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SOE always over-promise and under-deliver
Venekor
Member Posts: 62
Straight away alarm bells are ringing after all the promises they've made in the past on upcoming MMOs and then come short. It's not like this is an SOE of the past either, DC Universe is the latest when they promised lots of content patches each month and that went out of the window straight away. Remember how SWG was meant to have player cities, vehicles, Jedi and JTLS at launch, yet all that came later on. They're so many examples of this throughout every single one of their MMOs and Planetside 2 will be no different.
Yeah I'm hyped for Planetside 2 but the reality is it wont have what they promise at launch, probably not even a third of what they're saying now. They've promised too much already, it all sounds too perfect and I want to believe it but it is SOE lol.
Things like every weapon and vehicle having their own branching tree to customise, sounds great at first but it'll probably be very shallow. I mean in reality we'll probably have like 3 varients on each vehicle and the branching trees on wepons will just be standard FPS things of like scopes and stuff.
The outfits having their own buildings and their own skills and all that stuff will never happen. That right away is the sort of thing that will get scrapped so SOE can rush the game to launch like they do with all their games and expansions.
Resources will most probably be pointless or end up just being capture points like COH. Saying you can capture all of the map will probably be useless and everyone will be fighting for bases and towers like the first game and not spreading over the maps.
They're lots of things that I want to believe, the whole seamless thing with no instances is something I'm excited about. However that doesn't mean the game wont be zoned on to lots of islands. Then what happens if the battle numbers go down from the 1000 Smedley said to just 400 or something?
I'm going to give SOE two last chances with Planetside 2 and Everquest 3, if they let me down that is it for them. They've already ruined EQ, EQ2, SWG and PS and I never thought I'd give them another chance. However the talk of those two games being seamless has made me excited.
Comments
If EQ3 doesnt deliver i think ill be done wit EQ series too myself.
They've already said that the resources will be in at launch, but their main focus will probably not be implemented at launch. The idea for resources is that certain factions [Vanu], will be heavily dependent on controlling resources in order to upgrade their uber tech.
That's fine with me. MMO's are ready for release when they are playable, fun, and polished. Other good content can roll in later. Just wait for the upcoming 3 year content forceast that SOE is planning to release before launch.
It IS planetisde [2]. If they don't deliver on most of the things you think they won't, then it's not a new planetside. It's just the graphical update the originally intended for Planetside 1.
To pay for play, or pay not for play, that is the question.
They're just revamping and improving upon already existing content with Planetside 2....most of the promised features already exists on planetside1 and have for the longest time.
I am not excited about PS2 or EQ3 i am likely done with SOE or any game they release and turn into garbage soon afterwards...
I will hold off on giving these 2 games a hype rating for now until i learn more and see if my hype level can actually go up from the 5 i currently feel for PS2 and the -10 i feel for $oe..
Playing GW2..
While I'm looking forward to PS2 I have zero faith in SOE due to there awful track record for fucking up games that could of been amazing. Time and time again SOE have promised the the sun, moon and the stars only to rush an unfinished game out the door which will lack the majority of the features promised for a quick buck.
I think every listen game here on mmorpg.com over-promises and under-delivers.
Sadly SoE have a history of basically destroying their own customer base this way. Still they are too busy worrying about customers they dont have to care about the ones they just lost.
QFT.
is smed still boss?yes?then yes eq3 will also suck!
Yeah, that is a possibility.
My hopes is that the Japs will fire him after PS2 flops and someone competent takes over instead.
Still, even a broken clock shows the right time once in a while.
Far too often I see people take statements like the following:
"We hope to have so and so in at launch"
" We are doing our best to make this and that work"
"We plan to develope the following to be included at launch"
...and accept it as a promise. Not one of those statements is a promise. They are hopeful predictions, but like with any preplanned project, unforeseen problems arise and force you to alter your plans.
Due to people constantly taking this stance from every statement, we now see developers no longer even share their plans unless they are certain it will be included at launch. The end result is that observers and followers are given much less information regarding development.
unforseen problem= freeware being so hard to code with and so long instead of using paid tool or call ms for advice!
