What does this mean for EQ3? [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

bureschikniv

03-26-2011, 11:23 PM

<cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>TL;DR: There are some posts that give rise to major concerns about the company not being able to make fixes due to being cash strapped. Is SOE going under and will there be an EQ3?Let me start off by saying I love to play MMO's but I dont know a thing about how they work financially and technically. Just consider me a driver who cant change my oil. But I love to read posts before I delve into expansions and it seems I may have done the right thing. Dont get me wrong, I'm not threatening to cancel my subs or god forbid, say I'm going to go play Rift. But, I'm concerned. It seems like SOE knows the problems exist, they also know how to fix them, but they cant. Why? Can someone who knows something about what might actually be happening inside the guts of SOE and EQ2 explain to us people who just sit around and speculate with made up percentages and numbers?I really want to see EQ2 do well. Not because I think its the greatest MMO ever, it overall seems to be a rather large mess of a sequel compared to how well EQ1 set it up. I want to see it do well because I think EQ3 could be Sony's redemption and put them up there as a contender for top one or two games of the decade. I think this because ther trend lately has been to get away from elves and fairies and swords and fireballs. But games usually seem to launch one to two years behind trends, and the oddball ones that are nothing spectacular just seem to hit when trends are going wild. It seems like the trend for spaceships and lasers will be done and over with in two to three more years, which is about the target for EQ3, right? That seems very strategic, especially when, due to some leaks, their major competition seems to be gearing up for more lasers beams and spaceships. But I am really concerned. If SOE knows their servers are bad, knows their expansion is bad and needs fixing with major problems, yet they cant fix it, does this allude to financial crisis within their company? They just came out with a new superhero MMO that seemed to miss its mark, that had to have cost them dearly. They will absolutely not devote any resources into Vanguard, which seems to be a very attractive game to most, but gets no support on its expansion, bug fixes or maintenance, so people will not play. And they have come up with at least two different payment plans for EQ2, being the Passport and Extended. Am I crazy or does this really look like something struggling before it drowns?Here's just one quote I found very concerning from Silius:<cite>Stonestrong wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite><blockquote>SoE's plan:/stick head in sand</blockquote>To do such, they would have to remove their head from where it is presently located.</blockquote>The OP is correct. If we could fix it immediately, we would. We *will* fix it as quickly as we can...but unfortunately, I don't have an ETA for you right now, not even a "soon" or "not soon". I'm sorry. I wish that I did.All I can say is that we know *exactly* how to improve your sutation and we will do so as soon as we can.I know you guys hate answers like this and that's why I don't usually respond unless I actually have dates and plans for you.We *are* aware though.</blockquote>So can you direct us to your superior who isn't allowing you to do your job? I mean if you guys know about and want to fix it then it seems like the higher ups aren't allowing you to spend the money to do so.How about some email addresses so we can voice our displeasure with their decisions.</blockquote>Anyway, I'm not trying to incite some fan backlash here, I want to understand this better. Because I, even if I do not play for months at a time, always stay subbed to Sony's master plan and hope that my contribution will be used for something I can fall in love with again. Any educated answers are very welcome, and if you really know the inner workings of mmo's and mmo development companies, can you link some references as well?

