Still acting all suprised and stunned at these things? Come on guys you are better than that, SoE is SoE. Nothing is going to change.
While the system does look preety good, its deeply overshadowed by the heavy "omgz WoW" inuendo.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now." Boba Fett
Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
Thats true. Thats why I said the good this system will bring is being overshadowed by the WoW thing, I never said "its sux cuz its l3ik WOWZ".
I play WoW, and yea this does resemble the tallent system. But WoW is far from the first to have something like that. Diablo 2 had it, SWG had it in pre-cu and CU. Those are the only games that pop in my mind right now, though im sure there are others.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now." Boba Fett
Originally posted by Uberman Originally posted by almagillOh, and @ the 'oh noes it's WoW' chorus, fierfek, there are expertise systems in EQ, EQ2, DDO, the old pen and pencil games, the old ST RPG... Just like teenagers didn't invent sex, Blizzard didn't invent MMOs.
The retards at SOE are uninventing Star Wars Galaxies. They have no unique vision for this game. They're shamelessly ripping it off from another game company. How Starwarsy is it to play World of Warcraft with Light Sabers? They might just as well put in force-sensitive Dwarves.If Raph Koster was the original visionary behind this game, I wish to hell he'd get off his ass and make us another one.I'm going back to First Person Shooters until the emulator is functional. Everywhere you turn in the MMO world today, it's World of Warcrap. Been there. Done that. Boring.
If I remember right, he is working on a new one with bioware/pandemic.
Eh.....got the wrong SWG dev, Rich Vogel is working on one with bioware/pandemic....I do remember reading somewhere that Raph is working on a new one.
What I can say is this system is so much waist of time. Why the hell are those unskilled numbnuts at SoE doing? They have now used up 1 year of sub-money to re-develop this game and its getting uglier for every publish.
I know some of you say "look we have got more content in the game, that's good!" I say if they had used all this time making content instead of re-develop the game you would have had 5-10 times the new content and a profession diversity that is 100 times larger than the current extra abilities crap
The only "good" thing I see from a corporate view is they actually get people to pay while they develop a totally new game... it's so sad they get away with it too.
"There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door; those that come in by the window"
Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by kairaene Just one questions. Why is it no longer R5's Comlink? Now its just Comlink? Did R5 take the long walk?
Nope, he was in the chat last week You mean someone was using his name in chat last week right? /wink /tinfoilhat
I'm sure he's around doing something but he's very quiet and we havent seen a real "Rogue 5 - Comlink" in a while. Its always been someone else. If he is just passing the job onto to someone else fine. Its just odd how he was pretty obvious there for a while but now he's a little more of a background guy.
Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW.
Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Originally posted by Gravez Could they possibly rip off WOW any harder?
QFE!
Ok so it's aparent that the people running this game have no ideas of their own what so ever! This is a blatant WoW rip off, the entire game is. It's WoW in space! They took a game that ok sure it had it's bugs, but it was fun, and completely unique in everyway. To a game that is WoW with a space skin. Ok earth to SOE devs WoW's engine and layout is not the only reason they are kicking your butts! Their game has very little bugs, and when one is found they don't pretend it doesn't exist, they FIX IT! Also when they add something new they don't have to apologize for messing up the quest. And I believe that the DEVS response in the SWG forums were "this was put in late in developement and wasn't fully tested" ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID WOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN 7 MONTHS AGO?
This expertise system is a joke, they stated several times they would be all new abilities, and well they weren't. Before the NGE lovers flame me, yes they even stated that Jedi would be getting "a lot" of new abilities. But they rehashed the abilities stating that they already had their revamp. Also they stated many times that you would achieve 1.5 skill trees, now you can't even get a full skill tree. LIES! Always LIES!
Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
For once I have to agree with Obraik.. I tried out WoW for about a month and a half.. Was not impressed at all with the game.. However, if you stick around SWG for a few more months you will see what im talking about first hand.
