They pulled the plug with The Burning Crusade, but they are more than happy to still take your money.
Yeah well at least it took them a while, all other MMO releases seems like they pulled the plug during open beta.
There is a sad truth to that. The number of companies that realized during open beta that they were screwed - promised the fixes - hyped up the marketing - sold the boxes - and split...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
You don't end someting that is producing. As long as there is a way to make a profit this game will live on. And that goes for just about anything in life.
They pulled the plug with The Burning Crusade, but they are more than happy to still take your money.
Yeah well at least it took them a while, all other MMO releases seems like they pulled the plug during open beta.
There is a sad truth to that. The number of companies that realized during open beta that they were screwed - promised the fixes - hyped up the marketing - sold the boxes - and split...
this makes me realise something...
I bet new game developing teams think about Endgame in the following terms:
"do we make it?"
"I don't know, man. I takes razor-endge balancing, and it'll probably not follow the old formulas, we got to go out-of-the-box to make fun endgame. Sounds like a lot of work. Making a grinder/leveling game is quicker and cheaper by comparison."
"how about this: we postpone it now, if launch goes great, we get started, if not, we take off with our money while still on green"
"but endgame takes a while to develop...are you sure that's smart?"
"meh. cant put all your eggs in one basket. Speaking of which, I'm going to lunch".
Honestly I wouldnt mind if they were upfront with it and said we are not having X and Y at launch but we are implementing it some time during Z.
The problem with that is as of late I have a hard time trusting companies when they make commitments, if a company did said that I would probably be more inclined to think they wouldnt be able to do it.
The issue is as they want to increase the scope of mmos its going to be harder for them to deliver everything at launch, companies cant afford 10 year development cycles before going gold, and that means they will have to offer more basic packages at launch and start making a profit, so its up to companies to make the consumers trust them to deliver on what they say first.
Well, I will throw my 2 cents of thoughts in there.
What Blizzard does is a tactical and strategical best move I have ever seen in MMOs so far. Despite, I was sceptical and tended to agree on how stupid it is, I changed my mind.
What Blizzard does is a first and I think would have not worked on the market years ago, because the experience with MMOs wasnt at the stage as today and also the player 's saturation with expansions werent as it is today.
I will take an example from 2 major MMOs.
March 1999 - Everquest 1 - EQ1:
SOE tried to bind long term and hardcore players by introducing new expansions over and over again. With every expansion they implemented many new unique features (that had to be learnt from all) of the game itself. Because everything was new and we had nothing else in comparison, we mostly accepted it. Just for the record, EQ1 currently has 17 expansions including House of Thule relased date Oct 2010. Imagine the only lore of the game..
However, the flipside of this all was, that they have put so much complexity into the game, that new starters have had such a rough time to get into the game or they even abandoned the idea to start playing EQ1 at all.
November 2004 - Everquest 2 - EQ2:
I would say on the top hype of EQ1, SOE decided to roll out EQ2. Which in my opinion was the worst idea under all the bad ideas they had.
They shot themselves in the foot. Why they have built a competitive product, I cannot tell. What I can say is, that it did leave EQ1 to have a quick starting, long lasting death.
In EQ2 they did follow their old strategy and added more complexity as new expansions were rolled out. However, along the road it seemed they started to learn and took out some complexity again, like traveling, spell upgrades and tradeskill.
Currently there are 10 expansions for EQ2 including the adventure packs.
November 2004 - Blizzard:
WoW was relased in the same year as EQ2. Now, lets take a look at what Blizzard does with WoW and how they changed the stragety of expansions, maybe learnt from the SoE mistakes.
Only 2 Major expansions so far, BC and WotLK. They have added more land and complexity to the game, but kept it simple. For the upcoming one, Cata they suddenly changed their course of adding things.
If we take a look what Cata brings, then we all might have to abandoned the thoughts that this is only "ANOTHER" expansion. From "adding things", they do now "exchange thngs" or "change things"!!!
+ takes out a lot of complexity of the game previously implemented
+ revamp of the whole attribute system
+ complete talent tree revamp
+ instead of adding new zones, total revamp of existing zones
+ guild perks
+ other features, not named
My conclusion is, that Blizzard delivers WoW 2.0 with Cata to us. With this strategy they have not built a competitve product as SoE did with EQ1 and EQ2.
