WoW was five years ago, and we haven't seen what launch will be like for this game. Cryptic knows exactly how many pre-orders they have. They knew how many beta keys they gave out. They got their numbers wrong - for whatever reason. If customers didn't demand improvement in the goods and services companies provide, we would all still be driving Model A Fords.
I can tell you've never been on the company side of a service based business like this. Tell me, if they know how many preorders they gave out, how many users are they supposed to expect to log in at any one time? All of them? Of course not. 50%? 60%? Enlighten us, because in reality, they have to guess.
Also, I hate to burst your bubble but improvement is made by company competition or the drive to generate new revenue as much as anything customers demand.
The fact remains that day 1 of any MMO is a mess. It's been like that since EQ, through WoW, through STO, and it'll be like that for SWTOR, and WoW 3, and whatever MMO comes out 10 years from now. You can crunch all the numbers you want based on how many copies were sold, how many preorders were sold, and how many posts were made on the forum roleplaying section on a wednesday between the hours of 2 and 3 pm, but you simply can't plan for the trends and activities of users on day one. No plan survives first contact intact.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I can tell you've never been on the company side of a service based business like this. Tell me, if they know how many preorders they gave out, how many users are they supposed to expect to log in at any one time? All of them? Of course not. 50%? 60%? Enlighten us, because in reality, they have to guess.
100%. They took the money, they are responsible for providing the service they sold. They will need them all at release, anyway.
If a company know they have sold 'x' number of pre-orders, then they have to make provision for all of them to be online. If they knowingly under-perform, they have defrauded their customers.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I can tell you've never been on the company side of a service based business like this. Tell me, if they know how many preorders they gave out, how many users are they supposed to expect to log in at any one time? All of them? Of course not. 50%? 60%? Enlighten us, because in reality, they have to guess.
100%. They took the money, they are responsible for providing the service they sold. They will need them all at release, anyway.
If a company know they have sold 'x' number of pre-orders, then they have to make provision for all of them to be online. If they knowingly under-perform, they have defrauded their customers.
Err, maybe you haven't experienced how reality works. The reality is that there is no way 100% of the people show up all the time the whole time. Also, maybe you've not played an MMO, but having enough servers for the load doesn't mean the servers won't have an issue that causes them to go down. Games that have been out 5 years still have these issues. They just crop up more expectedly on launch day.
Also if you really think you're gonna try to claim that Cryptic defrauded you, good luck with that. Let me know how the court case turns out.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
Originally posted by Blurr Err, maybe you haven't experienced how reality works. The reality is that there is no way 100% of the people show up all the time the whole time. Dosn't matter. You have to make it possible for everyone who bought early access to get on and use the service for which they have paid. Also, maybe you've not played an MMO, but having enough servers for the load doesn't mean the servers won't have an issue that causes them to go down. Cryptic admitted they didn't have enough hardware online to handle the load (which they clearly could anticipate). Games that have been out 5 years still have these issues. They just crop up more expectedly on launch day. Also if you really think you're gonna try to claim that Cryptic defrauded you, good luck with that. Let me know how the court case turns out.
When lawyers start noticing how much money is involved in these games, you can bet they will get interested in filing suits.
A pre-order is a contract, and if the company does not make reasonable effort to provide the service which has already be paid for (even if only in part), there is a real question of not living up to that contract.
I don't think EULAs are holding up all that well in court when tested. MMOs are huge business. They won't go unnoticed much longer.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Originally posted by Blurr Err, maybe you haven't experienced how reality works. The reality is that there is no way 100% of the people show up all the time the whole time. Dosn't matter. You have to make it possible for everyone who bought early access to get on and use the service for which they have paid. Also, maybe you've not played an MMO, but having enough servers for the load doesn't mean the servers won't have an issue that causes them to go down. Cryptic admitted they didn't have enough hardware online to handle the load (which they clearly could anticipate). Games that have been out 5 years still have these issues. They just crop up more expectedly on launch day. Also if you really think you're gonna try to claim that Cryptic defrauded you, good luck with that. Let me know how the court case turns out.
When lawyers start noticing how much money is involved in these games, you can bet they will get interested in filing suits.
