Eh, hold up a second. I was there. One thing is buggy and another is service quality. Blizzard had tons of problems (for months) trying to stabilize the damn thing because the servers, generally, kept lagging or imploding. Their customer service/technical support didn’t help things one bit either.

But as far as actual bugs in the game, not that many and not that evident. In fact I’d dare to say it was quite polished and working well when not affected by those service issues.

I’m not sucking up to Blizzard, first because the taste is bitter, and second because I’ll be the first to admit how Turbine came back later and raised the bar regarding what a successful and smooth launch is, both in terms of bugs and service.

Regarding the subject I think you are wrong specially in trying to show WoW as an example.

WoW was awfully buggy at the start. Had severe lag problems. Had hours upon hours of downtime (that’s why all the free days). But there wasn’t another casual-friendly MMO around. Even Eq2 is still too complex for the average WoW player.

Thing is I am sick and tired of people who don’t know nothing about software development to say that developers should release the game only when finished. Yes, they should. And buildings should never collapse and entire car lines shouldn’t be recalled. But things happen. Specially in software that will run in innumerable different systems, through several network equipments, you name it. If you build a car prototype it’s relatively easy to test it, from the wind tunnels to impact tests. You can simulate almost any situation that the car will endure. That’s why we have test drivers. Software is another ball park and you simply won’t find any developer, of mmo or otherwise, that can cover it all in Q&A. We’re getting there, new tools are available. But if you think for a bit you’ll come to realize that it’s not easy. And the complexity grows exponentially.

So when someone says that new games must compete with WoW “now” instead of the WoW of 4 years ago, i just hope you remember that when Blizzard launches their new MMO. Not even then will be able to compete with present WoW, but of course all the excuses will ensue being the most common one: “duh! they don’t need to compete with their own game!”

With regard to your last comments I prefer to be an irrelevant niche than being with the bland majority. I prefer to play a buggy game than a glorified maplestory. The same in books, in music, cinema and art. If it makes me an elitist jerk, so be it.

And usher was the most commercial name i could think of. Because I don’t listen to the crap music MTV unleashes upon the world. Although is well done and profitable.

I’m highly tolerant of an MMO’s failings at launch as long as it’s a significant release.

I’m less tolerant of smoke-and-mirrors to spread content around ‘thin, sort of stretched, like butter, scraped over too much bread’. If we’re paying monthly fees and tolerant of mistakes because it’s huge, the content shouldn’t be stretched.

I’m also less tolerant of game-engine changes that result in bugs and downtime after a game has been out for more than a year. They have all the time in the world to test new special effects before making them live, so why is my UI layer now difficult to read during a snowstorm when it looked / worked great prior to Book 7?

The past week, I’ve been putting some time in with Defense Grid, who can thank LOTRO’s speedbumps for my business. I have no doubt though that my time in Middle-Earth will continue, because that’s the nature of an RP investment.

No MMO company has a sterling track record for uptime. WoW patch days are infamous. EVE’s recent Apocrypha expansion was a difficult upgrade for me (patcher wouldn’t work and I had to spend hours forum diving to find a link to manually download it). Of all the games I play/pay for Turbine has provided one of the better experiences. Of course this is why their recent stability issues are such a big deal.

BTW – Loving Castle so far, I’m a big of Fillion from his Firefly days.