AoC vs WAR vs ? - Biggest Launch Disappointment 2008

[UnSub]

Roll up! Roll up! Place your bets - which MMO is going to be the biggest launch disappointment of 2008? Will it be AoC, with a lot of hype behind it (i.e. boobs and blood) but a pedigree that includes Anarchy Online, or will it be WAR, with a pedigree that includes DAoC, but also graphics and gameplay that seem lifted out of DAoC too? Or is there some other contender launching in 2008 that will set forums ablaze with nerd rage at it's incompleteness and ineptitude?

EDIT - as I was driving around yesterday, I realised I'd switched up Neocron and AO in my head. I amz da n00blaz.

[Xuri]

Why Neocron? Also, WAR will be delayed for a spring 2009 launch :)

[Signe]

Hopefully, AoC will be just mediocre enough to get me to WAR.  Hopefully, WAR will cure me of my gaming disease.  Then I'll have the time to teach my cats to clean their own poopy box.  Srsly.

[Venkman]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

[DarkSign]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

Neocron's launch wasnt great. There were memory leaks and the game itself still sucks ass.

[Venkman]

Well, this was still at a time when just getting it to be playable on day one was worth a trophy or something. For how long did DAoC reign supreme for launches simply because you could log in, and even though Hibernia was little more than character models? 

[Slayerik]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

Neocron's launch wasnt great. There were memory leaks and the game itself still sucks ass.

I had a lot of fun with it. Great PVP. So quit hatin' :)

[Velorath]

Pirates of the Burning Sea is pretty much already my biggest disappointment of 2008.  I'd also suggest Huxley if I had any faith in it arriving in 2008.

[Falconeer]

Trivia:

Anarchy Online launched in summer 2001 while Dark Age of Camelot followed autumn of the same year, just a few months later, to steal the first few Funcom's burnouts.

Seems like Mythic is trying to apply the same identical winning gameplan 7 years later. Someone in Norway must really hate that Mark Jacobs.

[DarkSign]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

Neocron's launch wasnt great. There were memory leaks and the game itself still sucks ass.

I had a lot of fun with it. Great PVP. So quit hatin' :)

Mobs that respawn with absolutely no logic. Database wipes. Cars that you keep in your pocket. Memory leaks. Crooked GMs. Dumb ass hacking mini-game.

The only thing this game has going for it is ambiance. They make pretty cyberpunk.

[Arrrgh]

Hopefully, AoC will be just mediocre enough to get me to WAR.  Hopefully, WAR will cure me of my gaming disease.  Then I'll have the time to teach my cats to clean their own poopy box.  Srsly.

http://www.kittygoespotty.com/how-to-toilet-train-cat.php

[Signe]

Well, have you tried it?  I bet it wouldn't work on my kitties.  They do, however, have their own bathroom, but I wouldn't want to share.

[Nija]

Trivia:

Anarchy Online launched in summer 2001 while Dark Age of Camelot followed autumn of the same year, just a few months later, to steal the first few Funcom's burnouts.

Seems like Mythic is trying to apply the same identical winning gameplan 7 years later. Someone in Norway must really hate that Mark Jacobs.

It'll work again, I guarantee it.

[Merusk]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

I hate to agree with you on this one, but I do.   I don't think there's high-hopes out there for AoC, so it's hard for it to fail to meet expectations.  WaR has been subtle and avoiding the hype machine, so I think it might surprise people.

WoW is the Juggernaut, and shook things up, but really doesn't want to risk shaking things up TOO much at the risk of alienating it's behemoth usebase.  I can't see them innovating much with the expansion, and I don't expect much from the "deformable terrain" zone.  Certainly not the levels of defomity and destruction I've seen some folks hoping for.  3-4 "stages" of a staticly-spawned building from "mint" to "destroyed" and that'll be it.

Then there's the Death Knight.  It will be a dissapointment because it's only going to be as powerful as other classes.  Folks STILL expect a WTFpwn face-rape class and have visions of being Arthas and soloing boss-level mobs.  Hardly.

Then to top it off, there will be a whole new series of inane rep grinding to do.  If there's one thing I HATE (even as a PvE fan) it's fucking grinding reputation.  I hated it in EQ, and I hate it to this day.  Pointless timesink bullshit is all that it is in WoW.   At least in EQ they had the excuse of trying to create a 'world.'  WoW creates a game then does bullshit in the name of worldliness that simply isn't there.

I expect large levels of  whining about "this isn't what was promised" for the whole expansion.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

I hate to agree with you on this one, but I do.   I don't think there's high-hopes out there for AoC, so it's hard for it to fail to meet expectations.  WaR has been subtle and avoiding the hype machine, so I think it might surprise people.

