MMO Crash 2008

[iamvoodoo]

Been reading an article of the fate of certain MMO's from 2008.

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Caveat-Emptor/The-MMO-Crash-of-2008

The author states poor launches as the main culprit for the failures. At least it's somewhat reassuring that Darkfall's developer's mantra for many years has been to have a complete and ready game at launch.

They don't seem to be repeating the mistakes of others from 2008 in this regard - thankfully.

[Rikuno]

Its because they try to get the game on the shelf as fast as they can even though its not done.

[Friik]

Its because they try to get the game on the shelf as fast as they can even though its not done.

and nobody knows it's not done so they buy it and the company gets the money. Nice isn't it.

[Sabbathius]

A bunch of hot air, nothing more.

Never played Hellgate, but Tabula Rasa failed because the main concept was flawed. The game revolved around the idea of a few human survivors battling alien race together and not fighting eachother, except in duels. Today's MMO players can't work together if you put a proverbial gun to their collective head, the end. And Tabula Rasa was a 2007 release, I don't know why it was n 2008 list.

Pirates of the Burning Sea had a good launch, not great, but good enough. What happened is that there were too many servers, but not too heavily taxed, except two of them. When population dropped a bit after the first month, which is natural for most MMOs, Flying Labs failed to merge the half-empty servers into full servers. As a result, the game became unplayable, because it needed a critical mass of human players to keep the conquest and economy going. Overall, the game had players, it's player density that was the problem.

Age of Conan I soft of agree on, but it was much simpler. They wanted 80 levels, when a week before release they should have said "There will only be 70 levels" and scale the Thunder River, Atzel's and Kheshatta to fill in the 60-70. NOBODY would have said the game lacked content then, AoC only fell down on its face at 55+. Then, instead of dicking about with newbie instances that were soloable before, they should have put in PvP leveling. That's it. If they did this in the first month, the game would have been a huge success.

As for WAR, I'm not that sure it survived and stabilized. You have to realize WAR is barely 4 months old, and the only MMO in 2008 that I quit after only one month. From what I hear city sieges are still incredibly unstable. So it could go toes up too.

[freeze_SD]

what I hear from WAR is that 8 of 10 sieges make the server crash

like perfect stability in my eyes :D

[kehmesis]

At least it's somewhat reassuring that Darkfall's developer's mantra for many years has been to have a complete and ready game at launch.

Yep, but every and all companies say that. So...

[Makestro]

Games have had bad launches and still recovered from it. The problem is these people just spend tons of money on really good graphics engines, hire lack luster artists, add lacking content, and basically half ass everything to the point the game is nothing but a pile of shit.... and because of pressure from publisher they go into a huge advertisement campaign and sucker people into buying the game. So don't get worried about a rocky launch, a lot of games had them including WoW.

[Broockle]

WHO actualy managed to be partialy successful? when i played it u could only play PvP every hour due to the lack of players and until then u had to do some rly bawring quests in the terribly designed world until u could finaly get into the PvP instances. I couldn't play it for too long and never reached lvl 15.

[zango]

It's 2009 now! ...2008 was jynxed

[Rodhull]

Age of Conan I soft of agree on, but it was much simpler. They wanted 80 levels, when a week before release they should have said "There will only be 70 levels" and scale the Thunder River, Atzel's and Kheshatta to fill in the 60-70. NOBODY would have said the game lacked content then, AoC only fell down on its face at 55+. Then, instead of dicking about with newbie instances that were soloable before, they should have put in PvP leveling. That's it. If they did this in the first month, the game would have been a huge success.

No it wouldnt, it sucked on so many levels.
When it launched, most stats didnt work, most skills didnt work, alot of feats didnt work, entire classes were utterly broken (Necro/assasin) class balance was beyond a joke (priests taking on groups of 8+ mobs when warriors struggled with 3) NPC scaling was utterly retarded, dungeons didnt work, many quests were broken, the gfx engine was appalling badly optimised and even people with top end systems sometime had problems running it for no apparant reason... the list goes on

It was a car crash, in all honesty the only good part was the first 10 levels in Tortage, past that it was awful.

