Dont know about Shadowbane and Anarchy Online as i didnt play those form the start, but Id agree with the others. Didnt play Darkfall but read enough on these forums. LOL!

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Raises plunger in Salute to MMORPG staff)

The LAUNCH for Vanguard was Fine. The game was a Steaming pile of Poo. NOT the same thing.

And I was in the beta for Anarchy Online and haveing a blast.. Then launch... Never played it again. Hell I canceld IN the first month pissed they had somehow Ruined the game from beta..

Right, but WoW had that after launch and getting WAY more players than they ever dreamed (they were literally planning for 100k).

Aion had that in the headstart for pre-orders when they knew exactly how many players they'd have to deal with.

Warcraft's pre-order numbers where something along the lines of 250k.  Unless someone in accounting dropped the ball pretty friggin bigtime I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how many copies they sold.

The "we never expected it to do this well" line is just a canned response that all MMOs use, and is just an example of bandwagon marketing.  Bottom line is they don't want to put up the money for the hardware and datacenter space it requires to run all those servers when they may potentially lose thousands of customers after launch.

The way Aion did it was a necessary evil.  Otherwise you

a) Wind up with game servers that are constantly crashing due to overpopulation and no-one has a pleasant experience

b) wind up with servers that are deserted within a few months of launch; which is an absolute disaster for a RvR game.

WoW did both of those, they initially didn't have enough servers and everyone had a crap experience at launch... and then they ballooned their servers numbers to ridiculous amounts, causing some servers to be virtually empty.

That's not even touching on the faction imbalances that existed in WoW because they didn't impose limits, which are virtually non-existant in Aion servers(atleast as far as numbers are concerned, its always within 2-3%).

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Blizzard and Blizzard games.  But they didn't handle their launch well, and making excuses for them doesn't change that.

You know, it was ultimately Darkfall's launch that made me give up on it.  I played in the beta, was part of a guild that is rather small but managing to control an unbelievable amount of space (thanks, largely, to the sheer data collection we did during beta), but when the game launched and I couldn't purchase my own entry into it for more than a week, the little things that made Darkfall suck for me just really built up in my head, and the fact that I couldn't play a game I had put so much effort into as well.  By the time I actually got through and could click the button to buy the game, I just didn't care about it any more.

Originally posted by eHero

Originally posted by wrtiii

You know, I don't comment on these sort of things.

 But I really must say, This is the worst article ever. I honestly feel like slitting my own throat right now just so I don't have to swallow your garbage.

 Sure you had some decent points. But really, do you even have half a clue?

 Epic FAIL.  I hope to god you never write another thing about any game.  Cause in my books you just lost all rights to do as such.

 Anyways, I am sure I should of explained myself and my reasoning some, but I honestly feel like it.

 ~wrtiii

"Velox, Versutus, Vigilans"

 

Congratulations on your first post!  This is probably a very exciting time for you, so I'm here to help you through your transition from forum lurker to opinion spouter!

Now you're going to have to develop a thick skin, because there's nothing internet people love more than first time posters.  They'll call you things like dumb, or nonsensical and they'll call your posts dumb AND nonsensical.  You need to ignore all of this though and just continue posting, because you just know, in your heart of hearts, that everyone agrees with you. 

And remember, opinions can be stated as facts here.  And so can half-truths.  And blatant lies.  Just have fun with it and know that there's no one that can prove you wrong if you don't actually supply any actual facts to debate. 

Again, congratulations!  I hope your stay here is a long and fruitful one we can all learn from.

 

As an aside, didn't EQ2 have a particularly bad launch?  I seem to remember it being down for like, 2 or 3 days straight in the beginning.  I just remember switching to WoW at that time.  Ah well.

 

That was the best response I have ever read. You are my eHero.

Originally posted by comerb

Right, but WoW had that after launch and getting WAY more players than they ever dreamed (they were literally planning for 100k).

Aion had that in the headstart for pre-orders when they knew exactly how many players they'd have to deal with.

 

Warcraft's pre-order numbers where something along the lines of 250k.  Unless someone in accounting dropped the ball pretty friggin bigtime I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how many copies they sold.

 

The "we never expected it to do this well" line is just a canned response that all MMOs use, and is just an example of bandwagon marketing.  Bottom line is they don't want to put up the money for the hardware and datacenter space it requires to run all those servers when they may potentially lose thousands of customers after launch.

 

The way Aion did it was a necessary evil.  Otherwise you

a) Wind up with game servers that are constantly crashing due to overpopulation and no-one has a pleasant experience

b) wind up with servers that are deserted within a few months of launch; which is an absolute disaster for a RvR game.

