Player Perspectives: Launch Day Hypocrisy
Jaime Skelton uses her Player Perspectives blog this week to talk about the phenomenon of launch day and how it can make even the most hardened cynic at least temporarily into an MMO believer.
Column By Jaime Skelton on February 05, 2010
After over a decade of playing games in the genre, the MMO community has become jaded and cynical. We spend our days bemoaning the lack of innovation, drawing an ever greater picture of evidence that the genre is tending toward homogenization. We accuse game Z of copying game Y, game Y copying game X, and game X copying some ideas from our friend's basement twenty-three years ago. We take up forum name and signatures that proclaim "MMOs are dead." We're a nice group of people, really; we've just become disillusioned by a gaming industry that has been infected with a nasty bandwagon parasite.
So why is it, with bitterness practically our every out-breath, we rush with excitement and joy to the launch of a new MMO? We can lay our cynicism thicker than Marmite, but on launch days, suddenly the thick distaste for the state of the genre has turned into a light, sweet tone of hope. It's a phenomenon that happens with almost every MMO launch, be the game free-to-play or subscription based; from an independent company or a gaming Goliath. The red carpet rolls out, as do the exclamation marks ("This game is so awesome!!!") and praise from people who haven't even played the game yet, or at least certainly not long enough to form a long-lasting opinion. We turn from critics to hypocrites.
advertisement This week saw the launch of two MMOs: Global Agenda and Star Trek Online. The latter has, by its own nature, seen more hype. Global Agenda has, however, been one of the most talked about independent games, and relatively anticipated among those who enjoy shooters. Early feedback from players is full of praise for the game, and it's fair to say that Global Agenda had a good "launch day rush." The FPS and TPS MMO-sub-genre have been sparse with game population, so Global Agenda is taking a spot that is relatively unchallenged in the MMO world.
Yet Global Agenda's launch day fanfare is relatively mute to the heraldry that brought in Star Trek Online the day after. The games media has been hyping STO since before Cryptic launched Champions Online, and its launch day began with virtual fireworks displays and practical advertisements telling players to buy STO. The mentality behind the hype seemed to be "It's a Star Trek licensed game - it can't be bad, right?" And even those who admit it may not be innovative, or even good, will admit that because it's Star Trek, they're going to play. In fact, I'm betting that my own father, who has sworn off MMOs dozens of times even though he keeps coming back, is probably playing right now, savoring the Trekkie goodness.
I don't have a problem with Cryptic, or Star Trek Online, but both have had a history of negative feedback tinged with the classic MMO community cynicism. Despite those woven threads, Star Trek had a happy launch day. Players I've known to be cynical about Cryptic's abilities to make a good MMO have practically worshiped it since they started playing, a shock to me given the amount of negative feedback I've seen in forums about Star Trek Online.
For the record, I did give STO a little try during open beta, but it just wasn't my style of game, so I have no personal judgment on its quality. My experience with Star Trek involves casually watching it while doing homework as a kid. That, and meeting up with an EverQuest guild in Quark's Bar in Vegas; an interesting experience to say the least as the party got itself drunk on Warp Core Breaches while a guy dressed up as a Klingon sang. It's these experiences that shy kids off of classics, I'm telling you.
;)
I think Star Trek Online's launch this week provides a great way of looking at this phenomenon of casting aside our communal doubts for a few days of exultation. It isn't that we're optimists; it's that we will buy into something we like even if our predictions are bad. Licensed games are especially notorious for this; you can count on the initial success of games like World of Warcraft, Warhammer Online, and, yes, Star Trek Online on this tail-chasing. Not many people could envision the transition of Warcraft's multi-player RTS style to an MMO like EverQuest, but people came anyway because they thought that the Warcraft universe was awesome. It's like offering a kid candy on the condition he does his homework; the homework may suck, but at least he got sugar. This week's fuss over Star Trek Online is no different. Whether you listen to the hype or the critics, ultimately it's a Star Trek game, and Trek fans are going to buy it en masse.
There's also something in our veins that tells us that no matter how bad or dull something may be, we're willing to try it once. This is our discovery mode, that one small grain of optimistic sand that says we might just find a diamond in the rough. So some of us will chase down and try that exotic Russian import that's only half-translated, play dozens of buggy games, and become beta-junkies in search of that spark we once felt that made us fall in love with the genre in the first place. Let's face it, even when we're dying our virtual hair black and proclaiming that the MMO is dead, we love it. We write dark poetry in the form of hopeless forum posts, because we're smitten with the idea engendered in the MMO. For some reason, we cannot divorce ourselves from it.
So is it hope that turns us into virtual cheerleaders every time an MMO launches? Sometimes, it is. We hope to recapture the special feelings that MMOs once made us feel. We hope to see innovation. We hope to find something surprising and different that makes us pause and take a little more time to enjoy the game. So we'll put aside the negative feedback, the criticism, and cheer on another new contender in the ring, no matter how ugly or outclassed it is. Sometimes, though, it's blind faith that guides us into a trap of believing all the PR, all the hype, and thinking that a new game can't possibly be so bad as to deserve a silent welcome.
