I've been following MMO's since pretty much the beginning. Not quite the beginning mind you, but we're so far down the road now that making the distinction of a year or two doesnt mean much. Anyway, like I said, I've been following MMOs for a long time and I can confidently say that what we have right now, namely everything which was discussed in this article, is exactly what we will have for the rest of the genre and into the future. For whatever reason MMO developers choose to operate like this time and time again; yet we as consumers are always surprised they do this? Why?! It is simply how they opperate and we should no longer expect anything else.

Yeah, I still play MMOs but I do so with eyes wide open, knowing exactly what I'm going to get. Of course there are a few exceptions to this. Some companies do appear to, dare I say, care but this isn't a trend in the industry. It's an anomaly...a fluke. I guess what I'm trying to say is this. These complaints have been here since the beginning, to one degree or another. So why are we amazed that they are still here when people play MMO games the way they are. Yes this was a valid article, but everything said in it has been pointed out time and time again by the same droves of people who post on these forums.

Please, keep posting these articles but I think there should be an asterisk at the bottom of the article letting people know that this has been going on for some time and will, in all likelihood, continue. Unfortunately little changes in this genre.

Here is a last little tidbit for thought. Can you imagine what a cluster the market will be when the MMO industry begins to implement 3D into their games? I can almost guarantee you that the first game which comes out with this will be the biggest pile of steaming &%$# that has ever hit the market. The whole draw of the game will be 3D and there wont be much content, there wont be anything innovative gameplay wise other than it has 3D and we will all buy it. What a bright future for MMOs.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by SBE1

Perhaps the next editorial post you make Jon should be about the way MMORPG reviews games and gives them such glowing reviews despite how awful it must be for games to be released incomplete. 

 

Seriously? Prehaps you may want to doa  little research before calling me out publically. Bith myself and many other people who work on this site, have answered this so many times. Our reviewers are not coearced and the score that they produce is not altered by staff. Why? Because that way, there is no way for editorial to in any way corrupt the scores. Which we'e accused of all the time. So yeah *shrug* I don't know what else to say on the matter. Believe me, don't believe me, that's your right as a consumer but please try to be informed before calling someone out. 

 Straaden,

 The person you quoted did not infer (at least not that I read) that the site's staff was engaged in direct manipulation of reviews in order to obtain revenue from publishers.   Rather,  he stated that maybe you should take a look at the current review system since so many of the games were released in a state that you railed about in your article yet received good reviews!

If you take every review on this site from 2010 and 2011 you get an average score of 7.2 (you get an almost identical score if you filter out "re-reviews").  This is accompanied by summary text that reads : The game met or exceeded our expectations in some areas, and is without any major weaknesses. Good times for all.

Now.. as you know, you recently issued your 2010 awards.  This year Best New Game 2010 was not even awarded as "None of the Above" won!!  It had the following statement included:

  -----  

It shouldn't then, come as a huge shock that, when given the choice, MMORPG.com readers threw the majority of their support behind None of the Above for Best New Game of 2010. This year, the MMORPG.com staff decided to nominate “None of the Above” in one of our award categories, and there was very little debate over which category would carry it. Over the last year, we’ve watched our forums explode with readers ferociously tearing down the launches of the past year whether due to unpopular design decisions, poorly executed launches or even unpopular revenue models this year’s new games had been complained about enough to give people the option to speak out.     

It shouldn't then, come as a huge shock that, when given the choice, MMORPG.com readers threw the majority of their support behind None of the Above for Best New Game of 2010.

-------

So... I think what we are asking for... is for you to more strongly advocate the very content of your article.  It's what we all agree.  Games ARE being pushed on us it a pitiful state.   We, the average game player do not have the bully-pulpit.  You do.  We have voiced our opinions by selecting "None of the Above" in a landslide as Best New Game.  Your very announcement of that selection said that it wasn't a shock.

So... if it's not a shock.. and we all agree that the games for the last 16 months are bad.  Please... PRETTY PLEASE... do not give them an average score that says "Good times for all".  You don't need to personally edit reviewers work, but as they are working for the site they should have some general guidance on what the philosphy of the site is.  One cornerstone should be that a game described as an "unfinished buggy mess" should get a review score that says "Cannot recommend buying at this time"  At the very LEAST.   If the game has "potential" then re-review it at a later time.  Don't EVER give a grade for something the game might someday become at some future time if the stars all align... because we all know that the overwhelming majority of this "potential" goes unfulfilled.  I mean... one of your reviews recently included this paragraph:

Now I must state that I do not like to judge an MMORPG on its launch and by how bug-ridden it is at any point. The very advantage of this beautiful genre is that the developer toils and slaves over their projects like none of their game studio peers; we pay a subscription fee and we, eventually, get a polished product – sometimes it just takes a little time.

