SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

They would garner more interest if, like flip said, they did some radical things. Nothing too lose at this point.

I would like to see a sequel to EQ and not something in the "universe". EQII was alright once it hit the right mark (somewhere in the Hartsman era) but we need something that connect to the Sleeper or PoT. There has to be a good angle that can be taken from Norrath post one of the memorable moments of EQ's prime.

Instead we get voxels for whatever fucking reason. Exploding environments, digging into the ground for levels with Disney characters? Why? God fuck.

High fantasy. Difficult, risky, and dangerous world. Slow leveling curve. Unique, role-based classes (that you can't fucking flip with the hit of a button). Gameplay depth - not twitch DDR combat. THAT'S ALL. After over 10 years, I'll never fucking understand why they just can't make a fucking legit sequel. You don't need 360 million subs for your stupid fucking bean-counting Koticks, just makea fucking profit, whichisn't fucking hard. You don't need to cater to every single fucking Joe Retard gamer in the fucking world by dumbing-down to Mcd levels every part of the fucking game. We don't need 10min chunks of ADD-time called dungeons. We don't need herded into battlegrounds to fight people we don't know or will never fucking see again. We don't need a fucking arena system that is so completely awful. no one ever, EVER gives a shit about it.Just make a godamnned respectable world. Jesus. I hate this industy. It's such fucking garbage.

How impossible would it be to create an mmo that sort of shares the same virtual game space as Eq ? Like much improved graphics but letting you enter and interact with eq1 servers and their players in certain non combat zones, and then having access to original Eq zones with a modified version of your character allowing you to do eq1's content, using all of that games current mechanics. But then have certain zones or 'portals' which transport you to other areas which are 'eq3' where the mechanics are of the new game (and presumably faster paced etc to keep up with today's standards). Kind of crazy I guess but may be an interesting way to do something new and revive your old game a bit.

Pasteton_sl said:

How impossible would it be to create an mmo that sort of shares the same virtual game space as Eq ? Like much improved graphics but letting you enter and interact with eq1 servers and their players in certain non combat zones, and then having access to original Eq zones with a modified version of your character allowing you to do eq1's content, using all of that games current mechanics. But then have certain zones or 'portals' which transport you to other areas which are 'eq3' where the mechanics are of the new game (and presumably faster paced etc to keep up with today's standards). Kind of crazy I guess but may be an interesting way to do something new and revive your old game a bit.

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Probably more trouble than it's worth, tbh.

My bro was playing EQ2 pretty actively when their group finder came out for dungeons, some time near Velious I think, and he told me these stories about how horrible it was. Sometimes he'd zone in and be the only person in the group. Sometimes he'd zone in and the group would be like 4 dps and 2 heals. I took it that these weren't the dominant occurrence, but he decided the group finder was worthless. And my takeaway from that is the same as many SOE offerings, that they just don't work on polish much at all. Design is a foreign concept to their coders or managers or something. But just wait, there's more. Give them another 6-12 months and they'll release another flaccid member that pleases only the most rabid sycophants.

The lack of polish is my most enduring criticism for Daybreak products. They frequently release products where the bugs take the wind completely out of the sails. Less is more man. If they would deliver on some solid basics I think they would fare better.

The Zone Revamps in EQ1 convinced me that they needed to fire their entire art team like, a decade ago. How on earth do you make Freeport and the commonlands *uglier* with an update.

That pale-yellow woven-straw-I-guess texture they overuse for every fucking building in new zones is hideous.

Agraza_sl said:

My bro was playing EQ2 pretty actively when their group finder came out for dungeons, some time near Velious I think, and he told me these stories about how horrible it was. Sometimes he'd zone in and be the only person in the group. Sometimes he'd zone in and the group would be like 4 dps and 2 heals. I took it that these weren't the dominant occurrence, but he decided the group finder was worthless. And my takeaway from that is the same as many SOE offerings, that they just don't work on polish much at all. Design is a foreign concept to their coders or managers or something. But just wait, there's more. Give them another 6-12 months and they'll release another flaccid member that pleases only the most rabid sycophants.

The lack of polish is my most enduring criticism for Daybreak products. They frequently release products where the bugs take the wind completely out of the sails. Less is more man. If they would deliver on some solid basics I think they would fare better.

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One of SOEs biggest problems has always been not having top notch engineers making their ideas come to life. EQ is littered with features that just never quite worked out and so is EQ2, it is a huge contributor to those games feeling so bloated.

