Did WoW suck when it was first released?...
- Thread starter adamknox
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Blizzard has famously said 'balance is a journey not a destination'. The classes will never be finished and are in a constant state of flux, to adjust and cater to the ever changing dynamics of the content. I know that sounds like PRspeak, but it's the most eloquent way I can think of describing it.
Basically Blizzard totally mis-called the amount of subscribers they would get, and ended up pulling the game so that they could get more servers up for people to play on.
Once it was up and going, it was all plain sailing.
It was TBC when it started to go downhill.
Once it was up and going, it was all plain sailing.
It was TBC when it started to go downhill.
Many Everquest II fans would disagree I think, it's just a shame that it wasn't as hyped as WoW and the marketing was absolutely dire and still is!
Which was not necessarily a good thing in my opinion. I vastly preferred MMOs in the several years before WoW came out. Indeed if I listed my top 3 MMOs of the last 15 years , all 3 of them would be pre-WoW (the list being topped by a long long long long way by UO) and not a single one of the top 3 or even the top 5 would be post WoW
Caporegime
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Wow was very good from the start, I go the impression the OP is asking more the quality of the game, completion of game area, buggyness, boringness, crappy quests or good ones, working classes, essentially launched in a very similar state to how it ended up 6 months or years later, or was completely different.
The ones the OP listed were essentially all crap on launch, loads and loads of MMO's have teething issues related to server loads, underestimating demand and taking a few weeks to get more servers up and running(or turning them off very quickly in the cases of Warhammer, Startrek and a few others
).
In that case, WoW was launched essentially as a finished polished product, one of the only other MMO's thats done that since would be Lotro, which had all of a day or two of logging in issues, was frankly incredibly stable, non buggy and finished even a couple months before launch in the closed beta. The open beta IIRC was about 3 weeks long and fantastically well polished, then the final game build came out and again very very few issues.
I still only really came across a single issue from the game, where at a certain point, sometimes it would go from running across a river to being a the very highest point of the game world and falling for like 15 seconds before dying, though it was hilarious and literally happened at a single point in the game world. Nvidia 64bit Vista drivers were also hilariously bad for the first 6 months of Vista, effected almost all games.
Warhammer I don't think was particularly buggy, it was particularly crap at launch though and was just a huge let down all around, looked dated, cost to much, had little content, boring area's and absolutely zero communication between players.
The ones the OP listed were essentially all crap on launch, loads and loads of MMO's have teething issues related to server loads, underestimating demand and taking a few weeks to get more servers up and running(or turning them off very quickly in the cases of Warhammer, Startrek and a few others
).In that case, WoW was launched essentially as a finished polished product, one of the only other MMO's thats done that since would be Lotro, which had all of a day or two of logging in issues, was frankly incredibly stable, non buggy and finished even a couple months before launch in the closed beta. The open beta IIRC was about 3 weeks long and fantastically well polished, then the final game build came out and again very very few issues.
I still only really came across a single issue from the game, where at a certain point, sometimes it would go from running across a river to being a the very highest point of the game world and falling for like 15 seconds before dying, though it was hilarious and literally happened at a single point in the game world. Nvidia 64bit Vista drivers were also hilariously bad for the first 6 months of Vista, effected almost all games.
Warhammer I don't think was particularly buggy, it was particularly crap at launch though and was just a huge let down all around, looked dated, cost to much, had little content, boring area's and absolutely zero communication between players.
WoW was about as perfect as you could hope an MMO to be 'perfect'
Server issues aside I cannot recall running into a single gamebreaking bug myself in vanilla wow. Not only was a great polished game from launch but it was also pretty expanse. An impressive feat.
I really do doubt anyone except Blizzard themselves will ever release a complete and polished MMO as WoW from launch, which I think is a shame!
If Blizz releases a Starcraft MMO I can kiss my life goodbye
Server issues aside I cannot recall running into a single gamebreaking bug myself in vanilla wow. Not only was a great polished game from launch but it was also pretty expanse. An impressive feat.
I really do doubt anyone except Blizzard themselves will ever release a complete and polished MMO as WoW from launch, which I think is a shame!
If Blizz releases a Starcraft MMO I can kiss my life goodbye
Same here, I don't recall ever having any problems, even during beta, I preferred it back then in some respects to PvP. In my opinion I stopped PVPing when battleground were introduced, they could have taken it a whole new direction with open pvp but it seems they don't want to go that way, or ever will.
But I grew up with MMO pvp being "anywhere".
I have no doubt in my mind there will be more polished mmo's to come, it's only been what, 4/5 years since WoW?
But I grew up with MMO pvp being "anywhere".
I have no doubt in my mind there will be more polished mmo's to come, it's only been what, 4/5 years since WoW?
WoW was about as perfect as you could hope an MMO to be 'perfect'
Server issues aside I cannot recall running into a single gamebreaking bug myself in vanilla wow. Not only was a great polished game from launch but it was also pretty expanse. An impressive feat.
I really do doubt anyone except Blizzard themselves will ever release a complete and polished MMO as WoW from launch, which I think is a shame!
If Blizz releases a Starcraft MMO I can kiss my life goodbye
Don't underestimate Bioware they have similar high standards from what I can tell and I'm sure they know the value of a good launch. I'm putting my money on it (SWTOR) being the next big one. That said always play the first couple of years of a new MMO, usually the most fun times
The thing a lot of people miss about the release of WoW is that no-one, anywhere, complained about performance, since the damn thing ran like silk on anything from a Vic 20 up.
This was a pretty radical concept in mmo's, where the norm up to then had been to push the graphics envelope, regardless of how many people it would exclude from playing it.
LOTRO is the only other mmo I specifically remember as having a really good release.
This was a pretty radical concept in mmo's, where the norm up to then had been to push the graphics envelope, regardless of how many people it would exclude from playing it.
LOTRO is the only other mmo I specifically remember as having a really good release.
TBH while to an extent I agree, I really do believe the original WoW was the best. Its for a lot of reasons, most commonly now is that it wasn't so mainstream, far far less ninja's/abuse or spam for that matter. The whole server was a community chatting a lot to each other and generally having a good time. Molten Core didn't require HARDCORE players to enjoy and for those wanting to progress there was BWL/AQ40 and to an extreme Naxx.
I still play and still enjoy wow, but I will always prefer the old ways. I could also bring up the BG group queues and instances, people don't talk anymore its get in and get out. Although it is a great system for "getting things done" its become more of a "grind this HC daily quickly for 2 badges".
Random thought: This reminded me of the Beta where critters would insta kill you when they guarded areas like the Plaguelands!
Great post
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As many have said, the main problem was that too many people got the game. They only had one EU PvP server initially, probably assuming that most people wanted to play "Normal."
My copy arrived a day later, so I joined the second PvP server with no issues what so ever, apart from the fact I played Warlock, which was considered to be very gimped at launch. However, PvP wasn't a major thing then, so it wasn't really an issue.
My copy arrived a day later, so I joined the second PvP server with no issues what so ever, apart from the fact I played Warlock, which was considered to be very gimped at launch. However, PvP wasn't a major thing then, so it wasn't really an issue.
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I begun playing about 2 weeks after EU release and, aside from the disappearing ships/airships that would sometimes kill you if your hearthstone was in cooldown, it was an absolutely flawless experience. Fantastic, almost magical game until the addons came along and ruined everything.