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars.. Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons... Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
Originally posted by LilT Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
I have to disagree , Wow is a polished game I'll give you that . But as a replacement for SWG it doesn't come close . What you wrote shows how dull and mindless wow is . You either Raid , Or you regrind over and over . Mass pvp is non-existent . So as an End-Game PVP in wow is **** for lack of a better term. You might as well go with Guild wars if you are considering WOW . It is a much better game , And has no monthly fee .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Originally posted by LilT Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
For the last time, WoW is polish. Sugar and glitter. This is the reason of its success. And marketing obviously. But it is at this moment, the most modern, polished MMORPG (Guild Wars would stand toe-to-toe, but doesn't really rank as classic definition of MMORPG). It's top of the line, state of the art, etc.
And in many ways its good. It has shown all the wannabes and rip-offs, that MMORPG can be polished, finished, reliable, available and solid in all aspects. Something, that many took for granted as being impossible.
Looking at some other games, they simply justify themselves as "all MMOs have bugs", "all MMOs take months after launch to fix and add content", "all MMOs break stuff with publishes", "all MMOs have crappy content", and so on.
Not anymore. The bar has been raised. Since WoW, that's what you compare against. Not because it's such a lovely and unique game, but because of overall achievements. They have shown that it's possible to manage such a project, add content, maintain reliability, and retain the overall polish.
Unlike single-player games, which can still be managed by geniuses, MMOs require management and organizational skills, with resources to back them up. Wow has what, 2000+ people just running the game (1300 GMs, 700 is probably not an overestimate for the rest). That's a lot. But this is what future is about. It's no longer about great ideas, but simply about making the simplest concepts available in a reliable and consistent fashion.
There are two future directions. One is huge corporate backing that can create, manage and develop huge games. The other is MMO-like games, in the direction of DDO and GW. While not true persistent world MMOs, they maintain the massive, just keep it in a more managable form. But this is what it comes down to.
Originally posted by Malickiebloo Originally posted by LilT Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
I have to disagree , Wow is a polished game I'll give you that . But as a replacement for SWG it doesn't come close . What you wrote shows how dull and mindless wow is . You either Raid , Or you regrind over and over . Mass pvp is non-existent . So as an End-Game PVP in wow is **** for lack of a better term. You might as well go with Guild wars if you are considering WOW . It is a much better game , And has no monthly fee .
I wasnt suggesting it as a replacement for swg, i said if there are no other games you like.
I agree, it is mindless, but its more entertainingly mindless than anything i've played, if that makes sense.
I dont like guild wars because of all the instancing, i feel like im playing a single player rpg most of the time. I dont like how its either choose pvp, or rp. I like them mixed together. I have an account, and i play from time to time, but the characters seem even more wooden to me than Wow, and the storyline just didnt grab me. So its like a "meh" on my fun scale.
Originally posted by Rekrul Originally posted by LilT Originally posted by Obraik Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Obraik WoW took alot from the industry, why shouldn't the industry take stuff back from WoW?
One of these days I'll have to try out WoW. I have a suspicion that the biggest difference between WoW and the other MMOs is the quality of its publishes. If that is the case, then I am still waiting on the industry to realize that and steal the idea from WoW. Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
For the last time, WoW is polish. Sugar and glitter. This is the reason of its success. And marketing obviously. But it is at this moment, the most modern, polished MMORPG (Guild Wars would stand toe-to-toe, but doesn't really rank as classic definition of MMORPG). It's top of the line, state of the art, etc.
And in many ways its good. It has shown all the wannabes and rip-offs, that MMORPG can be polished, finished, reliable, available and solid in all aspects. Something, that many took for granted as being impossible.
Looking at some other games, they simply justify themselves as "all MMOs have bugs", "all MMOs take months after launch to fix and add content", "all MMOs break stuff with publishes", "all MMOs have crappy content", and so on.
Not anymore. The bar has been raised. Since WoW, that's what you compare against. Not because it's such a lovely and unique game, but because of overall achievements. They have shown that it's possible to manage such a project, add content, maintain reliability, and retain the overall polish.
I agree with everything you just wrote, and that is why I play Wow, its quality. Not sure if you were trying to disagree with me or what, but you just went into more detail about why I and others play.
Unlike single-player games, which can still be managed by geniuses, MMOs require management and organizational skills, with resources to back them up. Wow has what, 2000+ people just running the game (1300 GMs, 700 is probably not an overestimate for the rest). That's a lot. But this is what future is about. It's no longer about great ideas, but simply about making the simplest concepts available in a reliable and consistent fashion.