SOE needs to invest heavily in that area and have them balance out all the idea men who I feel like just run wild there causing confused feature sets and delays all the time. It's why I kinda have hope for this daybreak think, they need that ops/business side to come in and cut down the features, refocus EQN on what is feasible and get it released.

Big Flex_sl said:

Close. It actually happened before then. See this:


Yes, this is from an actual ad campaign. Watch the whole thing, listen carefully, and try not to cringe.

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I couldn't do it. I failed the ironman challenge. I used to be hardcore and now I'm not.

I'm pretty sure around 30 seconds the blonde one said, "You get to choose who you wanna be and where you wanna go and who you wannamarry".

MARRY.

I'm McLovin it.

Creslin_sl said:

One of SOEs biggest problems has always been not having top notch engineers making their ideas come to life. EQ is littered with features that just never quite worked out and so is EQ2, it is a huge contributor to those games feeling so bloated.

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EQ2s biggest problem is, was, and always will be the shit combat and bloat skills that some idiot designed and their incompetent management never fixed or changed. It would have been bigger if they had simply cut and pasted EQs combat system on top.

The problem was not coders or engineers. I'd say WOWs and EQ2s development teams were on par. The problem was always design, leadership, and management incompetence.

Gecko_sl said:

I'd say WOWs and EQ2s development teams were on par.

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This is in the top five of the stupidest things I've ever read on this board.

Silence_sl said:

This is in the top five of the stupidest things I've ever read on this board.

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I'm sure your detailed knowledge of the programmers at SOE and Blizzard is extensive. I'd actually say the programmers at SOE did far more given the terrible design document EQ2 had.

Reading comprehension for the win, or at least substantiate your troll.

Gecko_sl said:

I'm sure your detailed knowledge of the programmers at SOE and Blizzard is extensive. I'd actually say the programmers at SOE did far more given the terrible design document EQ2 had.

Reading comprehension for the win, or at least substantiate your troll.

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Maybe they did a ok job given a shitty environment that focuses too much on ideas and letting guys like Brad run wild. But they definitely are no where near the guys at blizz, who are arguably the best game programmers in the entire industry. You made a pretty ridiculous statement so I don't think it is trolling for him to call it out. The EQ guys are probably on par talent wise to like the guys at Bethesda or CA, guys who make respectable games for sure but not on the level blizz does.

Flipmode_sl said:

Yeah EQ2 has seriously bad ability bloat. Any more than 2-3 hotbars is nuts! Playing an enchanter was painful. Literally.

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As slippery said a few pages back, ability bloat wasn'tthatbad. Besides your 1-2 hotbars of buffs you could fit every ability you needed to use on two hotbars. The problem is all the damn clicky items, there is a clicky item for everything. The worst was having 6 hotbars of clicky items and then every fucking quest you get gives you a clicky item that you have to click.

Agraza_sl said:

My bro was playing EQ2 pretty actively when their group finder came out for dungeons, some time near Velious I think, and he told me these stories about how horrible it was. Sometimes he'd zone in and be the only person in the group. Sometimes he'd zone in and the group would be like 4 dps and 2 heals. I took it that these weren't the dominant occurrence, but he decided the group finder was worthless. And my takeaway from that is the same as many SOE offerings, that they just don't work on polish much at all. Design is a foreign concept to their coders or managers or something. But just wait, there's more. Give them another 6-12 months and they'll release another flaccid member that pleases only the most rabid sycophants.

The lack of polish is my most enduring criticism for Daybreak products. They frequently release products where the bugs take the wind completely out of the sails. Less is more man. If they would deliver on some solid basics I think they would fare better.

Click to expand...

Yeah, when I looked at getting back into eq2 one of the things I learned was the much anticipated dungeon finder was so broken literally no one used it and SoE had no intentions of fixing it.

The point was the initial development of EQ2 vs WOW and has nothing to do comparing Blizz vs SOE. WOW's release was a steaming pile of shit, which anyone here who was around could tell you. They had severe network, server, and bug issues.

Likewise, the feature set on release for WOW in 04 was much, much smaller for WOW and the programming goals far, far simpler. The reason WOW crushed EQ2 was not coding, it was leadership.

Again, the problem with EQ2 was not the programming team, it was the inept management and worse design.

The original EQ coding team did amazing things. Blizzard was not a pioneer here, they just made a better mousetrap.

Gecko_sl said:

I'm sure your detailed knowledge of the programmers at SOE and Blizzard is extensive. I'd actually say the programmers at SOE did far more given the terrible design document EQ2 had.

Reading comprehension for the win, or at least substantiate your troll.

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Were you in both betas? Wow was superior in progress. Eq2 actually got worse from beta to gold In every way.