[Manifoldgodhead]

and nobody knows it's not done so they buy it and the company gets the money. Nice isn't it.

That's what we get from Dev's like Failcom who treat MMO's like single-player games. All they care about is boxes off the shelves. I know a lot of people bitch about the lack of info on DFO, but I think we may actualyl get a complete game on the 22nd.

[Broockle]

Games have had bad launches and still recovered from it. The problem is these people just spend tons of money on really good graphics engines, hire lack luster artists, add lacking content, and basically half ass everything to the point the game is nothing but a pile of shit.... and because of pressure from publisher they go into a huge advertisement campaign and sucker people into buying the game. So don't get worried about a rocky launch, a lot of games had them including WoW.

lol at least WoW didn't have big competitors. I mean from the current generation games, there was just DAoC, and GuildWars, i think, all other mmo's were outdated, like UO and stuff.

[Paragus]

what I hear from WAR is that 8 of 10 sieges make the server crash

like perfect stability in my eyes :D

This is their attempt to fix it. (http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1/012009/3122_Rant-Warhammer-RvR-Population-Capped)

[Broockle]

No it wouldnt, it sucked on so many levels.
When it launched, most stats didnt work, most skills didnt work, alot of feats didnt work, entire classes were utterly broken (Necro/assasin) class balance was beyond a joke (priests taking on groups of 8+ mobs when warriors struggled with 3) NPC scaling was utterly retarded, dungeons didnt work, many quests were broken, the gfx engine was appalling badly optimised and even people with top end systems sometime had problems running it for no apparant reason... the list goes on

It was a car crash, in all honesty the only good part was the first 10 levels in Tortage, past that it was awful.

lol i never got past the first 20 lvls, i thought it was rly rly bawring. Placing a single player campaign into an mmo, had they spend a night in the tumble dryer or something?

[t5chris]

I've seen games that spent a short time in development, and were great at launch for the first year or so. It was lack of planning that killed them. A lot of designers tend to think near-term. Take a game like Shattered galaxy. Fun and addicting as hell, because you can control the entire map and faction combat 15 on 15, and one skilled player can make a difference equal to an army of 5-6 people. Problem was they didn't realize that people were going to get to max level, and there wasn't much to do aside from leveling.

Long term playability is the #1 most necessary piece in the success of a game imo. A rushed game can have that and still be quality...it's just a matter of whether or not they planned the game with the long term in mind.

[Makestro]

lol at least WoW didn't have big competitors. I mean from the current generation games, there was just DAoC, and GuildWars, i think, all other mmo's were outdated, like UO and stuff.

Yeah I agree, but what does Darkfall have to compete with? Shadowbane, WAR(some people consider this game a pvp game, I don't), UO, DAoC, or AC? Those games are not out dated?

A lot of people are looking forward to this game, they'll stick it out through a rocky launch, once stuff is stable they'll tell all their friends and get more people in. Hell I bet and 'serious' PvPer from WoW if brought into DFO a few months late got some gear ran around with his buddy and they killed a guy and he looted his stuff... he'd probably get a boner.

Thing is the first month of WoW sucked ass, and it took months for some classes to even get just some minor fixes. WoW had roll backs, crashes, client stability issues, a ton of bugs, broken quests, in complete content(bgs and pvp system).... But at that time it was mainly people from other games playing... a couple months down the road after Blizzard slaved over fixing the game and people talked about it and the PvP system was put in people flocked to the game.


There is nothing to worry about unless DFO comes out and really sucks, what from the way it sounds, it wont.

[Sylex]

As for WAR, I'm not that sure it survived and stabilized. You have to realize WAR is barely 4 months old, and the only MMO in 2008 that I quit after only one month. From what I hear city sieges are still incredibly unstable. So it could go toes up too.