A pre-order is a contract, and if the company does not make reasonable effort to provide the service which has already be paid for (even if only in part), there is a real question of not living up to that contract.
I don't think EULAs are holding up all that well in court when tested. MMOs are huge business. They won't go unnoticed much longer.
MMOs are a huge business...
But this is the sto forum...and sto is not an mmo..its a single player game with online multiplayer co-op capabilities.
I really tried to withhold my feelings here, but I am beginning to feel pissed too over the FAIL of this! Not only irregular server downtimes, game still crashing me out, NOW I have endless "retrieving characters", like so many others. This game is still in a technical mess! Not that we beta testers didn't say so, but after dozens of betas I participated I can safely say NO ONE EVER LISTENS.
That is because people keep buying.
As long as people pay, companies don't care about complaints.
I see it with every game launch, people have unrealistic expectations of how MMO launches go. Every single MMO goes through stuff like this. Anyone who thinks Cryptic isn't listening isn't paying attention. Every time there were server issues, the devs responded on the forums.
In fact, as far as launches go, this one isn't too bad. Many other MMOs (ie WoW) were way worse at launch.
WoW might have been worse at launch but it was purely due to the fact that a) Blizzard was new to the MMO Market and b) The game sold so many copy's so fast that there was NOTHING they could due about the demand other then stop selling the game.
There is a huge difference from being blown off your feet by demand and plan old just not being prepared for any demand at all (ala Cryptic). Here we have a game WoW that sold over a million copy's in it first months - something that had NEVER happened before. And then we have STO a game that more then likely isn'y going to sell 500k copys at best - from a company that has now launched THREE MMO's. There's little to no excuss for the mess that is going on with STO right now. I am willing to bet and go out on a limb and say that Blizzard's next MMO isn't going to half 1/10th the issues that STO is having right now. Reasion being is bacuse Blizzard has learned from the WoW launch and knows what they are doing now.
Also to say that every MMO launch has issues is also a lie. There have been several MMO's that launched without any issues on launch day.
I really tried to withhold my feelings here, but I am beginning to feel pissed too over the FAIL of this! Not only irregular server downtimes, game still crashing me out, NOW I have endless "retrieving characters", like so many others. This game is still in a technical mess! Not that we beta testers didn't say so, but after dozens of betas I participated I can safely say NO ONE EVER LISTENS.
That is because people keep buying.
As long as people pay, companies don't care about complaints.
I see it with every game launch, people have unrealistic expectations of how MMO launches go. Every single MMO goes through stuff like this. Anyone who thinks Cryptic isn't listening isn't paying attention. Every time there were server issues, the devs responded on the forums.
In fact, as far as launches go, this one isn't too bad. Many other MMOs (ie WoW) were way worse at launch.
WoW might have been worse at launch but it was purely due to the fact that a) Blizzard was new to the MMO Market and b) The game sold so many copy's so fast that there was NOTHING they could due about the demand other then stop selling the game.
There is a huge difference from being blown off your feet by demand and plan old just not being prepared for any demand at all (ala Cryptic). Here we have a game WoW that sold over a million copy's in it first months - something that had NEVER happened before. And then we have STO a game that more then likely isn'y going to sell 500k copys at best - from a company that has now launched THREE MMO's. There's little to no excuss for the mess that is going on with STO right now. I am willing to bet and go out on a limb and say that Blizzard's next MMO isn't going to half 1/10th the issues that STO is having right now. Reasion being is bacuse Blizzard has learned from the WoW launch and knows what they are doing now.
Also to say that every MMO launch has issues is also a lie. There have been several MMO's that launched without any issues on launch day.
perhaps, I do not remember one game that has been released that did not have crash issues, lag, bugs, etc. can you name some of the several you speak of?
perhaps, I do not remember one game that has been released that did not have crash issues, lag, bugs, etc. can you name some of the several you speak of?
Lord of the Rings had a very smooth launch.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
perhaps, I do not remember one game that has been released that did not have crash issues, lag, bugs, etc. can you name some of the several you speak of?
Lord of the Rings had a very smooth launch.
