SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

Convo_sl said:

Half the people playing it won't even care about EQN heh.

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AFAIK, the majority of the people playing EQL don't care about EQN. No hardcore (current of former) EQ player I know lasted very long playing EQL. Completely different playerbase: people who want Minecraft+ vs. people who want a new MMO.

Anyway, don't forget the 2 Billion bucks Microsoft paid for Mojang: I know EQL players who think EQL is much more Minecrafty than Minecraft, except for inability to build on your own computer or in separate unique online spaces.

Teekey_sl said:

Has all the time and effort put into making building tools and PlayerStudio been worth it? Or are they just a gimmick?

I'll admit that I've actually been impressed by a few player creations I've seen from Landmark...but again, is the possible inclusion of the some player made creations worth putting so much focus on that aspect of the game?

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The building tools would have needed to be constructed regardless, because the world designers will use them to construct the handcrafted portions of the world. The tools - particularly the prop tools - are actually fairly similar to what is used by developers for both Planetside 2 and H1Z1.

There's only a handful of things in Landmark that aren't setting the stage for EQN: the sci-fi props, the UI - including the gallery/player studio, etc. Those all took a chunk out of EQN development time, but it wasn't substantial. And, I think you could argue that the assets generated by players that will then be used in EQN may make up for the lost time, but I have no way of proving that obviously.

Flc_sl said:

I still just don't see it, Convo. Here's a list of all the things for EQN that they've been working on that's been developed through Landmark:

Character movement ("heroic" movement.)
Voxel-based terrain generator. Merging of VoxelFarm and ForgeLight and resolution of technical issues.
Props and voxel developer tools for world creation (released in Landmark as player tools.)
Vertical tiers/caves.
Combat and physics.
Backend programming of crafting systems.
Music.
Sound effects.
Biome art design for EQN zones.
Water.
Server architecture and performance..

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I notice that nowhere in that list is "Fun".

tad10_sl said:

I notice that nowhere in that list is "Fun".

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Agreed. My major complaint with Landmark is that the systems they've implemented are all half-baked - big in vision, lacking in execution.

Movement is ok. Combat sucks. Caves suck. To create builds like the top builders you have to have a deep understanding of voxel manipulation that requires tons of youtube tutorial videos.

There's no way Landmark becomes a successful game with such an atrocious level of polish and unintuitiveness in its core systems. And there's no way EQN will either. They need a tremendous amount of iteration on those core systems to have a product that's capable of being a 'flagship MMO'.

zzeris_sl said:

Flc touched on why it's taking so long. This game wants to get rid of levels, the Trinity, use destructible environs, unique AI(with it's own hiccups and development issues), and a host of other things. This game is crazy ambitious(much more than I thought SOE would ever do) and it has cost them. The PlayerStudio took resources but I think the focus on player creations was mainly smoke and mirrors. Some good ideas seen but nothing that was groundbreaking to the meat and potatoes designers. Of course the entire Sony co. has been mismanaged for years so it's no surprise they allowed a lot of leeway at SOE. It is also no surprise that SOE wasn't as focused as they needed to be.

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Yeah. I'll just add that the MMO genre is still a great place to invest given the number of players and their spending habits, but the genre is also changing. The projects that are making money are the ones that are innovating and dreaming big. EQN's revolutionary ideas are why it is the most hyped MMO since Guild Wars 2 and alongside Star Citizen (and ArcheAge, but... yeah...). There's a pattern there of innovative ideas.

Innovation means a lot of trial by error, though, and that leads to lengthier development times and higher costs. And now that Daybreak is on their own, they don't have Sony's deep pockets to shield their year over year lack of profitability. That's why the cuts needed to be made.

zzeris_sl said:

Flc touched on why it's taking so long. This game wants to get rid of levels, the Trinity, use destructible environs, unique AI(with it's own hiccups and development issues), and a host of other things. This game is crazy ambitious(much more than I thought SOE would ever do) and it has cost them. The PlayerStudio took resources but I think the focus on player creations was mainly smoke and mirrors. Some good ideas seen but nothing that was groundbreaking to the meat and potatoes designers. Of course the entire Sony co. has been mismanaged for years so it's no surprise they allowed a lot of leeway at SOE. It is also no surprise that SOE wasn't as focused as they needed to be.

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Far, far, far too ambitious. All they needed to do was WoW+ or EQ++. EQ (or WoW) with better graphics and with the dynamic Mob AI to get rid of purely static spawns. Idiots.

zzeris_sl said:

Flc touched on why it's taking so long. This game wants to get rid of levels, the Trinity, use destructible environs, unique AI(with it's own hiccups and development issues), and a host of other things. This game is crazy ambitious(much more than I thought SOE would ever do) and it has cost them. The PlayerStudio took resources but I think the focus on player creations was mainly smoke and mirrors. Some good ideas seen but nothing that was groundbreaking to the meat and potatoes designers. Of course the entire Sony co. has been mismanaged for years so it's no surprise they allowed a lot of leeway at SOE. It is also no surprise that SOE wasn't as focused as they needed to be.

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They didn't need to create a stand alone game to do that. They saw minecraft and wanted their own version. They just decided to tie it to EQN.

Convo_sl said:

They didn't need to create a stand alone game to do that. They saw minecraft and wanted their own version. They just decided to tie it to EQN.

