MMO Development Lesson #8
Quality is paramount. In today’s market, and the market of tomorrow, quality is becoming more and more important. There is so much competition that creating a product with the assumption that quantity (of features, landmass, etc.) is greater than quality, you will almost undoubtedly fail (especially if you attempt to follow the same business model as other games). Polish the hell out of your product, and don’t make any small sacrifices or they will pile up over time. And, never say that quality is what matters most without following through.
MMO Development Lesson #8
I absolutely agree. I once worked for a company that promised “Zero bug count by the time we release!” As the release date loomed closer, the marketing and development groups pushed back against QA: “You have to stop reporting bugs, or we’ll never be able to fix them all.”
In constrast, a buddy of mine works for a company where the quality mantra is embraced from the CEO on down. All new projects were taken away from each development group until their bug count was zero, and the CEO enforced it. The quality improved, and the customers noticed.
Hmm..this wouldn’t have to do anything about the release of Vanguard, would it? I love the game but very disappointed in getting such a buggy game at release.
I really believe this to be the case.
My husband has actually changed his MMO subscription from EQ2 to WoW because he is increasingly impressed at the lack of any interference in his gameplay. Dont get me wrong - He works in the IT industry and accepts that ther may sometimes be bugs no matter how much QA you do. But he just finds SOE games frustrating.
I am personally more caught up in the lore of my EQ2 world but find “bugs” VERY frustrating. As an example - the latest Live Update was released for EQ2 and the following 2 nights (I am Australian) servers are down for hotfixes:( I remember a Live Update where at least one of the Chat Chanels didn’t work properly for a couple of days:(
I LOVE MY EQ2 but really WoW have set the industry with a new standard. It is becoming an increasingly compeditive market so the current industry heavyweights really need to take care lest they are left behind.
With EQ2, however, I see them pressing the envelope of what can be done, at least within the context of the game, and while things might be buggy here and there, they can also release a complex zone like Unrest virtually bug free.