Dasein

03-26-2011, 11:29 PM

<cite>bureschikniven wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>TL;DR: There are some posts that give rise to major concerns about the company not being able to make fixes due to being cash strapped. Is SOE going under and will there be an EQ3?Let me start off by saying I love to play MMO's but I dont know a thing about how they work financially and technically. Just consider me a driver who cant change my oil. But I love to read posts before I delve into expansions and it seems I may have done the right thing. Dont get me wrong, I'm not threatening to cancel my subs or god forbid, say I'm going to go play Rift. But, I'm concerned. It seems like SOE knows the problems exist, they also know how to fix them, but they cant. Why? Can someone who knows something about what might actually be happening inside the guts of SOE and EQ2 explain to us people who just sit around and speculate with made up percentages and numbers?I really want to see EQ2 do well. Not because I think its the greatest MMO ever, it overall seems to be a rather large mess of a sequel compared to how well EQ1 set it up. I want to see it do well because I think EQ3 could be Sony's redemption and put them up there as a contender for top one or two games of the decade. I think this because ther trend lately has been to get away from elves and fairies and swords and fireballs. But games usually seem to launch one to two years behind trends, and the oddball ones that are nothing spectacular just seem to hit when trends are going wild. It seems like the trend for spaceships and lasers will be done and over with in two to three more years, which is about the target for EQ3, right? That seems very strategic, especially when, due to some leaks, their major competition seems to be gearing up for more lasers beams and spaceships. But I am really concerned. If SOE knows their servers are bad, knows their expansion is bad and needs fixing with major problems, yet they cant fix it, does this allude to financial crisis within their company? They just came out with a new superhero MMO that seemed to miss its mark, that had to have cost them dearly. They will absolutely not devote any resources into Vanguard, which seems to be a very attractive game to most, but gets no support on its expansion, bug fixes or maintenance, so people will not play. And they have come up with at least two different payment plans for EQ2, being the Passport and Extended. Am I crazy or does this really look like something struggling before it drowns?Here's just one quote I found very concerning from Silius:<cite>Stonestrong wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Avirodar@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite><blockquote>SoE's plan:/stick head in sand</blockquote>To do such, they would have to remove their head from where it is presently located.</blockquote>The OP is correct. If we could fix it immediately, we would. We *will* fix it as quickly as we can...but unfortunately, I don't have an ETA for you right now, not even a "soon" or "not soon". I'm sorry. I wish that I did.All I can say is that we know *exactly* how to improve your sutation and we will do so as soon as we can.I know you guys hate answers like this and that's why I don't usually respond unless I actually have dates and plans for you.We *are* aware though.</blockquote>So can you direct us to your superior who isn't allowing you to do your job? I mean if you guys know about and want to fix it then it seems like the higher ups aren't allowing you to spend the money to do so.How about some email addresses so we can voice our displeasure with their decisions.</blockquote>Anyway, I'm not trying to incite some fan backlash here, I want to understand this better. Because I, even if I do not play for months at a time, always stay subbed to Sony's master plan and hope that my contribution will be used for something I can fall in love with again. Any educated answers are very welcome, and if you really know the inner workings of mmo's and mmo development companies, can you link some references as well?</blockquote>A companycan be doing great, and different departments still need to fight for every budget dollar. It is really impossible to read anything into something like this.If the EQ2 budget was $x, and the EQ2 gus ask for more on top of that, even for a perfectly legitimate reason, the money may not be available right away and may not be given up willingly.

S_M_I_T_E

03-27-2011, 01:38 AM

<cite>bureschikniven wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>I really want to see EQ2 do well. Not because I think its the greatest MMO ever, it overall seems to be a rather large mess of a sequel compared to how well EQ1 set it up.I want to see it do well because I think EQ3 could be Sony's redemption and put them up there as a contender for top one or two games of the decade. I think this because ther trend lately has been to get away from elves and fairies and swords and fireballs. But games usually seem to launch one to two years behind trends, and the oddball ones that are nothing spectacular just seem to hit when trends are going wild. It seems like the trend for spaceships and lasers will be done and over with in two to three more years, which is about the target for EQ3, right? ...</blockquote>Let's peruse the evidence. This game has a lot of positives but coherent vision w/o changing politics at almost every level of the EQ2 staffing structure has left it behind the curve. The reply will be TLDR for many in the general gameplay forums._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _They have a history of following their competitors especially in their flagship EQ2. a) Making games more solo friendly. EQ2 was much more like EQ1 on launch that WOW was on launch on group/raid centric overland play. Only after WOW stomped them did they make overland content solo friendly and instance group content in future expansions. They made EQ2 more solo friendly after they got stomped. b) Detailed/Realistic vs Game/Thin Detail. EQ2 was launched to be a real looking game (it is) vs the cartoony WOW. Computer specs, FPS, ISP etc. effects as well as target audience has changed over the years to more "mimic" WOW players average systems. SOGA models, WOW-ified spell effects, etc. They wow-ified their spell effects and default models after they got stomped. Aiming for the "asia" subscribers of WOW and Aion is only after those other titles claim success. c) Free to Play Model. They considered it after DDO and others came back from the grave by going F2P. They followed their business model altering EQ2 after they saw someone else bank out. d) Cash shop. They added this after others in the industry established their equivelent "Station Cash" toys and observed revenue. e) Player flying mounts. Pre-06' I remember "no flying for players ever...our zones aren't meant for that..." Wow cranks out some flying mounts and suprise... they add flying mounts afterwards. f) PvP & BGs. WOW has it and they copy it, "warts and all..." after they want to be competitive. g) Public Quests in DOV. It takes Scott Hartsman's RIFT to shake their keel to come up with something seemingly comparable in EQ2. The EQ2 producers didn't drive the EQ2 bus through PQ's in 07', they waited till after another game was in the pipe in the same genre.part 1

