General Discussion

Okay. I keep hearing this over and over and over... (and over). You get the idea.

"It's a GREAT thing {said game} had been delayed again, I'm glad they are taking the time to get it right, Bravo! Bravo!"

..And they totally look past the fact that perhaps this game is on its 13th delay and like three or four years past it's original release date goals.

Look, I can understand people being tired of seeing so many mmos being released and having to patch and fix so many bugs after release. What I don't understand however is how delaying any game like 15 freakin' times and totally pissing off all their loyal fan base is such a good thing. What if the game releases and still needs a lot of patches and downtime due to unexpected problems or bugs? Wouldn't that just be like the feather on the camels back to all the fans who are already furious by all the delays? Or furthermore, wouldn't it be better to go ahead and launch a year earlier and have some bugs that take two months of hard work to fix and patch then to wait another year, delaye said game three more times, and still launching with a considerable amount of unexpected bugs/problems??

I dunno. Maybe it's just me but delay after delay after delay just pisses me off more then a buggy release I think. Some of these games get delayed so many times that they constantly get called "vaporware" and all that stuff. I just think too many delays could probably be worse for your games success then actually just launching and fixing the bugs. I'm not saying that I wanna pay $50 for a totally broken game, but I'd rather pay $50 for a half broken game that gets fixed in a few months then to wait seven damn years and still pay $50 for a game that should have launched five freaking years ago.

I dunno, maybe it's just me. Maybe Asheron's Call which launched with a few bugs would have been so much better if they would have taken todays mmo approach and delayed the game until it was absolutely perfect in their eyes and it finally launched here in 2008 instead of back in 1999. (Sarcasm) ...Anyways, I think you get my point.

- Zaxx

This really is a no brainer

Delaying it enables you to enjoy a more polished enjoyable experience when playing the game, releasing it when that polish has not been completed would result in people like you, then whining about how buggy the game is

Companies who invested over $50 million in a product can't afford a bug resulting in alot of their potential subscribers from ditching the game when they first play it. It has to be as polished as can possibly be, to ensure a successful launch and thus happy customers. First impressions count for nearly everything in this world, and a bad impression can cause people NEVER to return to your product e.g Vanguard

On your point of fixing bugs on release, it would be ALOT harder fixing bugs with tons of players in the environment, and if you know anything about bug fixing, sometimes you can fix 3 bugs only to produce another alternative bug, it takes alot of reboots of servers etc, its just not practical in a live environment, hence the need for test servers

Patience is a virtue, learn it

I'm pretty sure you're right, it is just you!

Believe it or not, they are more eager than you to get your money. They run a business, not a hobby (it's us the gamers that confuse the two). The more they keep the game away from us, the more potential money they lose. The natural thing would be to give the product to the customer as soon as possible, provided the customer can accept the quality of the product provided.

Why there is a latest trend not to rush MMOs any more?

1. People may claim that they will back a buggy product as long as they get to play it sooner or later but the gender history showed that this is not true. Buggy games will just flop, no matter what the "supporters" say before the launch.
2. Because of the above developers can reverse pressure on the marketing / finance people and have a firmer position regarding the end quality of the offered product (MMOs in this case).

Any AAA title that plans on staying viable for more than the first couple months can't afford a bad launch any more. We, the customers, have become very unforgiving on that regard. Also the difference is that they (Game companies) noticed exactly how much unforgiving we can be.

• It took one game to present the financial strength gained by investing in the gender.
• It took one game to present the folly of trying to push unfinished products.

Many a times its a marketing ploy.I wonder how the community blindly believes every word they say

I dont buy it for a moment when the management said it was decided a weekend back.They  must hjave know it last year But if you announce publicly the game is going to be delayed too early people might lose interest

So its better always a few months before to say its delayed because we need to polish it further.

Its also a positve HR exercise with positive resonse from the community wow they are delaying the game coz they want to fix it ..

Had it been a normal corporation and true the shareholders would have F***d the CEO All they care is return on investments.The thread opener has a point If the game has been delayed n no of times not always it can be equated for better game in return

I would not  be suprised If in April they will  say  product is ready just needs tweaking so 2 - 3 weeks more.

I was planning to take up AOC in March so I decided not to go for POBS coz it was only 2 months away now its May .Lets see

  After the 6th or 7th delay seems like the word polish takes on a new meaning,, polish = we really don't have our sh## together like we said we did.

I really don't think you can call someone out for taking either side of this arguement...There's really a double-edge to this.

Delaying gives them time to polish and in some cases completely revamp things proven to be flawed in beta or alpha testing.

However, there is definitely a medium to be reached in this. A majority of bugs and issues won't be found by your select few developers and alpha tests. A large portion of those bugs won't be found by the more expansive beta testers. The real test for a game is when it's released and probably the biggest surge of users the game will ever see being to rip and tear at the content.

I really wouldn't want to play a game on the proposed release date if I knew they just revamped a signifigant portion of gameplay or content. I'm perfectly content waiting, but that could be because of my situation. Whole other story.

This is the reason why developers shouldent give release dates. People have a hard time to understand delays. Take Blizzard for example, everyone asked when WoW would be released......and they just answered "when its ready". I fully respect that.

Originally posted by Lonewolf

This really is a no brainer

Delaying it enables you to enjoy a more polished enjoyable experience when playing the game, releasing it when that polish has not been completed would result in people like you, then whining about how buggy the game is

Companies who invested over $50 million in a product can't afford a bug resulting in alot of their potential subscribers from ditching the game when they first play it. It has to be as polished as can possibly be, to ensure a successful launch and thus happy customers. First impressions count for nearly everything in this world, and a bad impression can cause people NEVER to return to your product e.g Vanguard

On your point of fixing bugs on release, it would be ALOT harder fixing bugs with tons of players in the environment, and if you know anything about bug fixing, sometimes you can fix 3 bugs only to produce another alternative bug, it takes alot of reboots of servers etc, its just not practical in a live environment, hence the need for test servers

Patience is a virtue, learn it

Companies that delay over and over can also be companies that simply have poor organization and will never get it right.

You are making a bad assumption.  That they are competent.

Delays can be sign they just need a little work and have the werewithal to deal the problems a delay will cause.  Or it can mean they simply have no idea what they are doing and are bad at planning and QA.