WoW is the Juggernaut, and shook things up, but really doesn't want to risk shaking things up TOO much at the risk of alienating it's behemoth usebase.  I can't see them innovating much with the expansion, and I don't expect much from the "deformable terrain" zone.  Certainly not the levels of defomity and destruction I've seen some folks hoping for.  3-4 "stages" of a staticly-spawned building from "mint" to "destroyed" and that'll be it.

Then there's the Death Knight.  It will be a dissapointment because it's only going to be as powerful as other classes.  Folks STILL expect a WTFpwn face-rape class and have visions of being Arthas and soloing boss-level mobs.  Hardly.

Then to top it off, there will be a whole new series of inane rep grinding to do.  If there's one thing I HATE (even as a PvE fan) it's fucking grinding reputation.  I hated it in EQ, and I hate it to this day.  Pointless timesink bullshit is all that it is in WoW.   At least in EQ they had the excuse of trying to create a 'world.'  WoW creates a game then does bullshit in the name of worldliness that simply isn't there.

I expect large levels of  whining about "this isn't what was promised" for the whole expansion.

God, here I come in defense of wow again....well, for the first part I agree. I believe wotlk will be fun and more than likely a lot better than aoc/war however it will be a dissapoint simply because people have their bar set very very high, hell even I'm guilty of it.

I do want to say though blizzard is getting better, not at removing the grind but definitely making it more enjoyable. The new SSO stuff I really like, I think I hit exalted in, two weeks? of course i was doing all the dailies and a few dungeons but the dailies took 'maybe' two hours to do and were fun(for me) to complete. Also with the new quests there were pretty decent rewards as well, 10gold, random satchels of loot and occasionally a badge of justice, more than worth the time/grind and this is aside from faction rewards.  I personally enjoyed the new dungeon, hard as it was and just when I started getting sick of it all, I was exalted.

[Vanifae]

I think Wrath of the Lich King will be the strongest release out of the "Big" three.  It may be the juggernaut, but I have not seen much that is going to steal Blizzard's thunder from the contenders.

They may win the PvP junkies, but they won't steal the majority of Blizzard's fans.

[Simond]

I hate to agree with you on this one, but I do.   I don't think there's high-hopes out there for AoC, so it's hard for it to fail to meet expectations.  WaR has been subtle and avoiding the hype machine, so I think it might surprise people.

Although AoC and WAR do both have their rabid fanbois jumping up and down on messageboards all over, ranting about how their_game is going to bring real PvP back.

[Miasma]

AoC.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I hate to agree with you on this one, but I do.   I don't think there's high-hopes out there for AoC, so it's hard for it to fail to meet expectations.  WaR has been subtle and avoiding the hype machine, so I think it might surprise people.

Although AoC and WAR do both have their rabid fanbois jumping up and down on messageboards all over, ranting about how their_game is going to bring real PvP back.

I remember, way back when....

My friend and new guildmate told me he had a boat! I hadn't been on one yet and thought, cool.  So we go sailing a bit, was neat. Eventually we find a man out fishing, wearing nothing but a triangular pirate hat. Well, I felt if I was gonna be on a boat, I would need a hat.  "I have nothing" the man said.  To which I replied "I really want that hat" his answer was not what I wanted to hear as he cried "please just let me fish."  So, after we boarded our ship, with me sporting my brand new hat, we watched the fish nibble on his cut up corpse.

ah, that's some good pvp.

[Nebu]

If we consider historical success in comparing the AoC vs WAR launches, I'm going to say that WAR will be the more successful.  I still have a very bad taste in my mouth from the AO launch and they will have to do something spectacular to overcome that one.  While DAoC was pretty thin on endgame content, the launch was quite smooth... dare I say the best of its era.  I think Mythic has proven that they can do a launch well. 

[UnSub]

On one side I see AoC not having particularly high expectations, but exactly how disasterous the launch could be will dictate exactly how far into the negative people will view this MMO.

On the other WAR has more fans, especially about "PvP done right", so I expect the screaming to be louder when this launches (assuming it is launching in 2008, which is far from being guaranteed).

Aion, Huxley and Stargate Worlds could be dark horses for the most disappointing launch, but there are no set dates on launch for these titles other than a vague 2008.

[Falwell]

Ok I need some more guidelines here. Is this about the number of people who go ape shit about their game of choice eating a cock? Or is this about the biggest train wreck on server up day?

In either case Warhammer for the former, AoC for the latter. Although I like to think AoC will be the better game once the dust settles.

[Xuri]

Funcom made a press release for (to?) it's investors today.

