Simply put, don’t play an MMO until 6 months after release.
As much as I preach this, I’m always the first one to break it, but I always end up wishing that I had not. All MMO’s (to date anyway) are so “massive” in construction that when they hit the streets they can’t help but be rough around the edges. More often then not they also tend to badly overshoot their development timetables and are forced to make some rather harsh cuts to make it to street in time to keep their respective publisher happy. The majority of these issues are eventually ironed out. After a good 6 months the development team in most cases has reverted from emergency damage control mode to a more stable content production mode and your new player experience is, I’m sure, greatly improved compared to running roughshod over all the release complications.
So to sum up: Do as I say, not as I do, and try to avoid jumping directly into the “next big thing” until it’s had time to flesh itself out.
