Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Lazarus71

Originally posted by Ozmodan

There has been a lot of bad releases in this genre.  Hard to pick even 5 out of that morass.  Anyone trying to put Wow on that list did not play the game at release though.  Any problems Blizzard had were minor compared to those on this list. 

I think Aion belongs on this list because of NCSoft being extremely cheap, they did not want to spend much on servers to handle the initial load and in so doing made almost everyone suffer.  With their limited characters on the account it made the queues even worse. 

 

I played WoW at launch and I don't know what game you were palying but it was pretty much unplayable for a month or longer from server crashes and long ass ques. Hell they gave all of us subscribers free play time on top of the free month becuase of it.  If Aion belongs on that list then WoW definately does. As I said before though its good to be the King lol.

Sorry you did NOT play Wow at the start then.  The game was fine.  There were a few hours downtime initially, but I played everyday and had few problems.  The only thing your post shows is ignorance!

Aion on the other hand I could not even play because the server queue was sometimes over 7 hours long!

So much for the Aion bigots!

 You are showing your true colors by first telling me I didn't play at launch and then insulting me. I was in closed beta and then immediately purchased the game and started playing at launch. I played the game for 3 1/2 yrs after launch. You obviously were not there at launch if you think none of those problems I mentioned happened.  There was major crashing of the servers and long extended periods of maintenance. Also horrible que times and as I said and I am sure others can attest to the fact they gave out free play time to players shortly after launch because of all the problems. There are plenty of people who can back up what I said about WoWs launch, hell I am not the only one in this thread alone to talk about it. Please get a clue...

Your statement that refers to me as an Aion bigot is also untrue. While I do play the game I have barely touched it since purchase and have no rose colored glasses on when it come to the game and its shortcomings. I was merely pointing out that WoW deserved to be on that list more than Aion.

edit: wow did I just use the word launch that many times...... sorry lol

Originally posted by Lazarus71

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Lazarus71

Originally posted by Ozmodan

There has been a lot of bad releases in this genre.  Hard to pick even 5 out of that morass.  Anyone trying to put Wow on that list did not play the game at release though.  Any problems Blizzard had were minor compared to those on this list. 

I think Aion belongs on this list because of NCSoft being extremely cheap, they did not want to spend much on servers to handle the initial load and in so doing made almost everyone suffer.  With their limited characters on the account it made the queues even worse. 

 

I played WoW at launch and I don't know what game you were palying but it was pretty much unplayable for a month or longer from server crashes and long ass ques. Hell they gave all of us subscribers free play time on top of the free month becuase of it.  If Aion belongs on that list then WoW definately does. As I said before though its good to be the King lol.

Sorry you did NOT play Wow at the start then.  The game was fine.  There were a few hours downtime initially, but I played everyday and had few problems.  The only thing your post shows is ignorance!

Aion on the other hand I could not even play because the server queue was sometimes over 7 hours long!

So much for the Aion bigots!

 

 You are showing your true colors by first telling me I didn't play at launch and then insulting me. I was in closed beta and then immediately purchased the game and started playing at launch. I played the game for 3 1/2 yrs after launch. You obviously were not there at launch if you think none of those problems I mentioned happened.  There was major crashing of the servers and long extended periods of maintenance. Also horrible que times and as I said and I am sure others can attest to the fact they gave out free play time to players shortly after launch because of all the problems. There are plenty of people who can back up what I said about WoWs launch, hell I am not the only one in this thread alone to talk about it. Please get a clue...

Your statement that refers to me as an Aion bigot is also untrue. While I do play the game I have barely touched it since purchase and have no rose colored glasses on when it come to the game and its shortcomings. I was merely pointing out that WoW deserved to be on that list more than Aion.

edit: wow did I just use the word launch that many times...... sorry lol

I  was there  2nd day after launch and i dont remember it being as bad as you say, there were a few problems (que's and a crash or two) that i experienced. I'm sure Blizzard never expected a million+ people to buy the game on the first week.So ofcourse there were gonna be que's and some overload crashes.Yes i got my free month too, but i never looked back on WoW as a bad release game.

Originally posted by Rampage9799

Originally posted by Lazarus71

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by Lazarus71

Originally posted by Ozmodan

There has been a lot of bad releases in this genre.  Hard to pick even 5 out of that morass.  Anyone trying to put Wow on that list did not play the game at release though.  Any problems Blizzard had were minor compared to those on this list. 

I think Aion belongs on this list because of NCSoft being extremely cheap, they did not want to spend much on servers to handle the initial load and in so doing made almost everyone suffer.  With their limited characters on the account it made the queues even worse. 

