I can understand the rateing, but really you can not expect a company like Masthead to have a start as good as a company that has millions to spend and the backing of the biggest media funds out there.
Why not? A lot of the problems for many of the new "sandbox" games is just oversight on how the systems work. Now, technical issues, yeah I could probably go with the money arguement. I think the biggest reason a lot of "sandbox" mmos are coming out and not doing so well is because they are insistent on making the game free-for-all pvp anywhere, anytime.
Eve was like that too when it came out. But the devs realized that not having some safe areas for people to play in was significantly hurting their subscription count. High subscription count does a few things for a game. First, it does give the devs more money to invest into game improvements, but it also gives players more people to interact with. History has shown that a game with a low population will also drive away new players, creating a downward spiral.
-------- "Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt: Front: UNO Chemistry Club Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I was involved with EarthRise early on, visiting the web site often and like many others, excited about its potential and providing our personal input years before EarthRise's release. Needless to say we had great hopes for the game but sadly, yet apparently out of necessity, EarthRise was released as a "Not Ready For Prime-Time" game.
The proof is in the pudding. Out less than a month now, EarthRise has one of the lowest posted scores ever when compared to early results of most other major releases, both by the MMORPG staff and by its individual subscribers.
Let's face it -- the business plan of releasing a game before it's ready is a bad idea. Planning to fix major game issues after selling the sizzle thus sucking in and pissing off their player base to get their money up front, then expecting them to pay to play while testing their beta product was never a good WTG (look at Eve On Line, Age of Conan, Vanguard, etc.).
Yes, some of those games lived through it and survived. But today, methinks that players, particularly the mature, die-hard, experienced player base, are much less likely to have any patience (read as ZERO Tolerance) with any MMO product that follows the "Not Ready For Prime-Time" business model and released clearly a long, long way from being finished.
And don't tell me an MMO is an ever-evolving project. There's an undeniable difference between releasing a solid product ready for retail sale and then building on it afterward (such as LotRO) as opposed to pushing an early beta product out the door (AoC, Vanguard). And yes, I was heavily involved in the Alpha and/or early Closed Beta for all three.
I was involved with EarthRise early on, visiting the web site often and like many others, excited about its potential and providing our personal input years before EarthRise's release. Needless to say we had great hopes for the game but sadly, yet apparently out of necessity, EarthRise was released as a "Not Ready For Prime-Time" game.
The proof is in the pudding. Out less than a month now, EarthRise has one of the lowest posted scores ever when compared to early results of most other major releases, both by the MMORPG staff and by its individual subscribers.
Let's face it -- the business plan of releasing a game before it's ready is a bad idea. Planning to fix major game issues after selling the sizzle thus sucking in and pissing off their player base to get their money up front, then expecting them to pay to play while testing their beta product was never a good WTG (look at Eve On Line, Age of Conan, Vanguard, etc.).
Yes, some of those games lived through it and survived. But today, methinks that players, particularly the mature, die-hard, experienced player base, are much less likely to have any patience (read as ZERO Tolerance) with any MMO product that follows the "Not Ready For Prime-Time" business model and released clearly a long, long way from being finished.
And don't tell me an MMO is an ever-evolving project. There's an undeniable difference between releasing a solid product ready for retail sale and then building on it afterward (such as LotRO) as opposed to pushing an early beta product out the door (AoC, Vanguard). And yes, I was heavily involved in the Alpha and/or early Closed Beta for all three.
Well, ER doesn't even qualify as a AAA title but yet MH charges more for the software than any AAA mmo released which those you mention are.
As it stands, ER is surely going to go down as one of the worst failures in mmo history, if not, thee worst.
Still waiting for the Jesus patch they promised.
Dark & Light would be the worst but this is down there with it.
What about Tabula Rasa and APB?
Nah, Tabula Rasa was actually better than ER and might have done better had they chose to sell it off to another company and potentially make something back from the $100+million they spent on development.