Of course, there are many among us who aren't cynics. Some are rookies to the MMO genre, inexperienced either in time or in games under the belt. These players ignore the predominant glum in the community and continue to enjoy new games as they come out. Others may be veterans, but are too stubborn to believe that every game is a poor clone of another, and press on. A precious few are true optimists who are happy to see the genre growing, no matter game quality or producer, and reassure the rest of us that one day, the right MMO will come along just for us.
As for me, I fall somewhere between the extreme lines of cynic and optimist. I believe every new game has something to offer the MMO community as a whole, and that every new game strives to be at least a little different in the crowd. That belief, though, is tempered with years of experience, years of seeing the same patterns repeating themselves from one game to the next. I remain open-minded, and while I may not get the cheerleader pompoms out very often myself, I'll give a little "here's hoping" every time an MMO server opens its virtual doors for the first time.
After all, one day, that special MMO is going to appear, on sparkly clouds and pulled by six unicorns, and offer to sweep me away to a land where everything is just as it should be.
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"After all, one day, that special MMO is going to appear, on sparkly clouds and pulled by six unicorns, and offer to sweep me away to a land where everything is just as it should be. "
that was awesome.
mm only one so far i saw !
just seeing their website for it i was like !WHAT THESE GUYS CAN DO THIS!arent they a f2p company
if GRAND MUNDO is a good and polished as their website .this will be the game to beat!
but even these guys ,might have the same issue most mmo face(i say most because there ARE some 64 bit game!)
the issue is on two front 32 bit some game now are 64 bit but they still hit the bandwith limit witch can only be corrected
with microsoft donnybrook OR onlive(streaming game service)those are the only 2 option
so the game maker are truelly in a bind what choice will they make will they adopt that same techno they carbon copy pwi or wow way to the letter if so then im sorry to say there arent any title worth looking forward to on th pc front
but i dont feel so bad since there are other that fianlly have done the move like mag 256 player on a first person shooter
men this must be insanelly fun.
this last title is still in the thick of the fog but im betting it will be epic also!halo reach ,why?microsoft and bungie disclosed everything,everything?nope they have one pvp feature not even demon could pull out of them !so for bungie and microsoft
to stay silent it must be very epic.(my money is on donnybrook)
I think it is interesting that my kids got two games this last week:
Mass Effect 2 and Star Trek Online
With Mass Effect 2, they are stuck to the game, and are trying to burn their way through it as fast as possible. They are trying to 'beat' the game, and are in a rush to do so.
With Star Trek Online, they are playing a couple of hours a day, and they are not in any rush. I mentioned that they had not even gotten far enough to get their first class ship, and their comment was that they were not in any hurry. They were enjoying the experience, and didnt feel any need to rush.
I think both games were good buys... but that the each offer something different.
I can't deny that drawing feeling that announcements of new games and developers talking about it make. Especially when it is something you already know and have feelings about - a big IP, a developer. The negative aspects don't really matter at this time as much, the possibilities will shine more. We are gamers, we are looking forward new experiences in new games and that is what ultimately matters, specifically long-term ones for the MMO genre.
This is a weakness that developers can exploit as seen lately, the best ones being the ones you will only notice years later of defending a game you weren't really playing but paying.
That is why I believe MMOs need to provide a trial AT release, or even before it. And don't hide it under a beta mask. Yes, a mask, why does a MMO at beta provide faster updates than it will ever do post-release? The only logical reason here is that they already had them planned long after the beta start, considering the development team remains basically the same, to protect themselves with the mass of people that will blindly defend the game they are having good experiences (or at least have been blinded by the good possibilities) in good faith, show us the final product.
It will be a lot better for everyone. What is the point of a "bad" MMO release that aimed at monetizing this short-term feeling only? You'll get good box sales, but terrible retention and a constant struggle from then on to keep your game profitable, including turning that 100-man development team into a 5-man team. Unless that was the plan from the beginning... developing MMOs with a single-player mind.
So you will see those who will shine... like Blizzard with Warcraft - originally a RTS with a loyal player base ANY MMO would dream of (well, except WoW, but that's because Blizzard managed to somehow discover the formula for eternal game life and replicated it a few times already, with the best results ever seen in the industry when applied to MMO-scale). Most people stop playing that game not because it didn't deliver what promised, but because after so long it eventually grew into a direction that you don't agree with, marriage-divorce like and not a quick relationship.
You're absolutely right. It's hope that gets us shelling out for box sales at launch. Or at least that's why I keep doing it. I played Ragnarok Online for 3 years, WoW for almost 6, and after that I was done. I needed something else to give me that thrill or awaken the passion I had felt before.