S_M_I_T_E

03-27-2011, 01:39 AM

SOE has a family of games that have been launched over various years the past decade (EQ1, SWG, EQ2, etc.). I also recently received an email for a "free month" of DC Universe Online. They must be hurting already. Just because passive superhero movies are being watched at the theatres are making millions doesn't mean little children want to play superheros. All the little kids and teenagers are already playing WOW. There's only so many gamers on the planet and they're not competing for their Money they really are competing for their Time. Blizzard chose the "volume" model by having tons of high turnover accounts. SOE has been the "high margin" model that thrives on dedicated yearly subscribers. Like some hollywood stars make poor career decisions to participate in certain movies SOE has chosen to make games that they think the audience will watch just because they make it. Peter Jackson made LOTRs and they were a multimillion dollar slam dunk. He made King Kong but it's not what the audience wanted to see. Kevin Costner did well with his Robin Hood movie but went downhill when he started making movies he wanted (waterworld,etc.).

S_M_I_T_E

03-27-2011, 01:43 AM

SOE needs to do the following:Step 1: Close Profit Parasitic Games and do an honest fiscal assessement.Close Vangaurd Close SWGClose PotBSClose any of those other "little" games that aren't cutting the mustard like they cut the Matrix.Leave EQ1 LiveLeave EQ2 LiveLeave Free RealmsClose DCUO in 18 months if it isn't floating by it's own.Step 2: Change the working conditions for employees. Less gets done so you sqeeze them till they're less efficient making you sqeeze them some more. Less hours = more work done believe it or not.No Hire shall code/art/whatever more than 6 hrs 5 days a week if they are required to staff worlds.Hires shall have flextime so that they can always "sleep in" 3x a week since foggy headed caffeine spiked employees are less efficient.Hires shall have optional mid-day on-site exercise facilites with a 1.5 hr window (Google/Dow/Lilly/etc.) to use the facilities at least 3 days during the workweek with a nutritional education opportunity if word of mouth won't work effectively to teach people not to down the pint of hag daz before they go to sleep or whatnot. Healthy alert employees work faster and are more positive. Drowsy, caffeine spiked, high blood pressure, overwieght employees that are stressed out aren't going to be as effective as the same individual would be otherwise.Consider relocating studios to lower cost geographical areas so employees wouldn't need 90K or whatever in San Diego, CA to live "average." 50K salaries in other states with less traffic, taxes, costs etc. would swing both ways to the employee and employer. Matter of fact, every 4 employees at 50K instead of 90K could lead to another 50K hire allowing more hands on deck to do stuff reducing mental and time load on exisiting staffing. In the end everyone wants highest disposable $/hr with $ for doing nothing = best; i.e retirement. 40K for 20hrs vs 80K for 40hrs has diminshing returns as well for health and wellbeing to some to boot.A more "chill" workplace attracts healthier more effective employees that get more done. A "grindstone" workplace makes the best people look elsewhere or for places to hide in the company out of the firing line. For example, Agilent Technolgies in Santa Clara, CA absolutely bullies their employees and has everyone at every level of the company doing the work of 3 employers rather than hiring more people. Dow Agro in Indianapolis IN, hires 1 employee to do the work of 1 person. If both companies approached me for 80K Agilent loses. SOE is in the same boat. The best people won't put up with it.Step 3: Hire a Producer for each game that is NOT a career producer. Get someone who can clarify who the target audience for each title is. Assess where each title is in relation to the target audience. Systematically direct alteration of each title for it's target audience. Ex. EQ2 stat considation Sta/Primary - good job. EQ2 Mentoring - good job. Stuff like that. Basically hire a "Domino" style producer who can have a consistent vision for the game and be allowed time (more than one exp pack launch and sub #'s) to implement changes before running from the sinking ship with their golden parachute. I'm necessarily saying promote "Domino" to producer, I'm saying find someone who loves games that isn't technical that can "point" the teams of each title in the right direction and who can think clearly. Go get an electrical engineer or a biochemist or something that loves to play MMO's for each title. Look at the Butler Basketball coach, he worked for Lilly and quit and became a minion at Butler University Basketball program before working his way up to coach. He's doing a great job with what he has to work with. SOE needs committed producers at each title like that who are non-traditional hires who aren't afraid to be honest with their superiors.Step 4: After deciding on the target audience for each title then pick a revenue model to match their tolerance.Straightforward.Step 5: Once all the ducks are in a row that are already in the SOE house then consider NEW titles carefully.SOE pulled a Kevin Costner & Peter Jackson on several occasions with recent games developed. Decide if you're a "me too" like WOW was to EQ1 or if you're something fresh like EQ1 was. Then execute._ _ _ _ _ _ For TLDR: SOE follows since their corp. structure is so inefficient in all their titles.