WoW did both of those, they initially didn't have enough servers and everyone had a crap experience at launch... and then they ballooned their servers numbers to ridiculous amounts, causing some servers to be virtually empty.

That's not even touching on the faction imbalances that existed in WoW because they didn't impose limits, which are virtually non-existant in Aion servers(atleast as far as numbers are concerned, its always within 2-3%).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Blizzard and Blizzard games.  But they didn't handle their launch well, and making excuses for them doesn't change that.

Link for the 250k pre-order of WoW or your post is worthless. If your going to spew facts, back them up.

Originally posted by Dana 

Back in the day, Dark Age of Camelot became an overnight success in part due to their ability to ship a game that didn’t explode on impact.

 

Thats because there was nothing there to explode.

Mythic removed 1/3 of the content they had in Beta. Dungeons were empty or if they did have MoBs in them they werent itemized (MoBs didnt drop anything). There were  large areas that were devoid of life, you could run around for hours without encountering 1 MoB.

Sure the launch was smooth. Any game company would have a smooth launch when there is almost no content.

Originally posted by Qraye

Originally posted by comerb

Right, but WoW had that after launch and getting WAY more players than they ever dreamed (they were literally planning for 100k).

Aion had that in the headstart for pre-orders when they knew exactly how many players they'd have to deal with.

 

Warcraft's pre-order numbers where something along the lines of 250k.  Unless someone in accounting dropped the ball pretty friggin bigtime I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how many copies they sold.

 

The "we never expected it to do this well" line is just a canned response that all MMOs use, and is just an example of bandwagon marketing.  Bottom line is they don't want to put up the money for the hardware and datacenter space it requires to run all those servers when they may potentially lose thousands of customers after launch.

 

The way Aion did it was a necessary evil.  Otherwise you

a) Wind up with game servers that are constantly crashing due to overpopulation and no-one has a pleasant experience

b) wind up with servers that are deserted within a few months of launch; which is an absolute disaster for a RvR game.

WoW did both of those, they initially didn't have enough servers and everyone had a crap experience at launch... and then they ballooned their servers numbers to ridiculous amounts, causing some servers to be virtually empty.

That's not even touching on the faction imbalances that existed in WoW because they didn't impose limits, which are virtually non-existant in Aion servers(atleast as far as numbers are concerned, its always within 2-3%).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Blizzard and Blizzard games.  But they didn't handle their launch well, and making excuses for them doesn't change that.

 

Link for the 250k pre-order of WoW or your post is worthless. If your going to spew facts, back them up.

http://www.gamershell.com/companies/blizzard_entertainment/188228.html

240k in first day sales.  You couldn't buy the game off the shelf, all copies were sold out before they even arrived at the store.  I know, I remember calling different retailers a couple days before the game shipped.

They also had several hundred thousand open beta applicants, which should have clued them in.

Originally posted by comerb

Originally posted by Qraye

Originally posted by comerb

Right, but WoW had that after launch and getting WAY more players than they ever dreamed (they were literally planning for 100k).

Aion had that in the headstart for pre-orders when they knew exactly how many players they'd have to deal with.

 

Warcraft's pre-order numbers where something along the lines of 250k.  Unless someone in accounting dropped the ball pretty friggin bigtime I'm pretty sure they knew exactly how many copies they sold.

 

The "we never expected it to do this well" line is just a canned response that all MMOs use, and is just an example of bandwagon marketing.  Bottom line is they don't want to put up the money for the hardware and datacenter space it requires to run all those servers when they may potentially lose thousands of customers after launch.

 

The way Aion did it was a necessary evil.  Otherwise you

a) Wind up with game servers that are constantly crashing due to overpopulation and no-one has a pleasant experience

b) wind up with servers that are deserted within a few months of launch; which is an absolute disaster for a RvR game.

WoW did both of those, they initially didn't have enough servers and everyone had a crap experience at launch... and then they ballooned their servers numbers to ridiculous amounts, causing some servers to be virtually empty.

That's not even touching on the faction imbalances that existed in WoW because they didn't impose limits, which are virtually non-existant in Aion servers(atleast as far as numbers are concerned, its always within 2-3%).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Blizzard and Blizzard games.  But they didn't handle their launch well, and making excuses for them doesn't change that.

 

Link for the 250k pre-order of WoW or your post is worthless. If your going to spew facts, back them up.

 

http://www.gamershell.com/companies/blizzard_entertainment/188228.html

240k in first day sales.  You couldn't buy the game off the shelf, all copies were sold out before they even arrived at the store.  I know, I remember calling different retailers a couple days before the game shipped.

They also had several hundred thousand open beta applicants, which should have clued them in.