 

I played WoW at launch and I don't know what game you were palying but it was pretty much unplayable for a month or longer from server crashes and long ass ques. Hell they gave all of us subscribers free play time on top of the free month becuase of it.  If Aion belongs on that list then WoW definately does. As I said before though its good to be the King lol.

Sorry you did NOT play Wow at the start then.  The game was fine.  There were a few hours downtime initially, but I played everyday and had few problems.  The only thing your post shows is ignorance!

Aion on the other hand I could not even play because the server queue was sometimes over 7 hours long!

So much for the Aion bigots!

 

 You are showing your true colors by first telling me I didn't play at launch and then insulting me. I was in closed beta and then immediately purchased the game and started playing at launch. I played the game for 3 1/2 yrs after launch. You obviously were not there at launch if you think none of those problems I mentioned happened.  There was major crashing of the servers and long extended periods of maintenance. Also horrible que times and as I said and I am sure others can attest to the fact they gave out free play time to players shortly after launch because of all the problems. There are plenty of people who can back up what I said about WoWs launch, hell I am not the only one in this thread alone to talk about it. Please get a clue...

Your statement that refers to me as an Aion bigot is also untrue. While I do play the game I have barely touched it since purchase and have no rose colored glasses on when it come to the game and its shortcomings. I was merely pointing out that WoW deserved to be on that list more than Aion.

edit: wow did I just use the word launch that many times...... sorry lol

 

I  was there  2nd day after launch and i dont remember it being as bad as you say, there were a few problems (que's and a crash or two) that i experienced. I'm sure Blizzard never expected a million+ people to buy the game on the first week.So ofcourse there were gonna be que's and some overload crashes.Yes i got my free month too, but i never looked back on WoW as a bad release game.

Just do a search for "WoWs problems at launch" or any number of  other topics regarding WoWs launch in a search engine and you will find tons of info on just the problems I mentioned when WoW was released. There are always going to be people who say they never experienced these problems becuase of server choice or other factors though.

As to your statemnet about me inferring WoW was a bad release game. I never said that or thought that, the criteria for the list was scariest launches and Aion was put on that list for que issues. I was just pointing out that WoW had plenty of problems at launch including ridiculously long que times.  Therefore it deserved to be on the list more in my opinion than Aion.

How in the world did Vanguard: Saga of heroes not make it into this list???? wow

It was the worst MMO game I ever played at launch. Yet you put aion in over a Queue problem? Vanguard was riddled with huge, laughable bugs, many of which persisted in the game for a half a year before being addressed. They are just now finally trying to claim the game is all fixed....2 or 3 years later.

How could you leave Vanguard off? It's been like 3 years and they are still fixing the game.

I know Aion had queues but it's difficult to predict demand. Vanguard....what else needs to be said, highly anticipated, total let down on every level?

Also Horizons was pretty scary also. Another highly anticipated game that crashed headfirst into the dirt on every level.

How about Hellgate London?

Asherons Call 2? Lord talk about scary launch, you could hardly chat for 6 months...

The list goes on and on...

Aye WW2 Online will always be in my Top5. Flying Tanks, Slideshow lagg, don't even try to fly a plane, and the game still sucks 10 years later.

A memorable FLOP.

I just might be the only one in .. the world.. that did not have any problems with Anarchy when that launch. Not only could i log in with no problem, but i never crash either.

WoW had me waiting a bit a few times,

Aion was never a problem, a bit boring game, no new innovation i mean at all, but no problems either.

SWG nah.. didnt have problem there at all, remembering a very good experience until i ran out of content.

Age of Conan... nope no problmes, ran pretty well, was lack of content of course, but no technical problems to speak of

then i bought, yeah i know.. Fifa Manager 10... omg, crashed in the main menu, couldnt save the game, crashes very often during gameplay.

Conclusion: It is my experience that MMO's are a lot better quality assured than standalone games. The customer amounts is about the same, but a lot more effort is put into making the MMO work.

I didn't see anyone mention Dark and Light for that list.  Was that launch so bad that the MMORPG community has collectively purged the game from its memory.  That launch had everything wrong with it:  billing, gamplay, game cancellation issues and lawsuits.

Also noteworthy bad launches:

EQ1, WWII Online, Vanguard.

I was at the AO launch and, yes, it was that bad. 

I knew AO would be number one on list even before i clicked on the link. Nothing can beat the worst Launch in MMO history. It has left a deep impression on me (not in a good way) since it was my first MMO and yes i was there at the launch day.

