Look Utnayan, this is why people keep pulling the WoW card on you. Your posting along, with things like this:
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On one side, he showed that this market was a viable venture. On the other, he also showed himself and other publishers that live patching processes can be used for unethical gain.
We also agreed that the live patching process is easily abused (And was/is) today.
but my problem is in the delivery, the hype, the PR, and some of the business decisions made which have really brought this genre into the ground just as fast as it put it up. I often wondered just how long it was going to take people to stop looking at this genre as a, "Well, I'll buy this game in 6 months when they finish it after retail release". That's horrible. And as long as that patching process is abused by publishers, it is going to continue.
Then the game comes, a lot of features cut but those features cut are not given the same press as the hype they were given years ago, and you end up with a very pissed off fanbase.
But unfortunately, as time goes on, we saw it being used via every company as a way to shuttle out piss poor product out the door knowing they could patch it later while banking on the leveling curve. It failed every time. DAOC lacked post 35 itemization and RvR relics. EQ expansions lacked high end zones being completed, resulting in players hard work and effort usually met with a brick wall of no itemization or just flat out broken encounters.(What was worse though was they lied about it) AO was a joke. Star Wars Galaxies used the patching process to actually finish the retail game they already sold - and lied about it as well with many things (Jedi being in game for one, than watching even that patched in 6 months later)
Whatever you do, just don't use the gift of that to finish a game. Yes, an MMORPG is never truly finished - but there is a big difference in using the patching process to add content, fix minor bugs, etc; and using it to completely pass things that should have been done before the game shipped.
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So to any sane person reading, we assume your point to be that the patching process has lead to evil. Games pushed out and patched later is a bad thing for companies to do, and Brad is partly responsible for what it has become. A slew of games tried this process, and were failures because people dont want to play for content that isnt there.
Did I get that correct?
Now it all comes to a crashing contradiction in your next line:
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And I think you'll see that most people (Including myself) are forgiving as all get out if you slip up and are honest about it. Didn't get it in the game in time? Fine. Let the player base know it will be patched in later. But lie about it, and you are going to see a shitstorm of anti credibility rain down faster than station access pass subs have fallen across the board.
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So everything you just complained about above is fine and dandy as long as they tell you up front all that shit is going to be missing?
Every single thing you said above could be applied to WoW, but its ok because they told you it was all going to be missing? You now switch rails and complain that its the LYING about said stuff thats really the problem. But really, at the end of the day, lied to or not, there is content that was supposed to be there, and is not. I'd be willing to bet 95% of the EQ1 playerbase did not experience the PoM/PoEb/Time/VT deal, since it was pretty much just the high end raiders dealing with it.
If anything, I would say WoW did this even WORSE, because due to their fast leveling curve, more people were at the top with nothing to do. Much worse then the measly 5% of hardcore raiders that EQ1 pissed off.
But yet, here we are, and WoW has 7 million subs, even when releasing the game minus the content that should have already been there.
But here is where I contradict myself. I believe you are correct, and that all that shit does have an alienating effect on the playerbase. WoW is just an enigma, and had it been named anything different and released under any other company, it wouldnt have done nearly as well. I believe this is one instance where the brand name most definantly sold the product. Now I think its a good game, and its fun to play so when people first buy it, they keep playing it. But there wouldnt have been nearly enough people buying it had it come from anywhere else.
I just find it funny that you give WoW a free pass over 90% of your post, just because they didnt lie to you. Stick to your guns and admit WoW did the same stuff you were complaining about.