WHO actualy managed to be partialy successful? when i played it u could only play PvP every hour due to the lack of players and until then u had to do some rly bawring quests in the terribly designed world until u could finaly get into the PvP instances. I couldn't play it for too long and never reached lvl 15.

Yes, the seiges are still unstable. Broockle, though, what were you thinking? The biggest mistake Mythic made was too many NA servers. The "not enough people to PvP" problem was easily fixed by going to one of the high-population servers.

On another note, I'd like to applaud Mythic's genius in cloning the overpopulated servers. That probably saved the NA launch from being a lagfest for the first 3 months.

[JTWStephens]

Interesting read. Good post. :D

Having personally played WAR, I simply think it doesn't work. It feels much less like a true war, and much more like some kind of war amusement park. The combat is flimsy and unsatisfying, the graphics are miserable, and many skills/spells are totally useless.

And christ, can we please stop copy-pasting the WoW interface?

[Sabbathius]

No it wouldnt, it sucked on so many levels.
When it launched, most stats didnt work, most skills didnt work, alot of feats didnt work, entire classes were utterly broken (Necro/assasin) class balance was beyond a joke (priests taking on groups of 8+ mobs when warriors struggled with 3) NPC scaling was utterly retarded, dungeons didnt work, many quests were broken, the gfx engine was appalling badly optimised and even people with top end systems sometime had problems running it for no apparant reason... the list goes on

It was a car crash, in all honesty the only good part was the first 10 levels in Tortage, past that it was awful.

Most people didn't care about the skills. Climbing worked. So did mana recovery and other skills. Stealth too, if I remember correctly, as well as run speed skills. Many feats were broken or not matching the description...same as WoW. Many classes were indeed broken, though not utterly, though Necro was by far the worst, same as WoW, warriors were unplayable Dec 2004, no rage generation, missed Execute emptied all rage, Overpower only triggered off regular dodges, 4 Sunders removed all Sunders, etc., etc. Most dungeons did work, actually. All of Tortage ones, Bobshur House, the Noble District Villas worked, 4 out of 5 of them...just like WoW Blackfathom Depths bugged out and the last boss never came. You couldn't get into Defias hangout because the door was locked and you couldn't pick up explosives. The only totally bugged quest in AoC I found was the wounded child, and even that could be done if you changed to heroic difficulty.

So if AoC was a car wreck, WoW was a car wreck as well. Their launches were almost identical, except WoW had a hell of a lot more world server crashes the first month. WoW survived. AoC didn't. It wasn't the game, it was the people. Though the game certainly helped. Like I said, if they compressed the last 20 levels into 10, nobody would complain. If they added PvP leveling, even without PvP gear yet, everyone would have been busy when they hit 70. As it was, 55-80 was so damn painful many quit because of that alone, expecially in contrast to the first 50 levels, which go by like a dream, no grinding of any kind, and some quests were actually quite interesting.

[Rodhull]

lol i never got past the first 20 lvls, i thought it was rly rly bawring. Placing a single player campaign into an mmo, had they spend a night in the tumble dryer or something?

Yeah it was another example of failcom having no clue what they were doing and no long term vision.
Originally that section was supposed to be an offline single player training/story mode which prepared you for the main game, until they started dicking around with the whole concept.

[freeze_SD]

And christ, can we please stop copy-pasting the WoW interface?

oh... so true

[Shrang]

This is their attempt to fix it. (http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Paragus1/012009/3122_Rant-Warhammer-RvR-Population-Capped)

I remember your other article now <_<

[Rodhull]

Most people didn't care about the skills. Climbing worked. So did mana recovery and other skills. Stealth too, if I remember correctly, as well as run speed skills. Many feats were broken or not matching the description...same as WoW. Many classes were indeed broken, though not utterly, though Necro was by far the worst, same as WoW, warriors were unplayable Dec 2004, no rage generation, missed Execute emptied all rage, Overpower only triggered off regular dodges, 4 Sunders removed all Sunders, etc., etc. Most dungeons did work, actually. All of Tortage ones, Bobshur House, the Noble District Villas worked, 4 out of 5 of them...just like WoW Blackfathom Depths bugged out and the last boss never came. You couldn't get into Defias hangout because the door was locked and you couldn't pick up explosives. The only totally bugged quest in AoC I found was the wounded child, and even that could be done if you changed to heroic difficulty.

