Interview with Smed

[Gnome Eater]

No real outrageous answers there from Smed, he did take the easy way out on answering why WoW beat the everliving fuck out of EQ2 though.

Smed, one question I am very curious about which you may or may not be able to answer. WoW was in semi-public Beta for well over 9 months, with a very intense number of testers, and it contributed in large part to making the game very polished and virtually bug free at launch.

Do you feel that this has changed the attitude of the MMORPG industry towards the publish or die mentality? The non-hardcore MMORPG player quite simply won't put up at all with gamecrashing bugs/non polished UI, and quite often in the past, products that were not tested nearly enough were thrown out early, with the idea of 'we will patch it later'.

You already answered that you several times asked to hold back a title to polish it even further, but never EVER to nearly the extent that Blizzard has. I was in the StarCraft original beta, and that game took fucking FOREVER to come out, it was delayed over a year I think, and spent that entire time in beta tweaking unit balance, but look at how well it is doing now.

What I am saying in conclusion in - Do you feel that any other game will follow in the footsteps and have a 9+ months beta with loads of testers, or publishers still won't let you do this even after seeing the economical benefits?

[Clowns]

What I find kinda surprising is no mention of transitioning the PS2 MMORPG EQOA to the PS3. Must have been an experiment gone bad.

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

What I am saying in conclusion in - Do you feel that any other game will follow in the footsteps and have a 9+ months beta with loads of testers, or publishers still won't let you do this even after seeing the economical benefits?

That's actually a good question I'd like answered as well. Shit, I remember on the Diablo I CD there were cinematic previews for some upcoming Blizzard games, including one called Shattered Nations (or Unions?). It was going to be a post-apocolyptic RTS where you gained upgrades and new units from piecing together various parts you found or looted or designed in the game.

I remember e-mailing Blizzard a few years after seeing that preview and asking what happened to the game. Turns out they changed it into StarCraft. Why? Because despite being an interesting concept (one I'm still interested in), it simply wasn't working. So they change the entire story, the game mechanics, the title, the characters, etc. because they knew it was shit.

More developers in the gaming industry as a whole, not just MMOs, need to take a page from Blizzard's book or the number of skeptical and jaded gamers will grow out of control. I already find any way I can to get a "demo" of a game before I buy it, simply because I cannot trust most developers to not push out a shit game.

[Darph]

Don't forget Warcraft Adventures, the game based on the life of Thrall.

[Cantatus]

And, most recently, Starcraft: Ghost.

[Seth]

Not really related but I think the shattered game you were talking about is this one: http://www.sgalaxy.com/ . Still going after quite a while.

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Cantatus

And, most recently, Starcraft: Ghost.

Well unlike Ghost, which was effectively canned, Warcraft Adventures "turned" into Warcraft 3. I would still like to see a single player kind of RPG from Blizzard. Would be interesting.

EDIT: Scratch that! I was thinking of the wrong game. I was just thinking of WC3 when it was originally slated to be more of a RPG, than a RTS. Apparently WC Adventures is a completley different game. Though a Lucas'ish adventure based on WC would have been cool.

[Kasonic]

I think WC3/Frozen Throne could've been turned into a third-person action/platformer type RPG quite easily.

It's unfortunate that there's really not any room left in the lore at the moment for such a game, though.

[Samus Aran]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

The non-hardcore MMORPG player quite simply won't put up at all with gamecrashing bugs/non polished UI, and quite often in the past, products that were not tested nearly enough were thrown out early, with the idea of 'we will patch it later'.

Just like how all the WoW fanboys won't put up with queues, lag, server downtime EVERY day, crappy itemization, broken pvp, etc.?

[Rythonn]

Originally Posted by Gryphe

Just like how all the WoW fanboys won't put up with queues, lag, server downtime EVERY day, crappy itemization, broken pvp, etc.?

Or the extremely long patch cycle and coming soon™(read late 2007) expac. I am all for good testing but the comatose pace blizzard releases content at will be their downfall.

[Magnum PI]

Originally Posted by Rythonn

Or the extremely long patch cycle and coming soon™(read late 2007) expac. I am all for good testing but the comatose pace blizzard releases content at will be their downfall.

It'll be 5 to 10 years before Blizz falls below 1 to 2 million subscribers. They are a gold mine because they cater to the major population of people in the middle of time to play and skill. Vanguard will take the hardcores away like FoH but the suits at Blizz couldn't care less.

[Darph]

Originally Posted by Soygen

Well unlike Ghost, which was effectively canned, Warcraft Adventures "turned" into Warcraft 3. I would still like to see a single player kind of RPG from Blizzard. Would be interesting.

EDIT: Scratch that! I was thinking of the wrong game. I was just thinking of WC3 when it was originally slated to be more of a RPG, than a RTS. Apparently WC Adventures is a completley different game. Though a Lucas'ish adventure based on WC would have been cool.

