You expected the game to be fully stable at pre-launch? I can understand that, I guess. Was it realistic? maybe. Would it be fair to say that there was a fairly significant chance that there would be some issues? definately. This game has a lot of features that just have not been done before and to jump down the throats of the guys trying to get it fixed and out the door seems more than a little unproductive.
You could use the following template to talk about almost every mmo launch:
I played _______ in the Open Beta test for about a week and it was great fun with only a little bit of lag and a few bugs that were mostly annoyances.
Overall I would say that if _______ can eliminate the unexplainable server lag, _____ will be just as great as it looked to be in the Open Beta. I must say I'm a bit disappointed in the number of lag problems on the retail servers, but hopefully they will be fixed soon.
When the game is running smoothly it is polished with a well-designed concept.
______ has high standards, but they were a bit too anxious with ______, so their launch has the usually problems I've seen in MMORPGs. However it still will probably be the best MMORPGS.
ps. i ripped this from a post in Nov 2004. What happened in 2004.
I hear Rift is unbelievably stable. Yeah, it's a lot like WoW and you'll probably be bored within a week but at least then you will have something to do for the next few days before this one gives launch another go. Or hell for a couple bucks you can have FFXI which is just as good as Rift.