That philosophy is directly the OPPOSITE of what your article was about!

I think most readers really.. REALLY support the concepts behind your article.  If you are willing to start putting an end to the culture of acceptance that has allowed this situation to develop, you will have a veritable army of readers behind you.  Take up the gauntlet that you yourself have thrown!

I agree with everything said, only real consession I'll give new games are in two areas.

Class balance: cause there will be fotm classes, then the nerf bat will get swung and then there is a new one, not too worried about that. as long as movement towards better balance is made during the free month, I'm good.

End game: As long as a new game has end game, I'm happy, the not enough end game argument can go sit outside. I am firmly convinced that if you but one raid, people will burn through that and cry not enough. If you put 10 raids, people will burn through that and cry not enough. So you can't make those kinds of gamers happy.....F%^ em.

To me the unfinished state for an MMO means that a MMOs story and activities are unfinished.  Means more story for your character or events can be added.  Theres no game over, things can always change, A town that was happy go lucky could be devistated with a comet the next and have a giant hole in it.

Content should be the only part that is unfinished.

What is in game should be working, polished, make sense and be complete.  If theres a quest, it should go to completion, evne if that completion is a to be continued.  If theres a mechanic it should be working as intended, if theres an area, i shouldn't be seeing gaping holes in it.  Another words, what is in game should be complete, even if the story and progression of your characther in that world are not. Bugs should be squashed, quests finished up, lore in game as intended, worlds look right.  Unfinished means they are not done adding content, and is not code word for our game coding and bug hunting are not done, but it's okay cause it's an MMO and they are never done.

There should also be enough content to get someone by for a while (to last long enough to be close to an expansion).  I don't like the arguement we are a new company so we don't have as much as someone 6 months old.  Really if your making a game to last a while you should have enough content to last until your next expansion,  theres no reason to not have hardly any content and use the excuse your new.  This isn't as bad as glaring bugs but it can stagnet interest if people are just standing around doing nothing.

Short version

Not finished does not equal quality of things out there, it just means quanity of things out there.

The things out there should be complete, bug tested and polished.

There should be enough content to get a person close to when you expect your next expansion to come out.  (powerlevelers excluded from the equation)

Failing any of these categories lowers your overall score when it comes to polish and completeness of your game.

Note: I'm aware getting every single bug in any game is nearly impossible as it's always possible to introduce new bugs when adding new content, but the general bug count should be very low and generally a non issue, there should be no crash to desktops, falling through worlds, getting stuck in areas and being unable to get out, those sort of things should be fixed as soon as they occur, which is usually in bug testing.

LOL well guess I wont be buying gears of war 3, thanks for the heads up... I've been sitting here debating it to death, but the name of this article and the graphic really make me believe this may be an NDA run around.

peace

Originally posted by Sorrow

LOL well guess I wont be buying gears of war 3, thanks for the heads up... I've been sitting here debating it to death, but the name of this article and the graphic really make me believe this may be an NDA run around.

 

peace

What...? Serioualy? HAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm hoping you're just adding some levity to the thread because this article is in no way shape or form related to Gars of War 3. Like...at all! Hahahahahahahahaha!

Why is everybody so excited about this article? He has only pointed out the obvious. Incomplete, prematurely released MMO's are bad and we're sick of it. This has been the general attitude among MMO gamers for years.

This is a good article and thanks for doing it.  I have noticed with own my personal experence that some fixes that are made in beta test never make it into live.  As hard copy has to be recorded and boxed months before launch dates it makes sense that a lot will be fixed in the launch patch but it doesnt all make it.   Also some things are broken in late beta while making changes and those new problems dont all get fixed.   To us its unfinished but to the publisher it might just be like the cutting room floor of a movie.

Industry is two things always, thrifty and opportunistic.  That being said, it might be too easy for publishers to become apathetic to the player experience in favor of more far reaching profit goals based on skewed and out dated market research [ I almost choked on the reasearch part].   So they may think we are all game hoppers who dont care about the whole game experence beyond the first 20 hours of newbie orientation to the environment, that most of us  just want to zerg to end game and are gold buyers and exploiters.  That being said its reasonable to assume that the best profit approach is to cheap up the new games and pink slip all but a skeleton crew at launch and start working on the next project.   Sounds insulting to the gamer I know, but honestly look at new game forums.  We have brought some of this upon our selves.

My goal is to find a real, whole game, though I realize with the evolution of the gaming industry it may be a pipe dream.  One that I can play for years not 4 to 6 months and one that doesnt use the ugly stick on character models to help make sure I move along as expected.  I know this isnt the game developers intention, their games are their art but they are not running the show. 