I spent my elementary school days playing Star Fleet with my friends during recess. Miraculously, this playground group has managed to reunite over twitter and facebook to enjoy our star ship adventures on STO. It makes me feel like I'm 9 years old again, but who knows if the thrill comes from the game or the community. At least the game is different enough that it doesn't feel like WoW.
For the moment, I'm enjoying a launch. I hope Cryptic approaches STO with the same dedication and gradual evolution they gave CoH/CoV. There's lots of room for growth.
That makes them lose many box sales. There is around 500k game-hoppers who will buy every hyped MMO and quit it in space of a month. If they provide a trail, they lose out on 500k boxes.
I agree with this article. We're always on the lookout for that last ray of hope for the mmo genre. So far in the past few years the games that came out are pretty dull and mostly the same. I didn't buy into the Star Trek Online hype after playing the open beta version, while the game is pretty charming and oozing with Star Trek atmosphere there's definitely something missing in the gameplay. I can't put my finger on it but the combat feels very tedious and confusing (away team and ship combat).
I haven't been hypocritical at all so far. :p
Maybe it's just the cynic and jaded old gaming git in me, but I know what a game is like after tinkering with it for a while. I can see where the controls are derived from, I can see how their aesthetic design and graphical quality affects one another, I can see where they're heading from a business and development front.
It's advantageous to know people in most the major companies, but it mostly has to do with I'm intuitive and sensible enough to spot the usual trends and patterns and derive the outcome from them.
I've tried most the games come out recently, but my opinion of them has only stayed firm if not been reaffirmed. Hell, my opinion of STO and Global Agenda has failed to change for the last year and a half since I first tried both of them. My opinion of WoW is the same as when I first started playing it, and my opinion of even my favorite titles is sprinkled with a healthy dose of the reality that they are far from perfect and never will be.
I ain't done no waffling. >_>
I disagree with some aspects of the article. For instane, WAR and AOC bot sold over a million copies fairly quickly. Both had HUGE amounts of hype.
Let's compare those to Aion, CO and STO(NA launches). All recent releases. I doubt any of them came to close to selling what WAR and AoC did. Especially CO and STO.
Are you seriously saying you see comparative hype, or feel the sales are as strong as AoC and WAR were? I see the exact opposite. I see interest in new games waning due to the homogenization of the genre.
I would equate my recent cynicism for the MMO genre to an experience that I once had with an ex-girlfriend of mine. We were at a fine Chinese restaurant having dinner and she was enjoying a dish that I had never had before. Wanting me to try, she grabbed a large spoon in which I assumed she was going to use to put some of the food in my plate. However, the next thing I realize, she has the spoon in one hand while cupping underneath it with the other in an attempt to feed me this giant mouthful of food.
Although it starts off sounding romantic, it was far from that as after I took the bite I was in severe pain. She sneakingly had filled the spoon with that spicy horseradish mustard, while delicately covering the mustard with just enough of the food from the dish she was eating. I still distinctly remember that experience as I was initially greeted with this wonderful new taste followed by this awful unbearable follow through of shock, pain, and torture.
Needless to say, the relationship was all downhill from there, but hopefully the story gets the point across ;)
you summed up my feelings! great article
Forum posters do not equate the average MMO player by a very long shot.
Great article, amazing all the lemmings buying STO. As P.T. Barnum said "there is a sucker born every minute".
Oh well some have to learn the hard way.....
Good article. I've noticed this trend as well during launch.
You could also add the 'been there since launch day' hardcore fan one-upmanship that happens a lot on MMO/Community games. Players love to brag how they have been there since the start, particularly when answering a post to another player to explain just how qualified they are while hinting they are actually a better client and more worthy of being listened to than anyone else.
Its that 1st day 'rank' players want sometimes. I was there when.. I been playing since... I've been paying Cryptics bills since... you know the deal.
Myself, I don't believe in being there since launch. Oh... I sometimes get the romantic notition that the game will be so much fun to play that I might as well sign up right away... but then I sober up quick and allow patience to set in.
There is no guarnatee you will enjoy the game more if you play it since launch. There is also no guarantee you will enjoy the game if you wait for it to be more refined after a month, a year, or even 5 years. However, waiting a little allows me the position to see where the game is going AFTER the big development budget shrinks.
For myself, MMO's are LONG TERM game inventments. It takes months or longer to get to the 'end game', and with multiple characters you can be part of that games community and still developing your in-game characters even years after launch.
MMO's are marathons, not sprints. I know the investors hope for sprints.. and some players want instant-glory-furfillment.. but some players, like myself.. want to enjoy the process and not just the grind-as-fast-as-you-can "Server 1st" hard-core gotta-have-it-before-anyone-else ego-boosting one-upmanship that seems to keep surfacing in MMO games.
For some of us, its the players who stick around that keep the game fun in the long term, NOT those who got in first then quit after a few weeks of crying on the boards and calling other players idiots, morons or whatever insults they can get past the forum word filters.
