SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

Jimbolini

Jimbolini

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I enjoyed Feldon's article linked in the earlier thread today, and with the update denial from Smed it makes me wish we could hear the other side of the story.

I know they won't do it...but a sit down interview with the key people would validate what most on here are saying.
 
Dullahan

Dullahan

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Flc_sl said:
Name your top five favorite design decisions of EverQuest at launch, and I'll show you how they were directly lifted from a text-based DIKU-MUD called Sojourn that Brad played for years. The mechanics and design comparison was so similar - including copy/pasted skill and spell lists for every class - that the DIKU team sued and only backed off when they received a signed affidavit from Smed and Brad that they hadn't ripped off the DIKU source code.

Just because Brad is constantly trying to reinvent his experience as a MUD player with new games doesn't make him a visionary.
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blah blah dikumud everyone knows the story. Fact is no one else could apply the elements that worked to create a game like EQ. No one since. He may not have even been the brightest of the original EQ bunch, but he was there and he is still here trying to apply what works to create something different. Thats more than you can say of the 99% of the games that have launched since.

Not only that but he has admitted verbatim that EQ was inspired by and large by muds and he has given them credit by name numerous times over the years.
 
I

InterSlayer_sl

shitlord
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mkopec_sl said:
Yes he was. All over the streams, answering questions and garnering feedback. The problem is, once released Smed was gone. Where was he answering questions then? To me that smells like a worthless marketing campaign. "See the CEO really cares about his games"
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Isn't release when you want the actual game designers and people working on the game to start taking over that kind of stuff? Seems about the right time for smed to get out of the way. If I remember correctly, smed's parting shot was teasing the Bastion Carrier that PS2 fans creamed over, only to learn later it was concept art and probably will never make it into the game.
 
J

Jackdaddio_sl

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All the names I see getting slashed are PS, EQ2, EQN, etc... anyone know why they aren't touching DCUO? Is that already down to the bone or what?

Curious because that's an IP license they're paying for there.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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tad10_sl said:
If that is the case, then that is because Smed didn't want to hear bad news.
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I might get in trouble with Smed for saying this, but this isn't meant to be mean spirited. He told me himself that most of his devs shielded him from the truth, to the point that it made it hard to do business. In particular, when DCUO subs started dropping, he didn't feel that the devs even knew why. You can't address a problem if you don't know what it is. They just gave him BS reasons. Things didn't get better until Lorin Jameson took over DCUO, and stopped with the BS. How SOE lost Jameson, I don't know, but he did as good a job at turning DCUO around, as Hartsman did at turning EQ2 around. Maybe even better. I remember sitting in the Watchtower and being the only person in there during primetime. Now there's probably 1k players sitting in the Watchtower at all times.
 
mkopec

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I think there is one guy running DCUO. Hes making sure the one server is still plugged into a power outlet
 
Ravishing

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The problem with the EQ teams since original EQ is that their focus has been on the TECHNOLOGY and not about the GAME.

They are the George Lucas of MMOs.

Blizzard on the other-hand focused on improving gameplay using already existing tech.

How many people here would revisit EQ if they simply kept the same lore, zones, races, classes but improved the combat, skill system, PvE & art design? I would in a heartbeat.

EQ2 was again a total failure because they fucked up the lore and the graphics were marginally better but mostly a failure because they tried "pushing the envelope" when in hindsight going ultra-realistic is impossible for an MMO atm. WoW (and other games since) now know that cartoony (or stylized) is far superior. The EQ devs finally realized this 10 years too late.

All I want is an EQ game that keeps the same lore & zones but better gameplay. Why do they try re-inventing the wheel? Moorgard was hired to write all new lore.... WHY? I'm not happy to see people get fired but everything they've announced so far sounds like shit and hopefully this "turns it around for EQN".

Speaking of Moorgard, I was in the leading guild on Xev (Harmonium) which was the nemesis guild to the one Moorgard was in (Altera Vita). So I've had run-ins with him during Original EQ here-and-there. Of everyone in that guild, I respected Moorgard the most. But like everyone from that era, he was just a writer for his website (Mobhunter) and I don't know how that qualifies him to be re-writing the lore to EQ. I'm sure he's picked up skills over the past 15 years but to me it seems like he's always hired as a PR guy. I can't think of a more wasteful position tbh.

Anyway, I gave up on EQN/EQL a while ago. These "moves" give me some hope, but it could just be a move to re-sell the assets. Maybe in another 10 years someone with true desire & passion will actually finish the "Next" EQ game (hopefully not titled "EverQuest Next"). And hopefully it's actually done "right". Right now I think almost everyone here can agree that the current path is a complete failure. Voxels might be cool but it's not going to make the game great.. or even passable as good.
 
