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Seems like MMO's get unveiled way too early these days. We've even gotten to the point where MMO's are being announced before a single line of code is written. Yes, I understand that some games are being announced due to funding efforts but that's another conversation entirely.
You almost never see games from other genre's being announced 2-3 years before an expected launch date, yet this seems to be the new norm for MMO's.
Blizzard seems to be the only company that doesn't let the cat out of the bag too early. They typically don't announce products until they have something tangible to show customers and in most cases, you'll probably be able to get your hands on a particular Blizzard product within a matter of months from it's unveiling.
Looking at games like Camelot Unchained, it seems like a daunting task to keep potential players (customers) excited about the game for what could easily be five to seven years of development.
I've been following the Repopulation for almost two years which seems like an eternity. During this time, my tastes in games and overall perspective on the genre has changed significantly. This has actually caused me to lose interest in the game over time.
That being said, I think game companies need to throttle back the marketing efforts until they're a little closer to actually being able to deliver a product.
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Philosophy of MMO Game Design
We have a winner!
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Most MMOs aren't announced until they are in at least an alpha state. As for Blizzard's cat...
http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/06/28/diablo-iii-officially-announced
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
NCSoft is an other who keeps their mouth shut about ongoing developments untill they're in a local (pre-alpha) testing phase, which is mostly about a year before (Korean) release. But in general are most MMORPGs announced way too soon. Sad though, because in the last few years we've seen a lot of announces (including some very promising titles) as well as a lot of them being pulled because of lack of funding (or whatever reason the develeoper needs to quit the project).
That's not true. We had info on GW2 long before alpha.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
One of the first things I do is look at an estimated launch date.... 1 year, 2 years ,3.Then I stop reading anything about that game...period.A year or so later I might check on its status.I'm beyond tired of being teased.Beyond tired.
The mmog genre has proven to be consistently disappointing.... so i don't play any mmog atm.
The justification for that was basically that ArenaNet announced that the reason they were canceling Guild Wars Utopia is that they were working on Guild Wars 2 instead.
How does a company know how far away from launch a game is? Unless they commit far in advance to launching on a particular date, regardless of the state of the game on that date, they don't. If you don't launch a game until it is ready, then if you think your game is a year from launch when you announce it, it might actually be three years from launch.
Yeah i feel the same, im hoping they dont give to much info away on EQNext during SoE live, they seem to be doing well keeping it under wraps for the time being though.
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
ya I mean the company need the hypes to get attention.
And Blizzard do try to hype their product too... "Oh we are working on this secreat MMO and we wont' tell you any info about it beside the name Titan etc etc" It's the same thing.
Most of that apparent effect comes from kickstarter (we start begging for your cash before we even have a demo).
What we're yet to determine is if that kickstarter can possibly survive a year or two of failed promises.
Gamers who really hate hype surely are eager to get right to it.