BetaTester

03-27-2011, 03:42 AM

i was waiting for wikileaks

NightGod473

03-27-2011, 06:59 AM

<cite>S_M_I_T_E wrote:</cite><blockquote>SOE needs to do the following:Step 1: Close Profit Parasitic Games and do an honest fiscal assessement.Close Vangaurd Close SWGClose PotBSClose any of those other "little" games that aren't cutting the mustard like they cut the Matrix.Leave EQ1 LiveLeave EQ2 LiveLeave Free RealmsClose DCUO in 18 months if it isn't floating by it's own.Step 2: Change the working conditions for employees. Less gets done so you sqeeze them till they're less efficient making you sqeeze them some more. Less hours = more work done believe it or not.Step 3: Hire a Producer for each game that is NOT a career producer. Get someone who can clarify who the target audience for each title is. Assess where each title is in relation to the target audience. Systematically direct alteration of each title for it's target audience. Ex. EQ2 stat considation Sta/Primary - good job. EQ2 Mentoring - good job. Stuff like that. Basically hire a "Domino" style producer who can have a consistent vision for the game and be allowed time (more than one exp pack launch and sub #'s) to implement changes before running from the sinking ship with their golden parachute. I'm necessarily saying promote "Domino" to producer, I'm saying find someone who loves games that isn't technical that can "point" the teams of each title in the right direction and who can think clearly. Go get an electrical engineer or a biochemist or something that loves to play MMO's for each title. Look at the Butler Basketball coach, he worked for Lilly and quit and became a minion at Butler University Basketball program before working his way up to coach. He's doing a great job with what he has to work with. SOE needs committed producers at each title like that who are non-traditional hires who aren't afraid to be honest with their superiors.Step 4: After deciding on the target audience for each title then pick a revenue model to match their tolerance.Straightforward.Step 5: Once all the ducks are in a row that are already in the SOE house then consider NEW titles carefully.SOE pulled a Kevin Costner & Peter Jackson on several occasions with recent games developed. Decide if you're a "me too" like WOW was to EQ1 or if you're something fresh like EQ1 was. Then execute._ _ _ _ _ _ For TLDR: SOE follows since their corp. structure is so inefficient in all their titles. </blockquote>Step 1:Those games you mention are basically only costing Sony the electricity and bit of support staff time to keep the servers running. Well, except for PotBS, but that's a Sony published game, they aren't the developing team (that would be Flying Labs Software, cool guys to hang with, for the record). Think Vanguard before Smedly realized he was a [Removed for Content] and sold it to Sony. The ONLY reason-not the main reason, not the biggest reason, the ONLY reason-they killed The Matrix was the licensing fees they would have had to pay to maintain it-if they could have run it royalty free, it would be sitting there in effectively stasis like all those other games you mention.Step 2:Simply put, Sony is a Japanese owned company. While SOE may be headquartered in San Diego, you still have to deal with the corporate mentality coming down from the top.. I'd say the chances of this happening are so small as to be basically zero.Step 3:Solid idea, but again you'll be looking at changing corporate policy from the top. Not to mention I doubt every producers gets fired...I honestly doubt even most of them do (or possibly any). The gaming industry, especially on the MMO side, is like one big dysfunctional family-people bounce between companies and projects on a regular basis. Most of those are behind the scenes types so the average player doesn't notice it, but it happens a LOT.For the comment that PQs went in because of RIFTS, the basic concept has been around far longer than that. The Warhammer MMO has public quests that function in very similar ways to EQ2s. The first time I heard of the concept was when Guild Wars 2 was first being discussed what is it? 3 1/2 years ago now? Flying mounts just make sense, people have been asking for flight since the days of EQ (in fact, I believe there actually WAS flight in Alpha or Beta of Everquest, but it quickly broke mob pathing, so they took it out very early one). Just because WoW added it doesn't mean it's the only reason EQ2 did. Unless everyone is copying City of Heroes...

