[Column] General: Day One (A Launch Tale)

SBFord

Launching an MMO is not an easy task. Take, for instance, the recent bumps that FFXIV faced. In her latest column, Genese Davis offers us a fictionalized account of launching a new MMO. Enjoy the tale and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

Waves of guilt washed over Kole, making his fever feel like an afterthought. It had been just under two years since Kole was added to the project, and for the last twenty-two months his whole focus was to get this game ready for launch. But they’d run out of time. They tried, but failed. They’d put in over two thousand hours of overtime, but it wasn’t enough. Launch day was here and there were issues—server issues. His first major online game launch and his only thoughts were, Could I have done better? and, What the hell can I do to fix it? Kole sipped his coffee, stole a final glance at the table, and left. 

Read more Genese Davis: Day One (A Launch Tale).

Ocenica

Fun read, thanks.  This is one of the main reasons I have learned to never buy a game the first week it comes out.  Between bugs, over-pop, install problems, or a host of other issues. I just wait a good week first.

Po_gg

Great story. That's exactly why they "invented" soft launches...

 

"Hero wakes up with a big yawn, makes a coffee. While driving to the office and listening his favourite playlist he's realising: today is the big day. The memories of the nice and cozy meeting last week ("-How long are we in open beta? Maybe we should go live...") is fading already. It's good that he remembered.

Before he'd go chatting with the ladies from the next office he's taking a quick detour to modify the launcher and adds a row into the patch notes. Done. After the today's patch the game will come back as Live and not as Open beta stamped on it. Good job, worths a celebration. From the office fridge he takes a bottle. To the ladies then, it will be a fine day..."

 

RaiderZ  (without any big event or announcement they simply went live from open beta after a scheduled maintenance. Even after a month you still saw questions like "when will it go live?" and "will there be wipes when it goes live?")

Samhael

Ummm. was the point of the story to introduce that Game On thing? I thought this was an article or something.

Segun777

Great Article.

sibs4455

Why would a Games launch be a problem?.

The Dev's have made a good game, they have tested it for bugs / listened to their audience and adjusted the gameplay to not make it  boring or to easy  / quests are not the same old crap fed ex / pvp relys on skill, yes they have listened and they have a quality product to sell.

 

or do you mean

 

Once again another craptastic so called mmorpg is being released, full of bugs and effortless gameplay, the devs laughed when gamers were suggesting ways to make the game better in alpha and beta ... and so on and on.

 

What you're article should be about is why Developers never learn that most of the time you need a quality product, then the launch is easy for the product will sell by itself.

Beowulfsam

If they need 10mil USD for the new servers, than they have millions more players than they calculated.

Tsk. Jon...you're fired!