The first thing I thought of when I read the title of the article, as that MMORPG.com included the word 'Recent' so they wouldn't have to talk about the NGE. I'm very glad they proved my cynicism unfounded.

Watch SOE spin this and say "The experts agree! NGE is number 1!!!"

Originally posted by fansede

 Honorable mentions?

 

Why do people keep throwing trammel as a blunder?    Sure it changed the game somewhat, but it was only a small minority that actually didn't like the change.   Subs for UO didn't actually decrease till much later. 

Not sure about your definition of the word "recent".  NGE was not recent in my book.  Probably would have been better to leave off the nebulous word recent and just go for 5 blunders.

Removing the word recent provides this list from me:

1. NGE - nothing needs to be said more, SOE took a relatively stable population and made their servers a ghost town in a matter of months.

2. DAoC Atlantis expansion - similar disaster, but it took a few months to accomplish.  Basically this expansion provided superior skills provided the character managed a huge quest grind in a very pvp centric MMO.   Once word got out how overpowering this quest line made players, the rest of the population responded with a mass exodus.  The game never recovered and the development staff, despite a mass of evidence to the contrary, made token changes.  The buff bot issue was also a determining factor here.  Mythic became a laughing stock because of their inability to address major issues with the game.

3. UO Age of Shadows expansion - attempt by EA to make the game more like EQ.  Servers were up and down like yo-yos for two months.  The expansion changed the outcome of fights from skill based to equipment based decisioning.  This was probably the buggiest expansion by a major MMO ever, even worse than NGE.

4. Turbine for their inability to recognize that instead of making an EQ clone in AC2, they should have just updated the graphics on AC1, it was a far better designed game.

5. For the fifth I think I would have say Perpetual Entertainment's decision to take on Star Trek design when they were having trouble with their own Gods & Heros design.  Something a weak design studio should never do.  It doomed the studio in the end because it split an already weak staff.

Originally posted by grimfall

Sort of ironic that AoC gets taken to the woodshed over false advertising one item on their box, when what is generally considedered the original MMO, Ultima Online, not only had false advertising, but my friend sued them over it and won free play time for the entire player base.

Where is the irony here? It might be coincidence but there is no irony whatsoever. As for you pal suing and winning, he should do the same with AoC ;p

I'd be more interested in a top blunder list of all time, since most people are already familiar with recent ones. It would require some  knowledge of the genre as well as research as this post seemed to lack these very things.

sfRaden, friggin awesome post about Anarchy Online, I remember that one, pain...

Dev

From my own limited MMO experiences I'd agree with SWG/NGE being number one, although I don't know about it being called "recent".

But if the NGE is in this top 5 I'd have to think that SWG's Combat Upgrade should be in there as well - or maybe 2 major revamps in six months should be consider one single blunder.

Oh, and maybe marketing an expansion based on things that were being removed the next day and having to refund thousands of buyers should be a blunder as well.

Originally posted by sfraden

Im going to take a different approch in a reply here:  I found your top 5 to be ....well....   lacking in real world context.  It is quite apparent your an editor first and a player second.  Also if I were to post about sucha  topic as yours, I would be labeled a troll or a fanboi, and prolly run off the boards as a result.

Honestly, the average player does not care about most of what you wrote about.  The only notible exception is the Galaxies NGE, which is hardly  considered recent by the standards of your subject line.

Heres what you missed from a real games perspective:

Earth & Beyond: The devs thought that simulating real space travel was a great idea.  They took EVE and WOW-ified it, which gamers simply did not like.  Couple that with literal 35+ minute travel times where there was no user interaction and you just created a huge flop.

Anarchy Online: Remember black friday?  I do.  Was about 2 weeks after launch, where the devs decided to drop a patch on friday evening, then promptly left for the weekend.  That whole weekend resulted in mobs that simply could not die no matter what you did.  Each day the forums filled up with thousands of screaming angry players and NOT ONE WORD from the devs about the problem.  FInally Monday the devs posted a note about looking into the problem, but the problem they mentioned had nothing to do with the mob immortal issue!  Tuesday there was an emergency patch to fox the WRONG problem.  Wednesday there was an emergency patch to fix the emergency patch to fix the mobs health issue, which they never acknowledged inb the first place.  The absolute worst case of communication ever followed by an incredible lack of customer service.

Chronicles of Spellborn: Take good graphics, a pretty world, decent music/sound, and combine it with the world worst gameplay system and you have COS.  The twirly hotbar just frustrated people to no end, and the lack of meaning to armor and weapons left nothing to show for your hard work.  Even at its height the servers were an empty place and the F2P turned out to be a complete farce and a lie.  It is noted that in a last ditch effort to keep it running the company is attempting to implement a micro-pay system, but that wont help the complete lack of gameplay or value placed to your time.

