World War II Online Reloaded - Can MMOs Be Rehabilitated? 32
Thanks to FiringSquad for its article revisiting the state of PC MMO World War II Online, as the writer asks: "Three years ago I uninstalled World War II Online and lamented a good idea gone bad. Now I can barely force myself to write this article for fear of losing Maastricht to a British counter-offensive." With FiringSquad's original review stating "the vast majority of you will simply feel cheated", things seem to have changed, from the same reviewer's perspective: "Somewhere along the way, World War II Online got good. The game isn't so much better than it used to be because the graphics got some sprucing up or because of new weapons. It happened in the community." Can a keen, well-organized community and post-launch patching rehabilitate an MMO, or will a sub-optimal launch doom it?
Communities can change a game IMO (Score:5, Interesting)
it's so nice when all the 12 y/o's go elsewhere... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:it's so nice when all the 12 y/o's go elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
I've found that most greifers I meet are actualy much older.
Twelve year olds can get away with being bad durring the day, but adults will use the anonyminity of the games for this release since they cannot.
Size matters (Score:5, Interesting)
The same thing with gaming. Everyone talks about how Counter-Strike can be a really awesome and strategic game 'when you play on a well moderated, private server'. Thats like saying 'Iraq is a really safe place if you stay inside a military bunker in the Green Zone.' You may think 'oh well thats just one or two bad cases' but there are roughly 50,000 players playing the game at any given time, do you REALLY think that my bad experiences won't be replicated by other people?
Anarchy Online... (Score:1, Interesting)
It's all about Management (Score:5, Interesting)
Games are complicated to make and MMORPGs are even harder because of the added technical, socialogical and (in-game and out) economic hurdles. Since gamers have proven that they are willing to wait around for the developers to work the bugs out, the practice of releasing an MMORPG at the point of minimal stability has become an industry standard.
It's also the reason that these games will never reach main-stream acceptance. Only a bunch of geeks would be willing to put up with this sort of behaviour.
I've played quite a bit of City of Heroes lately and what really makes it brilliant is not so much the game play (which is good) but rather the way the game is being managed. First - and this is the key to their success - they avoided "feature creep." City of Heroes does one thing - combat - and does it very well. It's tight, fast and resonably balanced but that's it - that's the entire game. No crafting, no economy, no loot, No PvP. THey've avoided 90% of the trouble most other MMORPGs get into by making the choice to put it in at a later date. I'm sure that each of these areas will be added eventually, but in the form of expansion packs and additional revenue.
Next, they planned a staggered release. Rather than delivering boxes to all the stores at once and throwing open the servers, they let the pre-order customers ( read "the hardcore") start three days before the official launch. THen they staggered the delivery of the boxes to retails over the period of about a week. SO there was no real launch day rather they planned and executed "launch week."
Cryptic Studios ( the developers) also did a very bright thing by lopping off a good bit of the game (levels 41-50) and patching it in to the game about 6 weeks after launch as it's first official content patch. Most of the player population couldn't get near level 40 in that time period so patching this bit in later gave Cryptic a chance to focus on the the newbie experience for launch and polish the high end game for later. It also made them look good by adding a good chunk of content just a few weeks after launch.
I could cite a few more examples suffice to say that I consider City of Heroes the first true "second generation" MMORPG not because of any game play or technological innovation but because they're the first MMORPG to look at the predecessors and impliment the lessons learned.
If WWIIOL and the other troubled MMORPGs had been managed so well, I'm sure they would have no trouble surviving.
Re:it's so nice when all the 12 y/o's go elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
The WWIIOL Phoenix (Score:3, Interesting)
Moose4 has it right, the players create content by running the virtual army organizations and attacking each other with different tactics and combinations of equipment. Since the terrain is immense and varied every attack is different even using the same tactics because the ground changes and situations change. And if you get bored with a certain nation's equipment or fighting style, you can simply switch over. And the Rats are constantly introducing new equipment and play changes. The replay value is immense.
The community has stuck by CRS during the tough times because they believe in the vision as well, and have an incredible level of access and direct communication with the developers. And enough of the vision has come true to keep most interested.
If the Rats were doing this for someone else this very unique game would not exist- I think that is the most important part of WWIIOL's phoenix story.
BTW, the reviewer is showing a bit of Axis bias and ahistorical expectation- the German tanks ARE suppossed to be fragile in 1940. If you expect to recreate the Tiger killer tank experience that will probably come with a later release, and even then the German High Command will have to decide to research for it, which might be affected by the strategic bombing campaign constantly going on.