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Old 2010-12-29, 05:37 PM   [Ignore Me] #43
Straws
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Re: PlanetSide Next Spring 2011?


Originally Posted by Firefly View Post
I work in the gaming industry. Let me assure you, it is incredibly rare that a company releases a game (specifically, an MMO) on schedule. Mostly this is for the same reasons you mention. Unless there's an evil overlord behind the scenes, as was the case with EA Games and the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning MMO, a company will most likely push the date back until they're ready to go. And even then, there will usually be a patch on launch day.

We're also overlooking a major fact, here. This is SOE we're talking about. Remember them? Rather, remember their staggering lack of publicity for the development of the game? And the lack of publicity surrounding the launch and continual operation of the game? It doesn't surprise me one bit that there's very little news here - and in all honesty, that doesn't make me very happy and it doesn't give me great vibes regarding the success of the game. I firmly believe that the lack of marketing for Planetside is what kept the game from being a huge game. I *STILL* talk to hardcore FPS gamers who are in my age-range that never even heard of the game.
I understand, and fully expect within the MMO market that projected release dates are missed, but since I feel that MMOs are still within the video game market that the basics of PR are still adhered to, and one of those basics is early hype, and the key to that is the dreaded projected release date, or "the promise" as most blinkered gamers will claim them to be.

The thing is, when those dates are missed, as long as it's not Duke Nuken Forever-esque, it's not an entirely bad thing. The announcement that the date has been missed is still an announcement. When reasoning is applied to the missed date (and it's based on an existing franchise), the fans of the product get hyped by the promise of extra work on the game because it's an indication of care from the developers.

However, two sides as always, the conspiracy theorists, you know the guys, the ones that think that the developers are hacking your accounts or using their position to cheat their way through their own game, will happily say that a missed date is caused by incompetance in the early stages.

Now, since PSNext's first announcement was buried within an article based on something completely irrelevant, and the first major announcement was from their "help us design the next Planetside" a mere 15 months ago, SOE really haven't helped themselves. The conspiracy nuts can easily come up with a craptonne of negative spins on any announcement, because there's no arguement to the contrary.

Now, yes, this all ties in with what you said, this is SOE and their PR is awful. A failed project like Duke Nuken Forever has more positive PR if only for the fact that they see the importance in it. However, as someone that works in the gaming industry, this wont be news to you, but there are levels of PR. Yes, Planetside had bugger all PR for it'soriginal release, not quite non-existance as I just hyperboled, but I only found out about it because a friend of mine was intricate to the modder community of C & C Renegade and one of the other modders was testing it.

But this is where I go back to what I said about 4 paragraphs ago. The basics are being missed here. Again. And it seems much worse because, frankly, first time round people weren't looking for the information, but it was there to be found. It's not there to be found now, not unless we, the players, cobble together all the e-mails we sent to SOE 15 months ago and try to through the design process on the collection of ideas and see which amalgamation makes most sense financially and for the product.

One of the few facts we have is that vague release date. To announce a release date 3 months from when it is due, then to miss it will be catastrophic for a product that has very little hooks into it's existing community, let alone the past community that wants to return and the biggest fish of them all, NEW PLAYERS, to announce such a near release date with almost nothing to tantilise the playerbase with is very disturbing. It's like SOE have forgotten that they are one of the pioneers of this section of the industry.


BTW, on a personal note, please don't bring up what you do for a living into a debate of ANY kind. It's a cheap way of belittling the knowledge of other people who have more respect for other people than to do the same thing. It's also misnomer of knowledge. As someone who I assume follows the gaming industry as a whole very closely, I'm sure you're aware that there are many people within the gaming industry that are clueless. Some of these clueless twits are in very high places, and they're just dragging everyone around them down.

A person's physical standing within any industry does not automatically mean they know what they're talking about. The best way to work out how much sense someone has within their industry is their ability to debatee it passionately, but only to a point. They have to be prepared to accept that they are fallible and that what they know is just that. It's not "right and wrong", it's just experience, and experience isn't always learnt first hand. If it was, then no one would learn anything through the teachings of others.

Maybe this should've been a PM...

Last edited by Straws; 2010-12-29 at 05:42 PM.
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