WoW vs. TOR: Comparing game launches

[Froodlemaster]

2004 vs 2011

 

completely different hardware, logistics, expectations.

 

also, who cares. need justification to be terrible?

 

No, justification is needed to show people who are complaining that this is the worst launch ever, when it clearly isn't. As I said, the fabled WoW had a worst launch then any MMO has ever had.

 

On a side note as well, technology has improved, but it is still just as hard to make an MMO as it was 7 years ago. It's probably harder now because there is a larger amount of computer specs compared to 2004. I can make 2 computers completely different inside, one can work, one could continuously crash. So, as such, making games now is probably much harder then it was 7 years ago.

[Maloreon]

They gave out a lot of free time. I still have it listed under my account payment history from 04 and early 05.

 

Comparing WoW to TOR launches would really only be apt if TOR ends up having some astronomical number that blows away our conception of the MMO market at launch.

 

I know people are going to say "source or ****" but they already DO have those numbers. When they announce them officially it is going to be 4-5 million worldwide. That is in January, with all orders digital and hard copy, worldwide. It is a large amount and it is so smooth. People are delusional if they don't realize how much BW is dominating today.

[Jebi]

Pfft, getting stuck looting, 2-3 hour queues, and server crashes whenever we tried to do any larger scale world PVP, that's about all i remember... oh, apart from it being made for kiddies and MMO noobs.

 

There's a reason blizzard starting giving out free time.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Jebi

[Bezit]

"Uh there wasn't that much of complaints when WoW was released nor' in beta."

 

Hahahahah are you serious? Dude the forums and in game were non-stop whining about the constant lag-fests, server crashes, downtime, and bugs. I actually played back then, I'd know. And yes, that stuff continued for MONTHS afterward. You didn't play back then if you don't remember that - it was endless whining. One of the worst launches in history.

 

You must've have played on the "cool name" servers that had full population, or just had some really whiney friends. I played on firetree, kil jaeden, and medivh(first server to open AQ gates) and there wasn't really big issues. I think 2-3 times they had extended maintenance for a half day or so extra the first few months. It really wasn't that bad, burning crusade caused a lot of issues when they went from a few million to 10 million or so, but they updated the servers. I don't know what game you were playing.

[benyacko]

"Uh there wasn't that much of complaints when WoW was released nor' in beta."

 

Hahahahah are you serious? Dude the forums and in game were non-stop whining about the constant lag-fests, server crashes, downtime, and bugs. I actually played back then, I'd know. And yes, that stuff continued for MONTHS afterward. You didn't play back then if you don't remember that - it was endless whining. One of the worst launches in history.

 

Actually the WoW forums were not in flames because they crashed as well.

[Knoxpwns]

Maybe you were in China in 2004 because i saw none of that and played from day 1. Most i have ever seen was a 20 min wait to get on a server back in vanilla.

 

 

Are you kidding? the boats worked like 10% of the time. they always dumped you into the ocean, and didn't fix it for months? God forbid I rolled a warrior, if you charged anything you'd fall through the world.

 

The game was horrible when it first came out, you must be blind

[Froodlemaster]

They gave out a lot of free time. I still have it listed under my account payment history from 04 and early 05.

 

Comparing WoW to TOR launches would really only be apt if TOR ends up having some astronomical number that blows away our conception of the MMO market at launch.

 

You know this MMO only needs 500,000 players to be successful right? Anything above that is phenomenal for them. It doesn't have to be 11 million players to be ground breaking or successful.

[Valin_Thren]

People are hypocrites. They all want to be let in NOW, AND they want a smooth launch. Those two things are simply not possible together. Look at almost every MMO ever without a graduated release: Server crashes, horrible lag, et cetera. TOR has none of this. Edited December 14, 2011 by Valin_Thren

[Sedayeen]

The only waiting you can count is any waiting that takes place after the 20th, any time allowed on before that is a gift.

 

Dude, I'm NOT counting, but we were discussing PR and how this is going to play out vs WoW's launch when there was server lag and queues and crashes, etc etc.

 

I think people perceive that they are waiting and when you're talking about customer service, perception is important.

 

Thats all I'm saying.