Too many players/potential players are judging MMO's based on how they are at launch. I care more about how they are going to be after I invest a few months or years into my character(s). Does the community help each other or drag everyone down? Is the gameplay manageable in a few hours a night, or is it about quitting school, quitting your job, locking yourself in the basement for hours on end because thats the only way to be 'competitive'.
Is STO fun to play? Is the character advancement process proportionate and fun? Is it worth my time?
I don't know that at lauch.. some beta testers might have an idea. Can I afford to 'risk' some money and time. Perhaps.
Will I? Not at launch. Give it a few months and see how the Developer reacts to the issues that are bound to surface is my plan. Will I pontentially lose-out on some veteran rewards or trinkets.. sure.. but those don't motivate me like every-day fun-filled community-interaction activities.
Darn it... my reply ended up longer than the article!
I just want to mention that I am bound to become a hypocrite when SWTOR rolls out. Why? Because its Star Wars, and for some reason I want to experience it from launch even if that means I will be eating my words here. NOT because I want to portray myself as a bigger fan, but because I am hoping the game experience will be positive from the start.
I guess a lot of STO fans want the same thing. So pardon my harsh assumptions for those of you who are really just excited about your favorite Genre. I like Star Trek.. but not to the point where I will buy everything that has its logo attached to it.
Not to pick on STO so much, but that game encapsulates for me the state of MMOs - Developers, while not intending to create a bad game, are only going to produce something just "good enough" to bring in a profit. If players pay for mediocrity, developers will gladly provide mediocrity. Players/fans act grateful for the opportunity to play with this mediocrity and are even eager to pay for the privilege.
I was amazed at the number of postings during STO's development that basically boiled down to "We need to support this game no matter what its condition. If it fails, nobody will create another Star Trek game." The concern wasn't getting GOOD Star Trek, just ANY Star Trek. This is an incredibly dysfunctional way of thinking.
I don't have the answer, I just know the problem is not the developers. It's the gamers.
In effect they're already providing a trial with the marketing open 'betas' that are now commonplace. I'm one of those guys that heretofore has purchased every mmo on launch day and played at least for the free month.
STO saved me the trouble. I pre-ordered from Amazon, logged in and played for several days last week, then canceled my pre-order for no charge. Were it not for the pre-order/headstart/beta/whatever, I'd have been suckered into wasting another fifty bucks on what I consider to be a horrible game.
Great for me, not so great for Cryptic (assuming a significant number of people do so, who knows).
I used to play a lot of mmos. Now I seem to just wait, like Linus in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin of mmos to appear.
Great Article! I personally like trying new mmo's out when they launch, because you never know if the game will catch on with you personally and have you continue subbing. I do believe though especially after WAR and AOC that people are more skeptical of new games coming out.
To the People of Bioware: Make sure you have alot of content in SW; TOR b4 you release it!
(DDDDDDDDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH fires quantum plungers at Orion raider ships in STO)
I dunno, maybe we're getting a little jaded by previous successes, or failures? I wasn't going to buy STO because of so much negative feedback here....but the grind in Aion was absolutely wearing me down...this is fun? I'd rather get paid for working...
Anyways, bought STO with fingers crossed.....and voila! Having an absolute blast and can't tear myself away. Yea, it's heavily instanced, but it handles the opening crowd well, and there's always something to do there. If the devs deliver half of what they're promising....it will do....very well. So much for all the flamers here, lol, but it's like I tell my kids all the time, if there was one thing I could tell you that would stick with you for the rest of your life. It's....THINK FOR YOURSELF
your not the only one playing this lol!xfire number proove it!is it good beats me !but trekky fan are in there thats for sure!
The problem is that we, as a community, have allowed MMO gaming companies to continuously release buggy, unfinished products, and so when a company hypes a game to death and then releases a not even close to ready product (see Age of Conan post-Tortage for example) everyone thinks it is the next messiah to the genre, buys into the insane hype, and than quits after the first month disgusted. Obviously, this leaves a very bad taste in the player's mouth, even though it is technically their own fault for allowing it to happen.
Add on top of that that the majority of MMOs that have come out the past few years have all basically been the same, cookie-cutter crap that has been renamed, repackaged into a different "game world", and advertised as the "next best thing". Everquest is to blame for this, primarily after they dumbed down that game for the masses. World of Warcraft followed suit, and is probably the prime culprit for the stagnation that many of us have had to endure for so long.
Luckily, the genre seems to be moving away from this stagnation. We have companies like CCP producing EvE, Aventurine producing Darkfall, etc., that have had the guts and balls to break away from the norm. Soon we'll have Mortal Online, Earthrise, and many others coming down the pipeline. For this reason alone, I have started to regain a little hope that this genre wasn't completely ruined by the "WoW age", as I like to call it. Many of these games are now doing surprisingly well, especially in regards to EvE and its continued success. See, to me, it's much better to start small and grow (EvE and Darkfall for example) than to hype your game to death, get a large influx of initial revenue, and than have your population decrease instead of increase.
