[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Europe & Distrubution

[Johan]

After reading about Blizzard's (VU?) decision to only allow
localized server play and a 2-3 month delay for Europe I couldn't
help to think why no MMORPG, at least to my knowledge, has ever been
released over the Internet from the start. If any type of games
could pull this of it would be just MMORPGS.

As MMORPG's are designed to be played exclusively over the Internet
and require monthly fees, those who plan on playing already have
credit-cards and can pay for the game over the Internet.  While the
games do become bigger it could be argued that it would take too
long to download them and no one would want to do it. This is an
argument that does not hold though. If the game is made available
for purchase over the Internet when the gold disc is sent to the
production plant, it would give people at least one week to download
a copy before the servers go live.  This could also help ease the
pressure on the registration servers as sign up would be spread out
a little more, assuming people could set up their accounts before
the servers are go live.

Also, if we go back to Blizzard's decision to lockout European's
from the American servers (until the game goes live in Europe). The
real reason for them doing so I presume is because they don't want
an additional huge amount of people storming their servers at
release causing problems, although they have stated the "official"
reason for the lockout is to save us from lag.

I think most Europeans are tired of being regarded as a secondary
and less important market and many would jump at a distribution
solution like this, instead of having to buy an expensive import
copy from a US retailer or eBay (had to do so with DAoC and SWG
both). AO and it's expansions I all bought though Funcom's download
offers.

I would be very surprised if this has not been considered already
(as a release solution) as I am sure it has. Would still be
interesting to know why it's never been tried.

(This is my first post here so if this ends up on a mailing list for
Chinese nuclear scientists, my apologies)
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