Sooner or later I was bound to take this snapshot, because it's been nagging at me. This is my 2004 World of Warcraft retail box:

A whole lot of people either have selective memories, or they arrived on the scene later, but the release of WoW was not 'polished'. It had numerous bugs, abysmal server stability, barely passable Endgame and virtually none of the faction-PvP features that were highlighted during pre-release.

Sieges of course, were not included. Nor was the "mighty Dragon of Blackrock Spire", although Nefarian did arrive 7 months later.

It was still a great game.

Accolade it for what it was and what it became, not what it wasn't.

I've just realized my error on my previous post about player patience.

What's changed lately is that I've jumped into a game at launch, that's skewed my perception of the playerbase, I apologize for roasting them. There are likely many patient players that are under the radar right now.

Ever since Ultima Online, I've recommended players wait for stability before playing a new MMORPG.

It's a wait for three important ingredients:

• Stability.
• Fixes for bugs.
• Patching content holes or balancing issues.

It became obvious very early on that these 'massive' online games involve a score of complexities not found in other games. Every ounce of content (and the content tends to be vast) has to deal with latency, security and all of the issues involved when multiple members of the human race approach that content all at once on the same playing field.

I don't think most players realize what it takes to make bullet-proof content. It's astounding to me that these games achieve stability at all over time, but they do.

I know the hardcore among us won't follow this advice and I don't expect them to. I try to myself, but I usually fail and jump into these games sooner than I plan, but rarely on launch day. I've always been witness to the carnage, it's been my job at times to do so, but I've withheld my own deep involvement until further down the road, after the patches of sanity come in.

I don't think these industry problems are going to be solved anytime soon. The next game that has a full range of content (notably Endgame) and is also stable with few bugs-- That will be the first game in this genre to claim that milestone. When it happens, I'll shower accolades, because I will be beyond impressed.

Meanwhile, if you are going to play, then the previous post does apply, it requires patience.

Myself and my guildmates, we'll be exercising this patience.

Age of Conan hit its first real day of server-instability today and if you go by the forums you'd think the Titanic sunk or something. Openedge1 has quit the game over it.

I find myself boggled, given that AoC's launch has been more stable than most MMOs by far. Ultima Online went down for 3 days immediately from launch and players were made to disperse any time they collected in one location. Everquest had servers bounce up and down for months, plus lag issues to the extreme. Blizzard stopped selling copies of World of Warcraft for 6 weeks due to server instability and Penny Arcade revoked their game-of-the-year award from WoW for the same reason.

During all of those, there were players freaking out, for sure. For UO there was even a class-action suit, which led to the EULA-disclaimer-heaviness of today's MMOs.

Everyone's entitled to their complaints. They are paying for a service and when it's not there, they get upset. I get upset when my power goes out, it drives me nuts that it happens in a big city. But I lived in a small town for awhile where the power wasn't exactly-- consistent. Whenever there was an outtage, we'd just shrug.

In MMORPG land, expect troubles in the first 6 months, that's just pragmatic.

It feels like there's some new kind of intolerance. Maybe players have had enough, maybe more than a decade of stability issues being 'normal' for MMOs in the first year is just too much for players to take anymore? Maybe it's a generational gap?

I suspect the complaints are more noticeable now that blogging your MMO experience has hit its stride, not to mention the wealth of established MMORPGs that are stable now that you can choose from.

Whatever it is, I think people should be ready for more disappointments, because this sort of thing isn't going to magically disappear anytime soon.

My advice: Don't take it personally, the bugs and downtime aren't tailor made for your frustration. Take a break now and then, have backup plans if your nite of gaming is disrupted.

Or don't play a new MMORPG unless you have a lot of patience, because it's either going to have issues or it's going to be delayed heavily for a cleaner launch (even then it's a crap shoot). Either way, there's waiting involved.

Update: Discussion on the Wiccana forums seems a lot more reasonable than the general Age of Conan forums, as usual. Most players there seem to also be suggesting patience.