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Folks,
As to NDAs, the rule I've always gone by is my "time before release rule" in order to judge the confidence the publishers have in their new game (doesn't apply to ports or games that are already out in other places). I add a +1 for every week prior to release that the game's NDA has been lifted and come up with a score. If <4, there's a lack of confidence in the product, if you are >8, they really believe in the game. WoW had a great score (the highest I believe) and some of the MMOs that failed, had, as expected, low scores. A score of 4 is just about the minimum you should expect from a MMO publisher.
As to why we all have strict NDAs, it is nothing more complicated that these games take a long time to not only develop but tweak and get just right. Nobody has a right to expect that a game that has as long as a dev cycle as an MMO will look, feel and play like a finished game until it is just that. Yet, if we allowed people to talk about the bad (as well as the good) during development, all MMOs, including WoW, would have had a lot of bad things said about them. And with what these games cost these days, yeap, all devs want to have the best chance to build interest in the game right up to the time of NDA release and/or launch. That's why I have always have told players and will always tell players to judge for themselves. Ignore the hype, believe the reality.
Mark
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