So if AoC was a car wreck, WoW was a car wreck as well. Their launches were almost identical, except WoW had a hell of a lot more world server crashes the first month. WoW survived. AoC didn't. It wasn't the game, it was the people. Though the game certainly helped. Like I said, if they compressed the last 20 levels into 10, nobody would complain. If they added PvP leveling, even without PvP gear yet, everyone would have been busy when they hit 70. As it was, 55-80 was so damn painful many quit because of that alone, expecially in contrast to the first 50 levels, which go by like a dream, no grinding of any kind, and some quests were actually quite interesting.


I cant comment on WoW as i have never played it, but what i can say is that your opinions on AOC in my view are utterly wrong.
Climbing was the only skill which worked as intended on release. All the others either functioned wrongly (all the stamina running skills were borked and worked on some odd percentage system which meant my barbarian with hundreds in running skills actually only ran for a second or two more than my demonologist who invested 10 points)
Mana recovery only needed 1 skill point to work and investing further had no effect whatsoever. The stats (even by the devs own admission) didnt actually do anything to a large degree at launch, even really basic stuff like armour didnt work properly, there was a whole thread were a group went out in their underwear and complete a whole dungeon with no problems.
Also the class balance was what really killed it, casters could spam attacks all day long where as to be effective melee types had to use long largely pointless combos which were only worth a damn on their final hit.

Past that it had game breaking crap, it took them like 2 weeks+ to get a bank and auction system working, there were quests in tortage which actually perma stuck your character and required dev help to fix.
Entire dungeons (especially in the desert area) didnt even work at all and were utterly pointless. The whole grey mob issue was the most retarded system for npc scaling i have ever seen in my whole life...
I havent played wow but i know people who have and i KNOW even with its launch it was way better than AOC which is seen as one of the buggiest worst MMOs of all time.

[Corwyn]

It was a car crash, in all honesty the only good part was the first 10 levels in Tortage, past that it was awful.
I agree 100%. When I got AoC, I was excited to see the rest of the game because the beginning area (Tortage) was actually pretty fun! When I left Tortage, the game was so bland and disappointing...Looked good, but still disappointing. If they worked as hard on the rest of the game like they did on Tortage, it would be a good game.

[Paragus]

I remember your other article now <_<

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? :ohno:

[Shrang]

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? :ohno:

Wasn't a life-changing read but it wasn't bad in any way really...

[Paragus]

Wasn't a life-changing read but it wasn't bad in any way really...

Ah Ok. I get a lot of flames from people upset that I like Darkfall, or gave a hard and fair opinion on a game they hold near and dear to their hearts.

[Kietharr]

And christ, can we please stop copy-pasting the Everquest interface?

Fixed. WoW's interface is just EQ's interface, WoW's gameplay is lifted almost directly from EQ1. The lore, classes (and which skills are combined on classes), and race choices are kinda different, but the game mechanics are practically identical. There's not a single thing in WoW that wasn't already done by Everquest or other previous MMOs. Blizzard just had a huge fanbase that had never played an MMO before from WC3/Starcraft and put a lot more polish on it, to the point where it's dull and has no sharp edges so even the retards can play.

[Broockle]

Yeah I agree, but what does Darkfall have to compete with? Shadowbane, WAR(some people consider this game a pvp game, I don't), UO, DAoC, or AC? Those games are not out dated?

There is nothing to worry about unless DFO comes out and really sucks, what from the way it sounds, it wont.
i don't think DarkFall has to worry too much about competition, they will prbly drag some WoW players out, and comlpetely anihilate WHO, and there was some game which wants to do the same thing as DF, yea it was called Mortal Online, it loox terrbile though and will go down, that's my prediction.