Why cant you have great ideas and reliability? You really think that mmo's will recycle the wow forumula over and over and be successful? Your predictions always make me so depressed.
There are two future directions. One is huge corporate backing that can create, manage and develop huge games. The other is MMO-like games, in the direction of DDO and GW. While not true persistent world MMOs, they maintain the massive, just keep it in a more managable form. But this is what it comes down to.
Why cant you have great ideas and reliability? You really think that mmo's will recycle the wow forumula over and over and be successful? Your predictions always make me so depressed.
Heh, reality sucks. I didn't say recycle WoW, but build on top of known gameplay concepts. You can only achieve reliability if you know what to expect, and plan for it in advance.
Take Romero for example. He tries new things, and is closest you can get to a lone developer these days (far from truth, there's still team behind it). But everything he offered recently, was just using technical capabilities of modern hardware, to bring back old concepts.
Then there's Molineux (sp) with his virtual life games. Decent realization, but inevitably, people find blatant flaws and shortcomings of even the basic behaviour in these virtual creatures. The genre simply isn't explored enough to know in advance what will work and what won't.
Polish is the final pitfall. There's no secret to polish. All it takes is money and time. Lots of money, lots of time. Recent successes in MMO world have had 1 year of final playtesting. That's one year, of having essentially finished product, but they spend tweaking gameplay, balancing skills, testing quests, observing interactions, monitoring performace, and just about every other aspect.
That's one year of having a product most would consider ship-worthy, and they spend this time burning money on improving small details. Few can afford that. Yet this is what polish is. Other publishers run out of money, then release not only unpolished product, but actually incomplete one.
This is why SOE has lost this battle. Their whole corporate model is release early, release often. While good software development practice, it's extremly poor business practice in light of competition.
In the end, this all means good things for consumers. As companies learn, products will be launched with increasing emphasis on quality, with better understanding of what really matters, and with experience they'll be also able to decrease or optimize costs needed to achieve this level of quality. In the end, customer wins.
In the end, this all means good things for consumers. As companies learn, products will be launched with increasing emphasis on quality, with better understanding of what really matters, and with experience they'll be also able to decrease or optimize costs needed to achieve this level of quality. In the end, customer wins.
I can certainly hope so. My biggest complaint about the entire computer software industry is that they consistently release software early and then rely on patches after you paid for it. And certain MMOs have taken that practice to an art form (release your expansion for the marketing season, supply with bug fixes later)
Comments
Still acting all suprised and stunned at these things? Come on guys you are better than that, SoE is SoE. Nothing is going to change.
While the system does look preety good, its deeply overshadowed by the heavy "omgz WoW" inuendo.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett
I play WoW, and yea this does resemble the tallent system. But WoW is far from the first to have something like that. Diablo 2 had it, SWG had it in pre-cu and CU. Those are the only games that pop in my mind right now, though im sure there are others.
"There's no star system Slave I can't reach, and there's no planet I can't find. There's nowhere in the Galaxy for you to run. Might as well give up now."
Boba Fett
Originally posted by Uberman
Originally posted by almagillOh, and @ the 'oh noes it's WoW' chorus, fierfek, there are expertise systems in EQ, EQ2, DDO, the old pen and pencil games, the old ST RPG... Just like teenagers didn't invent sex, Blizzard didn't invent MMOs.
The retards at SOE are uninventing Star Wars Galaxies. They have no unique vision for this game. They're shamelessly ripping it off from another game company. How Starwarsy is it to play World of Warcraft with Light Sabers? They might just as well put in force-sensitive Dwarves.If Raph Koster was the original visionary behind this game, I wish to hell he'd get off his ass and make us another one.I'm going back to First Person Shooters until the emulator is functional. Everywhere you turn in the MMO world today, it's World of Warcrap. Been there. Done that. Boring.
If I remember right, he is working on a new one with bioware/pandemic.
Eh.....got the wrong SWG dev, Rich Vogel is working on one with bioware/pandemic....I do remember reading somewhere that Raph is working on a new one.Kai
What I can say is this system is so much waist of time. Why the hell are those unskilled numbnuts at SoE doing? They have now used up 1 year of sub-money to re-develop this game and its getting uglier for every publish.
