February 26th, 2011 | 
Author: Ultima Supreme
Baffling MMO blunders by Chris Coker
Every now and again MMO delveopers and publishers get things so absolutely and amazingly wrong that we can't just help but stand, stare, and watch the train wreck. Don't believe it? Read on...
The decision to launch Star Trek Online with no ship interiors
On the face of it this is kind of a bonehead move isn't it? Half of what makes Star Trek, Star Trek is the ships, and if you've only got the exterior half of the ships, then half of half is... well, not as good as a whole of a... half... you get the idea.
Folks already spend an in-game fortune in sto credits to obtain the best ships, and then a further fortune in sto credits to customise the exteriors and buy the best weapons to outfit them. We know ship interiors are finally coming in the Season Two expansion in July, but now we've got to spend even more sto credits customising the ship interiors. The whole thing adds up to one major blunder, as prospective subscribers decided not to jump in to STO and just wait for that update.
Still no Call of Duty MMO? Really?
Activision Blizzard have got to be laughing all the way to the bank, what with the stupendous amounts of cashola earned from World of Warcraft, so it's understandable they're taking their time with regard to getting this off the ground.
Having swiped the first person shooter crown from under the noses of the guys at EA and Medal of Honor, the Call of Duty franchise has gone from blockbuster to mega-franchise in the short span of five years. Even the release of map packs for the franchise are major events, as each subsequent release sets new sales records for the sale of such digitally delivered content.
It's no wonder then, that Activision Blizzard's business savvy Bobby Kotick has been looking at his cash cow and pondering ways of milking even more gold. And what better way than creating a massively multiplayer online version of Call of Duty that they can charge $14.99 a month for? After all, getting ten million people to pay fifteen bucks a month to you is better business than getting them to pay a one time fee of $59.99. It may not seem a gamer friendly move, but the fact is that most gamers would probably jump at the chance to play CoD as an MMO, assuming of course Activision can find a way to make the deal seem worthwhile. The fact that they haven't yet? Kind of a bonehead blunder.
Launching AOC before it was ready
It may seem hard to believe now, but months before Funcom launched its incredibly ambitious and supremely detailed Age of Conan MMO, it was spoken of in hushed tones as a potential World of Warcraft killer. A dubious honor, true, but such was the scope, ambition, and impressive nature of what Funcom had shown up to that point that it was valid.
Now, maybe all this got to Funcom's head, maybe they started to believe their own hype, maybe they were simply starting to run too far over budget on a game that had already been delayed multiple times. Whatever the case, for some reason they decided to launch Age of Conan months before it was actually ready. The result is there for all to see, it was a catastrophe.
Along with the myriad of complaints of bugs, broken quests, and debilitating technical glitches that brought even the beefiest systems to their knees (and cruelly made it almost impossible for ATI gamers to get in on the fun), AoC committed the cardinal sin of MMO's, it lacked content.
Sure, it was all fine and rosy in the early stages, you could go about completing quests, earning XP and aoc gold, but once you hit level 20, things changed for the worst. All of a sudden the immersive and entertaining voice acting disappeared almost entirely, the dynamic, interesting quests dried up. This problem got even worse as soon as you hit the game's higher levels, which saw content dry up almost entirely. Not cool.
This massive blunder severely damaged Funcom's reputation with MMO gamers, and folks left Age of Conan in droves, the repercussions of their mistake were felt company wide as the game got a new director. It's taken almost two years, but Age of Conan finally seems to be on the road to recovery.
Lord British attaching his name to Tabula Rasa
Some might argue that the name "Richard Garriot" has not been relevant for a long time, and some might also argue that the name advertised on NCsoft's failed sci fi shooter MMO, Tabula Rasa, was the least of that game's problems. They'd be right. That said, you can't help but feel that any good will and respect Garriot might have accrued from his time working on Ultima has been flushed down the toilet by his decision to slap his name on such a terrible, terrible product.
APB's new in-game "voice chat ads".
It's like a pun from a Penny Arcade strip, it's such a terrible decision. APB hasn't had the smoothest of launches, with gamers baffled by the confusing new subscription system on offer. What would be the worst thing you could do in this situation? Come up with a way to piss them off even more. How? Deliver ads over in-game voice chat! But that's not all, these ads are delivered to you regardless of whether or not you've paid your monthly subscription, the only way to get rid of them is to pay an additional "VOIP Premium" fee on top of this... crazy.
The golden rule when delivering advertising in-game is that you make sure it does not impact the gameplay experience. Why the developers couldn't deliver the ads on in-game radio stations (where they would make sense) and have chosen such an intrusive method will remain a mystery. One thing's for sure, if the guys behind APB keep making decisions like this, the game won't be around much longer.
The long, long wait for World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Okay, so it's not a blunder, at least not yet, and it would take a stupendously monumental blunder of supremely epic proportions to faze World of Warcraft, but perhaps announcing Cataclysm so early wasn't such a great idea... at least not for gamers. Think about this, there are still five torturous months left to wait before we get our hands on it. Most folks I know would give their weight in wow gold to play it now!
About the Author
Check some of my posts on how to combined with the best leveling gear that wow gold, STO Credits or ffxiv gil can buy.
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