Nope, I remember the launch and assure you there were bugs and lag on launch day of that one..any others you can remember???
10.1.31 The first million subscriber was Lineage in 2000, followed by Lineage2 in 2004, then WoW in 2005.
(World of Warcraft is currently the dominant MMOG in the world with more than 60% of the subscribing player base, and with 1112 million monthly subscribers worldwide, is the most popular Western title among MMOGs. In 2008, Western consumer spending on World of Warcraft represented a 58% share of the Western subscription MMOG market. The title has generated over $2.2 Billion in cumulative Western consumer spending on subscriptions since 2005.)
The obvious contributing factor between these +1M games is they included asian gamers. Strictly western games have a tough time maintaining 500K subscribers. To what extent STO will include non-english server(s) is doubtful at best. They are having a TOUGH time supporting even 5K users... much less +50K or 500K simultaneous users.
With there being three types of ships (tactical, science, engineering) and limited to only two character slots Cryptic has no intention for the user to be able to completely play the game.
With there being three types of ships (tactical, science, engineering) and limited to only two character slots Cryptic has no intention for the user to be able to completely play the game.
Not at the standard $15 a month fee, anyway. It's actually three slots, BTW. Three ships per side with two sides would seem to require six slots, and that's not even counting a ground combat build. You can get by with two slots, but that will be handicapped by the build you use.
I am predicting that Cryptic will have respecs for sale at some point - just as they added to Champions Online. I bet slots will be put in too.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Categorically, this is a failure, I think. The grumpiness due to it is probably warranted by many.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by ForceQuit
Queue me up, Scotty
Yeah I loaded first time today and was 931st in queue, only took 5 mins to get on though. However, the load screens are taking forever now. Im running SSD and 100mb inet connection too, definately their issue.
I was there lotro crashed a few times, I remember cause I have chars on different servers just cause the servers went through rolling downages. Games crash at start ups always happens always will, either by a shere number of entrance bottle necking the data stream or something else. As to the they sold the pre-orders they owe you mentality, they don't owe you crap, why cause they didn't sell the preorder to you, they sold it to gamestop, amazon, best buy,etc and you can at any time cancel that pre-order and not buy the game and get your money back. So unless you gave cryptic non refundable money for the game your not really in a contract with them. Now the people that paid for a lifetime membership already, they have the right to complain. But from what I have seen cryptic has worked hard to fix most issues.
They need to fix the server dropping players, but well I am used to that in mmo's that are years old much less days out from a head start.
26 out of 892 The head start for me was absolutely perfect, plain sailing all the way. Why do they have to let everyone else play.
I will resist the obvious remarks and say that they wouldn't have to, if you spend enough in the cash shop.
You can make it happen.
They'll not get a penny from me in the cash shop, in fact the moment they put anything (other than char tansfers - which I don't think can even apply to STO) in there I'm outta here.
It's stopped telling me how many are in the que now, was just coming up to 1k. Still 26th have been for an age. I wanna play my Klingon!!! Those without preorders, piss off you're ruining this
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by MMO_Doubter
Originally posted by mrw0lf
26 out of 892 The head start for me was absolutely perfect, plain sailing all the way. Why do they have to let everyone else play.
I will resist the obvious remarks and say that they wouldn't have to, if you spend enough in the cash shop.
You can make it happen.
Where is the jump ahead for cash in the shop eh? I'd love to see what is actually in the shop.
Comments
I can tell you've never been on the company side of a service based business like this. Tell me, if they know how many preorders they gave out, how many users are they supposed to expect to log in at any one time? All of them? Of course not. 50%? 60%? Enlighten us, because in reality, they have to guess.
Also, I hate to burst your bubble but improvement is made by company competition or the drive to generate new revenue as much as anything customers demand.
The fact remains that day 1 of any MMO is a mess. It's been like that since EQ, through WoW, through STO, and it'll be like that for SWTOR, and WoW 3, and whatever MMO comes out 10 years from now. You can crunch all the numbers you want based on how many copies were sold, how many preorders were sold, and how many posts were made on the forum roleplaying section on a wednesday between the hours of 2 and 3 pm, but you simply can't plan for the trends and activities of users on day one. No plan survives first contact intact.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
100%. They took the money, they are responsible for providing the service they sold. They will need them all at release, anyway.
