First of all, sorry about my English.
I play MMORPG’S since Ultima Online and i think that after that i played more than 20 titles easily.
I think that one of the most underrated aspects of a MMORPG is first impression. Developers frequently seems to forget this. One thing people value as much or more than money is time. That is relevant because when you launch a mmorpg it is quite easy to get people to try it, they will easily pay for it. The trick is how do you keep those people playing so your mmorpg can be successful. The main thing is first impression because people will not invest their time on a game that is full of problems. I have a huge list of failed mmorpg because of bad first impression, some of them got better later but it was not enough because is much much harder to get people to come back than to try it for the first time.
ToS biggest problem right now and the one that annoys me the most is bad decisions. They care and hear their community and i appreciate that, its one of the most important aspects to have a successful game but god you guys are making one bad decision after another. I will get back at this later.
This is already too long so i wont get much more on those decisions but just the most recent:
I currently live in Fortaleza, i use Vivo internet 25mb.
Before [SA] relocation:
Ping 80ms, some spikes would take to 1-3 seconds depending on how crowded the server was. NPC’s were lagging and sometimes were impossible to buy\sell\repair. It had some queues.
Overall it was playable. Not good, playable, i would give it a 5.
After the relocation:
Ping: 200-400ms. No spikes so far. NPC’s don’t lag.
Overall barely playable. Unlayable by some dps classes. I would give it a 4.
Conclusion:
Bad decision. Precipitaded move. People could have waited there for the solution even if that would take some time, you just need to be transparent, to communicate.
TL;DR: Get lean. Fast.
