EQ Never

Like I said before, I think this is his last chance. He makes another failed WoW clone - he's out.

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You're also leaving out the fact that SoE has had moderate to big success with multiple non fantasy related titles like DCUO, Clone Wars, and most recently Planetside 2 which is an absolute hit. DCUO might have died out but they sold over a million copies of the game before it did. At 50 bucks a hit that has to be a good return on the company investment.

qwerty_sl said:

I forgot about PS2, the rest though, meh. The guy clearly is clueless, they should have replaced him several years ago. Last I heard Sony were not happy with SOE and they stepped in to make them change their plans. As far as I'm concerned, PS2 would never have been a success if it wasn't for that. Maybe they'll keep him on, but if EQ Next is another WoW clone flop after a month type game, I'd bet good money he goes.

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not in any way trying to defend smed, but he did say that they had another WoW clone, realized it, and completely scrapped the game while still in alpha, so that at least is a start (although, i don't know why they were trying to make another WoW clone in the first place). i honestly don't see this as being very hard: make a game very similar to the original EQ (through velious) with ramped up graphics and a few tweaks here and there and you have a sure fire hit. do something that strays too much from what made the original EQ successful, and you'll probably wind up with a flop.

qwerty_sl said:

I forgot about PS2, the rest though, meh. The guy clearly is clueless, they should have replaced him several years ago. Last I heard Sony were not happy with SOE and they stepped in to make them change their plans. As far as I'm concerned, PS2 would never have been a success if it wasn't for that. Maybe they'll keep him on, but if EQ Next is another WoW clone flop after a month type game, I'd bet good money he goes.

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Hasn't the majority of their games been profitable(and still making money)? That's all that matters to people in charge.

I can tell you from experiencing the amount of content released Vs. the time it takes them to release it that they really put very low man power on both their Everquest titles right now in the development department. It can't cost them much with the way they run EQ1/2 to produce a new expansion Vs. the money they rake in from expansion sales, SC-Store Sales and Subscriptions.

I'm personally shocked that EQ1 is as popular as it is right now, but the game has a shit-ton of people playing it since the F2P launch. I think people value the nostalgia more than anything and the fact that if they quit back when the level cap was 60-70, they have literally 10 expansions worth of content that they can play through everything. Even more surprisingly it seems to be the casual-semi casual players that are making up more and more of EQ's population. The people doing their own thing and don't care about rushing to the end game seem to be the population of people enjoying EQ right now.

The same goes for EQ2 really. Since Destiny of Velious launched, EQ2 has suffered from the same development stagnation that has plagued EQ1. You can tell their efforts as a company were/are being focused some place else.

From a business standpoint their business plan really maximizes the profits on both those titles

From a player standpoint hes porking anyone who loves either of those games and play them for new/end game content.

This lastest everquest expansion is a perfect example. They took a bunch of raids/zones you can tell we were suppose to get as part of an Anniversary update that never happened in the summer and increased the level of the monsters and added it to the Rain of Fear expansion with the other 6 raids that they had made. They recycled a lot of the velious zones which would be cool if they did it for any reason other than they were scrambling for cheap/quick content to roll into an expansion so they could meet a release deadline.

If any of you remember the "Fabled" Anniversary events in EQ1 where they put buffed up named NPC's in old dungeons with new loot, basically the same idea only the entire zone has level appropriate monsters in it. Years later they started doing hardcore heritage and completely revamped LGuk and Permafrost keep just like they did these velious zones in the ROF expansion, except it was free and came out in June/July to make up for the fact that we get no new content for 11-13 months.

What irks me the most is they don't put enough money or time back into the game. I'm not their accountant but I have two eyes and can see the game gaining substantial popularity again in the past year, subscription sales have to be substantially up, they make boatloads of money off SC-Store items, and its still 40$ for an expansion, 80$ if you get scalped for the collectors edition.

Despite all those positives the company has going for the Title, they won't put more than a minimalist effort/money into producing new titles for the game. They put as little as they can into it, while taking as much as they can out of it.

Aside from all that I have high hopes for EQNext. I'm loyal, what can I say.

cinge_sl said:

Hasn't the majority of their games been profitable(and still making money)? That's all that matters to people in charge.