Either way, I think it's very obvious that those of us in the MMO community with any sort of awareness of what has been going on for so many years (ESPECIALLY those of us who have been in the genre for a long, long time), are finally getting fed up with it and not dealing with the same crap we've been having to deal with, whether it be unfinished, buggy products being released or a "new" MMO that is practically a clone of all the others on the market. I applaud the companies, especially the little guys, who are taking the chances needed to turn this genre back around in a positive direction, and I applaud the MMO players who are putting their money where their mouth is and finally, after so many long years, taking a stand.
I think alot of ppl learned from WAR and AOC. Pre- Orders and hyping up a broken game can be good short term - but it can also do alot of damage to the repuation of the company. Many of the companies that throw out crappy games are forever burned.
The day we all accepted mmos not to be finished at launch is the day we gave the developers an easy way out. Now it is out of control and I see no signs of it stoppig unless people stop buying craptastic mmos.
Lol, great analogy. This is part of the solution. We need to be more selective in regards to the products we buy with our money. Like others here, I used to buy just about every big name MMO that had come out until Champions broke the mold. I got into beta and by the final days of open beta was convinced the game wasn't for me.
Now, come hell or high water, I'm playing as much as I can in closed beat/open beta of any game that interests me, in order to get a really good idea as to where that game seems be headed. That hopefully will save me from the mistakes of the past. I will no longer be snookered into the big con; marketing of a game that is akin to the Mighty Casey calling his shot. We all know how that turned out.
"Let's face it, even when we're dying our virtual hair black and proclaiming that the MMO is dead, we love it. We write dark poetry in the form of hopeless forum posts, because we're smitten with the idea engendered in the MMO. For some reason, we cannot divorce ourselves from it."
Heh, emo mmo-ers of doom!
And of course a unicorn chaser : )
Great article.
I don't game-hop all that much, but I've been both seduced and left cold by betas in the past. The game I play currently I had managed to hear *nothing* about til launch time, I hemmed and hawed about buying it, then there was a trial, I jumped at it, and fell in love with the game, bought it, still playing it, stil having a blast.
And no, it's not STO.
I tried the beta for STO because of the hype and because I was a minor-league Trekker in days gone by. It didn't grab me, so I didn't buy it. Not my thing. I'm glad people are enjoying it, it's good to see people find "their" game.
One thing Jaime didn't address is the relatively recent phenomenon of players expecting the game to change to suit them, PVPers expecting PVE games to introduce full looting and death penalty, or people whining (pre-testing even!) that a game that is avowedly "Story-focused" may contain too much reading - this to me is the true emo-nature of some gamers - if it's not their dream game, it is "fail", and they're ready to heap criticism on anyone who has the temerity to suggest an opinion different to theirs.
Launch day for any game usually has me pulling up a chair and some popcorn to watch the forum drama unfold, it can be a lot of fun, as long as you don't take it as seriously as some do.
Jamie you said:
"A precious few are true optimists who are happy to see the genre growing, no matter game quality or producer, and reassure the rest of us that one day, the right MMO will come along just for us."
And that is me in a nutshell, been playing since Ultima Online and still play MMO's at a daily basis. And I really have to say that I agree with you that there is a lot of hypocrites out there. And as you said people that say that this game took this feature from "that other game" and so on are trolling every game I have played. Sad to see since I do enjoy each and every game I play. I love to discover a new universe. May it be a fantasy or Sci Fi MMO it does not matter to me that much. All I need in an MMO is a bunch of happy and nice people that enjoy to play a game and explore every corner of the game. A nice community is hard to find in almost any MMO, but there is always a few that stick out from the rest. And usually I tend to end up with the nice crowd anyway.
And actually it does not matter if it is a free to play or a subscription MMO either there are always a lot of people complaining and talking negatively about the games they chosen to download and try out.
And then we have the nice beta testers that always have to sit in the general chat and talk about MMO X and Z and compare it to the MMO they beta testing, complaining about A feature and cries about the missing B feature that they loved from the MMO Z.
Seems to me that today the players that complain do it because they are seeking attention and want to have a debate. Nothing wrong with a good debate if it were productive in anyway. Most of the time it is an utter waste of time I am sorry to say.
That were my 2 cents on the topic
PS: sorry for any bad spelling and poor grammar
After reading a few other resplies so far, there seems to be some 'new' factors that come into play when dealing with MMO launches worth mentioning.
There are more MMO's now to choose from, but the releases are still far and few between. It would have been interesting if STO would have launched near the same time as SWTOR or some other 'big' IP title. In a more competitive 'release' environment I would bet the fairy-tale 'everything is good enough' for launch illusion would quickly disappear.
I imagine if the MMO genre starts to see more launches closer together the developing companies might see more pressure to put out a more polished product.