Recently a business student told me his marketing professor told him that consumers do not know what they want.  Think about that, they think we dont know what we want.  What happens to industry when this is a premis to build upon?

This is precisely one of THE biggest reasons I like Rift so much.  It has a near seamless launch, and the game is pretty complete.  Everything works.  I have a feeling this is directly tied to DCUO, which is ****.  I knew better than to buy it, since it had SOE on the box.  My friend bought it, I played it at his house for about an hour an a half, and was like "Really?".  I think other than Rift, I haven't played a MMO at launch that was "complete" since Lotro.

Points 1 and 3 are the biggest killers of new MMO's bar none. First impressions really do count, people buy the game box and it usually has 1 month in it for "free" so you have a captive audience for 1 month.

This is your window to impress people or at least make a good impression, ok you might have launch issues but you have 30 days in which to impress your customers so make it count. launch issues need to be squashed within the first 7 days, serious bugs/exploits need to be squashed/addressed within the first 7-14 days or you will lose customers. I am not saying everything has to be perfect in the first 14 days from launch but you need to show the players you are addressing things rapidly and not adding new things instead of fixing the OOTB functionality & features.

Bad launch & First month doesnt necessarily mean bad product, however that is the impression the majority of players get and they will not come back once they have that. If you do decide to actively invite players back make damn sure everything that was broken in launch (maybe first 2-3 months) has been fixed and that major concerns have been addressed.

People will whinge about needing community updates etc, forget that fix the damn game. Myself and I think 90% of players want to be online, ingame playing not reading the community forums.

There is at least one big MMO that had a massive launch & here 2 years later still does not have some of the features that were promised out of the box despite having had a major expansion pack they made players pay for. The devs probably wonder why more players didnt come back and why most of those who did come back for the expansion have not stayed.....

"X will fix it."

"This patch was released with a few known issues.  These will be addressed in a following patch.  We have no release information for the next patch."

"Why was X changed in this patch?  We are not aware of any changes to X in this patch.  *proof of player testing* We will look into that.  We have found out that the change to X was intentional in this patch." 

Quality Control is awful in a lot of MMORPGs.  Bugs persist for long periods of time in the face of denial from the company.  Later, they are very proud to have discovered and fixed a legacy bug.  They find bugs in patches that go live anyway instead of pushing the deployment date back or moving the bugged changes/bugged feature to the next patch.  Patch notes are continually brief and completely lacking information that has to be investigated that can take weeks.  Is it poor change tracking by the developers or someone doing a poor job of reporting the changes.  If a person is posting a change log, isn't it their job to know what was changed and why?

Patching has become a crutch for bad developers.

Now, don't get me wrong.  There will be bugs in every piece of software.  My problem is bugs that are already known, pointed out by players on test realms, and happen under very common conditions that go to live repeatedly.  My personal favorite is the patch that unpatches a previous patch inserting the bug that was already fixed.  These are hints at very major procedureal problems and poor judgement.  Which, seems almost common these days.  Lastly, the stealth fix.  Changes they hope will fly under the wire to preserve their infallable status.

While we can all agree these are not something we should be dealing with all the time, we do.  And, by doing so, we empower these companies to continue these actions.  We continue to pay them for shoddy work and to take us more for granted.  We've all done it.  But, there has to be a point where we say no more.  I personally will not buy any new products from several MMO companies because of such experiences in their games.  Based on that statement, it always surprises me how badly companies maintain current projects while they funnel it's money and resources into their next big thing.  They promise they learned from their mistakes.  They promise their new project won't repeat them.  How do people trust these people?  I stopped.  I refuse to play these games period.  I would not play them if they payed me to.

I've often said in similar discussions as this one that we are just seeing the tip of it.  MMORPGs are not the majority of games.  Every game or gaming console is "online".  How long before it's an industry standard to ship first and patch later?  How many console games require a patch before you even start to play them already?  Is it already here?

Originally posted by Talonsin

Great topic!  I dont understand how MMO corp types have not learned from the past.  Loko at AoC, it was a good game, launched unfinished and will never recover.  If they wold have waited 6 to 12 more months, they could have been sitting at a million subs instead of the under 100k they have now. 

This is an example of what I mean.  Funcom.  I played AO for years.  They treated the game badly.  They treated customers badly.  They pushed bugs to live without testing at all(trader candybar just to name a funny one).  They even did not include a feature of an expansion, that was on the expansion box as a listed feature, in that expansion.  How long has AO been waiting for it's new game engine?  How long has AO been waiting for PvP balancing with earnest.  Why would anyone expect AoC to be different with a lot of the same people doing the work? 

Don't get me wrong, some of the Devs there have talent and are straight up with the players.  I applaud these people.  Being able to admit a mistake and correct it is the right thing to do.  The problem is, 90% of the company does not follow this rule and took that position with them to AoC.

