WAR to be released...

[WayAbvPar]

Probably a good thing I am not a paid CM, since I would take great pleasure in weeding out those types. Best way would be to remove their posts and then give them read only access to the forums. That should torture them properly.

[Merusk]

One of the Netdevil developers was talking about Auto Assault, Betas, and NDAs in a recent interview.  His "lesson learned" is that Beta tests for MMOs are little more than Demos and NDAs in beta usually mean your game isn't that good and probably shouldn't be in Beta in the first place.

If everything I touched turned to shit, I'd be that cynical too.  After all, I'm the most gifted and talented person on the planet, so if *I* can't pull it off, everyone else's projects must be complete shit.

[IainC]

Damnit Lum. Now you have me excited that whatever you are working on might be Robot Jesus covered in a delicious candy shell.

Does it have FFA?  Why did you cut that class that never made it beyond concept art, it was my favorite one?  Why isn't the world larger?  Why does it feel more like a game than a world?  Why are you trying to make an artsy world and neglect gameplay?  Why aren't there elves?  Why doesn't it support same-sex avatar marriage, are you racist?  You OWE me explanations as someone who might buy your game!  Why do you want to restrict player's freedoms?  I HATE YOU I HATE YOU WHY ARE U SO GAY I QUIT

Can I have your stuff?

[slog]

One of the Netdevil developers was talking about Auto Assault, Betas, and NDAs in a recent interview.  His "lesson learned" is that Beta tests for MMOs are little more than Demos and NDAs in beta usually mean your game isn't that good and probably shouldn't be in Beta in the first place.

If everything I touched turned to shit, I'd be that cynical too.  After all, I'm the most gifted and talented person on the planet, so if *I* can't pull it off, everyone else's projects must be complete shit.

This is one of the reasons I'm watchin Jumpgate:Evolution so closely.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

[pants]

the one that says the Tiger watches a waterfall or something to that effect

I dont know if its good or bad that as soon as you said that, I thought of the inn in Highpass.  And I haven't played EQ for about 7 years...

[mutantmagnet]

[I've been begging for that 50k niche PVP game that doesn't suck for years now.

You and I both.  I've come to the realization that my tastes are niche.  I just need someone to come to the conclusion that a game can be both niche and profitable.

This basically then boils down to what are your graphic, visual enhancement requirements?

[Nebu]

This basically then boils down to what are your graphic, visual enhancement requirements?

What?  I don't even know what you're attempting to say.  Games don't need to be visually spectacular to be fun.  They merely need to stay out of the way of the fun. 

[HaemishM]

[I've been begging for that 50k niche PVP game that doesn't suck for years now.

You and I both.  I've come to the realization that my tastes are niche.  I just need someone to come to the conclusion that a game can be both niche and profitable.

This basically then boils down to what are your graphic, visual enhancement requirements?

What kind of shiny does it have? Well, I do like WoW graphically. Really, it doesn't have to be so goddamn shiney it blinds me, it needs to RUN WELL ON MY MACHINE. I'd settle for mid-range Battlefield 2 level of shiney, personally.

[WayAbvPar]

I agree about lack of shiny being ok (I am playing Diablo 2, for Christ's sake), but I hate the WoW cartoony graphics. HATE. Really really LOATHE. Like more than Jimmy Tudeski hates mayonnaise.

[HaemishM]

Again though, as long as the art style is consistent and well-done, all the shiney in the world is superfluous, especially if it means the game runs well on a lot of different configurations. X-Box level graphic quality is fine with me if the art direction is good, animation is smooth and the gameplay is fun.

[Simond]

This been posted yet?

http://www.videogaming247.com/2008/07/29/warhammer-online-dev-the-games-finished-we-could-ship-it-now/

Speaking to VG247 at Develop in Brighton today, Mythic’s Paul Barnett confirmed the news hundreds of thousands of pre-orderers will be thrilled to hear: Warhammer Online is finished and ready to ship.

“The game’s finished,” said the developer. “It’s just being polished and cooked.

“We’re in a position now where every day we get to polish it it polishes a little nicer. At some point you say, ‘That’s polished enough now. See you later.’”

Barnett wouldn’t be drawn on a specific release date, but said he would be comfortable if the game shipped now.

“We just won Game of the Show from IGN, G4 and GameSpy from E3 and they all said the same thing: they’ve never seen an MMO prior to launch that’s as polished and slick and ready to go as our game is. Our game looks great, feels great, plays great.

“Is it in a shippable state? Yeah, we could ship it now.”