If a company know they have sold 'x' number of pre-orders, then they have to make provision for all of them to be online. If they knowingly under-perform, they have defrauded their customers.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
100%. They took the money, they are responsible for providing the service they sold. They will need them all at release, anyway.
If a company know they have sold 'x' number of pre-orders, then they have to make provision for all of them to be online. If they knowingly under-perform, they have defrauded their customers.
Err, maybe you haven't experienced how reality works. The reality is that there is no way 100% of the people show up all the time the whole time. Also, maybe you've not played an MMO, but having enough servers for the load doesn't mean the servers won't have an issue that causes them to go down. Games that have been out 5 years still have these issues. They just crop up more expectedly on launch day.
Also if you really think you're gonna try to claim that Cryptic defrauded you, good luck with that. Let me know how the court case turns out.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
When lawyers start noticing how much money is involved in these games, you can bet they will get interested in filing suits.
A pre-order is a contract, and if the company does not make reasonable effort to provide the service which has already be paid for (even if only in part), there is a real question of not living up to that contract.
I don't think EULAs are holding up all that well in court when tested. MMOs are huge business. They won't go unnoticed much longer.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
When lawyers start noticing how much money is involved in these games, you can bet they will get interested in filing suits.
A pre-order is a contract, and if the company does not make reasonable effort to provide the service which has already be paid for (even if only in part), there is a real question of not living up to that contract.
I don't think EULAs are holding up all that well in court when tested. MMOs are huge business. They won't go unnoticed much longer.
MMOs are a huge business...
But this is the sto forum...and sto is not an mmo..its a single player game with online multiplayer co-op capabilities.
That is because people keep buying.
As long as people pay, companies don't care about complaints.
I see it with every game launch, people have unrealistic expectations of how MMO launches go. Every single MMO goes through stuff like this. Anyone who thinks Cryptic isn't listening isn't paying attention. Every time there were server issues, the devs responded on the forums.
In fact, as far as launches go, this one isn't too bad. Many other MMOs (ie WoW) were way worse at launch.
WoW might have been worse at launch but it was purely due to the fact that a) Blizzard was new to the MMO Market and b) The game sold so many copy's so fast that there was NOTHING they could due about the demand other then stop selling the game.
There is a huge difference from being blown off your feet by demand and plan old just not being prepared for any demand at all (ala Cryptic). Here we have a game WoW that sold over a million copy's in it first months - something that had NEVER happened before. And then we have STO a game that more then likely isn'y going to sell 500k copys at best - from a company that has now launched THREE MMO's. There's little to no excuss for the mess that is going on with STO right now. I am willing to bet and go out on a limb and say that Blizzard's next MMO isn't going to half 1/10th the issues that STO is having right now. Reasion being is bacuse Blizzard has learned from the WoW launch and knows what they are doing now.
Also to say that every MMO launch has issues is also a lie. There have been several MMO's that launched without any issues on launch day.
That is because people keep buying.
As long as people pay, companies don't care about complaints.
I see it with every game launch, people have unrealistic expectations of how MMO launches go. Every single MMO goes through stuff like this. Anyone who thinks Cryptic isn't listening isn't paying attention. Every time there were server issues, the devs responded on the forums.
In fact, as far as launches go, this one isn't too bad. Many other MMOs (ie WoW) were way worse at launch.
WoW might have been worse at launch but it was purely due to the fact that a) Blizzard was new to the MMO Market and b) The game sold so many copy's so fast that there was NOTHING they could due about the demand other then stop selling the game.
There is a huge difference from being blown off your feet by demand and plan old just not being prepared for any demand at all (ala Cryptic). Here we have a game WoW that sold over a million copy's in it first months - something that had NEVER happened before. And then we have STO a game that more then likely isn'y going to sell 500k copys at best - from a company that has now launched THREE MMO's. There's little to no excuss for the mess that is going on with STO right now. I am willing to bet and go out on a limb and say that Blizzard's next MMO isn't going to half 1/10th the issues that STO is having right now. Reasion being is bacuse Blizzard has learned from the WoW launch and knows what they are doing now.