Big Flex

Big Flex

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mkopec_sl said:
I think there is one guy running DCUO. Hes making sure the one server is still plugged into a power outlet
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Just keeps the rats away with a stick and makes sure it doesn't come unplugged.

rrr_img_90376.jpg
 
J

Japanfour_sl

shitlord
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Lyrical_sl said:
The people around him don't tell him what's really going on, they tell him what they want him to hear. For instance, in DCUO, speed hacking ruined the game for awhile. Both in PVE and PVP, it was ridiculous. It didn't even make sense to PVP, as there were so many cheaters. Cheaters could kill you in two seconds, as they were hitting for 5-10x damage. I remember, I was in an email chain with Smed, the head CS guy, and the Lead Dev of DCUO at the time over the issue. The Head CS guy was bragging to Smed about how they found a way to stop the cheaters. It was like a 300 word essay on how sophisticated it was. I told them that they did a great job, but as I was reading their email, I was speed hacking to prove a point. There was no answer after that.

Do you know that the Head CS went through all of my posts on DCUO, and found a reason to ban me from posting for a week? And it had nothing to do with speed hacking itself, it was some random and unenforced rule. It was the first time I've been banned from any boards. Certainly, I'd posted on EQ since launch. It was retaliation for calling bullshit on the CS guy.

There are too many of that type of people that work over there. Let's lie to Smed and say it's fixed, because we really have no idea how to fix this game breaking bug. They lost a lot of subs over the speed hacks. You had to cheat to be competitive on raids, because the scorecard would show who was lacking. And PVP was ruined.
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pretty much this. The people working on the game know that producers and executives dont know shit about the internal operation of the game and are forced to take people on their words.
 
Vlett

Vlett

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My wife made the point a few years ago that she thinks the next big unique mmo push will probably be designed by a 21 yr old, or basically someone else who was maybe 5 yrs old when the original eq hit. EQ's ideas were founded on the natural evolution of a Mud type, while the next generation will be founded on the vanilla eq type. All the "ideas" behind EQn are in this ballpark, but honestly these people are probably too close to the source.

Not sure if I agree with her, but it's a good thought.

Smed will probably talk a lot about ps2 again once they're done with the console beta. It has been years since he's touted that line.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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Jackdaddio_sl said:
All the names I see getting slashed are PS, EQ2, EQN, etc... anyone know why they aren't touching DCUO? Is that already down to the bone or what?

Curious because that's an IP license they're paying for there.
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DCUO has been resurrected from the grave. I played it back when Smed got me in closed beta from the FOH boards, until now. I've seen it go to being packed, to empty, to packed again. Our FOH league at one point had 300 members (I invited people from the server also). There's been a lot of churn. People left for Rift, or Kotor, or some WoW expansion, but they do come back. And the overall trend since the big crash (when Rift came out) is that the playerbase is pretty healthy.

I'm just guessing this, more people play DCUO than EQ2 and EQ combined. I remember making a guess on revenues, and was told that I was close. It was a high guess also. I'd say this is a project that is making money. Furthermore, this is just conjecture, but DB doesn't want to lose the license, like it did with SWG. They can't let the game drop too much, or DC is out. That's just guessing on my point, no dev has confirmed that. Hell, I lost all of their emails when they went to DB.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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mkopec_sl said:
I think there is one guy running DCUO. Hes making sure the one server is still plugged into a power outlet
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Are you kidding me? We've had tons of new content in the last year. They just came out with another batch of raids. You've heard the devs say it, there was nothing wrong with DCUO, other than the glacial pace of new content. There's a lot of content now.

But you guys are judging DCUO based on launch. Many of you haven't been back in years.
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Dullahan_sl said:
blah blah dikumud everyone knows the story. Fact is no one else could apply the elements that worked to create a game like EQ. No one since.
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It's called right place at the right time and given now what we know about this genre and subscription caps "Market is capped at 500k" like McQuaid previously stated to cover his own ass when his team couldn't finish half an expansion on a schedule making sure top tiered guilds had their awesome rewards of "This isn't fucking even finished let's make up some bullshit excuse", we saw countless ways to introduce new game mechanics which were wildly more successful than EQ ever was. And let's not kid ourselves. While EQ boasted about 200-300k before topping out around 430 or so, it could have been mounds upon mounds better had they shipped shit that worked and wasn't bugged to hell and back without them doing one damn thing about it. From unfinished loot tables, unfinished character models, artificial bugs to block players, while still reaping the revenue from the box sales and subscriptions 6 months post launch of said expansion. It was damn near criminal what was happening to the consumers.