The MMO players I know have been doing this for years now.. playing their favorite title or titles.. been through a lauch or two or three (or Four.. on the floor)... ;) Oups.. anyway.. it will be interesting to see how players evolve their views on 'launch priority' on future MMO releases as it becomes more old hat.
Its hard to fault a MMO developer for hyping up their product. Thats just plain business sense so long as they don't make false claims as to function and features.
And its hard to say that a MMO developer should delay launch for months and continue to invest the big bucks on premium inital development salaries IF the subscription base will not change all that much as a result of the delay.
ST fans (like SW fans) and genre fans will usually give it a try based on it being new enough regardless of how perfect it functions out of the box. We've all grown to expect updates and patches and fixes and expansions.. it wouldn't be a MMO without all of those things happening.
I wonder if me signing up for STO right now will make any difference on how STO looks or feels in 3 months or 6 months? As I mentioned earlier, ST does not have that 'must have today' appeal for me, but I understand that it does for many others.
I'm so far past the hype of a new MMO launch that I've gone to the reality side of it. That playing an MMO in the first month is a disaster because all the missed bugs start getting found and all the performance issues pop up. I don't ever play an MMO on launch day, or get hyped about it, or generally even by an MMO until I can get a free trial.
I think each time a new MMO launches more people realize this and move from the hype side to the reality side. So yes there will always be those who hype, but there will be just as many saying "Just wait you will see within a week or two how uninteresting it is and that you just wasted 50 bucks"
I am not "willing to give something a try" just because it's new. I will only give games a try once I've found out enough actual information on it and that there is a free trial that I can use to see if I enjoy it. Never preorder, never buy. Do a free trial and if it's fun then sub up.
I think slowly but surely more people learn this with each launch of an MMO.
^ this goes for me too .
I just redefine what I consider launch day to be - I only try games that have already been out there for a few years :)
I loved this statement
After all, one day, that special MMO is going to appear, on sparkly clouds and pulled by six unicorns, and offer to sweep me away to a land where everything is just as it should be. "
One can only hope the past couple of years we thought we were getting something nice only to find the brown paper bag full of it ablaze on our doorstep.
At any point during their gaming experience did you mention to them that they might be adopted?
Just asking.
QFT
We let them get away with selling turds that they promise to turn into sizziling steaks 6 months down the line. In 6 months we'll se STO subscriptions do a kamikazie dive off a cliff, that is a 100% certainty that no seasoned MMORPG gamer in his/her right mind can deny. So heavily instanced that it's merely an unfinished single player with a chat box that suffers from lack of content.
"Sir Klingons off the starboard bow"
"Change the instance you fool!"
"Yes sir!"
"Ensign what's that strange anomaly filling up the view screen? I can't seem to get rid of it!"
"It's called a loading screen sir!"
"Damn our shields are still dropping!"
"Yes sir, we're frozen waiting to load the next instance!"
"KKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!"
I think the article is rather one-sided. Sure there will be the fans, full of wishful thinking that look at the game through rose colored glasses and only see the good side of the game at launch. But there are also others who had proclaiming during beta, that the deficiencies would be fixed on release and all would be great, only to find out that the released game was basicly the same as beta and the overload of launch day made lag even worse and reveiled even more defects. The disillusioned players will then become mad critics.
For myself, I had been expecting to buy the game before I got into beta, but found it to be a disappointment. I have been through many betas and lauches, therefore, I didn't have any unrealist expectations of what it would be like at launch and didn't buy into the hype or spend money on it. I'd be interested to know how many people actually bought the game and how many continue to play after the first month. I'm suspecting that there will be quite a few that loose interest after the novelty factor wears out and they realize that the game lacks the variety and depth to sustain the fun beyond just combat.
I'm hoping that Cryptic fleshes out the game to add crafting, etc., but their announcement of what they plan to add in the coming months sounds like its just more of the same combat stuff. I'll check back in about 6 months and hope its improved, but if not, they will just end up being another niche game.
I can't speak for WAR, as I didn't try that one until months after the game launched, but in AOC's case they were bragging about boxes shipped. Not to just customers, but to stores and such. I saw a chart recently that had a breakdown of how many of those boxes actually translated into people who subscribed after the first month; it wasn't very many. STO has been as hyped as AOC and WAR, and is doing the same happy marketing spin dance with their initial numbers as AOC (and possibly WAR).
As to the original article, I do not get caught up in the hype of a new MMO; my policy is to try the game in beta before I make any descisions, and if i can't get into beta then I will not buy it until after the ubiquitous free trial becomes available. In fact, considering some of the games that launched in the last couple of years, any game that has what I consider an excessive amount of hype is a game that I become very wary of.
QFT
We let them get away with selling turds that they promise to turn into sizziling steaks 6 months down the line. In 6 months we'll se STO subscriptions do a kamikazie dive off a cliff, that is a 100% certainty that no seasoned MMORPG gamer in his/her right mind can deny. So heavily instanced that it's merely an unfinished single player with a chat box that suffers from lack of content.