Also to say that every MMO launch has issues is also a lie. There have been several MMO's that launched without any issues on launch day.
perhaps, I do not remember one game that has been released that did not have crash issues, lag, bugs, etc. can you name some of the several you speak of?
Lord of the Rings had a very smooth launch.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Lord of the Rings had a very smooth launch.
Nope, I remember the launch and assure you there were bugs and lag on launch day of that one..any others you can remember???
10.1.31
The first million subscriber was Lineage in 2000, followed by Lineage2 in 2004, then WoW in 2005.
(World of Warcraft is currently the dominant MMOG in the world with more than 60% of the subscribing player base, and with 1112 million monthly subscribers worldwide, is the most popular Western title among MMOGs. In 2008, Western consumer spending on World of Warcraft represented a 58% share of the Western subscription MMOG market. The title has generated over $2.2 Billion in cumulative Western consumer spending on subscriptions since 2005.)
The obvious contributing factor between these +1M games is they included asian gamers. Strictly western games have a tough time maintaining 500K subscribers. To what extent STO will include non-english server(s) is doubtful at best. They are having a TOUGH time supporting even 5K users... much less +50K or 500K simultaneous users.
With there being three types of ships (tactical, science, engineering) and limited to only two character slots Cryptic has no intention for the user to be able to completely play the game.
Not at the standard $15 a month fee, anyway. It's actually three slots, BTW. Three ships per side with two sides would seem to require six slots, and that's not even counting a ground combat build. You can get by with two slots, but that will be handicapped by the build you use.
I am predicting that Cryptic will have respecs for sale at some point - just as they added to Champions Online. I bet slots will be put in too.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Server crashed YET again. And the official forums are raging heaven again.
Just saying.
I don't know if I'd go for "EPIC FAIL" of the year or anything but it is a black mark.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Queue me up, Scotty.
Categorically, this is a failure, I think. The grumpiness due to it is probably warranted by many.
Yeah I loaded first time today and was 931st in queue, only took 5 mins to get on though. However, the load screens are taking forever now. Im running SSD and 100mb inet connection too, definately their issue.
Game is still fun though.
26 out of 892
The head start for me was absolutely perfect, plain sailing all the way. Why do they have to let everyone else play.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I was there lotro crashed a few times, I remember cause I have chars on different servers just cause the servers went through rolling downages. Games crash at start ups always happens always will, either by a shere number of entrance bottle necking the data stream or something else. As to the they sold the pre-orders they owe you mentality, they don't owe you crap, why cause they didn't sell the preorder to you, they sold it to gamestop, amazon, best buy,etc and you can at any time cancel that pre-order and not buy the game and get your money back. So unless you gave cryptic non refundable money for the game your not really in a contract with them. Now the people that paid for a lifetime membership already, they have the right to complain. But from what I have seen cryptic has worked hard to fix most issues.
They need to fix the server dropping players, but well I am used to that in mmo's that are years old much less days out from a head start.
I will resist the obvious remarks and say that they wouldn't have to, if you spend enough in the cash shop.
You can make it happen.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I will resist the obvious remarks and say that they wouldn't have to, if you spend enough in the cash shop.
You can make it happen.
They'll not get a penny from me in the cash shop, in fact the moment they put anything (other than char tansfers - which I don't think can even apply to STO) in there I'm outta here.
It's stopped telling me how many are in the que now, was just coming up to 1k. Still 26th have been for an age. I wanna play my Klingon!!! Those without preorders, piss off you're ruining this
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
I will resist the obvious remarks and say that they wouldn't have to, if you spend enough in the cash shop.
You can make it happen.
Where is the jump ahead for cash in the shop eh? I'd love to see what is actually in the shop.
When I first read this I lol'd. After sitting in this que for half an hour I want to punch you in the face.
One line and I still miss a word out, my old teachers have a lot to answer for.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
When I first read this I lol'd. After sitting in this que for half an hour I want to punch you the face.
Try an 11 min load screen at H'atoria system...
Seems the server crashed again. lol.
Yeah that would be it.