You admit defeat on the internet when talking about an upcoming game when you state “this is just the beginning; they have future plans for feature X that could make it really great”. The game is not out yet, and already you are hoping they fix/improve/complete something later.
Bonus points if, during the same conversation, you point out that one of the selling points of said unreleased game is it’s high level of completeness, and how smooth it’s going to be at launch.
Pick a sword to fall on, two+ is just abuse.
Hardcore Casual 
I am assuming you are talking about my comments about the Rift system in Rift. This would apply if the Rift system was not fun or did not work in its current form. Problem is it is and it does. As currently implemented, the Rift system is fun, is complete and does work.
Its not like I am saying “well, when it works, its gonna be awesome!”. Rather I am saying, “it works, its fun and I can not wait to see what they can do with it in the future.”. They have a lot of room to build upon it and that is a good thing because the foundation is solid.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying a feature, acknowledging that it is fun but looking forward to what they can do with it in the future. Heck, you do it all the time with Darkfall and for good reason. Darkfall laid a very nice foundation for its type of MMO but, as you have said yourself, there is a lot of room to grow within that foundation and there is nothing wrong with looking forward to that.
Thats one of the great things about MMOs, they can put out a feature and grow it as time goes on and as long as the initial feature was good, thats a good thing. Its when the feature is bad or does not work at all and they expect you to deal with it while they ‘fix’ it, that things take a turn for the worse. Luckily, the Rift system is not in this category.
The post was not directed at you, and while it was sparked by Rift, it could just as easily apply to SW:TOR or any other upcoming ‘zomg it’s god-like’ MMO that’s in beta.
BTW, what you wrote about rifts in their current implementation was exactly the same thing said about PQs at this stage. In beta they worked, they were fun, and they felt like totally new MMO content.
Then release happened, people farmed them for loot, min/maxed them, moved on, populations shifted, and soon that very same content was ‘broken’, despite the fact that not a single line of code had changed since that ‘awesome’ phase in beta.
Beta is a horrible time to judge a game, because the people playing are mostly all fans, everyone is still in the ‘new and awesome’ phase together, and, generally, the content is at least a bit controlled to avoid potential issues.
WAR might be the poster-child for this, but it’s certainly not the only MMO to go through it. I’ve been in countless betas where the game worked like a charm (DDO comes to mind), and then release happens and bam, everything that might have possibly gone wrong is happening daily.
This is a pretty fair statement right here. I’ve enjoyed Betas more than release for a long time now. Smaller population in game, everyone knows they are being wiped so people that care either don’t play, and the people that play don’t care so you get a much more experience driven (as opposed to reward driven) game during beta.
Beta probably is a bad time to judge a game, but it’s pretty much the best time to play one.
The number of MMOs I’ve played that were more fun at launch than in beta is one.
So true. For me, not even one MMO has been more fun after release than in beta – particularly closed betas.
People play very different in betas. It’s not “for keeps”, and as Bahgpuss notes most of the players are avid fans who are generally working to improve the game rather than break it.
Syncaine makes a good point though. Features promised in the early days of an MMO – particularly ones promised during beta – have a very distressing habit of never materializing.
It should raise a VERY large red flag when key features have this status and the MMO’s release is looming.
After an MMO releases and the crowds hit it, he’ll bent on breaking it, the dev’s priorities shift dramatically. New features are put on the backburner for at least a year. The dev’s instead focus on tweaking and balancing the newly overburdened and abused mechanics and making the game (that was great fun in beta) fun again.
This process has played out identically in every MMO beta I’ve ever been in.
I boil it down to two questions:
1. Has the game been released yet?
2. Have you told people that the game is brilliant?
If the answer to #1 is “no” and #2 is “yes”, then you’re a deluded fanboi. Simple as that.
So if other people tell you that it’s a great game, then you’re the fanboy?
Great logic.
Telling people does not equal being told by people.
I can’t even begin to imagine how you could misread such short, simple sentences so badly.
It’s almost like talking about how great Darkfall 2010 will be…
Will a Scimitar do?