Darkfall Online: This one needs no real blast from me, just read the forums here to see what its all about.  The game is chock full of brokem promises and systems that never came to be.  The graphics are sub-par, the sound lacking in being interesting, and the entire game just degenerated into an exploiting-macroing gankfest.  The lastest chapter is the companies last ditch money grab by renegging on their promise to NA players to let them transfer to the NA server.  By stating "We never said it WOULD not cost anything"  they are now forcing NA players to do one of three things: Wait and transfer a gimped character to NA for a hefty FEE, or abandon all your work and rebuy the entire client for NA and start over.  Either way NA people that believed the promise of their own server are now both wasting time on EU and spending twice for the same client.  Worst method of retaining customers ever.

Well, there ya go, from the eyes of a real player with real issues other than the fluffy ones you wrote about.

Well, your list and my list don't compare, that's for sure, seeing as how they are actually based on two different topics. The list that you give is actually a list of serious design mistakes. My list revolves around actual mistakes made by developers in the creation of their games, generally revolving around PR repercussions: STO's miscommunication, DX10 highlighting a game's other flaws,  the NGE alienating a large number of players, a prominent developer putting down microtransactions and then including them in his next game...

As to your post, I can't for the life of me figure out what you mean by real life context and how my list don't have it. Of course I'm an editor first. I get paid to be an editor first. Just out of curiosity though, what criteria do I have to meet to become a "real gamer" is there a secret handshake? Do I have to play dues every month? Do we get to wear funny hats and drive tiny cars in parades? Seriously.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by sfraden

Im going to take a different approch in a reply here:  I found your top 5 to be ....well....   lacking in real world context.  It is quite apparent your an editor first and a player second.  Also if I were to post about sucha  topic as yours, I would be labeled a troll or a fanboi, and prolly run off the boards as a result.

Honestly, the average player does not care about most of what you wrote about.  The only notible exception is the Galaxies NGE, which is hardly  considered recent by the standards of your subject line.

Heres what you missed from a real games perspective:

Earth & Beyond: The devs thought that simulating real space travel was a great idea.  They took EVE and WOW-ified it, which gamers simply did not like.  Couple that with literal 35+ minute travel times where there was no user interaction and you just created a huge flop.

Anarchy Online: Remember black friday?  I do.  Was about 2 weeks after launch, where the devs decided to drop a patch on friday evening, then promptly left for the weekend.  That whole weekend resulted in mobs that simply could not die no matter what you did.  Each day the forums filled up with thousands of screaming angry players and NOT ONE WORD from the devs about the problem.  FInally Monday the devs posted a note about looking into the problem, but the problem they mentioned had nothing to do with the mob immortal issue!  Tuesday there was an emergency patch to fox the WRONG problem.  Wednesday there was an emergency patch to fix the emergency patch to fix the mobs health issue, which they never acknowledged inb the first place.  The absolute worst case of communication ever followed by an incredible lack of customer service.

Chronicles of Spellborn: Take good graphics, a pretty world, decent music/sound, and combine it with the world worst gameplay system and you have COS.  The twirly hotbar just frustrated people to no end, and the lack of meaning to armor and weapons left nothing to show for your hard work.  Even at its height the servers were an empty place and the F2P turned out to be a complete farce and a lie.  It is noted that in a last ditch effort to keep it running the company is attempting to implement a micro-pay system, but that wont help the complete lack of gameplay or value placed to your time.

Darkfall Online: This one needs no real blast from me, just read the forums here to see what its all about.  The game is chock full of brokem promises and systems that never came to be.  The graphics are sub-par, the sound lacking in being interesting, and the entire game just degenerated into an exploiting-macroing gankfest.  The lastest chapter is the companies last ditch money grab by renegging on their promise to NA players to let them transfer to the NA server.  By stating "We never said it WOULD not cost anything"  they are now forcing NA players to do one of three things: Wait and transfer a gimped character to NA for a hefty FEE, or abandon all your work and rebuy the entire client for NA and start over.  Either way NA people that believed the promise of their own server are now both wasting time on EU and spending twice for the same client.  Worst method of retaining customers ever.

Well, there ya go, from the eyes of a real player with real issues other than the fluffy ones you wrote about.

Well, your list and my list don't compare, that's for sure, seeing as how they are actually based on two different topics. The list that you give is actually a list of serious design mistakes. My list revolves around actual mistakes made by developers in the creation of their games, generally revolving around PR repercussions: STO's miscommunication, DX10 highlighting a game's other flaws,  the NGE alienating a large number of players, a prominent developer putting down microtransactions and then including them in his next game...

As to your post, I can't for the life of me figure out what you mean by real life context and how my list doesn't have it. Of course I'm an editor first. I get paid to be an editor first. Just out of curiosity though, what criteria do I have to meet to become a "real gamer" is there a secret handshake? Do I have to play dues every month? Do we get to wear funny hats and drive tiny cars in parades? Seriously.