I know some of you say "look we have got more content in the game, that's good!" I say if they had used all this time making content instead of re-develop the game you would have had 5-10 times the new content and a profession diversity that is 100 times larger than the current extra abilities crap
The only "good" thing I see from a corporate view is they actually get people to pay while they develop a totally new game... it's so sad they get away with it too.
"There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door; those that come in by the window"
You mean someone was using his name in chat last week right? /wink /tinfoilhat
I'm sure he's around doing something but he's very quiet and we havent seen a real "Rogue 5 - Comlink" in a while. Its always been someone else. If he is just passing the job onto to someone else fine. Its just odd how he was pretty obvious there for a while but now he's a little more of a background guy.
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Ok so it's aparent that the people running this game have no ideas of their own what so ever! This is a blatant WoW rip off, the entire game is. It's WoW in space! They took a game that ok sure it had it's bugs, but it was fun, and completely unique in everyway. To a game that is WoW with a space skin. Ok earth to SOE devs WoW's engine and layout is not the only reason they are kicking your butts! Their game has very little bugs, and when one is found they don't pretend it doesn't exist, they FIX IT! Also when they add something new they don't have to apologize for messing up the quest. And I believe that the DEVS response in the SWG forums were "this was put in late in developement and wasn't fully tested" ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT YOU SAID WOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN 7 MONTHS AGO?
This expertise system is a joke, they stated several times they would be all new abilities, and well they weren't. Before the NGE lovers flame me, yes they even stated that Jedi would be getting "a lot" of new abilities. But they rehashed the abilities stating that they already had their revamp. Also they stated many times that you would achieve 1.5 skill trees, now you can't even get a full skill tree. LIES! Always LIES!
Glad I stopped giving them money!
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
For once I have to agree with Obraik.. I tried out WoW for about a month and a half.. Was not impressed at all with the game.. However, if you stick around SWG for a few more months you will see what im talking about first hand.
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars..
Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons...
Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
For the Horde!
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
I have to disagree , Wow is a polished game I'll give you that . But as a replacement for SWG it doesn't come close . What you wrote shows how dull and mindless wow is . You either Raid , Or you regrind over and over . Mass pvp is non-existent . So as an End-Game PVP in wow is **** for lack of a better term. You might as well go with Guild wars if you are considering WOW . It is a much better game , And has no monthly fee .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
For the last time, WoW is polish. Sugar and glitter. This is the reason of its success. And marketing obviously. But it is at this moment, the most modern, polished MMORPG (Guild Wars would stand toe-to-toe, but doesn't really rank as classic definition of MMORPG). It's top of the line, state of the art, etc.
And in many ways its good. It has shown all the wannabes and rip-offs, that MMORPG can be polished, finished, reliable, available and solid in all aspects. Something, that many took for granted as being impossible.
Looking at some other games, they simply justify themselves as "all MMOs have bugs", "all MMOs take months after launch to fix and add content", "all MMOs break stuff with publishes", "all MMOs have crappy content", and so on.
Not anymore. The bar has been raised. Since WoW, that's what you compare against. Not because it's such a lovely and unique game, but because of overall achievements. They have shown that it's possible to manage such a project, add content, maintain reliability, and retain the overall polish.
Unlike single-player games, which can still be managed by geniuses, MMOs require management and organizational skills, with resources to back them up. Wow has what, 2000+ people just running the game (1300 GMs, 700 is probably not an overestimate for the rest). That's a lot. But this is what future is about. It's no longer about great ideas, but simply about making the simplest concepts available in a reliable and consistent fashion.
There are two future directions. One is huge corporate backing that can create, manage and develop huge games. The other is MMO-like games, in the direction of DDO and GW. While not true persistent world MMOs, they maintain the massive, just keep it in a more managable form. But this is what it comes down to.
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
I have to disagree , Wow is a polished game I'll give you that . But as a replacement for SWG it doesn't come close . What you wrote shows how dull and mindless wow is . You either Raid , Or you regrind over and over . Mass pvp is non-existent . So as an End-Game PVP in wow is **** for lack of a better term. You might as well go with Guild wars if you are considering WOW . It is a much better game , And has no monthly fee .
I wasnt suggesting it as a replacement for swg, i said if there are no other games you like.
