This weekend, we want to discuss the highs and lows of everyday life in the world of MMOs with you again. For this, we need to wander a little into the past and find out: Which MMO has improved the most since its launch?
Initial Challenges on the Agenda
We don’t have to beat around the bush: MMOs are often many things at their “official launch”, but certainly not in an optimal state. In most cases, one could rather speak of a beta version 2.0 that still needs a few months or even years to really be a pleasure. A good example would probably be WildStar, which still had relatively many bugs at launch. The crafting was a nightmare (and some recipes were missing entirely), some endgame zones were monotonous, and entire adventures were partly buggy and thus only frustrating.
But even with genre giants like World of Warcraft, it is often forgotten that at the time of release, much was far from “perfect” and many problems were only resolved over a period of 10 years.
There are some rare exceptions that worked relatively well right from the start, such as Guild Wars 2. The density of bugs was manageable; only regarding endgame content was it a bit thin.
This now leads us to the question: Which MMO has undergone the most remarkable transformation since its release?
Cortyn says: In my long “MMO career”, I have seen many MMOs come and go. Most of them I only looked at at launch, so I can say little about how they have changed over the years – but I have checked in occasionally with a few. Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the great examples that a switch to Free2Play can indeed benefit a game. Nowadays, the classes feel significantly more exciting to play, and especially “Shadow of Revan” has finally given the game a stronger story component again.
Even my long-term love-hate relationship World of Warcraft has continued to improve over the years. Subjectively, the game felt “good” to me even at launch – at least by the standards of the time, which were not particularly high for an MMO.
But now let’s turn to you: Which game did you find not particularly good at the beginning but has become a real hit over the years? What changes have influenced this perception for you? Discuss it with us in the comments!