Originally posted by sfraden

Im going to take a different approch in a reply here:  I found your top 5 to be ....well....   lacking in real world context.  It is quite apparent your an editor first and a player second.  Also if I were to post about sucha  topic as yours, I would be labeled a troll or a fanboi, and prolly run off the boards as a result.

Honestly, the average player does not care about most of what you wrote about.  The only notible exception is the Galaxies NGE, which is hardly  considered recent by the standards of your subject line.

Heres what you missed from a real games perspective:

Earth & Beyond: The devs thought that simulating real space travel was a great idea.  They took EVE and WOW-ified it, which gamers simply did not like.  Couple that with literal 35+ minute travel times where there was no user interaction and you just created a huge flop.

Anarchy Online: Remember black friday?  I do.  Was about 2 weeks after launch, where the devs decided to drop a patch on friday evening, then promptly left for the weekend.  That whole weekend resulted in mobs that simply could not die no matter what you did.  Each day the forums filled up with thousands of screaming angry players and NOT ONE WORD from the devs about the problem.  FInally Monday the devs posted a note about looking into the problem, but the problem they mentioned had nothing to do with the mob immortal issue!  Tuesday there was an emergency patch to fox the WRONG problem.  Wednesday there was an emergency patch to fix the emergency patch to fix the mobs health issue, which they never acknowledged inb the first place.  The absolute worst case of communication ever followed by an incredible lack of customer service.

Chronicles of Spellborn: Take good graphics, a pretty world, decent music/sound, and combine it with the world worst gameplay system and you have COS.  The twirly hotbar just frustrated people to no end, and the lack of meaning to armor and weapons left nothing to show for your hard work.  Even at its height the servers were an empty place and the F2P turned out to be a complete farce and a lie.  It is noted that in a last ditch effort to keep it running the company is attempting to implement a micro-pay system, but that wont help the complete lack of gameplay or value placed to your time.

Darkfall Online: This one needs no real blast from me, just read the forums here to see what its all about.  The game is chock full of brokem promises and systems that never came to be.  The graphics are sub-par, the sound lacking in being interesting, and the entire game just degenerated into an exploiting-macroing gankfest.  The lastest chapter is the companies last ditch money grab by renegging on their promise to NA players to let them transfer to the NA server.  By stating "We never said it WOULD not cost anything"  they are now forcing NA players to do one of three things: Wait and transfer a gimped character to NA for a hefty FEE, or abandon all your work and rebuy the entire client for NA and start over.  Either way NA people that believed the promise of their own server are now both wasting time on EU and spending twice for the same client.  Worst method of retaining customers ever.

Well, there ya go, from the eyes of a real player with real issues other than the fluffy ones you wrote about.

No, I think you would get run out of here because of stupid posts like this. He was giving us the 5 biggest blunders on the business side of the companies. These  Multi Million-Billion Dollar companies and their not so smart business choices. He is an Editor, he is doing his job. He is not just one of us, he is not coming on here as just a random Forum Poster. You are explaing bad game mechanics and things people didn't like on how the game was played.

You can either make a list about 5 bad business choices or 5 bad game designs. Talking about businesses, everybody is on the same page, everybody feels the pain, just may not have them in that same order. When you talk about games, you are talking about opinion on what he himself thinks is bad, which not everybody will feel the same way.

What you're mainly doing is just stating your opinions on game design and what you're doing, which has been done on here millions of times. So, yes please run away and stop posting things like this.

Originally posted by sfraden

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by sfraden

Well, your list and my list don't compare, that's for sure, seeing as how they are actually based on two different topics. The list that you give is actually a list of serious design mistakes. My list revolves around actual mistakes made by developers in the creation of their games, generally revolving around PR repercussions: STO's miscommunication, DX10 highlighting a game's other flaws,  the NGE alienating a large number of players, a prominent developer putting down microtransactions and then including them in his next game...

As to your post, I can't for the life of me figure out what you mean by real life context and how my list don't have it. Of course I'm an editor first. I get paid to be an editor first. Just out of curiosity though, what criteria do I have to meet to become a "real gamer" is there a secret handshake? Do I have to play dues every month? Do we get to wear funny hats and drive tiny cars in parades? Seriously.

 

Since when is a 'serious design Mistake' not a blunder?  Is not everything I mentioned a direct result of "mistakes made by developers in the creation of their games" ??  This seems one in the same here, now your spltting hairs to make a difference.  Someone made a bad decision and it was implemented,

As for my comment on being an editor first, well, it was not a put down, nor intended as one.  Its just a diffeerence of perspective based on your position.  What I draw from all of this is that to you, the PR spins, the marketing, the promises and the text mean more to you than actual game play does.  When I saw your topic, I jumped into it expecting to find a great list of flops and flubs by MMO companies, but instead I get a list of PR mistakes.  I feel that as a gamer myself, I could care less about PR from companies.  Any gamer with more than a month of playtime knows that all companies over hype and over promise everything.  They lie to the playerbase to hook them, then hoping the end product will keep them paying for it.  Everyone knows that companies put their collective feet in their mouth, often going back on things they said before.  None of this is new.