"Sir Klingons off the starboard bow"
"Change the instance you fool!"
"Yes sir!"
"Ensign what's that strange anomaly filling up the view screen? I can't seem to get rid of it!"
"It's called a loading screen sir!"
"Damn our shields are still dropping!"
"Yes sir, we're frozen waiting to load the next instance!"
"KKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!"
Thank you, that was the best humor I have seen this week. Got a good chuckle from that.
Only challenged and lazy developers have to resort to so much instancing to make a game.
"Our world is changing... I'm not sure when it began to change. Perhaps the darkness was there all along and we refused to see it.
... There is a sense that we are lost, adrift. In the streets, in the temples, you can hear it in their voices, their manner: an anger just beneath the surface, a growing dissatisfaction, a self-involvement above the needs of others. It is not the same world in which I was born... Not the same at all."
These words are from Draal, of Babylon 5, but they could as well be mine. Far fetched you say? I don't think so. I think rather, games are in similar state as is our societies. I have this year 20 years voting rights. And when I look back we had all possible combinations of Germany's political mayor four parties, and the overall feeling is, that nothing changed at all. That it did not matter who was in charge and we are stagnating. This is a feeling I see dominating all nations, and especially those of the West. I guess after Obama-mania vanishes now to harsh realities, even in USA it is the same. And I feel in many aspects the world, the people used to be less grim and dark, like humanity lost it's vision and is bogged down by the small and little things to a depressive state.
What this has to do with games? Everything. Its the same creative stagnation and the same growing cynism and apathy. How can any sphere be untouched when we as a civilization have lost "the spirit". Perhaps the way of pure materialism and money egomania wasn't so healthy after all, and it poisoned gaming just as everything else. STO & Cryptic are an empitome of fast money making and soulless visions. Its a small symbol for the big. The wise sees the storm in small drops of first rain. Take it or leave it. I said what must be said.
Jaime, I think this is my favorite article of yours EVER. It's just loaded with truth that is laced with laughter. And some of the truth is so grim, that the laughter is sure welcome. I chuckled in several spots, while inside...I felt a bit saddened by it all.
I love this quote :
"Let's face it, even when we're dying our virtual hair black and proclaiming that the MMO is dead, we love it. We write dark poetry in the form of hopeless forum posts, because we're smitten with the idea engendered in the MMO. For some reason, we cannot divorce ourselves from it."
I see myself there...ever the brooding romantic of the genre.
Good stuff. The bit about the unicorns and "sparkling clouds" at the end.....priceless. lol =D
No truer words have been spoken concerning today's MMOs. And no it won't stop because MMO players are like gambling addicts ... this "next one" will be different.
I am very pragmatic about games anymore ... I assume they are going to suck, so the question isn't (for me) whether I believe the game will live up to its hype, but rather if I'm willing to spend the $50 to give it a shot.
I also agree with the poster who stated that, while not trying to make bad games ... Developers don't try to make awesome games anymore.
The gaming industry has been taken over by Hollywood ... and the mentality of "hit and run" prevails the industry as a result.
Sadly, gone are the days when true gamers wrote games for true gamers. Now we have PR departments, and IP prostitutes, just going for the cash ... and win or lose they just move on to the next game without so much as a glance over their shoulder.
Wow you hit this dead on. It is to bad that so many have become sheep, and are asleap.
Star Trek fans have a bad, and yet very much deserved, reputation for swallowing any crap with the label "Star Trek." This is why Voyager and Enterprise lasted as long as they did even though both shows were pretty bad.
Star Trek fans have a bad, and yet very much deserved, reputation for swallowing any crap with the label "Star Trek." This is why Voyager and Enterprise lasted as long as they did even though both shows were pretty bad.
Enterpise was so bad, after the first 3 episodes I refuesed to watch that junk, jist like the abrams reboot as they call it. It is amazing how folks will flock to it just becasue, I think you right about that.
Amen and well said.
I keep wondering how many MMOs some of the people who have that "get-to-end-as-fast-as-possible-until-I-burn-out-in-a-month-or-two" mindset are going to have to burn through, invariably blaming the developers for not catering to their "play style" (if you want to call it that) before they take a step back and realize... "gee... all these other people are still playing the game and having fun, even months after I burned out... I wonder what they're doing that I didn't?" and then realize that those people are taking their time and enjoying the entire game... not just focusing obsessively on one aspect of it.
Now granted, some people are perfectly happy with spending a few months, tops, in any given MMO before moving on. Some don't care if they grind a dozen characters to level cap, they'll still have fun (my sister's like that). Those aren't the people I'm talking about here. They're playing the game as they enjoy it, and that's fine.
It's the ones who are basically victims of their own "race to the finish line" playstyle, and then blame it on the developers I'm talking about here.
