And once again, a Wednesday falls on a significant day, this time it is New Year’s Eve. So what better than a small but fine year in review?
That’s why today I dedicate myself to the three biggest disappointments that the year has brought me.
1. WildStar – Highly hyped, deeply fallen
Yes, I was among those who WildStar praised to the heavens – and I would probably do it again. The game launched extremely ambitiously and had all the prerequisites that an MMO needs to be successful. With an extremely long maturation period of many years, the release in spring could have been a major hit. But things turned out differently.
Shortly after the release, key figures left the development studio, but significant bugs and exploits were relatively quickly addressed. However, the many small flaws catapulted the game into obscurity.
Together with the broken promise of monthly content patches and massive balancing problems in PvP, many players quickly turned their backs on the sci-fi giant. Unfortunately, the great housing and extensive lore couldn’t keep the masses engaged over the long term.
For the year 2014, WildStar unfortunately became a flop – but perhaps the coming year will bring improvement and good news again. Carbine deserves it.
2. The release of Warlords of Draenor
I can hardly say anything bad about the now fifth expansion for “World of Warcraft,” because “Warlords of Draenor” does a lot of things right and offers fun for weeks. However, what drove me to sheer rage is the release of this expansion. It was a complete disaster.
For over a week, one could only enter their garrison if they either waited for hours or had Fortuna itself in their backpack. Many characters were stuck in the transition of an instance and could not be played at all. Added to that were the usual problems, like far too few mobs for far too many players – but I was already counting on that.
All of this would have been bearable if Blizzard hadn’t once again thrown the usual “cloak of silence” over everything and not told anyone what was actually going on and why nothing worked.
In retrospect, they spoke of DDoS attacks and other hardware problems. Better late than never, but sometimes late is simply not the best decision.
Honesty towards customers could have helped to keep the frustration of the player base in check.
3. DayZ – The new “Duke Nukem Forever”
Well, nobody would have expected that! It has been three years since I played “DayZ” – back then still as a mod for “Arma II.” Nowadays, the game feels a bit sillier to me every year because it was originally supposed to be released in December 2012 – mind you, as a standalone full version.
By now, there is the zombie shooter as an “Early Access” version on Steam, but interest is steadily declining. Many other developers have taken the steering wheel from DayZ and developed standalone games that work on exactly the same principle and already seem much more market-ready. Of course, there were some black sheep there too, but hope for a finished “DayZ” shrinks with each passing day.
It even seems a bit ironic that they have now released the plan for 2015: In the last quarter of the upcoming year, they finally want to enter beta status.
Who believes it. I no longer do. For me, DayZ is the new “Duke Nukem forever” and I no longer expect a release in this decade.