I agree, it is mindless, but its more entertainingly mindless than anything i've played, if that makes sense.
I dont like guild wars because of all the instancing, i feel like im playing a single player rpg most of the time. I dont like how its either choose pvp, or rp. I like them mixed together. I have an account, and i play from time to time, but the characters seem even more wooden to me than Wow, and the storyline just didnt grab me. So its like a "meh" on my fun scale.
For the Horde!
Ugh, don't do it. Been there, done that...
Dont listen to him! He likes the nge! lol :P
I recomend trying Wow if there are no other games out there you enjoy playing atm. It keeps me entertained, even thought i do like rolling alts more than end-game raiding on my main .. lol. If you dont think about how pointless it is to level something to 60, then you can just have fun leveling and exploring the BUG FREE world.
And that is exactly it, well said.
For the last time, WoW is polish. Sugar and glitter. This is the reason of its success. And marketing obviously. But it is at this moment, the most modern, polished MMORPG (Guild Wars would stand toe-to-toe, but doesn't really rank as classic definition of MMORPG). It's top of the line, state of the art, etc.
And in many ways its good. It has shown all the wannabes and rip-offs, that MMORPG can be polished, finished, reliable, available and solid in all aspects. Something, that many took for granted as being impossible.
Looking at some other games, they simply justify themselves as "all MMOs have bugs", "all MMOs take months after launch to fix and add content", "all MMOs break stuff with publishes", "all MMOs have crappy content", and so on.
Not anymore. The bar has been raised. Since WoW, that's what you compare against. Not because it's such a lovely and unique game, but because of overall achievements. They have shown that it's possible to manage such a project, add content, maintain reliability, and retain the overall polish.
I agree with everything you just wrote, and that is why I play Wow, its quality. Not sure if you were trying to disagree with me or what, but you just went into more detail about why I and others play.
Unlike single-player games, which can still be managed by geniuses, MMOs require management and organizational skills, with resources to back them up. Wow has what, 2000+ people just running the game (1300 GMs, 700 is probably not an overestimate for the rest). That's a lot. But this is what future is about. It's no longer about great ideas, but simply about making the simplest concepts available in a reliable and consistent fashion.
Why cant you have great ideas and reliability? You really think that mmo's will recycle the wow forumula over and over and be successful? Your predictions always make me so depressed.
There are two future directions. One is huge corporate backing that can create, manage and develop huge games. The other is MMO-like games, in the direction of DDO and GW. While not true persistent world MMOs, they maintain the massive, just keep it in a more managable form. But this is what it comes down to.
For the Horde!
Heh, reality sucks. I didn't say recycle WoW, but build on top of known gameplay concepts. You can only achieve reliability if you know what to expect, and plan for it in advance.
Take Romero for example. He tries new things, and is closest you can get to a lone developer these days (far from truth, there's still team behind it). But everything he offered recently, was just using technical capabilities of modern hardware, to bring back old concepts.
Then there's Molineux (sp) with his virtual life games. Decent realization, but inevitably, people find blatant flaws and shortcomings of even the basic behaviour in these virtual creatures. The genre simply isn't explored enough to know in advance what will work and what won't.
Polish is the final pitfall. There's no secret to polish. All it takes is money and time. Lots of money, lots of time. Recent successes in MMO world have had 1 year of final playtesting. That's one year, of having essentially finished product, but they spend tweaking gameplay, balancing skills, testing quests, observing interactions, monitoring performace, and just about every other aspect.
That's one year of having a product most would consider ship-worthy, and they spend this time burning money on improving small details. Few can afford that. Yet this is what polish is. Other publishers run out of money, then release not only unpolished product, but actually incomplete one.
This is why SOE has lost this battle. Their whole corporate model is release early, release often. While good software development practice, it's extremly poor business practice in light of competition.
In the end, this all means good things for consumers. As companies learn, products will be launched with increasing emphasis on quality, with better understanding of what really matters, and with experience they'll be also able to decrease or optimize costs needed to achieve this level of quality. In the end, customer wins.
I can certainly hope so. My biggest complaint about the entire computer software industry is that they consistently release software early and then rely on patches after you paid for it. And certain MMOs have taken that practice to an art form (release your expansion for the marketing season, supply with bug fixes later)