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Another factor that most of us on this side of the veil never take into consideration or talk about very often because we can't actually see it going on, is the ability to navigate the internal politics of the company. People who are good at that can stay in positions they should have been shitcanned from virtually forever.

tad10_sl said:

Everything Smed says is 90% bullshit. I don't buy any of this. Why Sony doesn't fire him, I'll never know - he has fucked up soooo many times.

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Oh look, Tard is butthurt because SOE pointed out that remaking Verant-era EQ1 in a new engine would be afucking stupid idea. Quelle surprise.

Go play EQMac or P99, Tad. It's all you'reevergoing to get.

I have faith in Smed. I haven't played enough EQ to despise him, but he is doing a good job handling PS2 and being quite interactive with the community. If they plan on bringing something new to the MMO table, I welcome it.

Dalnoth_sl said:

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Yeah, it has shown, even with their new products they don't keep investing/building on them, they just go to something new/different.

You do have to expect a company to try and make profit and build future products and try for future customers. Part of that means they also have to show a desire to hold onto current customers, develop the products they have and encourage the product's ecosystem if they want to get future customers.

Anything they put into EQNext will likely meet the same fate as all other SOE products, I would like to play a nice pretty EQ on active servers though.

Itzena_sl said:

Oh look, Tard is butthurt because SOE pointed out that remaking Verant-era EQ1 in a new engine would be afucking stupid idea. Quelle surprise.

Go play EQMac or P99, Tad. It's all you'reevergoing to get.

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No its true. Smed would say anything to give ex-EQers like ourselves woodies, and then release WoW2 -- Now Featuring Station Cash! I remember the year or so that I tried to make Vanguard still work as a playable MMO, I would hear Smed make some promise and either ignore it or do the exact opposite.

Erronius_sl said:

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2-6-03

The day the angels cried

ismaris_sl said:

No its true. Smed would say anything to give ex-EQers like ourselves woodies, and then release WoW2 -- Now Featuring Station Cash! I remember the year or so that I tried to make Vanguard still work as a playable MMO, I would hear Smed make some promise and either ignore it or do the exact opposite.

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Counterpoint: Tad is always wrong. Abouteverything.

You can talk about leveling curve, difficulty, itemization, lore, and ingenuity in the MMO space until you are blue in the face but there are only a few areas EQ next would need to be savvy about to bring back what EQ had going for it:

1) Class interdependence, ditch the hero nonsense and let people play a certain role
2) Keep instancing to a bare minimum
3) Keep mob leashing to a bare minimum

These items are what made the memories and playback value of EQ what it was. It let people interact, depend on, and loathe one another to a degree that is lacking in most other games. Especially on PvP servers these constructs allowed the game to live up its "massive multiplayer onlineroleplaying game" title. The coddling used in today's games by developers takes players away from having a genuine role in how things play out.

Nostalgia and rose tinted arguments have their place, also serendipity, masochism, and sadism likely had their place in making EQ what it was. You would certainly be correct to malign the original EQ, however it did a number of things right, and while understandable it is unfortunate other games are too timid to make a true MMORolePG for investment reasons. Though I certainly think a case can be made, and eventually will be, a high fantasy game can still be successful without shoving a pacifier down our throats.

^ good post. can we have hope?

jello_sl said:

You can talk about leveling curve, difficulty, itemization, lore, and ingenuity in the MMO space until you are blue in the face but there are only a few areas EQ next would need to be savvy about to bring back what EQ had going for it:

1) Class interdependence, ditch the hero nonsense and let people play a certain role
2) Keep instancing to a bare minimum
3) Keep mob leashing to a bare minimum

These items are what made the memories and playback value of EQ what it was. It let people interact, depend on, and loathe one another to a degree that is lacking in most other games. Especially on PvP servers these constructs allowed the game to live up its "massive multiplayer onlineroleplaying game" title. The coddling used in today's games by developers takes players away from having a genuine role in how things play out.

Nostalgia and rose tinted arguments have their place, also serendipity, masochism, and sadism likely had their place in making EQ what it was. You would certainly be correct to malign the original EQ, however it did a number of things right, and while understandable it is unfortunate other games are too timid to make a true MMORolePG for investment reasons. Though I certainly think a case can be made, and eventually will be, a high fantasy game can still be successful without shoving a pacifier down our throats.

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well said.

Pardon how Naive I am... what is with the Troll/2-6-03 we will not forget?