i so agree Great read jon

Originally posted by Wraithone

Naming and shaming tends to be bad for ones business model. 

 

I guess if your business model is to be an extention of a developers marketing department it is.  I kind of expect more from an MMO news/reviews site.

Originally posted by mmogamefan

Originally posted by Wraithone

Naming and shaming tends to be bad for ones business model. 

 

I guess if your business model is to be an extention of a developers marketing department it is.  I kind of expect more from an MMO news/reviews site.

Well, if you ever happen to come upon one of those mythical beasts, I'd be fascinated to learn of it. ^^  Gaming sites walk a fine line between being part of the industry hype machine, and presenting legitimate perspectives and information. Keep in mind that ANY sites reviews are simply the OPINION of the reviewer.  Also keep in mind that everyone has an agenda and bias.  The business of business IS business. Its all about making a profit.  Its also about managing peoples perceptions and expectations.  Some do a better job than others in that regard.

Hate too be the ass but mmos are makin waaaay to much money to care honestly mise well change the name of this site because mmos companies i really dont see them changing anytime soon except maybe make nothing but fb games thats were the money is now.

Originally posted by Wraithone

Originally posted by Xero_Chance

Some publishers need a swift kick in the ass by the media sometimes. I only wished that you actually listed culprits so they could be singled out and widely scorned. I know that doesn't sound very good from a media business standpoint, but for the sake of the entire industry somebody's got to be the whistle blower.

 

Naming and shaming tends to be bad for ones business model. ^^  Not to mention, that most of us that have been around for a long while, have our own personal list of those who merit being inducted into the MMO Hall of Shame. 

We could start, way back with the howls that resulted from the creation of Trammel in UO, the closing of Earth and Beyond (EA), the destruction of Asherons Call2 (Microsoft/Turbine), the tragic situation of Mythica(Microsoft), the endless, eternal shame of the NGE in SWG (SOE), right up to the rushed, half baked game that Final Fantasy 14 (SE) turned out to be.  But what would be the point? Just so long as players continue to fall for marketing hype, and shell out for half finished products, the trend will continue.

 

Originally posted by outfctrl

One game in specific comes in mind and I got sucked into buying it.

Xsyon

Sure, it's an Indie developer, but allot of the issues should have been worked out over a year of tweaking it.

Who knows, the game may still make it .

 

The game is in PRELUDE. A beta if you will, you can pay for it and support the 7 man team making an entire game with 120KM of map or you can just complain.

The game is playable and is like a Shadowbaners' version of Minecraft, things are being added and changed and the team are so dedicated. The Xsyon team actually talk to the community, as in, IRC and joking about with us (sheep-raping dragons lol).

I give kudos to them cause they've done what Mojang have done. Apart from Mojang  don't offer a FULL refund like these guys do!!

Originally posted by Palebane

In my opinion, one big reason developers are able to get away with unfinished releases is pre-order sales. We have noone to blame but ourselves for that one. The companies can feed off of our ignorance and desperation, but I believe the consumer is ultimately responsible. Inform yourself. Use patience.

 You've taking the words right out of my mouth, it's the fault of the customer and none others. If none would buy it till they where properly informed or waited for reviews, they would not dare bring out crap games. I think they should actually give a 15 free day trial on launch day and go from there.

Mr Wood I have disagreed with some of your opinions in the past, however I can honestly say this column is one I 100% agree with.  Its about time MMO developers and publishers realised that charging us for a box of a game and then charging us a monthly fee for an unfinished buggy release is not acceptable.

Honestly I have to salute Square Enix for taking the step of suspending monthly fees for players of FFXIV online.  Yes you can say they should not have released the game, i was beta testing it and we screamed at them about how unfinished it was, but atleast they recognised it and took steps accordingly.

well the problem described in this article happens a lot when the game devs dream too big ... either too big for their current budget, dead-lines or in-house expertise

Now I'm not saying I want them to drop their standards or stop pushing boundaries, but for launch the sole aim and goal should be a complete and working deliverable, i.e. a game that works and is fun to play. Even if it is a gazillion features short of what you originally intended. Those gazillion features can be implemented gradually

A game at launch should always be stable, and should not need any pending patches to make it a playable experience

Originally posted by Kothoses

Mr Wood I have disagreed with some of your opinions in the past, however I can honestly say this column is one I 100% agree with.  Its about time MMO developers and publishers realised that charging us for a box of a game and then charging us a monthly fee for an unfinished buggy release is not acceptable.

 

Honestly I have to salute Square Enix for taking the step of suspending monthly fees for players of FFXIV online.  Yes you can say they should not have released the game, i was beta testing it and we screamed at them about how unfinished it was, but atleast they recognised it and took steps accordingly.

Well... Before we give SE much more credit than is warranted, the fact that the game was panned by just about every major game site, and its sales had dropped off, may have been a major factor in their decision.  MMO's typically have a retention problem after the first free month, but the prospects of losing the overwhelming majority of their player base is no doubt one of the factors in their decision as well.  Final Fantasy 14 should never have been released in the state that it was. It not only damages the brand, but makes SE look bad as well.

Ok i agree with what you said in your colume but how do you squar your deal in patnering with Funcom ? I would say besides maybe Sony there pretty high up there in what you disagreed with.

FFXIV and Vanguard certainly comes to mind here

I agree with this article in principle - games should be finished and not 'crap' out of the gate  .  I'm just not sure what 'crap' games Jon is referring to.  Almost every game I've played at launch has had issues that did not crop up during beta that devs have had to struggle for the first few months to fix.  Even RIFT has had broken mechanics that has delayed new "content" (whatever you define 'content' to be).