[edit] Since I named Funcom, I'll just elaborate some things.  The current Devs on AO are good examples of what needs to happen.  It's just too bad that they are this late to the party and do not have the resource backing they should from Funcom.  The original devs, that moved on to other projects for Funcom, were the exact opposite.  The recent article about the "secret nerf table" is funny, insightful, and sort of not surprising when I think about a lot of the stuff that previous Devs did (*cough*FC_Karma*cough*).  The fact that the current crew is honest about it and wanting to fix it, in the face of embarassment, is awesome.

Sadly, I still will never buy another Funcom game.  Why?  Because these people are the exception, not the rule with Funcom.[/edit]

I liked the article but it really is a summarization of the rants/cries/pleadings of hundreds of throats (keyboards) on many different forums throughout our little Internet universe.

As far as the article goes, I agree pretty much.

Though in one aspect I have to admit being cynical and suspicious about some companies out there:  That is talking about fixes / additions to the game, even going so far as to give a general time for it to go live, but never actually doing it.

For example, a large update that fixes major problems that's supposed to arrive roughly 6 months down the road (a few saying even a year).  The devs give token "updates" about progress but when the time arrives, the update isn't there.  The excuses come, they need more time of course.  The months pass on by, and the update doesn't come.

In a subscription based game, this annoyed me because it's what I call "Stringing A Person Along."  I regularly pay expecting the fixes to arrive, but they never do.  But the excuses keep on coming regardless in the hope you do keep paying.

Originally posted by Meltdown

Agreed, I would only put an exception in for indie developers. But they should really take a note from Notch, who asked players to pay for alpha/beta... not for a crap-released version of the game. Minecraft was quality gaming in Alpha, but more features were to be added, so did it just get a "released" tag slapped on it? No... props to Notch.

 

 Why exempt indies?  They charge the same as the big boys...they should be held to the same standards.

WORD, Jon Wood.

Wow, I agree with this article in its entirety.  Kudos all around for this one.

Now if only there was a way to ensure execs and devs for all of these organizations were forced to take heed. Seriously though, one has to wonder why the hell most of these companies continue "to not get it".  Even if they really are that stubborn and oblivious regardless the history of game launches they have to look over you would think at a certain point if nothing else the investors would force them to get their act together.  I mean who really benefits when they release a game in these poor conditions?  The game gets Scarlet Lettered, the developer/publishing company gains a black mark, etc.

So why in the hell do most companies keep going this route? I keep asking this question and far as I can see no one benefits in the long run from either the company, investor, or customer standpoint so why do they continue to do it? Some of these companies have done it multiple times now.  Is the short term payoff really that profitable that it is worth destroying future gains, goodwill, and profitability for a short term gain?

Definitely going to applaud this read. I've been saying this for years now, and can't understand why more players don't hold developers to the standards that we hold other trades/fields too. For too long now, developers have been getting away with "paid" betas, and this needs to stop.

Rift, regardless of personal preferences on the game, launched terrifically and that should be a model for how launches go.

Originally posted by simmihi

As said, "from a business perspective, this does not make any sense at all".

Actually, from a business perspective it makes perfect sense if you can get enough suckers to buy into it.  How many fools are still waiting in line, frothing at the mouth to pounce a game on launch day?  if we all took a wait-and-see attitude when it came to the release of new MMORPGs the developers would stop releasing "not ready for primetime" games immediately.

People don't like to be called out when they write an article for MMORPG?  Really?  Then don't publish.   Geez, you want to publish stuff on MMORPG then I should be able to call you out on it.   You can't write stuff and then hide.

Anyway, my point isthat the vast vast majority of games get glowing reviews on this website, and yet your article is about how terrible it is that games are coming out that are not complete or published to early (same thing really).   All I said was perhaps you should write another article discussing the disconnect between your column and the reviews by this website that are almost always glowing reviews.

If that upsets you that I pointed out the discrepency, well so be it.  If you think "i'm calling you out" on this, then I suppose I am.  I've done the research.  I've looked at all the scores on MMORPG ratings on the game list, and RARELY is it under 7.5.  If games are incomplete, and it's quite common, and you say how bad it is, then how do you guys reconcile it? 

If all you want to reply is "i'm calling you out" and that's your argument, pretty sad.  You can issue me a warning or ban me.  I'm trying to have a discussion about your attitude about incomplete games and the scores those games recieve when reviewed by this website.  Heck, I agree with you on your points about how incomplete games are so terrible and a disease to the MMORPG genre.  All I'm asking is that it get reflected in game reviews by this website.  If that somehow offends you, calls you out, or results in me getting a warning/ban from MMORPG, so be it.  Geez.