It seems a lot of people either skimmed or, otherwise, did not read the article.  If people were unable to play the game, then it was a bad launch, and for many thousands of people, they could not play Aion at launch.  I think it earned its place on the list, just for that and the ignorance of NCSoft, who knew how many pre-orders they had, not to have more servers.  Keep up the good work, Dana.  I enjoy reading your articles, and the comments that follow.

Sorry you did NOT play Wow at the start then.  The game was fine.  There were a few hours downtime initially, but I played everyday and had few problems.  The only thing your post shows is ignorance!

Aion on the other hand I could not even play because the server queue was sometimes over 7 hours long!

So much for the Aion bigots!

Either you didn't play WoW at launch or your flat out lying.  Any person that was there for WoW's launch knows as much.

Also, WoW didn't sell "over a million" copies in a few weeks.  By Thanksgiving they had sold 350k copies.

Thats complete rubbish regarding Aion.

You only waited in ques if you ignored NCSofts suggestions regarding which servers to start on.

NCSoft to let people know that certain servers had way to many people signed and did suggest

servers with smaller populations.  Its not thier fault if people chose to ignore that advice and signed

of for over populated servers anyways.

Its just like retards buying a hot ass cup of coffee and getting pissed off because they got burned.

They were warned and chose to ignore the warning. 

J

Originally posted by Mitara

I just might be the only one in .. the world.. that did not have any problems with Anarchy when that launch. Not only could i log in with no problem, but i never crash either.

WoW had me waiting a bit a few times,

Aion was never a problem, a bit boring game, no new innovation i mean at all, but no problems either.

SWG nah.. didnt have problem there at all, remembering a very good experience until i ran out of content.

Age of Conan... nope no problmes, ran pretty well, was lack of content of course, but no technical problems to speak of

then i bought, yeah i know.. Fifa Manager 10... omg, crashed in the main menu, couldnt save the game, crashes very often during gameplay.

Conclusion: It is my experience that MMO's are a lot better quality assured than standalone games. The customer amounts is about the same, but a lot more effort is put into making the MMO work.

I have a hard time believing your first sentence about AO. The whole game was shut down for extended periods of time.Maybe your Game Key worked but they had Hardware problems which effect everyone. Or maybe you only play 4 hours a week and just happened to play when it was working......
 

Originally posted by mmaize

Aion...really?  That's a good problem to have imo so long as you can react to it quickly.  I love how easily we forget or perhaps conveniently forget how WoW at launch had some servers that were completely unplayable, and Blizzard had to stop selling or limit copies of the game until they could compensate from a server standpoint.  It also had the exact same queue problem due to underestimated sales soo...

Not defending the issue entirely because queues suck don't get me wrong, but it most definitely doesn't qualify as one of the top scariest launches as aside from the queue issue Aion had none of the issues that many of it's predecesors faced like characters getting stuck in the environment all over the place, bugs, and outright game breaking game issues or undeveloped areas as some that were not on this list.

...???

WoW's discussed at the beginning of the article. No one's forgotten WoW's launch... conveniently or otherwise. In fact, it's brought up as a defense for any other poor launch to come since it was released. Even with MMOs whose fans normally bash and tear WoW to shreds in every way imaginable (which is almost any MMO that isn't WoW it seems), people will immediately prop it up as an example of how even a more successful MMO's rocky launch isn't really so bad... 

Originally posted by Dana

I suspect the line I'll be repeating this week (despite it being in the article) is: 

 

This is not about how good the games were at launch, just how bad their launches were.

 

...but anyway, here is time #1 :)

/em hands Dana a full pot of coffee.

Gonna be a long night :)

Seriously, though.. it does illustrate just how *serious* and defensive some people get when it comes to their game of choice when they can't just get into the spirit of a given article, have a laugh or at least an acknowledging nod and say "yeah, I can agree with that".

Though I suppose it would make these forums a little less interesting if everyone suddenly became open-minded and not hyper-protective of "their game".

Hell.. FFXI is my all-time favorite MMO and there's many things I'll defend it against (primarily ignorance or blatant misinformation), but I'll be the first to rag on it for its flaws and the various decisions by SE that made me think "WTF were they thinking?".

I would have included Seed on that list, given it launched because the devs were running out of money. Plus its launch was also its burial.

 With all due respect....

The author did NOT do his homework with this one.  Aion shouldn't even be on the list.  While they should maybe have had 1 or 2 more servers open; I'd probably put this in a top list of successful, smart, well planned launches.

1.  Yes there were people that waited 2-4 hours to get logged in to a server.  HOWEVER, there were no regions, none whatsoever, that required a wait in a queue.  The people that waited in queues chose to do so because they had decided on a server ahead of time and did not want to switch to one of the open servers with which had more room for population growth.