I've been saying this for years. If someone is willing to pay for crap, then that's what they will always get. Those people you are talking about live with this mind set that; if they put enough faith into a business, they will reward them with shinies! In the end, what happens is they pump out medocrie content and continue to leech every cent off of anyone who's sucker enough to hang around.
Seems to me most game companies have evolved from developing works of art, to shady con-artists looking to pry a few bucks off of people's interests.
I was originally quite excited about STO. One of my long-time friends who I have been trying to get to play an MMO with me FOREVER finally signed up for the STO beta because he was such an incredible Trekkie.
I won't go into too many details since I have a thread about this going on in the STO forums, but suffice to say, he was underwhelmed with the game. Sure, they may generate a LOT of excitement and box sales - the test will be to see what the population and experience is like 6 months from now. My friend, while still playing, is almost disappointed to the point of canceling - and he hasn't even been playing a month; doesn't play games for long periods of time anyway, and is new to MMO's in general. And STO is already "boring" him.
Shrug. I think you answer your own points in this column; people are harsh because they don't want to be burned and then hopeful on launch day because despite thinking they'll be burned, they WANT to believe they found a diamond in the rough. Not to mention, human beings like to take sides and if you're paying money for game X and people say game X sucks but game Y rocks, you will inevitably get conflict between the two groups because that's just what we hairless apes do. Breed and fight with each other.
I disagree. MMO's have never been finished at launch, and it is no different today than 12 years ago.
The biggest difference nowadays, is the market is filled with MMO veterans, that have 'been there and done that'. They burn through new games trying to replace the glory days of their previous MMO, when in reality nothing will satisfy.
Whether or not there has been a game worthy of playing, lately, is beside the point.
The next step after being dis-illusioned from 'new mmo release' is to look once again at MMO's that failed on launch and are still alive a year and a few expansions later.
Thing is, all recent MMO releases may have had this prediactable pattern of boom in the first month then bust, but what is often forgotton is that they do improve! And some years later can be the exact MMO you wanted it to be in the first place.
Im looking forward to the time when STO, CO, Aion, AoC.. all of them are a few years old and have 2 expansions, they will be awesome! Especially STO Im hoping :)
??? Subs based MMO's have one shot - and one shot only - at the market. And that shot is the launching month.
They never come back to launch glory.
EVE 2003 and WOW 2004 are the only survivors which actually grew. All the rest is being cannibalised 3-4 months after launch day.
They are simply not good enough for the majority of players to pay a subscription. No need to theorise much on this.
You can only play one mmorpg decently at a time and life is too short to play busted games for 90% of the limited time a player has.
In MMO land apparently winner takes it all. That's space EVE and Fantasy WOW.
You don't have this effect of "hipocrisy" in single off line games or RTS because :
a. They don't have a subscription fee to play on line
b. They are finished in solo mode after 50 hours, after which another game takes its place in a 3 month attention span.
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While many of your comments about EvE are correct (with the exception where you imply it is following a new trend, game is nearly 7 years old), your including Darkfall in the same category is just plain wrong. DFo was an overhyped, misrepresented, buggy/badly designed peice of cow manure. The only reason they kept "small" to start with is they did not have enough money to bring more servers online at release. And even it's attempt at moving away from the "stagnation" was nearly 10 years in the making and only delivered a fraction of what they promised
DFo, for many is the very epitomy of what is wrong with the gameing industry today
Whole heartily agree, especially with the latest trend of having people officially pay or pre purchase (not just preorder) to get into beta's. They are now officially charging people to play an unfinished product
As to the article, while I can see the authors point, cannot help but see he is missing something very obvious.
The true old timers (over 12 years now MMO gaming myself) are true cynics now, we don't buy into the hype, if anything we expect to be let down because that’s what we have generally experienced time and time again for years, hell the more the game promises the less we believe. We are the disillusioned cynics he talks about. We start a new game and while we might be enjoying it, at the same time we instantly start noting flaws or things that could be done better. If anything, we are now impossible to please
The new games fanboys/evangelicals are the people relatively new (or of limited experience) to MMO's who cannot see past the hype or the "newness" and think the next game will solve all their gaming problems. They are so easly led that gaming companys get away with releasing crap time and time again because these types rush out each time to buy new game X
The two groups of people, intermixed in forums/blogs and web sites, sometimes seem like one group, but they are actually very distinct
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This two new MMOS are wonderful Space MMO options to the older Space MMO that has long Jumped the shark. I have chosen STO for regular play. Until SW:TOR is will be my MMO of choice except for a break with Cataclysm.
"We write dark poetry in the form of hopeless forum posts, because we're smitten with the idea engendered in the MMO."
Nice. :D
No doubt. Asheron's Call was the benchmark for me. Hell, I would play an updated version of that game if they ever come out with one. Which I doubt. I had thought that Chronicle of the Spellborn or whatever you call it might be my game, but it had that faggy game guard on it, so it was a no go.
Note to developers: If you have game guard, then I cannot play. Ever. Sorry about the digression. :D