Seriously...

[jturner]

I guess I'll chime in, being that I am very bored at work. No we don't get a free month. In a perfect world would they have developed the game further before releasing it? Yes. Is it unplayable now? Nope.

My major concern is for the server stability. If you have a game running smooth, a lot of other things can be tolerated by a player base. With a strong, stable server, you can start to fix bugs in the game. Once that code is streamlined, you can start to worry about adding new features. And with every new addition you should make sure it is optimized before moving on to the next big thing.

Code is not simple. It gets more complex and easier to break the larger it grows. It also gets more fragile and cryptic simply due to the amount of personel, their individual commenting habits, etc. Statements like this one:

I can't emphasize enough that EverQuest (the dominant MMORPG on the market, thus I reference it frequently) deals with worse bug issues virtually every major patch they release.

Are misleading. How many years of code is that piled on that game? That is akin to:

I can't emphasize enough that his 50 story playing card tower (the one that the most people like to marvel at) deals with more instability everytime that they try to add another story, than mine does right now (albeit it's only one shaky story right now).

Well, I just got way off topic and rambled away, but like I said, its a slow day at work. My point is, that no we shouldn't get a free month, and that these things take time, but the game will be better off in the end if the time is taken to work out all the problems from the ground up. If you think you should get a free month, than the best advice I can give is never to buy a MMORPG until at least six months after it is released.

[robercl]

I can't emphasize enough that EverQuest (the dominant MMORPG on the market, thus I reference it frequently) deals with worse bug issues virtually every major patch they release.

Are misleading. How many years of code is that piled on that game? That is akin to:

I can't emphasize enough that his 50 story playing card tower (the one that the most people like to marvel at) deals with more instability everytime that they try to add another story, than mine does right now (albeit it's only one shaky story right now).

Ok, I'm going to steal that and use it myself in the future. As a coder, that's one of the best analogies I've seen.

[raynes]

I'm sure it does, if you're not ground into dust by grinding through the grind. Hopefully their super-secret non-combat stuff coming with issue 3 will change that.

Just to let you know that according to Statesmen in the recent HOC chat, the "super-secret non-combat stuff" will not be in issue 3. Suprising huh?

[bgrifter]

I can't emphasize enough that EverQuest (the dominant MMORPG on the market, thus I reference it frequently) deals with worse bug issues virtually every major patch they release.

Are misleading. How many years of code is that piled on that game? That is akin to:

By that rationale it should have run smoothly three or four years ago when the code was largely still fresh. It didn't.

I definitely recognize the challenges the EQ team faces dealing with dated code, but the disasterous gameplay bugs are not a new phenomenon. Nor for that matter are similar bugs in Star Wars: Galaxies, produced by the same company with likely even better financial backing.

The point is still valid, even the frontrunner in the MMORPG market suffers disasterous bugs and deals with them on a regular basis, no different from Ryzom. People need to remeber that before crying foul over the relatively minor issues we've had to deal with thus far.

[jturner]

By that rationale it should have run smoothly three or four years ago when the code was largely still fresh. It didn't.

I definitely recognize the challenges the EQ team faces dealing with dated code, but the disasterous gameplay bugs are not a new phenomenon. Nor for that matter are similar bugs in Star Wars: Galaxies, produced by the same company with likely even better financial backing.

The point is still valid, even the frontrunner in the MMORPG market suffers disasterous bugs and deals with them on a regular basis, no different from Ryzom. People need to remeber that before crying foul over the relatively minor issues we've had to deal with thus far.

I am agreeing with you. After playing the game for a relatively short time, I have yet to see a reason why anyone would deserve this first month free. The majority of my point is that bugs in the beginning are better off put to bed before inserting more to the game. That is why I would advocate stabilizing the servers, adjusting the code in game now, and then moving on. I would rather a snails pace of solid product, than a race car that keeps getting fresh paint over an engine that hasn't worked right from the start.

I never had anything to do with EQ. Actually I played for 3 days and quit. But I do know that any peice of software will have bugs. Find me ten humans without flaws, and then teach them to code (I guess the teacher would have to be flawless as well), and you may prove me wrong. The more complex the code the more bugs there will be. The same goes for the coders as well. Too many cooks do indeed spoil the brew. I believe that SW:Galaxies had some of the best financial backing, and chose the bigger is better route. With a Dev team as large as they had they proved my point. Bigger is not better. Simple is better, more stable, and subsequently more extensible.

There are people in this thread that are complaining about City of Heroes. I have found that, at launch, it was a very stable 480,000 lines of code. The fact that the Super Secret Out Of Combat System will not be in the next issue is no surprise. They seem to take a lot of time wih their product, and it is showing dividends in the form of 180,000 subscribers and growing by an estimated 6000 paid subscriptions per week.

This is what I would like for this game. I would like a strong foundation that future expansions can build on. I don't want to see things working at 80% jammed into the game only to have severe repercussions later on.

edit: The only reason I even bothered to post was that I found a game that I really like. It's for my own selfish reasons I want this game to thrive.