[Froodlemaster]

You must've have played on the "cool name" servers that had full population, or just had some really whiney friends. I played on firetree, kil jaeden, and medivh(first server to open AQ gates) and there wasn't really big issues. I think 2-3 times they had extended maintenance for a half day or so extra the first few months. It really wasn't that bad, burning crusade caused a lot of issues when they went from a few million to 10 million or so, but they updated the servers. I don't know what game you were playing.

 

You seem to be very prevalent in denying a lot of WoW's issues at launch. Do you not want to admit that a great MMO had it's own faults?

[Maloreon]

You must've have played on the "cool name" servers that had full population, or just had some really whiney friends. I played on firetree, kil jaeden, and medivh(first server to open AQ gates) and there wasn't really big issues. I think 2-3 times they had extended maintenance for a half day or so extra the first few months. It really wasn't that bad, burning crusade caused a lot of issues when they went from a few million to 10 million or so, but they updated the servers. I don't know what game you were playing.

 

Lies I have many friends who played on Medivh and it was horrible. I played on Skullcrusher and when it was down on dozens of other servers to kill time. On 99% of my nights playing there was loot lag on each of those servers. I sat through hour queues on most of them, if not all.

 

Also, Firetree was not around at release so you basically negated your entire point by quoting it as a server you played at when it came out MONTHS after release and did not have the opportunity to even belong in this discussion.

[Asurai]

Are you kidding? the boats worked like 10% of the time. they always dumped you into the ocean, and didn't fix it for months? God forbid I rolled a warrior, if you charged anything you'd fall through the world.

 

The game was horrible when it first came out, you must be blind

 

indeed, that person dindt play WoW on Day1 for sure.the Boat were so broken that I was falling through the world when taking them.Lag was crazy for several week/month on some server until they added alot more server.

[Xibz]

You seem to be very prevalent in denying a lot of WoW's issues at launch. Do you not want to admit that a great MMO had it's own faults?

 

What's weird is I really dislike WoW, but my memory doesn't recall anything that bad at launch... And I am quite confused because of it lol

[ShinnyZero]

Just remember the next time you go to complain, World of Warcaft, the fabled MMO of all time, had a looting bug that caused you to get stuck in the looting position, and would sometimes persist even after logging off and logging back on. It took Blizzard months to fix the bug. It was still in the game when Burning Crusade was launched. That is what WoW was like for the first initial months of release. We all thought it was going to burn and crash. But it didn't. And yet people complained, just like they are today. Go figure.

 

Good times.

 

I remember the loot bug all too well! Luckily it only happened twice to me and each time the only way I could fix the issues was ticketing a GM and back then it could take 24hrs + for a GM to even look your way. I consider myself lucky as there were friends who got struck by this far more frequently than me. Its funny because as a knee jerk reaction to the problem I often purposely avoided looting mobs 'just in case'.

 

From the last 2 beta weekends I participated in and the reports on the current stability of the live servers swtor is definitely up to standard for a 2011 release. Its incredibly polished for a brand new mmo. However folks need to learn some patience. We all knew that only a fraction of accounts would be getting in on the first day but it seems unrealistic expectations are par for the course when it comes to a select number of vocal gamers.

[Maloreon]

Actually the WoW forums were not in flames because they crashed as well.

 

Actually they were in flames and then crashing. I am talking about over a 4-5 month time span. The whining about lag, loot-lag, server crashes, etc. was endless for those months. I read those forums every single day, every hour that I was awake and there were constantly 50% of the posts as whining about that and/or some balance issue. The whining was easily worse than here and it lasted for 4-5 months.

[HoneyBoy]

You know this MMO only needs 500,000 players to be successful right? Anything above that is phenomenal for them. It doesn't have to be 11 million players to be ground breaking or successful.

 

That wasn't the point of my argument. The point was that when WoW was released it was a totally different market back then. There was absolutely no way anyone would have guessed the game would have as many early adopters as it did. Now the market has evolved, technology has evolved, number tracking has evolved. Bioware has the benefit of looking over how every other MMO launched, whereas WoW launched into a very niche market. It's not fair to compare their launches.

 

Edit: Unless TOR is launching with more pre-orders and early adopters than the current market size allows for.

Edited December 14, 2011 by HoneyBoy

[Aowar]

A game launch is a game launch no matter what year. If you think a launch gets easier you are sadly mistaken.

 

And the OP is correct is comparing WOW to TOR in this case.

 

I honestly expect Blizzard upcoming MMO will also have launch issues. Just maybe not to the poor level of wow's.