Keypoints for people without PDF-reader:
*Gamespot PvP weekend is deemed to have been conducted successfully
*IGN/Filespot "open" beta coming May 1st
*Game has received over 20 front covers on gaming magazines, expected to reach above 30 by the end of launch month
*Pre-order data in some important retail chains interpreted as being among the highest for any MMO launched
*475,000 unique visitors at ageofconan.com last week
*Server park for launch scaled for handling 500.000-600.000 active subscribers (can be scaled higher in a few weeks)
*Partners/service suppliers: IPsoft, SCi Entertainment/Eidos, Cisco, Dell and GlobalCollect

[K9]

I think the biggest dissapointment with WoTLK will come when people realise that it is a like-for-like rerun of TBC, just in a new setting. Other than the death knight class I haven't heard of anything truly innovative coming with the expansion; this leaves just another reset of the game followed by a long and protracted grind.

That said, I'm hoping the best, expecting the worst with AoC.

[Nerf]

*Server park for launch scaled for handling 500.000-600.000 active subscribers (can be scaled higher in a few weeks)

I actuallly want AoC to do well, it seems fun, but you've got to love this little gem.  Freudian slip?

[caladein]

You mean besides how they use full stops instead of commas for thousands separation in Europe?

[Nerf]

I'm sure i've said this before, but Fuck Europe, everyone knows America is the only market that matters, and as such, they should stop using silly things that make us point and laugh at them for their obvious stupidity.

[Slayerik]

Yea, AoC's pedigree is AO. Neocron actually launch fine iirc.

My bet for the biggest disappointment is WoW WotLK.

Neocron's launch wasnt great. There were memory leaks and the game itself still sucks ass.

I had a lot of fun with it. Great PVP. So quit hatin' :)

Mobs that respawn with absolutely no logic. Database wipes. Cars that you keep in your pocket. Memory leaks. Crooked GMs. Dumb ass hacking mini-game.

The only thing this game has going for it is ambiance. They make pretty cyberpunk.

I was talkin about PVP, and I played the game from launch on and did not experience half the issues you are talking about. The ambiance was not the only thing going for Neocron. Did you ever take part in any of the outpost battles? Pepper Park PVP? Small group PVP at some PVE areas? All these were quite fun...the game had its problems, but I had a lot of fun with it.

[Numtini]

I'm amazed at the people who feel that War has more hype than Conan. Everyone I know is hyped for Conan and most of them are oblivious to the past and, I fear, doomed to repeat it.

So my bet is on Conan because I think it has more hype and I think it will be far less together at launch.

I agree with Falwell though, I'll bet a year after launch AOC is a better game. Funcom did a great job with AO other than the complete debacle at launch.

[Xanthippe]

Why Neocron? Also, WAR will be delayed for a spring 2009 launch :)

I don't care how long it takes, if they get it right.

WoW was delayed a long time, - I was quite happy with their launch.

Nintendo delays most of their big titles - but they ship about as bug-free as can be.

Getting it right >>>> sticking to original guesses on going gold dates

[Xanthippe]

I think the biggest dissapointment with WoTLK will come when people realise that it is a like-for-like rerun of TBC, just in a new setting. Other than the death knight class I haven't heard of anything truly innovative coming with the expansion; this leaves just another reset of the game followed by a long and protracted grind.

Any new battlegrounds coming? 

I'm still hoping for a Horadric Cube in some upcoming expansion.  That was the neatest crafting idea ever; why no one's stolen it for an mmo boggles.

[Merusk]

I think the biggest dissapointment with WoTLK will come when people realise that it is a like-for-like rerun of TBC, just in a new setting. Other than the death knight class I haven't heard of anything truly innovative coming with the expansion; this leaves just another reset of the game followed by a long and protracted grind.

Any new battlegrounds coming? 

None have been announced.  The only pvp announcement related to WK has been the open pvp zone.   I expect that's in large part because Blizzard is putting all their pvp eggs into the Arena basket nowadays.

[Schazzwozzer]

Here's what the WoWwiki WotLK article says about PvP:

PvP mechanics will be extended in WotLK, with the addition of a dedicated PvP zone (even on PvE servers) in central Northrend called Lake Wintergrasp. There is no requirement to visit the zone, but the benefit will be an interesting reward affecting the whole region (or possibly continent).

The expansion will also introduce siege weapons, destructible buildings (with both appearing in Lake Wintergrasp) and at least one new battleground. The currently planned battleground will have siege vehicles, 15 people in each team, and games will last 30 to 40 minutes.

[HRose]

I just read they (AoC) expect 500-600k within the FIRST WEEKS.

I chuckled.

[tmp]

I just read they (AoC) expect 500-600k within the FIRST WEEKS.

I chuckled.

Given they do have access to preorder numbers and we don't, maybe they know something we don't.