Where did Acclaim go wrong

As well documented, 2Moons has been dogged by constant delays, is currently delayed indefinitely due to some technical issues. But rather than complaining, lets take a closer look to see exactly where and how the team behind the 2Moons project has dug themselves into this big hole.

I recall that there was much optimism surrounding the launch of CB and throughout CB, but soon it became apparent that despite the obvious potential this game had, there was still alot of work required to push it up to fulfill its full potentials. Since then nearly two months has passed and the initial anticipation from the community has since been withered down to a nagging frustration, and in my view the 2Moons Team is largely responsible for this.

Below are several key areas which in my opinion has not been handled well by the project managers.

1)
Experience - There is no question that DP has vast experience in the gaming industry, but as another poster has said, DP and Acclaim is a new comer to the MMORPG platform. In theory their whole business and gaming model of bringing exciting and new MMORPGs from Asia and repackaging it suit the Western market has great appeal, but in practice, they have stumbled along and often underestimating the task and challenge at hand.

Acclaim\'s first major 9Dragons, and although DP was not involved in the porject, but it certainly provides a template to gain insight into Acclaim\'s capacities. The initial slick website and the leadup to the launch was refreshing and promised to inject new energy into the f2p MMORPG market, it soon became apparent that beneath the smooth veneer, there was still alot of problems that were overlooked.

The OB launch was delayed for quite some time and when it was released, the client was riddled with fatal errors that were not addressed for several weeks despite the amount of complaints from players. Apparently Acclaim staff lacked the technical expertise to \'patch\' the client and had to bringing in specialists from Korea to address the issue and thus the delay.

The same problem seems to still persist with the 2Moons project. The update seems to suggest that the reason behind the recent delays is due to the lack of technical expertise amongst the current staff. In turn specialist has to be flown in from Korea to set up the server.

This does raise some serious questsion about Acclaim\'s capabilities. Did they understestimate the technical difficulties of the MMORPG platform. Did they simply overlook the \'server\' aspects of the 2Moons project or failed to include this aspect in their initial planning? Did the initial staff actually have a clue about how to setup and run a stable MMORPG game server? Why didn\'t they hire the expert staff required from the very beginning.

The situation only seems to allude to the fact that the Acclaim team behind 2Moons was inexperienced in the MMORPG industry and when it came down to the crunch, the hastily put together team failed utterly to deliver.


2)
PR and community management.
It was been remarked that the PR department of 2Moons is not handling the situation so well. Dismissing legitimate community frustration does not help. Blaming the community for their lack of patience when it is the Accliam team that has over and over again failed to meet their own deadlines does not help. Setting deadlines and failing to meet them does not help. Locking and deleting threads that contain criticism does not help. Short and vague updates that only occur at the last minute before a deadline does not help. Hiring a 14 year old as a forum moderator for a game targeted at 17+ players does not help. Having moderators abusing their priviledges during the CB phase with their level 100 character does not help.


3)
Planning
The original CB was revealed as merely a very old CB client of the Korean game Dekaron while DP has promised to make changes to Dekaron, not a single detail of the changes has been revealed. The initial attempted translation and re-writing of the story was proved to be more puerile than intriguing. The very exclusive Pre-Ob only lasted only or a very short time and the server utterly failed to handle only 100 or so players. Korean technicians has to be flown in at the very last minute without any pre-planning.

All these serious issues haunting the project seem to be pointing to a lack of careful planning on Acclaim\'s behalf and a lack of foresight and proficiency.

Author: Buddhabeads