If someone is able to provide a good explanation of why it’s fair to compare WAR at launch to WoW and its problems 4 years ago, I’d really appreciate it.
Unlike many people, apparently, I am not forced to hop in a time machine and go back four years if I want to play WoW. So, why should people say “WoW sucked at release, give WAR a pass on the issues with the game”?
When I played WoW, I wasn’t thinking “well, DAoC was buggy at launch, and City of Heroes had it’s issues, so I’m going to play this game no matter what.” Instead, I simply made the choice of which game, WoW or those others, offered a better experience. I liked WoW more than the other games, so I cancelled my subscription to City of Heroes (already had cancelled my DAoC subscription), and instead played WoW.
If you think that WAR doesn’t offer as good an experience as WoW, and want to play it anyway, you are telling the developers that you support them enough to release a product which is inferior, but gosh darnit you like them, and they should have your money.
This is a very different statement to make than liking Mythic’s game more than Blizzard’s and playing it for that reason.
If you play WAR because you like it, if you don’t have issues with it, that’s great.
If you play WAR, and bring up how bad WoW was when it launched, you sound like a person determined to give Mythic your money regardless of the quality of their product. That’s sounds a lot like fanboism
Sure, if you love WAR, tell people how great it is, what you like about it. I think that it has some fantastic concepts. However, you weaken your own position in the eyes of a WAR player who brings up (what he feels is) a legitimate concern when you bring up four year old history of a different game.
My stance?
Mythic decided to release the game to compete in the market now. They chose to play with the big boys, so let them fight it out on their own merits. Don’t coddle them like an overprotective mommy.
Note, the only valid explanation I can think of for the comparison in question deals with present values of future returns, so if you would like to expound on that and the mental calculations and psychology of it, feel free to use the comments section to provide a rebuttal.
October 3, 2008 at 5:38 pm |
I miss you.
October 3, 2008 at 6:09 pm |
Howdy stranger!
October 8, 2008 at 3:40 pm |
The better comparison is: WAR in 1 year vs WoW in 1 year.
Pick the game that’s going to give you the best experience over the course of your play time. WoW is obviously more polished now than WAR, but that’s understandable.
Blizzard has resources that transcend programming budget differences. The very fact that they have so much player data to mine and user-submitted ideas gives them a leg-up. These issues and proceedures that can only be developed over time with an active game are things that you can hardly hold against Mythic.
Likewise, Mythic has access to ideas and WoW experience that Blizzard never had. It’s very difficult to compare the two right now. What we CAN compare is the “improvement rate” and form an expectation of our long-term enjoyment of the game.
The bar is higher now and neither game has stopped improving itself, but the improvements WAR can implement are going to be cheaper and faster to implement than those WoW can manage. Will WAR ever “catch” WoW in the polish department? Will it get close while maintaining different content?
Right now you are investing your time and money. You just have to make predictions and hope that it yields bigger dividends than Wall Street right now.
October 13, 2008 at 11:42 am |
I think it’s perfectly reasonable to compare WAR at launch to WoW at launch as long as you’re only focusing on the problems specific to MMORPG launches, and are not just saying “WoW’s launch sucked, so WAR’s launch can suck too.” If they’re using it to justify a little breathing room for some problems that occur at day 1, I think it’s hardly fair to call someone a fanboi because they point out that WoW’s launch was complete and utter crap. All MMORPGs will have a flurry of problems at launch.
Maybe I’m interpreting the focus of this article wrong. Do you have any examples of such a comparison being made?
November 6, 2008 at 1:01 pm |
This is not in support of releasing buggy product; but, may I point out that most games released for the past decade or more have been buggy to some degree at launch. The bugs are usually known issues at launch and it is still determined that the game is okay for distribution. The gaming community has not EVER sent a clear message to publishers/developers that this is unacceptable (not buying the product).
In short, yes, I believe it is fair to compare a game at release with another previous game at release. I believe that paying money (even a recurring cost) into a game that is fun, but not as fun as something that has had time to mature, is an investment in the hope that the game will get better.
November 20, 2008 at 4:31 am |
As far as launches go, WAR wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as WOW. Of course, WAR had it’s own problems and continues to have them. WOW has had 4 years to work out the bugs and discover what works for them, while WAR has not had that luxury. I really don’t believe a comparison between games is fair anyway. While they are both MMORPG, they appeal to totally different types of players.
That said though, WAR must be able to compete with WOW for players now, not in four years. WAR will NEVER be able to compete players with WOW in its current state if people continue to use the timeline as an excuse.
Two days ago I cancelled my subscription to WAR simply because I didn’t find it worth the money. I never felt that way about WOW until the end when I cancelled (after playing WOW since beta). I wouldn’t go back to WOW as WOTLK is simply BC revisited and that was really the beginning of the end for me.
WAR would do well not to simply follow WOW, but improve upon the facets of the game they share. As it is now though, WAR and WOW are not worthy of my money.
May 27, 2009 at 10:38 pm |
I play WAR because I like it.