It is not because of WoW that mmo's tend to come unfinished it is probably because of development costs as the above poster says. Also, I don't think mmo makers really fear wow, as mmos are still a cashcow even with lowish subcription numbers, so mmo makers are just cashing in and not expecting to "kill" WoW.
Regardless, if devs aim to create a quality mmo having a "finished" game at launch should be the #1 prioriy. mmos are never really finished, but players still expect that certain level of quality when they start playing. How can devs expect to keep players beyond the free trial period with a half a game? An mmos content at release also acts the foundation which the game expands, so if the base game isnt good, added content will likely not be good as well. The mechanics of an mmo for the most part, dont and shouldnt(just look at Star wars galaxies...) stray very drastically from the original game. This keeps the game stable and comfortable for players but also means problems with the core game may never be improved beyond tweaks and "bandaid" content. So more reason to have a quality game from the begining. Patches and expansions are meant to keep players playing and not to complete an incomplete world. And so, an mmo world should be designed from the begining to expand gracefully, allowing an already "complete" virtual world to become even more expansive. It is unrealistic to an mmo to have perfect performance and stability at launch, but the game should be at least playable and clear of most major bugs.
It is one of my hopes that the mmo genre can become more dedicated to quality and fun, similar to single player games.
Waiting For Quality: A Better Future For MMORPGs?
With Jumpgate Evolution and Champions Online delaying their releases to give us a better game, Chris "Pwyff" Tom asks why can't everyone just try to give us the full package at launch.
For those of us who still love our offline games, it's interesting to see the differences in production that surround our 'regular video games' and our MMORPGs. With the console industry, blockbuster releases need to compete only with other games coming out at the same time - Street Fighter 4 doesn't need to worry too much about pre-existing fighting titles because gamers will happily make the purchase, even if they already have Soul Calibur 5, Tekken 5, Guilty Gear XX2 and Street Fighter 3 (guilty!). Perhaps the biggest burden that is placed upon offline games is their aim for key release dates that coincide with consumer purchases. Release for Christmas, or just before the back to school rush when everyone is spending money!
Recent MMORPGs, on the other hand, have been released not in conjunction with hedonistic holidays - instead, the entire development cycle of most MMORPGs seems to be centered on a different world… of Warcraft.
To give some examples, the disastrous Age of Conan was pushed out the door on May 20th, 2008 and Warhammer Online hit shelves on September 18th, 2008. Coincidentally (but probably not!), May 20th marked the very last TBC expansion for World of Warcraft (that was the day that the third gate opened for Sunwell Plateau, granting access to the full instance), and it would also be the beginning of the WoW Summer lull of 2008 which merely saw the beginning of Season 4 Arena and a broad sweeping nerf to all raid content, in order to allow everyone the opportunity to experience endgame WoW before Wrath of the Lich King hit.
In other words, Age of Conan went live when Blizzard said "that's it!" for the summer and decided to focus on the winter release of their next expansion. Warhammer Online even 'chopped' out four capital cities and four classes in order to make their Fall release (yes, the pun was totally necessary for those who got it). Now, you might be asking; why would anyone cut out that much content just to make a release date? Perhaps it involves some very deep commitments to production schedules and publishing dates, but chances are very high that World of Warcraft's award winning Wrath of the Lich King expansion, which was poised to come out a mere two months after Warhammer's scheduled release, also had a lot to do with the Mythic's development culling.
On the other hand, however, it's definitely not easy to develop a successful MMORPG with the aim of challenging the monolithic World of Warcraft without taking their development cycle into consideration. Unfortunately, I hope we all remember what happened with Age of Conan and Warhammer Online when they pushed their products out the door a little bit too early - while Age of Conan boasted sales of up to 1,000,000 copies and 700,000 unique subscribers and Warhammer Online posted up an equally impressive 750,000 unique subscribers a month after their release, both games have plunged considerably in subscriber numbers when users felt that they both had undeveloped endgame content and both had an incredible number of glitches on launch. Age of Conan currently has an estimated 70,000 subscribers, and Warhammer Online has closed several servers as they try to hold onto their remaining subscriber base of 300,000.
I'm sure we can all see the problem that comes with pushing unfinished products out the door too soon. On the other hand, developers may find themselves equally frustrated if they take that extra month to 'polish' their game, only to have Blizzard release tons of content the week before and thereby suck in hundreds of thousands of World of Warcraft players who might have started to crave something new. Considering the above two situations, it's easy for developers to convince themselves that they can snag those curious hordes of MMO gamers by pushing an unfinished product out, and then 'patching it up' in the subsequent weeks. Unfortunately, as with the case with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, we can see that this has rarely been the case.
In this way, you can imagine the great amount of pleasure I felt when I heard that two of the biggest MMORPGs to hit shelves this year were being delayed by their respective development teams. Netdevil President, Scott Brown, who is in charge of developing the space combat MMORPG Jumpgate Evolution stated, on the website, that their "goal is to make a great and, most of all fun, space combat game. Until we, and you, are happy that the game fully meets all of those requirements we won't release it." Bill Roper, Design Director and Executive Producer of Champions Online also issued a statement last month noting that they were going to delay release of Champions Online by almost two months because he "quickly realized that in order to implement certain features that we all considered important the development of Champions Online would require more time. So that's what we're going to give it."
At this point, I really have to say that this is a fantastic step forward for the MMORPG industry. Perhaps it's because we've all seen what happens when you listen to deadlines instead of your players, but the sooner we stop reaching for arbitrary deadlines, the sooner gamers like you and I will be confident when purchasing new MMORPGs.
One of my biggest inspirations, when it comes to gaming journalism, Jerry "Tycho" Holkins of Penny Arcade, pointed out a few weeks ago that truly groundbreaking games "arrive on some alien schedule, like comets, governed by whimsy or an inconceivably complicated schema which is indistinguishable from randomness. The end result is that we are given the opportunity to ache for them: two teams are not toiling in parallel to ensure that each holiday deposits an appropriate manifestation in this industry's pagan observance of the Winter Solstice." While this is an observation aimed more at the offline gaming sector, it's not that hard to stretch it to encompass the MMORPG industry. Let's all hope that others will follow Bill Roper and Scott Brown in ensuring that the gaming community is buying a full product and an investment - don't worry, we can wait.
Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com