[JWIV]

Paul is certainly the hype man of this production.

[Lakov_Sanite]

buzzwords!

and I thought WE overused the term polish

This also to me makes them say they are directly going after wow as polish is the wow buzzword du jour. The designers may not be but this statement seems to make it clear they are saying "do you like polished(wow) games? Well WAR is damn polished(wow) and so good right now but we're making it even MORE polished(wow).  Now, I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, in fact I really do want a game to come out and be a real overachiever. I doubt WAR will be it though and there's probably going do be a disconnect with marketing/design somewhere.

needs more buzzwords though.

[Hawkbit]

If it were truly ready to ship, they'd drop the NDA. 

After AoC, I won't buy another MMO at launch if they don't drop the NDA in the 7-14 day period before launch.  It's my personal rule going forward. 

[HaemishM]

If it were truly ready to ship, they'd drop the NDA. 

And start an open beta. Until you're confident enough to do those things, your game is not ready to ship.

[sam, an eggplant]

Is it in a shippable state? I suppose that depends on how you look at it. MMOs have shipped in pretty bad condition. As to whether I would ship it in its current condition, shrug, NDA.

[Draegan]

Why does a game have to drop an NDA or have an open BETA?

[Mrbloodworth]

Why does a game have to drop an NDA or have an open BETA?

Faith and confidence, is the point i think people are making.

If those two things don't happen, leads to thoughts of "Cover up". Well founded due to history sadly.













Then there are those that just want a free trial.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Any movie that isn't first released to critics you know is shit and this is the same principle. It has nothing to do with the players wanting a free trial or expectations. The fact remains that holding a beta and releasing info on your game prior to release generates 'buzz' and in turn will make you the developer more money, to NOT do it is a bad business move and one can only reasonably assume there are reasons for keeping things hidden that outweigh the benefit of generating that buzz.

[Merusk]

NDAs should drop so people can give opinions prior to release.  Open beta is folks wanting a trial before they lay their money out.  Nobody wants to spend money on a shit sandwich come launch day. Having at least one of the above means there's more valid opinions out there than game-rags who suck cock for cash AND don't play any game more than 10 hours. As you know its complete bullshit to evlauate the whole of an MMO on so little time in game. (Unless it's horribly, horribly broken.. which yo still don't hear from game rags.)

So you might say, "just wait until after launch and see what real players say."  Well, that's a heresy to most veteran MMOers/ achievers.  It's Launch Day or Nevar! It stems from the idea that if you're not there on launch day you're simply left-behind and may as well not play.  In a MMO that used to be a very big deal because if you were behind the curve, you were never going to have the opportunity to see a large chunk of content without some extreme catassing along the way. OR, in a pvp world, you were going to be fodder for a long, long, long time because 99% of the server was farther along than you.

Nowadays with instancing and private raids and general accessiblity as standard feature and PvP worlds with safe zones? Not so much.  Unless, of course, you're really concerned about "world firsts" and "we were the first to XYZ".

Oh.. also, not dropping your NDA makes folks think you're hiding broken, horrible features.  Secrets you force others to keep are 'always' bad.. so if you're telling other people to STUFU.. things must be horrible.

[Evildrider]

Well I just got an email about my preorder, and it seems that the launch date is now Sept. 16.

[Hawkbit]

Take with not a grain, but a shaker of salt:

On Gamestop's page they have 9/16/08 listed and noted below is "Servers will not go live until 9/18/08 at 10 AM EST"

[HaemishM]

Why does a game have to drop an NDA or have an open BETA?

Because I want a free trial and because if the game is good, they have nothing to hide. If the game is facefuckingly buggy, an NDA serves them well, but makes me think about the facefucking part entirely too much.

[Triforcer]

Well I just got an email about my preorder, and it seems that the launch date is now Sept. 16.

THE DAY AFTER I GO TO JAPAN.  I AM SURE MY PREORDER WILL NOT FOLLOW ME.  GAIJIN SMASH. 

[sam, an eggplant]

Yeah they're concerned about WOTLK, due in late october/november, and rightfully so. The market's forcing them to either launch by september or delay until Q1 2009.

[Hawkbit]

Yeah they're concerned about WOTLK, due in late october/november, and rightfully so. The market's forcing them to either launch by september or delay until Q1 2009.

The only fault in this logic is that I'll be putting whatever I'm playing on hold for WotLK for 2-3 months when it comes out.  It would serve them better to launch 3 full months post WoW's xpac. 