Warcraft Adventures was a single person RPG, they turned it into a book instead. One of the best game books I've read by far.
It's called Lord of the Clans.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074...Fencoding=UTF8

On another note, I've tried to read the new "Cycle of Hatred" book, but so far it's been rather lack luster, it's about Jaina Proudmoore and Thrall trying their hardest to keep peace. Well.. who gives a damn? Not me! I wanna hear about Rexxar killing you fruity alliance tools in 2 shot, or Saurfang reciting the poetry of pain.

The Burning Crusade is supposed to bring back outdoor PVP, so we'll see what goes down!

[Smed]

Originally Posted by Gnome Eater

No real outrageous answers there from Smed, he did take the easy way out on answering why WoW beat the everliving fuck out of EQ2 though.

Smed, one question I am very curious about which you may or may not be able to answer. WoW was in semi-public Beta for well over 9 months, with a very intense number of testers, and it contributed in large part to making the game very polished and virtually bug free at launch.

Do you feel that this has changed the attitude of the MMORPG industry towards the publish or die mentality? The non-hardcore MMORPG player quite simply won't put up at all with gamecrashing bugs/non polished UI, and quite often in the past, products that were not tested nearly enough were thrown out early, with the idea of 'we will patch it later'.

You already answered that you several times asked to hold back a title to polish it even further, but never EVER to nearly the extent that Blizzard has. I was in the StarCraft original beta, and that game took fucking FOREVER to come out, it was delayed over a year I think, and spent that entire time in beta tweaking unit balance, but look at how well it is doing now.

What I am saying in conclusion in - Do you feel that any other game will follow in the footsteps and have a 9+ months beta with loads of testers, or publishers still won't let you do this even after seeing the economical benefits?

I think it's going to be game-by-game. Blizzard's beta was great.. it helped them polish the game and it also helped them on the technical side (remember this was their first MMO). For us 9 months is probably too long.. I think the ideal # is closer to 3 months of closed beta and 3 months of open beta. We would likely go longer on a Playstation 3 MMO (if such a beast was in fact in development )

It can really help to build awareness of a game and get polish ready. One thing I will say about Blizzard's beta is that they got WoW very well balanced day one which is something I really respect them for. I think we managed that with EQ2 as well.

Smed

[Sylas]

riiiight sure you did buddy, suuuuure you did.

edit: to elaborate before I get banned or something, let me just say that, yeah, I know you can't say what we all know. You've gotta remain strong and in defense of the work you did, gotta keep up the PR fluff and I understand all of that. But honestly here, you know (atleast you better) that we're not sheep, we don't have the memories of gold fish here, you can't go back and revise history to suit your particular spin of the day.

To clarify something, WoW was in F&F alpha for 4-6 months or, went into a small beta around december and then opened up from their to the large public beta that it was in. The beta period itself was closer to 11 months including the open beta and stress test, not 9. The fact is, WoW was in beta being tested and polished for longer than SWG was in development from start to launch, and the difference between them is clear, its night and day man.

You're the president of SOE and you just said publically that 9 months was too long for you guys. You're the decision maker here and its evident that you really just don't get it. 9 months is too long? Wrong answer pal. 9 months of a non-NDA beta? Sure, I see where you are coming from here. 9 months of a beta of that size? alright, sure. But 9 months is too long, period? This is exactly what your customers have been complaining about for all of these years. You didn't manage to accomplish the polish or balance that WoW did in your 3 month F&F alpha (being generous here) and your 6 week closed NDA extremely limited beta. Not even close, by a few orders of magnitude.

Now i'm not knocking your game. I DL'd the trial of the isle the other week to test out the new player experience and I have to say that its really starting to shape up. I've said it before but Gallenite is truly a miracle worker and I for one am surprised that he doesn't have your job yet. But please, don't insult us with your rose colored glasses of the state of play you launched in. You should be looking at the launch of WoW and making 9 months the minimum you spend polishing your games, not the other way around.

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Smed

I think it's going to be game-by-game. Blizzard's beta was great.. it helped them polish the game and it also helped them on the technical side (remember this was their first MMO). For us 9 months is probably too long.. I think the ideal # is closer to 3 months of closed beta and 3 months of open beta. We would likely go longer on a Playstation 3 MMO (if such a beast was in fact in development )

It can really help to build awareness of a game and get polish ready. One thing I will say about Blizzard's beta is that they got WoW very well balanced day one which is something I really respect them for. I think we managed that with EQ2 as well.

Smed

Thanks for answering that. I humbly disagree on EQ2's polish, but I suppose we disagree on that - however, from everything my friends tell me, EQ2 improved hugely since it released.

The thing that is particularly important, is that the new players that blizzard managed to attract in large part because of their game brand, who were previously not in the typical 'mmorpg demographic' would have not put up with the type of bug that a veteran MMORPG player is likely to just shrug off, so while holding off on releasing might have allowed you to release EQ2 earlier, getting the game 100% polished as opposed to 90% polisehd allowed them to retain some of the players that everyone dismissed in a saturated market.

More interesting though, the company execs, that before would have been screaming to GET THE GAME OUT BY XMAS OR THANKSGIVING - are they more willing to instead wait for developers to give the OK now, or are the deadlines the same as always?