2.  The server Queues along with also controlling faction numbers per server was also very smart.  READ THIS:  Oh trust me I was ticked off trying to get a toon made during head start on the "right server" on the "right faction", but from a long term perspective this was the right hassle to cause people that weren't willing to move to other servers.

3.  Why......???    Warhammer.  Yup.   Warhammer.  Aion did not want to have a knee jerking reaction to the demand by creating more servers when they had plenty they could force the game population to balance out on.  Aion did not want to have low pop desolate servers that would then have to be merged and downsized like Warhammer had to do once the initial month launch hyped died down a bit.  NCSoft  wanted to have HEALTHY & BALANCED server populations for the actual subscribing community to play on.

Final Thought:  Sure they could have made a few different choices, but I think NCSoft played this one pretty close to right on.  Especially once they fixed the personal shop afk to skip the Queue issue.  After 1 or 2 weeks of the game being out tops I don't think anyone even mentioned anything about a Queue time or being mad about it.

Ok all done.  Carry on.  =)

Originally posted by scope006

 With all due respect....

 

The author did NOT do his homework with this one.  Aion shouldn't even be on the list.  While they should maybe have had 1 or 2 more servers open; I'd probably put this in a top list of successful, smart, well planned launches.

 

1.  Yes there were people that waited 2-4 hours to get logged in to a server.  HOWEVER, there were no regions, none whatsoever, that required a wait in a queue.  The people that waited in queues chose to do so because they had decided on a server ahead of time and did not want to switch to one of the open servers with which had more room for population growth.

 

2.  The server Queues along with also controlling faction numbers per server was also very smart.  READ THIS:  Oh trust me I was ticked off trying to get a toon made during head start on the "right server" on the "right faction", but from a long term perspective this was the right hassle to cause people that weren't willing to move to other servers.

 

3.  Why......???    Warhammer.  Yup.   Warhammer.  Aion did not want to have a knee jerking reaction to the demand by creating more servers when they had plenty they could force the game population to balance out on.  Aion did not want to have low pop desolate servers that would then have to be merged and downsized like Warhammer had to do once the initial month launch hyped died down a bit.  NCSoft  wanted to have HEALTHY & BALANCED server populations for the actual subscribing community to play on.

 

Final Thought:  Sure they could have made a few different choices, but I think NCSoft played this one pretty close to right on.  Especially once they fixed the personal shop afk to skip the Queue issue.  After 1 or 2 weeks of the game being out tops I don't think anyone even mentioned anything about a Queue time or being mad about it.

 

Ok all done.  Carry on.  =)

This is one of the better replies about aion. Something everyone is forgetting to mention they said there would be queue times before head start. That they were going to limit the number of players let in at first to keep the starting zones from being overcrowded. Then slowly let more people in if i remember correctly the first few hours they were only letting in 15% server cap then was bumped to 25% they did not get to over 50% till launch. This is smart planing imo not a bad launch.  I was on the 2nd highest pop server and only waited in queue over 2 hours 1 time. Granted that is a long time but if i chose to change to a lower pop server i would have only had a 30 min wait. Thats not as bad as some of the queues that wow had not to long ago and its been out for years.

www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/worldofwarcraft/show_msgs.php

People say that there was a 7 hour wait but there was never anyone that had to wait that long all the screenshots you see with 7 hour queue time are wrong. The system was new and had nothing to base a average wait time or how long it was taking people to get in.   

World of Warcraft and Vanguard easily beats the snot out of Aion and Darkfall on the list of worst launches -- especially because Vanguard and WoW were much more mainstream and their issues affected more people.

Even if WoW's queues were shorter, the fact that so many more people were affected by it and the game was tremendously hyped by comparison made their situation worse.

If anything, the way NCSoft dealt with Aion's server queues were the best thing they ever did -- they knew their game wasn't as mainstream, so they refused to simply add so many more servers that would eliminate the queues but reduce the average server population.

Originally posted by grimmbot

World of Warcraft and Vanguard easily beats the snot out of Aion and Darkfall on the list of worst launches -- especially because Vanguard and WoW were much more mainstream and their issues affected more people.

Even if WoW's queues were shorter, the fact that so many more people were affected by it and the game was tremendously hyped by comparison made their situation worse.

If anything, the way NCSoft dealt with Aion's server queues were the best thing they ever did -- they knew their game wasn't as mainstream, so they refused to simply add so many more servers that would eliminate the queues but reduce the average server population.

So in other words, planning for failure was a good idea?