I foresee a real drop in first month WAR subs because of WoW.  Maybe that'll rebound a few months after, but it's not a time period I would launch around *if* I had the ability to change it.

[Nebu]

Selling before WotLK isn't a terrible idea in terms of boxes sold.  There's nothing to play at the moment and the only other anticipated title is the WoW expansion.  Sell before WotLK and you'll hook a few waiting for WotLK.  Wait until after and you may miss many potential sales.

Now... if you're talking about subscription revenue, waiting may be a better option.  Tough call.

[Riggswolfe]

Yeah, I just got my release date email from Gamespot as well. Since it mentions sever start times I'm going to assume this is no longer a case of "this is our best guess." A full month early!

[Montague]

Minimum system requirements:

PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

For Windows XP

· 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
· 1 Gigabyte RAM
· A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
· At least 15 GB of hard drive space

For Windows VISTA

· 2.5 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
· 2 Gigabyte RAM
· A 128 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
· At least 15 GB of hard drive space

[tmp]

Why does a game have to drop an NDA or have an open BETA?

It doesn't have to, but it was Mark Jacobs himself (iirc) that correlated amount of time the game is put in beta without protection of NDA, and the overall quality of the product. In simple terms, if there's nothing to hide, there's no reason to hide.

[cevik]

In theory the NDA is there to keep your competitors from being able to steal all your ubar ideas and implementing them before you ship.

Most of the time it's just used to hide the fact that your game is shitty so that you can get as many box sales as possible around release.

If people don't lift the NDA it makes me suspicious.

[Kirth]

In theory the NDA is there to keep your competitors from being able to steal all your ubar ideas and implementing them before you ship.

Most of the time it's just used to hide the fact that your game is shitty so that you can get as many box sales as possible around release.

If people don't lift the NDA it makes me suspicious.

Maybe it is to control the flow of information. It is, IMO, more related to marketing and Hype and less about how done the game might be.

[cevik]

Maybe it is to control the flow of information. It is, IMO, more related to marketing and Hype and less about how done the game might be.

So you are saying there is some information that could be told to me by a beta tester that would make me not want to play the game, thus the NDA is there to keep that beta player from telling me said information so I will eventually play the game?

Because if that's what you are saying the NDA is for, that was kinda my point.  If they are using the NDA to hide information from me that would keep me from playing the game, as what is typically done, then it make it no different than any other NDA and it makes me want to avoid the game.

If the only information coming from beta testers would make us WANT to play the game, they'd lift it in a heartbeat.

[Triforcer]

Maybe it is to control the flow of information. It is, IMO, more related to marketing and Hype and less about how done the game might be.

So you are saying there is some information that could be told to me by a beta tester that would make me not want to play the game, thus the NDA is there to keep that beta player from telling me said information so I will eventually play the game?

Because if that's what you are saying the NDA is for, that was kinda my point.  If they are using the NDA to hide information from me that would keep me from playing the game, as what is typically done, then it make it no different than any other NDA and it makes me want to avoid the game.

If the only information coming from beta testers would make us WANT to play the game, they'd lift it in a heartbeat.

This isn't quite fair.  For instance, WAR beta was ongoing a year ago.  If there was no NDA then, we'd hear bitching from retards about how a game barely out of alpha has bugs and imbalanced classes.  People who weren't aware that the game had only existed for 18 months at that point would then think "this sux" and never play it when it comes out. 

Its a different story two months from release, of course, but claiming NDAs should never be used is not wise. 

[cevik]

This isn't quite fair.  For instance, WAR beta was ongoing a year ago.  If there was no NDA then, we'd hear bitching from retards about how a game barely out of alpha has bugs and imbalanced classes.  People who weren't aware that the game had only existed for 18 months at that point would then think "this sux" and never play it when it comes out. 

Its a different story two months from release, of course, but claiming NDAs should never be used is not wise. 

I wasn't saying that at all, sorry if I came across that way.  Considering that I develop products for a living and have real competitors I live and die by NDAs.  They are useful things and every mmog should limit the beta testers to an NDA; however, not lifting your NDA towards the end of development, when you claim to be ready to ship and the odds of your competitors stealing your ideas in the limited timeframe left before the ship date are extremely low makes me very suspicious.

I have no problem with NDAs, but we're a month away from printing disks for the game if today's release dates are to be believed, thus if the NDA isn't lifted soon, it is a bad sign from my perspective.

EDIT:  But I highly suspect that we're arguing a moot point, I bet Jacobs is smart enough to lift the NDA any second now.