They keep their customer base. They changed the old world into a new world and also exchanged complexity with simplicity. Furthermore, there is now a lesser learning curve for new players and lot to explore for older, hardcore players. Nice move Blizzard!
My forecast is, that after Cata, with the next expansion, they will introduce a new hero class and instead of adding new zones, keep the phasing technology and revamp existing zones. There also might be a revamp of the graphic engine, sooner or later.
Just my thoughts and if you find typos and grammars, you can keep them.
Comments
I know from a reliable source WoW is closing down tomorrow they are shutting down, go out and enjoy the sunshine it is over!
They pulled the plug with The Burning Crusade, but they are more than happy to still take your money.
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Yeah well at least it took them a while, all other MMO releases seems like they pulled the plug during open beta.
There is a sad truth to that. The number of companies that realized during open beta that they were screwed - promised the fixes - hyped up the marketing - sold the boxes - and split...
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
You don't end someting that is producing. As long as there is a way to make a profit this game will live on. And that goes for just about anything in life.
Honestly I wouldnt mind if they were upfront with it and said we are not having X and Y at launch but we are implementing it some time during Z.
The problem with that is as of late I have a hard time trusting companies when they make commitments, if a company did said that I would probably be more inclined to think they wouldnt be able to do it.
The issue is as they want to increase the scope of mmos its going to be harder for them to deliver everything at launch, companies cant afford 10 year development cycles before going gold, and that means they will have to offer more basic packages at launch and start making a profit, so its up to companies to make the consumers trust them to deliver on what they say first.
Well, I will throw my 2 cents of thoughts in there.
What Blizzard does is a tactical and strategical best move I have ever seen in MMOs so far. Despite, I was sceptical and tended to agree on how stupid it is, I changed my mind.
What Blizzard does is a first and I think would have not worked on the market years ago, because the experience with MMOs wasnt at the stage as today and also the player 's saturation with expansions werent as it is today.
I will take an example from 2 major MMOs.
March 1999 - Everquest 1 - EQ1:
SOE tried to bind long term and hardcore players by introducing new expansions over and over again. With every expansion they implemented many new unique features (that had to be learnt from all) of the game itself. Because everything was new and we had nothing else in comparison, we mostly accepted it. Just for the record, EQ1 currently has 17 expansions including House of Thule relased date Oct 2010. Imagine the only lore of the game..
However, the flipside of this all was, that they have put so much complexity into the game, that new starters have had such a rough time to get into the game or they even abandoned the idea to start playing EQ1 at all.
November 2004 - Everquest 2 - EQ2:
I would say on the top hype of EQ1, SOE decided to roll out EQ2. Which in my opinion was the worst idea under all the bad ideas they had.
They shot themselves in the foot. Why they have built a competitive product, I cannot tell. What I can say is, that it did leave EQ1 to have a quick starting, long lasting death.
In EQ2 they did follow their old strategy and added more complexity as new expansions were rolled out. However, along the road it seemed they started to learn and took out some complexity again, like traveling, spell upgrades and tradeskill.
Currently there are 10 expansions for EQ2 including the adventure packs.
November 2004 - Blizzard:
WoW was relased in the same year as EQ2. Now, lets take a look at what Blizzard does with WoW and how they changed the stragety of expansions, maybe learnt from the SoE mistakes.
Only 2 Major expansions so far, BC and WotLK. They have added more land and complexity to the game, but kept it simple. For the upcoming one, Cata they suddenly changed their course of adding things.
If we take a look what Cata brings, then we all might have to abandoned the thoughts that this is only "ANOTHER" expansion. From "adding things", they do now "exchange thngs" or "change things"!!!
+ takes out a lot of complexity of the game previously implemented
+ revamp of the whole attribute system
+ complete talent tree revamp
+ instead of adding new zones, total revamp of existing zones
+ guild perks
+ other features, not named
My conclusion is, that Blizzard delivers WoW 2.0 with Cata to us. With this strategy they have not built a competitve product as SoE did with EQ1 and EQ2.
They keep their customer base. They changed the old world into a new world and also exchanged complexity with simplicity. Furthermore, there is now a lesser learning curve for new players and lot to explore for older, hardcore players. Nice move Blizzard!
My forecast is, that after Cata, with the next expansion, they will introduce a new hero class and instead of adding new zones, keep the phasing technology and revamp existing zones. There also might be a revamp of the graphic engine, sooner or later.
Just my thoughts and if you find typos and grammars, you can keep them.
Cheers