What I was attempting top post was that I felt let down by your article; I was expecting one thing, but instead got something else.  Mind you, your content was spot on and I agree with everything there, but to myself, none of that matters as much as how gameplay actually effects me as a player, which is how I see a 'blunder' or problem.

Do I truly care if company X is having a PR nightmare?  Nope.  Do I care if Company X's game is making me pissed off due to play-problems? Yep.  Thats the difference.

Seriously.

 

yup. it's a different list, for a different day.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by sfraden

yup. it's a different list, for a different day.

Looking forward to it... eagerly
 

In the grand scheme of things, the NGE isn't recent.  It's ancient history, despite the preCU neckbeard psychos that still feel like SmedlyTorresCao personally came to their house, slept with their wife/mother/significant other, ate all the food out of the fridge, and slapped them in the face personally.

You just had to open that can of worms, didn't you, Jon?  Does mmorpg.com really need more page hits from disgruntled preCU fans?

I'd think that the recent PR nightmare that CME/Firesky has been going through with mmoguls and pyramid schemes and employee walkouts due to 4 months of no payment would easily be number 1.

What I've learnt in life is theres always an angry ex SWG player. Everywhere I go I can menton SWG and theres someone there that goes "I used to play SWG too until the NGE/CU" lol.

Decent article, maybe some blunders should've been included over others, but that is all in the eye of the beholder.

Also, I'd like to point out that the picture used in the News Scroller for this article makes it look like the poor female is about to get raped (female face being smothered by a large square hand attached to a hairy arm). Or it could be just me.

Originally posted by weblinkz2002

Decent article, maybe some blunders should've been included over others, but that is all in the eye of the beholder.

Also, I'd like to point out that the picture used in the News Scroller for this article makes it look like the poor female is about to get raped (female face being smothered by a large square hand attached to a hairy arm). Or it could be just me.

Not anymore, holy crap! I never noticed that. MMORPG.com blunder?

June 26, 2003 - Star Wars Galaxies is released.

April 17, 2005 - Combat Upgrade is implemented

November 15, 2005 - NGE aka New Game Enhancements is implemented. (The day SWG died).

Its been 3 years and 8+ months since NGE was introduced, its really not recent, but again, its not that long ago either.

The top 2 were definitely spot on.

But I have some complaints about the discussion of #2. AoC isn't the first time Funcom has done this, it isn't even the second. They do it with everything Gaute Godager has been involved in.

Funcom PR flops:

• Touting the original release of AO as anything that worked.
• Touting the notum wars PvP expansion as any kind of balanced gameplay. The game has never had balanced PvP and I doubt it ever will.
• Shadowlands was huge in stuff on the box that didn't make it into the game. Land control in Shadowlands? Still isn't in the game.
• Alien invasion. Lots of buildings you could enter were advertised as well as this supposedly being a roleplayers expansion with lots of social content. Never happened.

Funcom's only mistake was thinking they could do it with a new MMO that wasn't brainwashed into accepting their repeat bad behavior.

Originally posted by Wizardry

There was one more that stood out in my mind,but it has been too long to remember what game it was.Some game offered a large cash prize and never came through with it.

 

 

 

I think that was Risk Your Life

Originally posted by DevilXaphan

Yeah i am suprised that Darfall was not on the list considering the manking cheats and hacking going on in the game, plus the bad reviews it got.

No. This was about *blunders*. Adding Darkfall to the list would have elevated that to DISASTER...

 I am surprised that Trial of Atlantis for DaoC is not mentioned. Before that expansion DaoC had around 250k subs which was the 2nd largest MMO at the time holding 60% of the player base of EQ.

3 months after the expansion DaoC had lost half its players!

ToA was voted the most unpopular expansion ever made for a MMO at IGN and held that record for 4 years.

Its not quite at the lvl of NGE but its a far more serious blunder than any of the others mentioned in the article.

Originally posted by afoaa

 I am surprised that Trial of Atlantis for DaoC is not mentioned. Before that expansion DaoC had around 250k subs which was the 2nd largest MMO at the time holding 60% of the player base of EQ.

3 months after the expansion DaoC had lost half its players!

ToA was voted the most unpopular expansion ever made for a MMO at IGN and held that record for 4 years.

Its not quite at the lvl of NGE but its a far more serious blunder than any of the others mentioned in the article.

fully agree

DAOC: TOA was the 2nd biggest blunder since NGE