 

 

 

I really hope you do not believe this.

[Maloreon]

Dude, I'm NOT counting, but we were discussing PR and how this is going to play out vs WoW's launch when there was server lag and queues and crashes, etc etc.

 

I think people perceive that they are waiting and when you're talking about customer service, perception is important.

 

Thats all I'm saying.

 

Actually you are dead wrong. Your post is the ENTIRE point of my original post. People will whine and cry just like with WoW (which was far worse than ANYTHING that will happen in this game) and they WILL keep on playing for years afterward. People like to be dramatic and use hyperbole but in the end you will all keep subbing and enjoying it. See you in game (for the next 5+ years!).

[DHStorm]

Why do people have to bring up WOW all the time when refering to this game. If Bioware have cocked up this launch what has it got to do with Blizzard ? Judge each game on its own merits and not what happened in another game. This launch has judging by the amount of forum posts not been a success so far and thats not just about the early access. People arent even going to get copies until after 20th either. I suppose Blizzard have sabotaged the postal system too now. This launch has failed because of EA and Bioware and noone else.

[TheDeRagnus]

Everyones saying that the EA is a cover up because their servers are going to fail, how many played the Thanksgiving beta and how many times did servers fail then? I was jumping from server to server and out of all the ones I hopped on, only ONE ever crashed and it wasn't even down for more than 15 minutes. People need to stop complaining.

[Froodlemaster]

That wasn't the point of my argument. The point was that when WoW was released it was a totally different market back then. There was absolutely no way anyone would have guessed the game would have as many early adopters as it did. Now the market has evolved, technology has evolved, number tracking has evolved. Bioware has the benefit of looking over how every other MMO launched, whereas WoW launched into a very niche market. It's not fair to compare their launches.

 

It is fair though, because an MMO is an MMO, despite what year it was launched in. I said before, yes, the year differences could make a bit of difference, but it's probably more difficult to launch a good MMO now, then it was when WoW was released. EQ was the only dominant MMO. Now a days, there are at least 100 MMO's available to players. And it gets harder to develop MMO's now then it was 7 years ago.

[Trandel]

"Uh there wasn't that much of complaints when WoW was released nor' in beta."

 

Hahahahah are you serious? Dude the forums and in game were non-stop whining about the constant lag-fests, server crashes, downtime, and bugs. I actually played back then, I'd know. And yes, that stuff continued for MONTHS afterward. You didn't play back then if you don't remember that - it was endless whining. One of the worst launches in history.

 

Hmmmm, I don't recall any of that and I was in beta and there at release but then again I was too busy actually playing the game and having fun. I do remember it being rough at first but unlike SWTOR, nobody at all, including Blizzard, could have foresaw just how freaking massive those first few days could have been. Nothing up to that point had seen anything near the hype that WoW got so it doesn't take a genius to realize there was no way they could have been ready for the freaking FLOOD of players waiting to get in.

 

So, to compare what could be argued as the very first MASSIVE mmo to go mainstream that was release 6+ years ago to SWTOR which has had YEARS to watch, study and learn from other mmo's and be ready for this is a complete joke.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Trandel

[Wallach]

I played back then, and had a beta account. I don't remember any of that...

I remember a little complaining here and there. But nothing of this magnitude

 

Then you have the memory of a goldfish. It was basically a storm of nerd rage and cognitive dissonance - exactly what this forum has looked like most of the day.

[Maloreon]

That wasn't the point of my argument. The point was that when WoW was released it was a totally different market back then. There was absolutely no way anyone would have guessed the game would have as many early adopters as it did. Now the market has evolved, technology has evolved, number tracking has evolved. Bioware has the benefit of looking over how every other MMO launched, whereas WoW launched into a very niche market. It's not fair to compare their launches.

 

Edit: Unless TOR is launching with more pre-orders and early adopters than the current market size allows for.

 

Actually I have a very close RL friend who was in since the first beta (I didn't bother with Beta since I did not expect as much as he did). The beta community was warning Blizzard about the problems they'd have at release well before the game came out and they released into a disaster anyway. Funny how it is the complete opposite of how this game's launch has gone - clear communication with the playerbase, bugs being fixed, more bugs popping up and being quickly fixed, a satisfactory launch, etc.

[Supersharkman]

The more realistic comparison would be to Rift. For me, that was the smoothest launch I can remember.