feldon30

03-27-2011, 08:25 AM

<cite>bureschikniven wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>TL;DR: There are some posts that give rise to major concerns about the company not being able to make fixes due to being cash strapped. Is SOE going under and will there be an EQ3?</blockquote>Developer time and cash resources were needed to launch and market DC Universe. Hopefully with the huge cash windfall that's come in (I'm seeing DCUO everywhere, even at Fry's on a display), there will be a window of opportunity to buy new server hardware for EQ2. We have from January until everyone realizes that DCUO is visually stunning but not really "sticky" enough to play over the long term.FreeRealms didn't storm the market like CEO John Smedley promised investors ("It will have WoW's numbers but for the teen market"). More like, EQ and EQ2 are supporting FreeRealms.How's the Agency coming? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

MurFalad

03-27-2011, 10:00 AM

<cite>bureschikniven wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>I really want to see EQ2 do well. Not because I think its the greatest MMO ever, it overall seems to be a rather large mess of a sequel compared to how well EQ1 set it up. I want to see it do well because I think EQ3 could be Sony's redemption and put them up there as a contender for top one or two games of the decade. I think this because ther trend lately has been to get away from elves and fairies and swords and fireballs. But games usually seem to launch one to two years behind trends, and the oddball ones that are nothing spectacular just seem to hit when trends are going wild. It seems like the trend for spaceships and lasers will be done and over with in two to three more years, which is about the target for EQ3, right? That seems very strategic, especially when, due to some leaks, their major competition seems to be gearing up for more lasers beams and spaceships.</blockquote>Ok one thing that really bugs me badly, there is this assumption that every new game is going to be totally fantastic before it even launches, its the reason so many bland/badly flawed games get out there and do not totally flop.EQ3 we already know something about, graphically its cartoony, they said they want things to be more "heroic" at the presentations, its even using the free realms graphics engine, and they made a point about wanting to tell us the story better - so they were not focussing on how we as players can tell/make up our story (sounds like the more linear questing etc, we are going a long way from choose your own adventure!).What about this makes EQ3 at all interesting for a gamer used to a more complicated game like EQ2?Just being new/=Interesting with MMO's anymore. So unless EQ3 actually offers something good then as far as I'm concerned it might as well be WoW (it is pretty close to WoW), and as such since its not bring anything new or exciting to the party (yet - maybe it'll be totally different for launch, I doubt I can get over the graphics for myself) then its nothing interesting.<cite>bureschikniven wrote:</cite> <blockquote><cite></cite><cite></cite><cite></cite>Anyway, I'm not trying to incite some fan backlash here, I want to understand this better. Because I, even if I do not play for months at a time, always stay subbed to Sony's master plan and hope that my contribution will be used for something I can fall in love with again. Any educated answers are very welcome, and if you really know the inner workings of mmo's and mmo development companies, can you link some references as well?</blockquote>Well Smedley confirmed that DCUO had about ~120 people on the project before launch, and PSNext has a few less but about 100 (he said the post launch team was going to be 50 or so). The Agency is another big MMO and we can guess that has about 100 on it, and EQNext is big too so I guess that will be ramping up probably taking post launch people (I really wonder if these numbers are real, or if people work on two projects at a time?).All in all SOE have the money to buy new servers, they have it because established games like EQ1 and EQ2 are still earning it, its Smedleys decision whether he splashes it on FreeRealms adverts or on servers. So far they have at least been investing in EQ2 with phone apps and facebook games, all good stuff, but I still wonder if they are looking to keep this investment paying back post-EQnext launch?While SOE have a great reputation for launching new and innovative games, personally I think their track record at nuturing and developing those games is rather poor (SWG, Planetside, EQ1 etc). Sure these games are still around but I cannot help but feel that most companies with a well known game like that would have kept them alive rather then try to replace them each time (Anarchy online, Eve etc are great examples of games that go on and on).So far Smokejumper is doing a great job though at pushing EQ2 forward, unlike other producers that rested EQ2 on its laurels too much imo (at least Brenlo did get busy updating the game engine) we've had a lot more good stuff in the past year then any other year I've played EQ2 in.Here's hoping that the senior SOE management can recognise this and plan for a future where EQNext AND EQ2 coexist (so far they seem as different as WoW and EQ2), because the plan Smedley aired at the EQNext presentation of people like me stopping EQ2 to play EQNext with some sort of transition mechanism is not going to happen. If anything they should be looking at the fantasy MMO market as having both D&D and AD&D customers.

Tallithia

03-27-2011, 04:18 PM

I wonder if Devs laugh out loud at players assumptions or if it meerly results in eye rolls?