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But they just hadso much funbuilding EverQuest Next that they thought it was worth diverting resources from actually finishing it!

You hit the nail on the head. Landmark really doesn't allow equal opportunity experiences. Minecraft allows everyone to play and while there's some crazy creations, especially with red stone, you can replicate just about anything in Minecraft. Heck, children, very young children do awesome things in Minecraft. Landmark is serious art. You have to really understand technique and not everyone can achieve in Landmark. I think that will be a major limiting factor for their game.

Don't get me wrong, the creations are beautiful and it can be done but I think they're in a market, whether they like it or not, where simplicity is an important part of success.

Elidroth_sl said:

People who know me know I rarely hold my opinions and feelings in. I'm very much a what you see is what you get kind of person.

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Then why are you ignoring my PMs? At least tell me to fuck off. We killed dragons together.

I am genuinely glad to see you and your game have so much resilience. And not just because I mine it for data all day.

Wingz_sl said:

Landmark News and Commentary February 7th SOE now Daybreak Gaming Company, LLC

It's like when you get married and you get a new last name, but you're still the same person you were before.
Uh...............yea.

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So...did they find out what Marriage is really like now?

Muligan_sl said:

You hit the nail on the head. Landmark really doesn't allow equal opportunity experiences. Minecraft allows everyone to play and while there's some crazy creations, especially with red stone, you can replicate just about anything in Minecraft. Heck, children, very young children do awesome things in Minecraft. Landmark is serious art. You have to really understand technique and not everyone can achieve in Landmark. I think that will be a major limiting factor for their game.

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I haven't played Landmark much in the last 6 months, but couldn't they easily change this? I felt like if they took the MMO aspects out of Landmark, all the bullshit farming and tool grinding, that it'd basically just be Minecraft++. It's still pretty easy to build simple shit, with the added bonus of being able to craft more exquisite things as you gain practice. They could easily set up servers / modes for FFA building, no claim restrictions and all that nonsense. So many of the Landmark rules really discouraged people from building. I went on a one week vacation last summer and there was no way to keep the claim I was working on from vanishing at the time because you could only prepay so far in advance. I know that's been changed, but the point is that they could easily tailor the experience to gain a lot more builders.

That said, I'm still interested to see what happens with servers when combat starts getting a bit more fleshed out and players have the ability to set up their own dungeons and whatnot... I think Landmark may be the most valuable part of the company right now when you look at how much MS paid for Minecraft. I could see them just scrapping the MMO goal altogether and telling the team to try to make Landmark into a cross-platform building monster. Create new server types with more building and less farming, port to XBONE and PS4, have a goal to get onto iOS and Android when the hardware becomes a bit more powerful. If this were their goal, it'd make sense that they cut the head off some of the EQNext team but left all the Landmark talent in place. I wanted to see EQNext someday, but it may never happen as a traditional MMO.

Kuro_sl said:

"So many heads rolling you'd think they'd been bought out by ISIS"

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Ummaty qad laha fajrun! Smedley rasul Allah! TAKBIR! YA SMEDLEY YA SMEDLEY!

The biggest thing EQL has going for it is that it's not Trove.

Saw this cross posted at the EQN forums; summary of the situation from one of the now-ex PS2 devs:http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c..._novadaybreak/

The short version: pretty much what some of the slightly less cynical posts here have been saying, SOE/Daybreak had too much unnecessary bloat, and needed to trim the fat if they were going to make things work in the long term. Even as one of the guys that got canned, he's calling it the right move.

Randin_sl said:

Saw this cross posted at the EQN forums; summary of the situation from one of the now-ex PS2 devs:http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/c..._novadaybreak/

The short version: pretty much what some of the slightly less cynical posts here have been saying, SOE/Daybreak had too much unnecessary bloat, and needed to trim the fat if they were going to make things work in the long term. Even as one of the guys that got canned, he's calling it the right move.

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Now the question is, what happens to EverQuest Next and Landmark now?

I hope they live. EQ Next really looked like it was trying to change things.

Master list of developers affected by the layoffs, I will keep this updated as more information comes out to try to reduce subreddit clutter. : EQNext

Convo_sl said:

...Seems scatterbrained to me but maybe I'm just being selfish. We've always been told we can't get EQN till Eql is ready, so in my eyes Eql is in the way and Its less in demand than EQN atm.

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Same here. If you want to build an airplane, don't start with a bus.
If it looks like a duck, listen real carefully for the quacking.

If you want to ship a fancy mmo, build that. I'm not against a spinoff, but they should have kept it inhouse to reduce the support.

As it is, it must have drained massive resources. Both Development and management, for what benefit?
I'd rather have one decent game to play every 3 years, than to get one game after 10 years, that will come out 3 years after its engine looks dated.


They really need to re-think the strategy and make the content/ai before the engine graphics.
(Hey, wait, that's what was done with sojourn for EQ!)

It seems unlikely that the success of a MMO will be determined by how easy/pretty users can shape buildings and hills.

Flc_sl said:

Keep in mind that the most vocal people who are widely perceived in the community as the visionaries are rarely the ones doing the actual work, or even contributing the ideas that actually stick. See: McQuaid, Brad.

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You can't possibly believe that. I'm sure its a coincidence that both Vanguard and now Pantheon are fundamentally identical to classic EQ. Meanwhile, the IP changed drastically immediately after he departed and in his absence, the sequels have both been as far from the original as possible.