program weeks behind, or if I had just spent an extra 10 minutes checking my code the 3 day test algorhythm might not have crashed, for a 3 minute fix. (yes, had that happen, cost us a week. Not for the fix but to rerun the autmated test script 2 times)

 

 

I heartily agree with you second point that most houses don't care because it is about teh cash flow. My point was that they should. My big point was that their is plenty of blame to go around and it's now a culture problem.