Looking for perspective... An MMOs first year

[NeoEarth]

While I am bored to $hit in FFXIV, the one thing that keeps me coming back is the idea of FFXIV being one day a world filled with lore and adventure.

For me, when I entered into FFXI then LOTRO, the world was very developed and exciting. Today... FFXIV comes off as a young and highly impressionable toddler, being sadly twisted in circles by an ever more bitter community.

I'm looking for perspective.. perhaps some off us, most of us, need some... but what were those first 365 days like in comparison to FFXIV?

EDIT: If you have played the first year of any other MMO, certainly FFXI, please offer your 2 cents. ^^

[Rinsui]

You mean in other MMOs?
Hilarious: of course.
Boring: never.

[TheVedis]

@neo

ive been in several launches over the years(real launches, not NA launches) and i can tell you this

they are ALL pretty bad

14 however was bad beyond that as far as how it launched, but alot of what you see here now, the nonstop whining, is in every mmo

the lack of content, gets complained about in EVERY mmo, no one launches with enough to keep the hardcores happy right off the bat


the only real difference is every mmo almost...you could cap your character in the first few days and complain that much sooner

[Gath]

This game is still in beta stage of testing. When they finally sort out stability, and put int his new battle system, maybe, just maybe, it will finally be at 0 and be able to go up from there.

[Blitz0309]

No game is perfect at launch. However ff14 was unacceptable. They basically charged for a beta, and the fact that the game is pretty much getting a retool just goes to show that its still very much in development and wasn't ready for release.

They still haven't said anything as far as the details of what the major changes are going to be. We're just left guessing. But i'm sure they are "looking into it".

[WiiSam]

WoW was quite near perfect a launch. Fun classes, fun graphics, awesome boss fights, great variety, a beautiful world, plenty dungeons, plenty loot, raids, lore, EVERYTHING. WoW in its first year was its BEST year. That game was amazing. It only got easier and more boring after that, they dumbed it down too much and made it WAY too casual. Which for a lot of people is good, but its first year was Hardcore and awesome. 40 man raids were incredible fun.

Edit: Not to mention the awesome outdoor pvp and idea of alliance vs horde. That shit was fantastic, pvp servers were too good to be true. They nailed it at launch.

[TheVedis]

WoW was quite near perfect a launch. Fun classes, fun graphics, awesome boss fights, great variety, a beautiful world, plenty dungeons, plenty loot, raids, lore, EVERYTHING. WoW in its first year was its BEST year. That game was amazing. It only got easier and more boring after that, they dumbed it down too much and made it WAY too casual. Which for a lot of people is good, but its first year was Hardcore and awesome. 40 man raids were incredible fun.

Edit: Not to mention the awesome outdoor pvp and idea of alliance vs horde. That shit was fantastic, pvp servers were too good to be true. They nailed it at launch.

wow also had some MAJOR issues at launch too that people just flat out deny were there(5 minutes to loot a mob anyone? if it didnt crash you)



if its not 1 issue witht he game its another, ALL games pretty much had these issues at launch in 1 form or another and were flat out denied years after they were out(people also claim 11 was perfect at launch as well as several other games that have been around a while)

[Brannigan]

When WoW first launched they had no caps on crowd control. The spell polymorph (think Sleep if you have no other frame of reference) also instantly dropped you to the bottom of any given body of water. Naturally I would lure enemy players into the water and repeatedly polymorph them until they ran out of breath. But that's just some dumb balance stuff.

As far as bugginess and general playability goes, WoW was pretty polished on release. Looterskating was more of a server load issue, I think. Molten Core was unfinished (not itemized) and level 45+ was kind of barren for leveling up. Those are minor issues compared to what FFXIV still suffers from. WoW beta lasted like 2 years or something though so they had plenty of time to hammer things out. FFXIV was rushed out the door for some reason.

By the end of the first year of WoW I think they had added Onyxia (single-boss 40 man raid), finished Molten Core (like 8 or 9 bosses in a 40 man raid instance), added 2 mid level dungeons to fill leveling gaps (Dire Maul and Mauradon were both missing on release but Im not sure about when exactly they were added), and added Blackwing Lair (40 man raid instance with like 9 bosses or so). I think that a couple of PVP battlegrounds and the honor/contribution points system (a really crappy primitive PVP ranking system) were added as well.

Lots of this stuff was probably partially done before release. Also Blizzard took like 2.5 years or some crazy amount of time to release the first expansion.

[TheVedis]

When WoW first launched they had no caps on crowd control. The spell polymorph (think Sleep if you have no other frame of reference) also instantly dropped you to the bottom of any given body of water. Naturally I would lure enemy players into the water and repeatedly polymorph them until they ran out of breath. But that's just some dumb balance stuff.

As far as bugginess and general playability goes, WoW was pretty polished on release. Looterskating was more of a server load issue, I think. Molten Core was unfinished (not itemized) and level 45+ was kind of barren for leveling up. Those are minor issues compared to what FFXIV still suffers from. WoW beta lasted like 2 years or something though so they had plenty of time to hammer things out. FFXIV was rushed out the door for some reason.

By the end of the first year of WoW I think they had added Onyxia (single-boss 40 man raid), finished Molten Core (like 8 or 9 bosses in a 40 man raid instance), added 2 mid level dungeons to fill leveling gaps (Dire Maul and Mauradon were both missing on release but Im not sure about when exactly they were added), and added Blackwing Lair (40 man raid instance with like 9 bosses or so). I think that a couple of PVP battlegrounds and the honor/contribution points system (a really crappy primitive PVP ranking system) were added as well.

alot of what you listed
people consider unnacceptable now
a few mmos had content, but lacked certain ranges recently, and people acted like its the end of the world

[Brannigan]

Yeah I wasn't really trying to give an opinion one way or the other on it. WoW is a good game with a lot of frustrating (to me) design decisions. I played it for a long time but now I just don't - not that I hate it or anything, I'm just over it. I posted that long rambling thing just to give the OP some perspective on what went on in the first year of WoWs live time.

edit: heh looking through old wow patch notes. Here's a snip from December 2004

Cloak & Helm Graphics Edit Cloak & Helm Graphics

There are now interface options that let you not display your helm and/or cloak on your character. These options will allow a player to wear a cloak or helm, but not have it show up in the game world. The check boxes to control this functionality are in the Options menu under "Interface Options."

...


A "Looking for Group" channel has been added. Additional improvements in looking for group functionality will be added in future patches.

Seems like every game only gets around to adding helm display toggling after release (except Vanguard which shipped with no helm graphics at all). Also the bit about their LFG system is funny because additional improvements probably didn't come until they added the Random Dungeon Finder crap last year. WoW's old LFG system was worse than FFXIV's haha