Siddar
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Fuck p1999 thats not real classic EQ ether.
You will never get EQ classic from SoE but you may be able get a improved EQ classic.
Why all the Emulated EQ servers if EQ is free to play?
- Thread starter Elidroth_sl
- Start date
You will never get EQ classic from SoE but you may be able get a improved EQ classic.
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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It's the closest you're ever going to get to one because SoE is never going to replicate that environment. P1999 has to use an outdated client to even achieve that.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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This is the root cause for why your game currently sucks and lacks in quality compared to several EMUs.
EMUs don't have to put up with bonus-seeking execs. EMU devs are rewarded if they create an amazing product, period. SOE is rewarded through gimmicky crap like the cash shop and forcing their consumers into a segregated, box-to-win game.
A good game is a work of art. You don't create a masterpiece by passing all the brushstrokes through an executive board.
It's obvious that recent decisions were made to improve short term return on investment instead of long term quality and growth. For one example, "Pay $40 now and get your content in 4 low-quality installments.". Or, "Leave the old obsolete content in the dust and start at level 85 for just $35".
EMUs don't have to put up with bonus-seeking execs. EMU devs are rewarded if they create an amazing product, period. SOE is rewarded through gimmicky crap like the cash shop and forcing their consumers into a segregated, box-to-win game.
A good game is a work of art. You don't create a masterpiece by passing all the brushstrokes through an executive board.
I think the resistance to change stems from the fact that you are more open and engaging on this forum than you are on the official EQ forum. Get on the level of your consumers (like EMU devs do) and let them know what you're considering for future plans.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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SOE could make a deal with someone like Yeahlight and fund his team to completion. Heck, a lot of the work is already done and there's no real project management necessary: "Make it like it used to be. Oh, you're already doing that? Ok, great."
First, when is OP going to be a man and post here again?
Second, who is going to step up and build us a classic EQ server and take our money?
Second, who is going to step up and build us a classic EQ server and take our money?
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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That's just another expense for SoE though. Is Yeahlight going to provide 24/7 support? Is Yeahlight going to provide timely patches? The point of all this that any business asks themselves is 'what's in it for them?' You're asking SoE to devote time/money/resources to something that honestly is only going to appeal to a certain subset of players and then on top of that you can't even guarantee that subset of players is going to stay playing long enough for it to be financially viable. It's been said earlier in the thread, Rogean does a great job operating P1999 but there is virtually no risk there. He can shut down the servers tomorrow and would not be out anything. Not so for SoE.
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Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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In game support is 24/7, at least that is what they say.
Contacting Customer Service | Sony Online Entertainment
Roxby
Lord Nagafen Raider
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my friends and I have decided to roll on P1999. I have some nice accounts on EQ live , and we were going to start there again, but the game has changed so much. Nobody is in lower zones, the new graphics look like trash. The game is nothing that it once was, it feels like a horrible abortion of a game. Old EQ has great feel and mechanics.. Nothing like the EZ games of today.
I'm sure SOE is thinking something similar to this-- i.e. 'we need to provide premium support for any new servers'. But I would argue that the small, rabid fanbase that a classic server caters to would happily accept a server without premium service. I mean really, I petitioned like 2 or 3 times EVER when I played EQ. I don't give a fuck about 24/7 CS and certainly don't want it used as an excuse to have no game at all. All I really want is the minimal CS required to police the worst offenders. (i.e. using warp hacks to train raids of rival guilds)
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO PROVIDE A LEVEL OF SERVICE YOU NEVER PROMISED. Advertise the server as a 'at your own risk' server and watch us still play it. EQMac had nothing for a decade and its users protested the shutdown.
Roxby
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 84
- 1
Who ever used support? We used to have a GM hang out with us to make sure everyone played fair in NTOV back in the day. But that was a very rare occurrence, I think it was someones friend anyway haha!
Most of the time you could talk to the offenders guild leader, get them kicked out, and they'd have it worse than any GM would do.