McQuaid didn't account for shit in this genre. He stole lore, took creative responsibility, while the majority of the worker bees over at 989 did all the work to realize the end result of a Text Mud someone else had already created. So bull-fucking-shit to your comment trying to defend this ass clown as a hero of the genre. The only thing he is a hero of is creating management ineptitude which then proceeded to spread across development companies forming a blackhole of innovation right up until yesterday when the remainder of the "breeded for failure" monkeys got shipped out to misfit island where they should have been since 2002.

Three misfits remain spread across two companies. Matt Firor and Paul Sage at Zenimax Online, and Rich Vogel over at Battlecry.

Send the Russians over there too while we are at it.

And then let's pray for those that love this genre as much as we do, that an indie firm can bring it back from the dead. Because right now, I guarantee you, the people that got let go yesterday, the few remaining in their posts, and some relics falling all over themselves on kickstarter, are the ones that twisted the knife. I'd be surprised if it ever comes back after this mess these idiots put us all in.
 
Shonuff

Shonuff

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mkopec_sl said:
I was just making a funny, bro. No need to get rustled.
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I'm not rustled, I would submit to you that the DCUO team is putting out more content on a yearly basis than any of the other teams for DB.

It feels like patches like this happen a lot in DC. Here is the newest patch:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

DLC Amazon Fury Part II - Early Member Access

Look for "Fury of the Amazons II" in your Mission Journal to begin your adventures in Amazon Fury Part II.
Combat Rating: 106

New Solo Content!
New solo content including two instances is available in Gotham Under Siege!

. Patrol Catastrophe (Daily Mission)
o An Amazon patrol has suddenly gone missing. Go to Gotham Under Siege to investigate and find the missing patrol.
o Combat Rating: 106

New Four Player Content!
Players receive two new 4-player Operations!

. Return to the Nexus (4-Player Operation)
o Brainiac has enslaved Amazons with his Union technology and captured the Council and the Nexus of Reality. It's up to you to free the Council and retake the Nexus!
o Open your On Duty Menu and look for the new Operation under Tier 6 of the 4 Player Tab.
o Combat Rating: 106

. Act of Defiance (4-Player Operation)
o Villains: Circe has discovered a secret about Queen Hippolyta and plans to use it against her in a reach for more power.
o Heroes: Wonder Woman has set up a meeting with her mother, Queen Hippolyta to finally figure out who is behind this war.
o Open your On Duty Menu and look for the new Operation under Tier 6 of the 4 Player Tab.
o Combat Rating: 106

New Eight Player Content!
Players receive three new Expert Raids including an Elite version of one of the Raids!

. Labyrinth of Lost Souls
o In the depths of Tartarus, you must journey through the Labyrinth of Lost Souls. If you can overcome the deadly contraptions and creatures within, you will prove to Hades that you are a force to be reckoned with.
o Open your On Duty Menu and look for the new Raid under Expert Tier 6 of the 8 Player Tab.
o Combat Rating: 106

. Halls of Hades
o Entering the Halls of Hades unbidden is a dangerous venture. All who wander the palace are subject to great peril.And you must keep a keen eye out for his beastly guardian.
o Open your On Duty Menu and look for the new Raid under Expert Tier 6 of the 8 Player Tab.
o Combat Rating: 106

. Throne of the Dead
o Villains join Circe/Heroes join Wonder Woman as she confronts Ares and Hades in their bastion of war and death.
o Open your On Duty Menu and look for the new Raid under Expert Tier 6 of the 8 Player Tab.
o There is also an Elite version of this Raid that offers greater rewards! Players must complete the regular version of Throne of the Dead in order to queue for the Elite version.
o Combat Rating: 107

New PvE Gear!
Players receive new suit sets inspired by Wonder Woman or Circe and styles inspired by Amazon Fury NPCs. All Amazon Fury Part II gear drops are un-attuned.

. Heroes receive the Ancient Amazon Noble and Themysciran Battlesuit styles inspired by Wonder Woman
. Villains receive the Ancient Divine Sorceress and Bewitching Battlesuit styles inspired by Circe

New Base Items!
Collect new base items by participating in Amazon Fury Part II content, all of which are inspired by Themyscira and Hades's Underworld.

New Collections & Feats!
Earn new Collections and Feats awarding a total of seven skill points by completing Amazon Fury Part II content. Collections award new styles and base items inspired by Amazon Fury Part II content.

New Character Select Background!
Players can now select Hades's Palace as their Character Select Background.
 
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