Yes, the seiges are still unstable. Broockle, though, what were you thinking? The biggest mistake Mythic made was too many NA servers. The "not enough people to PvP" problem was easily fixed by going to one of the high-population servers.

On another note, I'd like to applaud Mythic's genius in cloning the overpopulated servers. That probably saved the NA launch from being a lagfest for the first 3 months.
lol the game wasn't that great anyway, i took the first excuse i found to get myself out of there.
Yeah it was another example of failcom having no clue what they were doing and no long term vision.
Originally that section was supposed to be an offline single player training/story mode which prepared you for the main game, until they started dicking around with the whole concept.
lol rly? i still didn't like that single player campaign though, alot of people i know said it was pretty fun, but i just found it bawring. The only reason i put myself through so much bad mmo gameplay in the past was because of meeting people and socialising online, the singleplayer mode just cut that out and i lost interest pretty quickly.

[Ammon777]

Been reading an article of the fate of certain MMO's from 2008.

http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Caveat-Emptor/The-MMO-Crash-of-2008

The author states poor launches as the main culprit for the failures. At least it's somewhat reassuring that Darkfall's developer's mantra for many years has been to have a complete and ready game at launch.

They don't seem to be repeating the mistakes of others from 2008 in this regard - thankfully.

No, i do not believe it was poor launches. That dumbass writer iz a fucken clueless IDOIT! It was from poor design and shit gameplay. Which iz the hallmarkz of the entire MMORPG genre, rly rly.

[Weeking]

When it launched, most stats didnt work

No, the attributes/stats actually worked, the benefit from gear is just too weak still, but is supposed to be increased.

Also the author is full of shit. 2 of them failed because they went broke, PotBS was supposed to be a niche game, and where is the proof war is succeeding? It's too early to tell. And I always thought of the combat system of AoC as the defining feature and anyway, city building works now and was in from launch, just lacking passive combat bonuses and some bugged in PvP cites.

"Also being a beta tester for this game" He is obviously basing his bashing at least in part on beta experience, not from launch.

[Scully]

I seriously doubt a poor launch can kill a game. A crappy game kills itself.

[amah]

aoc failed because it copied wow too much.they promised features at first and later changed them into a wow clone .

original promise :no BOE items.
1 month later.bind on equip item are introduced.

original promise :crafting gear for pvp.
quite a few months later,"we scrap crafting, now you should grind pvp levels aka honor to get competitive pvp gear"

the list can go on. HUGE sieges end up as 80people lagfest, crafting is worthless ,economy down the drain, item dupes, fastest way to pvp level up is to duel people........

[Weeking]

aoc failed because it copied wow too much.they promised features at first and later changed them into a wow clone .

original promise :no BOE items.
1 month later.bind on equip item are introduced.

original promise :crafting gear for pvp.
quite a few months later,"we scrap crafting, now you should grind pvp levels aka honor to get competitive pvp gear"

the list can go on. HUGE sieges end up as 80people lagfest, crafting is worthless ,economy down the drain, item dupes, fastest way to pvp level up is to duel people........

The BoE system was a good fix IMO when it came, but isn't really needed now after they changed the trader to have a 7 day limit and a fee. At least not for greens. And durability would have been more to my tastes, but meaningless before you reach 80 as there's level req on gear and you don't use anything for a long time unless it is blue/purple or you don't care about the pitiful stats.

Alchemy isn't worthless. You can create very good food f ex cheaply and sell them for profit. And there's rare drop recipes now. And sieges only lag if you have particles turned on mostly, which you could easily turn off for the siege if the game don't optimize it well enough as it is. (they added some settings for particles among other things to optimize it).

[Feyrband]

Its because they try to get the game on the shelf as fast as they can even though its not done.

so sub-prime mmo releasing eh?