 

Still waiting for a factual link. Your link is in-store first day sales after tha game was launched, not pre-order....try again :)

Still waiting for a factual link. Your link is in-store first day sales after tha game was launched, not pre-order....try again :)

Blizzard doesn't do "official" press releases on pre-orders as far as I know.  Retailers place orders based upon pre-order sales.  If a retailer "sales out" before the game arrives at the store they are being limited by the manufacturer.  Blizzard knew exactly how many game's were expected to sale on day 1.  What they didn't realize was that that number was going to continue to rise as quickly as it did over that holiday period.

I am REALLY surprised that WWIIOL didnt make that list...

Day 1..... June 6 2001...... L-Day.

Game launched, server went up.....  And so began the 6 hour download patch....... 

IF you managedto get through this, you then might get into the game, but seeing as the patching server and the game server shared the same network connection and bandwidth, as it seemed.   You were getting horribly high ping rates, if you didnt crash out of the game with in 5 minutes of logging in.     The game launched with less than 1/5th its promised content, that was in the book that came with the game.....   The launch was so bad that 6 months later they were still sorting out launch issues and you were basicly in the first pay to beta game that I can remember.    

Now 8 years later, the game looks MUCH better, and continues to look better, but over all the game still is lacking many of the features that were promised, and is still a capture the flag frag fest.    Oh well theres always hopeing for the next big WWIIOL game..... but after the horrible launch and  haphazard development of the current WWIIOL, I doubt there will be any company that attempts anything that big, in that genre again.

Originally posted by comerb

 Aion shouldn't be on this list.  

 

Vanguard, AoC, Warhammer, WoW, + a dozen others had rockier first months.

The first month of launch in korea was way worse. But I digress

Anyways, the best launch I've experienced was FFXI, but just like Aion, its not fair to put on any list since it launched in a different region first where people couldn't buy it due to laws/language barriers.

VG should of been on the list I agree.

Originally posted by comerb

Still waiting for a factual link. Your link is in-store first day sales after tha game was launched, not pre-order....try again :)

 

Blizzard doesn't do "official" press releases on pre-orders as far as I know.  Retailers place orders based upon pre-order sales.  If a retailer "sales out" before the game arrives at the store they are being limited by the manufacturer.  Blizzard knew exactly how many game's were expected to sale on day 1.  What they didn't realize was that that number was going to continue to rise as quickly as it did over that holiday period.

You post a false link to prove your made up number then try to skirt it, truly a mark of a desperate person. Your definition of pre-order is also false. Expectation of sale does not relate to a retailers orders, to assume so is a lack of thoughtful approach. Blizzard had no idea whatsoever how many copies of WoW would be sold day 1, its not possible. What proof do you have that the copies of WoW were sold out before arriving at retailers? provide a factual link that states another of your made up facts. No gaming company can realize how many copies would be sold shortly thereafter launch, you state the the obvious that encompasses all as if it was localized. And that brings us back to your original post making it once again based upon nothing but supposition an opinion, not fact. With all do respect, if your going to argue facts be prepared to offer factual evidence to support your claims, otherwise, they have no weight.

Originally posted by Qraye

Originally posted by comerb

Still waiting for a factual link. Your link is in-store first day sales after tha game was launched, not pre-order....try again :)

 

Blizzard doesn't do "official" press releases on pre-orders as far as I know.  Retailers place orders based upon pre-order sales.  If a retailer "sales out" before the game arrives at the store they are being limited by the manufacturer.  Blizzard knew exactly how many game's were expected to sale on day 1.  What they didn't realize was that that number was going to continue to rise as quickly as it did over that holiday period.

 

You post a false link to prove your made up number then try to skirt it, truly a mark of a desperate person. Your definition of pre-order is also false. Expectation of sale does not relate to a retailers orders, to assume so is a lack of thoughtful approach. Blizzard had no idea whatsoever how many copies of WoW would be sold day 1, its not possible. What proof do you have that the copies of WoW were sold out before arriving at retailers? provide a factual link that states another of your made up facts. No gaming company can realize how many copies would be sold shortly thereafter launch, you state the the obvious that encompasses all as if it was localized. And that brings us back to your original post making it once again based upon nothing but supposition an opinion, not fact. With all do respect, if your going to argue facts be prepared to offer factual evidence to support your claims, otherwise, they have no weight.

 The link isn't false, those are first day sales.  Expectation of sales does relate to retailers orders, retailers don't want to end up with a surplus of extra games they can't unload... the exception is particular chains that don't offer pre-sales (ie walmart)... who order a mass quantity of the unit (on predicted sales) and then distribute those units equally amongst outlets.