I'll jump off the tracks just a bit to add that I see no problem with smaller 'indie' companies needing subs to fund future development.  If we continue to have mammoth expectations on smaller companies to release polished, finished products out of the gate, they might as well sell out to SOE or EA. (Again, these issues may not even be what the article was about...I can't tell :P)  We are kiling these smaller companies by putting too high expectations on them.  During betas we're friendly and constructive, then when the game launches we go into Mr Hyde mode and rip the game to shreds.  

The only bonafide example of a game that was confirmed to be 'crap' out of the gate in recent history was FFIV (this was admitted by SE) and they haven't been 'quick' at all about charging the 14.99/mo (since they're not charging for a sub yet as far as I know).  You call another game "crap" and I'll show you gamers that beg to differ.  You say another game lacks "content" and I'll show you guilds that spend hours on end having fun in-game.

One may see a game as 'crap' and 'lacking content' but others are enjoying a game and have built a community.

One example is Aion.  The game is huge in Asia and limping in the West.  Why? To put it plainly...we equate "content" with endgame/dungeons/instances.  We do not consider a new costume to be content (proven by the Goblin Santa example in the article).  The reality is that some people do actually see this as real content. 

MMORPG...only one letter (G) referrs to 'content' and its only paritally.  The true content of an MMORPG is the interaction between players and the communities that are built within the game world.  If someone wants more rails to ride on, they'll always complain about being bored until the next update.

Originally posted by Urvan

FFXIV and Vanguard certainly comes to mind here

 

I agree that FFIV wasn't ready for release.  In his article, however Jon specifially mentioned incomplete games that are 'quick' to charge 14.99...which hasn't happened at all since they're not charging sub fees yet.

(editied for clarification)

Excellent.

Totally agree.

I'm so tired of subscription game companies acting like they are unpaid volunteers with no responibility to supply a polished product.

Originally posted by kaiser3282

By your logic, a dev can make lets say 80% of the game good, but then 20% of it is missing things and has some bugs/broken stuff, works in progress, etc.... and that 20% completely invalidates the other 80% simply by being there. Think of it like a girlfriend who you treat perfectly, but you have a couple of habits/preferences/opinions that she doesnt like, or maybe you just started your career but arent quite in your prime yet but will be there eventually. That girlfriend nags at you constantly about those things that she doesnt like, and never acknowledges the good things about you, or the fact that you are trying to advance yourself but thats not good enough, you have to be at the highest position in your carerr right that moment. Sound like a good way for a girlfriend to be? Ignore all the good because theres some bad? Should a reviewer do the same and focus purely on the bad only giving low scores because there are bad things about the game, and completely ignoring the things that are good about it?

Hell, you guys act like reviewers are going around flooding the sites with a bunch of games rated a 10, when really most of them sit around like 7-8. Do you really consider that good? 7/10 = 70%, which would be a C in most school systems. C = average / ok, passing but needs improvement.... thats far from an A+. Should teachers just start throwing Fs around and failing all their students if theyre not scoring 90-100% on every single thing? Of course not. Why should a reviewer give every game that has some problems an F (completely failing and unplayable) instead of a C (alright, some good/great things, but needs a lot of work in some areas)?

 NO.. again.   This is really not as hard a concept as you make it out to be.  If a game is 80% complete then it would have an 80 set as it's maximum score.  So if it were 80% complete, but otherwise was a PERFECT GAME it would get an 80.  If it was an average game... the fact that it was unfinished would obviously make it an instant failure.  Also let's be blatantly honest here.  The games we are talking about are released WAY less than 80% done. 

Again though.. I provided a very specific example of exactly what I am talking about as opposed to your theoretical strawman.  Here is my example (for the second time...)

A review contains this line (Note that this review as made 6 months AFTER the game released!!!:

"Taking heed of the screaming, disgruntled customers in the corner, I feel we must first address the biggest issue regarding Mortal Online. While this is a game with masses of potential, of current, this game is nearer to state of closed-beta rather than retail release. From the desktop-launcher to the combat system, Star Vault’s creation is riddled with bugs, glitches, errors, misjudgements and everything in-between."

And the summary score for that same game was described as:  The game has a few standout features with few, if any, glaring detractors.

Does that make ANY sense?  Few if any glaring detractors?  After saying the statement above? 

No.. as I said.. I commend the author for the article but as the managing editor of this very site HE is responsible for propagating the acceptance of the very same unfinished product that he rails against.   Maybe this article is a turning point for him... we will see.

Having worked for a software company as a software games tester, i can say with complete honesty, that the main post whilst a genuine expectation, will never happen.

Why? Because the developers aren't in charge.  The publishers force them into stupid mindless contracts that force the games onto the market in the simply disgusting state they arrive.

The main issue, I've always had, is that to patch a game, 99% of developers use a previous build to the last patched version as a basis for the next patch.  Thus they are continually reintroducing bugs back into the game, everytime they patch and the developers themselves cannot, simply, cannot remember every single bug in a version two previous to fix the further complications this causes.

further to this, it's all about money, if the game fails, the publisher will blame the developers and the developers will blame the publisher.  It's a win win situation for all.  Noone really cares about the customer.  That's the whole point of customer service these days, to make false promises and make a show of caring whilst completely ignoring everyone.

Working as intended.  The pefect excuse for "I don't care".

Originally posted by Rugster

Why? Because the developers aren't in charge.  The publishers force them into stupid mindless contracts that force the games onto the market in the simply disgusting state they arrive.

Well developers also commit to unrealistic timeframes for projects they have no chance of completing.  To many games cutting and slashing features before release and still releasing bug filled incomplete projects. 

 Thank you for posting the article it was a wonderful read, and to be honest, the absolute TRUTH.

       I have said for years, its time to back the train up and start over right. Don't Release a product that is half finished and then promise you will add to it during the year..