MMO's are like wine. Play them too early (i.e. at launch), and you end up with a foul taste in your mouth. It is so much better to give the MMO time to mature and ripen, to reach its full potential.
Sadly, a lot of us MMO fans are like winos. We don't care if it isn't ready. We want it, and we want it NOW. It's easy to get intoxicated with the rush of leveling a new character in a new game. Part of what draws gamers like me to an MMO is making consistent progress and improvements to your character. We all love the warm and fuzzy feeling we get when we hear the level up noise, learn a devastating new spell, or defeat a foe and rip the epic pants off its still warm corpse.
But what happens when the game you're playing consistently thwarts those warm and fuzzy feelings once you progress past your newbie levels? What happens when you search high and low for the ingredient needed to progress to the next level of crafting, only to discover that it hasn't been added to the game yet? What happens when you discover that many of your talents that you painstakingly allocated points to are hopelessly broken and you can find no communication from the developers on when to expect a fix? What happens when you fight for hours in a dungeon with 5 other people, defeat the final boss, only to discover that he drops yet another brown skirt...and you've been wearing a brown skirt for the past 60 levels? Or, even worse, he drops no skirt at all, because the developers haven't bothered to itemize the dungeon?
I'll tell you what happens. For a few days, or weeks if you are a patient sort of person, you desperately scan the forums, looking for a post from a dev that sheds some ray of hope on the abyssmal situation. You read the fanboi posts, the troll posts, the "Go back to WoW if you don't like it" posts, the "Funcom sucks" posts. And slowly, a great weariness overcomes you.
Playing the game becomes a chore, you feel as if you are going to work when you log in. The joy is gone. Even the camaraderie of your friends and guildies does little to lift the misery of playing an unfinished game.
And then you reopen your Vanguard account and live happily ever after. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I'll let you know how it turns out.
P.S. Nerfing Bear Shamans?!?! WTF Funcom, you suck.
Sadly, a lot of us MMO fans are like winos. We don't care if it isn't ready. We want it, and we want it NOW. It's easy to get intoxicated with the rush of leveling a new character in a new game. Part of what draws gamers like me to an MMO is making consistent progress and improvements to your character. We all love the warm and fuzzy feeling we get when we hear the level up noise, learn a devastating new spell, or defeat a foe and rip the epic pants off its still warm corpse.
But what happens when the game you're playing consistently thwarts those warm and fuzzy feelings once you progress past your newbie levels? What happens when you search high and low for the ingredient needed to progress to the next level of crafting, only to discover that it hasn't been added to the game yet? What happens when you discover that many of your talents that you painstakingly allocated points to are hopelessly broken and you can find no communication from the developers on when to expect a fix? What happens when you fight for hours in a dungeon with 5 other people, defeat the final boss, only to discover that he drops yet another brown skirt...and you've been wearing a brown skirt for the past 60 levels? Or, even worse, he drops no skirt at all, because the developers haven't bothered to itemize the dungeon?
I'll tell you what happens. For a few days, or weeks if you are a patient sort of person, you desperately scan the forums, looking for a post from a dev that sheds some ray of hope on the abyssmal situation. You read the fanboi posts, the troll posts, the "Go back to WoW if you don't like it" posts, the "Funcom sucks" posts. And slowly, a great weariness overcomes you.
Playing the game becomes a chore, you feel as if you are going to work when you log in. The joy is gone. Even the camaraderie of your friends and guildies does little to lift the misery of playing an unfinished game.
And then you reopen your Vanguard account and live happily ever after. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I'll let you know how it turns out.
P.S. Nerfing Bear Shamans?!?! WTF Funcom, you suck.
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