Believe whatever you want killer.  If you think any MMO retailer launches without a realistic view of what their expected initial sales are, well I'm not going to argue with you.  It's mean its not like they didn't have open beta tests, forums, and stress tests that gave them a very real idea of their player base....... oh wait.

It's a far more pathetic idea that their marketing/sales team short-sold their probable opening day sales, if you actual believe that to be the case.  How exactly do you mistake the population your market audience by that much?  Oh yeah, you don't.

Feel free to point me to the press release showing Blizzard only had 100k presales.., (a number which, when Funcom passed, they made the comment that they believed they would eventually have more presales than WoW, and I'm sure they had some insight on presale numbers.) until then your argument has no more weight than my own.

Originally posted by comerb

Originally posted by Qraye

Originally posted by comerb

Still waiting for a factual link. Your link is in-store first day sales after tha game was launched, not pre-order....try again :)

 

Blizzard doesn't do "official" press releases on pre-orders as far as I know.  Retailers place orders based upon pre-order sales.  If a retailer "sales out" before the game arrives at the store they are being limited by the manufacturer.  Blizzard knew exactly how many game's were expected to sale on day 1.  What they didn't realize was that that number was going to continue to rise as quickly as it did over that holiday period.

 

You post a false link to prove your made up number then try to skirt it, truly a mark of a desperate person. Your definition of pre-order is also false. Expectation of sale does not relate to a retailers orders, to assume so is a lack of thoughtful approach. Blizzard had no idea whatsoever how many copies of WoW would be sold day 1, its not possible. What proof do you have that the copies of WoW were sold out before arriving at retailers? provide a factual link that states another of your made up facts. No gaming company can realize how many copies would be sold shortly thereafter launch, you state the the obvious that encompasses all as if it was localized. And that brings us back to your original post making it once again based upon nothing but supposition an opinion, not fact. With all do respect, if your going to argue facts be prepared to offer factual evidence to support your claims, otherwise, they have no weight.

 

Believe whatever you want killer.  If you think any MMO retailer launches without a realistic view of what their expected initial sales are, well I'm not going to argue with you.

It's far more pathetic that their marketing/sales team short-sold their probable opening day sales, if you actual believe that to be the case.  How exactly do you mistake the population your market audience by that much?  Oh yeah, you don't.

Its not a matter of what I believe, its a matter your inability to prove your own arguements, unless you count links that are devoid of such proof and your continuing approach of stating facts without factual evidence to support. Whos marketing/sales team? Blizzard? The retailers? Either of which would have no possible clue as to the success or failure of a launch. You take the approach on aside that you factualize the ability of any marketing team to know how many  copies they would sell. Once again where is your proof this is the case? Post your evidence from all the MMO's that they new exactly or even close to the actual sales that would accompany their launch? To discuss opinion is one thing and has room for error and leeway but your constant and adamant approach to fact is perplexing since you have none to offer. With respect, perhaps you should avail yourself of the many search engines available to you and research your thoughts and have readily accessible proof to back your many implausible statements.

Its not a matter of what I believe, its a matter your inability to prove your own arguements, unless you count links that are devoid of such proof and your continuing approach of stating facts without factual evidence to support. Whos marketing/sales team? Blizzard? The retailers? Either of which would have no possible clue as to the success or failure of a launch. You take the approach on aside that you factualize the ability of any marketing team to know how many  copies they would sell. Once again where is your proof this is the case? Post your evidence from all the MMO's that they new exactly or even close to the actual sales that would accompany their launch? To discuss opinion is one thing and has room for error and leeway but your constant and adamant approach to fact is perplexing since you have none to offer. With respect, perhaps you should avail yourself of the many search engines available to you and research your thoughts and have readily accessible proof to back your many implausible statements.

If you don't think the marketing and sales team didn't have the tools available to them to predict expected sales your mildly retarded and have no clue how marketing actually works or how much statistical analysis goes into it.  Especially for a company with the financial pull Blizzard had, even back then.

I remember WoW being pretty much unplayable for the entire first month(and they refunded most of the first month too! people who have accounts from when they started playing WoW can see it on their payment thing.)

Straight off Blizzard's site. 

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/news/wow-news2004.html

"The World of Warcraft open beta test has now come to a close. During the beta test, over 500,000 players adventured through the lands of Azeroth and helped World of Warcraft on its way to becoming one of the largest massively multiplayer online games in the U.S.! The beta test community has been a tremendous source of information and feedback for the development teams, and we wish to thank our beta testers for participating in the beta test process. When the final version of World of Warcraft hits stores on November 23rd, you'll see the culmination of your hard work. The entire World of Warcraft team is now focusing on a smooth launch, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts about the game. Thank you again for your continued support with this project; we look forward to seeing you on in Azeroth. "

500k beta testers.  100k expected users my ass.