Most of the time you could talk to the offenders guild leader, get them kicked out, and they'd have it worse than any GM would do.
Tolan
Member of the Year 2016
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The deal:
$100,000 for Yeahlight and his buddy to bring the EQ Classic project to "patch-free" completion, using their own resources, within a one-year time frame.
SOE hosts the launch server and pays an intern to provide customer service. Let's assume $20/hr, 8hrs/day, 5days/wk for the intern. That's $800/wk customer service cost. Let's call it $1,000/wk for customer service plus server upkeep.
Yeahlight splits all profits 50/50 for the first two years after launch and provides unforeseen patches quarterly, 10/90 after the first two years for the life of the server.
Assuming 1000 players paying $15/mo for a classic EQ experience. That's $15,000/mo or $180,000/yr revenue. Profit = revenue - CS + maintenance costs = $128000/yr
SOE makes more than their money back in 2 years, profits $115,000/yr after that, and becomes the savior of the classic MMORPG community. Yeahlight makes $100,000 (minus whatever he pays his friend to help with the project), then $64,000/yr for the first 2 years of a live server, $12,800/yr thereafter, and sees his dream realized.
I'm sure there are more expenses involved, but I think there is a business case here for a profitable product.
Deruvian
Lord Nagafen Raider
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- 116
I duuno what planet you guys live on that a 100k profit is even remotely worth it for a huge company. I work for a company a small fraction of Sony's size and even our smallest products would be expected to produce several million a year in hopefully a steadily improving trend. Just because there's an ROI doesn't mean that it makes sense to even spend 10 minutes discussing a product that would never be more than .2% of their total divisions revenues.
If they decided to diversify their EQ1 offerings to be similar to the EMU hub, which I frankly think would end up raising revenues for the IP overall, that could make some sense. Simply trying to toss a single oddball server up would just be way more hassle than it's worth.
If they decided to diversify their EQ1 offerings to be similar to the EMU hub, which I frankly think would end up raising revenues for the IP overall, that could make some sense. Simply trying to toss a single oddball server up would just be way more hassle than it's worth.
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When everything else you have is making a deficit, they should take the 100k profit and be happy.
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The real problem is they only want to launch "their next big project", which noone asked for, while ignoring the continued demand for an eqclassic server.
They decide what is great, then launch it. No feedback is needed.
Your company is making stupid calls.
Its not going to change.
Vandyn
Blackwing Lair Raider
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In what fantasy world do you believe that SoE would license out all of their proprietary assets to a third party and then in turn split profits with said third party? Also understand in your scenario where Yeahlight provides unforeseen patches, if a user has issues with the patch guess what, they are are not going to go to yeahlight for support, they are going to go to SoE because that's who they are paying the sub to. So now you are asking SoE to provide support on patches that they themselves are not even providing. You're also making wild assumptions on numbers as well, I don't see any scenario where only 1000 players on a server is financially viable for a company. It also means the server is a ghost town because if 1000 players are subbed, that means at the most a 3rd are playing at any given time which means you only have about 300 players max during peak times.
Beyond any of this though, another thing that needs to be taken into account is competition. Do people really believe that if SoE released something close to a classic server that P1999 and any other emu are simply going to disappear or all players are going to flock from playing free to chucking 15 bucks a month to a company that they admit has destroyed EQ as it is today.
You guys are all dreamers. The amount of people that want a hardcore MMO is so small, no business oriented game company is going to consider them a viable customer base.
P99 gets about 800-1000 at peak times, with probably about 3k active and 10k total passive players.
EQ LIVE right now, has around 150k paying subs. EQ2 250k. WoW - 8-10m. You realize how tiny you are?
So forget SOE, EMU is the future.
P99 gets about 800-1000 at peak times, with probably about 3k active and 10k total passive players.
EQ LIVE right now, has around 150k paying subs. EQ2 250k. WoW - 8-10m. You realize how tiny you are?
So forget SOE, EMU is the future.
