Hmm...I guess it's time to make a blurb about MMOs in general. I tried to stay away from the political aspects of this genre, but really it is an almost impossible task. It's ok to try to be ignorant and continue to be blissful playing one's game once in a while, but the hard, cold reality is that one can not forever.
It seems that I am not alone, and the old school MMOers are feeling this empty satisfaction that we believe MMO games should give us. Is this a delusion? Of course not. We are paying customers, not just on the inital purchase, but continuing paying customers...the question is for how long? Most and perhaps all companies say customer service is their top priority. Well how about making a product that you are proud of being a top priority! We have seen the marketing and the administration department rule MMO companies long enough and look at what it has gotten us. Mostly utter junk.
Gone are the days of innovation, and the want of making a good game. Hello to the days of making the most or quickest profit for your investors/shareholders. We have seen how that has gotten us with Vanguard, and AoC. We have seen companies like SOE completely ignoring their player base and do any changes they feel are necessary, which created their image of a bastard company and created a huge exodus of their SWG game. Combined with making tons of updates/expansions to maximize their dollar (i.e. EQ2), I too have shunned them as a company.
I can't blame MMO companies on a whole. They see the massive profits and playerbase of WoW and want a piece of the action. What gaming company would not! I can almost hear the administration leading these companies shouting, "We need an MMO!" when they heard about WoW's numbers. It distictly reminds me of the .com days when Linux companies hit the stock exchange and made stunning turnovers in profits. I remember my CEO of the .com starter company I was working for coming to me at my desk and saying, "I want 200 Linux programmers." I can see these same luntic CEOs and heads of companies ranting the same expressions wanting a piece of the pie.
However, like the .com boom collapse of empty .com companies with no product or idea, but all market hype, buzz words, and the sole idea to sell their companies to a bigger company; the MMO companies are facing the same plight. The community of MMO players (for the most part) have woken up to what is going on. No longer do many believe in MMO games by pure hype alone. We want hard, cold evidence of the game being good. All the buzz words of "epic battles," "pvp," "end game," "player run economy" are done for. Show us! What that means is bring back Free Open Beta and lift the NDA at least a week before release. If the company believes their game is great and is ready for release, then what is the fear of lifting the NDA for CBTs to talk about the game? If the game is so great and ready for release, then what is the fear of letting people tryout the game themselves?
The short answer is that so many MMOs have failed because they were not ready, and in some cases not even close to being ready for release. Currently, there are tons of MMOs being made for the market, and the playerbase is surprisingly growing, rather than strinking to all the upsets of the past few years; however, these companies need to learn that MMOers are not putting up with the shit for much longer. I for one am almost done. I have been playing MMOs since UO's time, which is close to 10 years. Back in the good ol' days, sure things weren't perfect, but it worked because it was new, and the level of competition was not there. Furthermore, companies needed to make a good game otherwise people would stop playing it, which isn't the case now. Moreover, those people of the good ol' days were teenages. Now, 10 years later these "boys" are in college, out in the work force, or married with kids. They expect and require way more detailed thought in gameplay, and innovation than what is currently out there.
We saw Vanguard fail due to utter fail tactics of hardly any QA. How could the company believe they had a solid winner if no one tested the game! It utterly baffels the mind. It's like trying to make a world famous restaurant which will serve hundreds of thousands of people, but not once trying the food on the menu.
We saw AoC fail due the utter crap game design and again QA. The release of their product was so buggy it was unplayable for the majority of the player base. People with even moderate video cards were getting 5-7 FPS. Furthermore, their live patch fixes were wrong or buggy; as well as, some of their decisions on the "correct" fixes (which is the main reason why I left. If the devs add to the problems they believe is a fix, it means they are hopeless and have no clue what they are doing). So again, it comes down to QA!
WAR is failing because it tried to basically be an improved WoW. "They say" ("they" being that guy and the other guy) "that imitation is the best form of flattery," but wait a minute. Why would a logical person leave WoW to play another type of WoW game? Especially, one that is new and buggy, and not as streamlined as the game they are used to. I believe that one of the guy's who worked at Blizzard stated that 80% of the people that left for WAR has returned to WoW. Stop with the cloning already!
We want innovation, thought, and an all around good game that YOU the developers will play and love. And even though there are many great looking MMOs on the horizon, I personally will not preoder another MMO again (I did it for AoC, WAR, and DFO); unless they lift the NDA at least a week before release, and give the players a free Open Beta. Well at least there is one less sucker in the MMO mix...I hope others will follow suit.
I got inspired from this recent MMORPG.com post:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/232526/page/1
P.S.
Even though I no longer play Eve, everything that has been stated so far does not apply to the company CCP and Eve. They are by far the most amazing company I have seen to date for their playerbase. The length and depth they go through...well I wish other companies would take a page from their book. They give a good time for a trial, all their expansions are FREE, and they pump out expansions on a regular bases. They have created a player elected voice for the community. The company then flies these members to the company in Iceland to meet with the developers to discuss changes to the game. They have hired an actual economist to monitor their player run economy, and they did EveTV (CCP paid for all the bandwidth).
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