What I think is funny with Funcom and AO, that they did not learn from it.

The Age of Conan launch was bad to, not as bad as AO, but it hade the same cd problems, having a zone where almost every player that went there got stuck and had often to get gm support to get out, and you hade to go trough that zone to get to other importen zones.

and as with AO it seam they have made Age of conan alot better then it was, if you belive news from some gamesites.

Not a bad list one does wonder if NCSOFT did not pay MMORPG enough money for advertising to put Aion on list at #4. Swap it for Vangaurd / AoC and the list is solid.

Dana has got it wrong a MMO with queue times on a small handfull of servers that were the most populated during beta only lasted about a week. I once logged onto my server Nezekan and it said 3 + hours, however it only actually took 20-30 minutes. So yes I call BS on this one. Lord of the Rings and AION are the two most smooth launches I have ever seen.

But Aion got the highest rating any MMO has ever got on this site, surely it can’t be in a worst list two months later? Hmmm maybe that score was a teensy bit overrated? :)

Originally posted by comerb

Straight off Blizzard's site. 

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/news/wow-news2004.html

 

"The World of Warcraft open beta test has now come to a close. During the beta test, over 500,000 players adventured through the lands of Azeroth and helped World of Warcraft on its way to becoming one of the largest massively multiplayer online games in the U.S.! The beta test community has been a tremendous source of information and feedback for the development teams, and we wish to thank our beta testers for participating in the beta test process. When the final version of World of Warcraft hits stores on November 23rd, you'll see the culmination of your hard work. The entire World of Warcraft team is now focusing on a smooth launch, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts about the game. Thank you again for your continued support with this project; we look forward to seeing you on in Azeroth. "

 

500k beta testers.  100k expected users my ass.

There is no statistical correlation between beta tester period and pre-order sales, they are not the same they are not related, prove your point or your arguement is moot. Show the amount of beta testers in relation to sales of other MMO's to back your claim, you offer nothing to further your misguided attempts at proving your wild opinions, however, kudos on taking my advice on using the search function. At least your learning, how does it feel?

Originally posted by Scot

But Aion got the highest rating any MMO has ever got on this site, surely it can’t be in a worst list two months later? Hmmm maybe that score was a teensy bit overrated? :)

I understand your confusion, Scot, but the article refers to a specific event of Aion. While it is accurate it does not represent the Aion as a whole, just the launch.

Originally posted by Qraye

Originally posted by comerb

Straight off Blizzard's site. 

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/news/wow-news2004.html

 

"The World of Warcraft open beta test has now come to a close. During the beta test, over 500,000 players adventured through the lands of Azeroth and helped World of Warcraft on its way to becoming one of the largest massively multiplayer online games in the U.S.! The beta test community has been a tremendous source of information and feedback for the development teams, and we wish to thank our beta testers for participating in the beta test process. When the final version of World of Warcraft hits stores on November 23rd, you'll see the culmination of your hard work. The entire World of Warcraft team is now focusing on a smooth launch, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts about the game. Thank you again for your continued support with this project; we look forward to seeing you on in Azeroth. "

 

500k beta testers.  100k expected users my ass.

 

There is no statistical correlation between beta tester period and pre-order sales, they are not the same they are not related, prove your point or your arguement is moot. Show the amount of beta testers in relation to sales of other MMO's to back your claim, you offer nothing to further your misguided attempts at proving your wild opinions, however, kudos on taking my advice on using the search function. At least your learning, how does it feel?

You're pathetic, I'm not writing a thesis. The numbers wouldn't even correlate unless I could drag up numbers from some other MMO that released at the same time, since the potential MMO players market and the press attached to betas has expanded exponentially since then. There are no hard numbers because Blizzard doesn't publish them, which I'm sure your well aware of.  You can continually lean on that crutch all you want, it doesn't change the fact that 1+1=2.  Even if there isn't an answer sheet that confirms it.

When i saw Aion #4 i stopped reading. Yes queue's suck and can't be justified most times, what NCSoft did with the queue's was balancing issue's mostly (Reason why we got balanced servers now, can anyone say WAR Servers where balanced? ) and one ingame problem called personal shops. You could setup shop and stay ingame for infinite time and not get kicked out for being afk meaning anyone in the queue stayed there, they fixed this later on and queue where almost non-existent. There are definitely worse launches out there and makes me think you hardly did any research on it.

For the rest Aion was one of the smoother launch i experienced in a long while.