APB had a chance to be pretty freaking awesome. I played the beta and live til it shut down but the RTW really f'ed it up with severe imbalance issues favoring Enforcer and a failed fee concept. Either a flat monthly fee or free2play with a cash shop are the only viable options.
Would be nice to see a 6-months review, since the game has improved alot since launch.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by Neloth
Originally posted by nmalthus
Originally posted by intoExile
As it stands, ER is surely going to go down as one of the worst failures in mmo history, if not, thee worst.
Still waiting for the Jesus patch they promised.
Dark & Light would be the worst but this is down there with it.
What about Tabula Rasa and APB?
APB had 10-15 thousand subscribers when it collapsed, and APB had 130,000 players averaging four hours a day in-game, just Realtime Worlds went bankrupt because the game cost $100 million to produce and the return didn't come at a high enough rate.
Comments
Why not? A lot of the problems for many of the new "sandbox" games is just oversight on how the systems work. Now, technical issues, yeah I could probably go with the money arguement. I think the biggest reason a lot of "sandbox" mmos are coming out and not doing so well is because they are insistent on making the game free-for-all pvp anywhere, anytime.
Eve was like that too when it came out. But the devs realized that not having some safe areas for people to play in was significantly hurting their subscription count. High subscription count does a few things for a game. First, it does give the devs more money to invest into game improvements, but it also gives players more people to interact with. History has shown that a game with a low population will also drive away new players, creating a downward spiral.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
I was involved with EarthRise early on, visiting the web site often and like many others, excited about its potential and providing our personal input years before EarthRise's release. Needless to say we had great hopes for the game but sadly, yet apparently out of necessity, EarthRise was released as a "Not Ready For Prime-Time" game.
The proof is in the pudding. Out less than a month now, EarthRise has one of the lowest posted scores ever when compared to early results of most other major releases, both by the MMORPG staff and by its individual subscribers.
Let's face it -- the business plan of releasing a game before it's ready is a bad idea. Planning to fix major game issues after selling the sizzle thus sucking in and pissing off their player base to get their money up front, then expecting them to pay to play while testing their beta product was never a good WTG (look at Eve On Line, Age of Conan, Vanguard, etc.).
Yes, some of those games lived through it and survived. But today, methinks that players, particularly the mature, die-hard, experienced player base, are much less likely to have any patience (read as ZERO Tolerance) with any MMO product that follows the "Not Ready For Prime-Time" business model and released clearly a long, long way from being finished.
And don't tell me an MMO is an ever-evolving project. There's an undeniable difference between releasing a solid product ready for retail sale and then building on it afterward (such as LotRO) as opposed to pushing an early beta product out the door (AoC, Vanguard). And yes, I was heavily involved in the Alpha and/or early Closed Beta for all three.
As it stands, ER is surely going to go down as one of the worst failures in mmo history, if not, thee worst.
Still waiting for the Jesus patch they promised.
Dark & Light would be the worst but this is down there with it.
What about Tabula Rasa and APB?
Well, ER doesn't even qualify as a AAA title but yet MH charges more for the software than any AAA mmo released which those you mention are.
Nah, Tabula Rasa was actually better than ER and might have done better had they chose to sell it off to another company and potentially make something back from the $100+million they spent on development.
APB had a chance to be pretty freaking awesome. I played the beta and live til it shut down but the RTW really f'ed it up with severe imbalance issues favoring Enforcer and a failed fee concept. Either a flat monthly fee or free2play with a cash shop are the only viable options.
Said it just right...
yea, its pretty awful.
I think ,that the game is good and getting better and better with every patch released !
poor earth rise, was a game that looked appealing to many people that never happened.
Would be nice to see a 6-months review, since the game has improved alot since launch.
APB had 10-15 thousand subscribers when it collapsed, and APB had 130,000 players averaging four hours a day in-game, just Realtime Worlds went bankrupt because the game cost $100 million to produce and the return didn't come at a high enough rate.