He should have been fired a looong time ago ! I fail to see how he managed to stay in charge there. That guy must have some very good friends at Sony. He's just some kind of alchimist : he turns gold into sh*t
Ok, lets try not to find some way to blame players for the failures of developers please.
Case in point SOE just released DCU and prior to release all SOE could talk about was the monthly content updates and quarterly large content updates for free. How they would resolve issues that players were bringing up about the game. How much content they would add to the game. How they felt obligated to giving players monthly content updates in return for the monthly subscription fee. SOE was more than clear about what the monthly updates would be like.
Fast forward half a year and you have the most experienced mmo company on the market talking about how hard they discovered it is to make new content on a monthly update. Their "discovery" of how hard it is has left them unable to commit to ANY timelines for content updates, but they are currently running roughly double the timeframe of their initial promises and the content updates are getting smaller and smaller.
That is a pretty clear case of the developer specifically making a promise and falling very short of delivering on those promises.
What makes it worse is that in an interview the lead developer let slip that almost half of the entire dev team is not working on the live game. New content, balance, bug fixes, etc. Instead they are working on paid DLC packs, microtransaction shops and other things.
Now that the game is live it seems that the promises that SOE used to sell the game are no longer important enough to honor. That is why almost half of the dev team is not working on fixing bugs, adding content, balancing features, etc. SOE already has the initial money from box sales and now they are focusing on creating new revenue streams for DCU like microtransactions and paid DLC content.
Who do you think is to blame for the lack of monthly content updates? Players for not understanding what SOE was saying or SOE for stripping the development resources needed to fullfill their promises?
I agree with you that SoEs track record is somthing to be left wanting. They are good at hype and terrible on delivery. They destroy every game concept they get their hands on eventually.
However, about your point of 1000 vs 400, even PS was 200 per content I think so doubling that would be nice. However, 1000 would be more than epic.
I am with you, I have already stated in another post that I have lost all hope for SoE and I do not play any SoE MMO since Planetside ruination. However, PS2 WILL cause me to break that promise to myself. The question is, did they learn from anything that happened in the past year? The outrage of the Star Wars fiasco, or not?
At any rate, i hope for at least 2 years of PS2 fun, anything beyond will be bonus.
The only way SOE couldn't deliever PS2 is if I log into the game launch day and I'm playing an RTS.
I think they can handle it, for now.
Played - M59, EQOA, EQ, EQ2, PS, SWG[Favorite], DAoC, UO, RS, MXO, CoH/CoV, TR, FFXI, FoM, WoW, Eve, Rift, SWTOR, TSW.
Playing - PS2, AoW, GW2
The best hope for Ps2 and Eq Next would be another CEO. I have a growing feeling Smedley (Badley) will turn Soe soon into Cryptic 2 making crappy games milk them and then move on. I hope the Japs won't allow that and fire him before he can do even more damage.
A guy sabotaging Vanguard, ruinning Everquest 1, rushing Everquest 2 turning into easy wowmode, PS and absolutely destroying SWG and adding a cash shop to p2p games is still in charge...I don't get it.
Just a reminder off how cheap Soe has become, at they didn't even want to have a homepage for DCUO thought a facebook page would be enough, unbelievable.
I'd love Everquest 1 pre Luclin with better graphics but I highly doubt Soe can deliver anything worthwile.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
If you watch the dev vids release so far there is one video where a dev talks about how they play loads of other fps to draw ideas from. Reading into this I fear that the dev team are creating Planetcod by using that fps a bit too much for their PS2 idea and goals, the dev do look young and from the console generation background... I just got a bad feeling they're looking way too much at what cod is doing in their recreation of planetside. I hope I'm wrong.
Actually, I'd say soe usually launches good games, but then destroys them
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
From what I've seen, the only huge influence Smed has had in PS2 is the fact that there won't be nearly as many trees.
Cause he hates trees apparently. Sad, because while trees were a problem in PS1, it wasn't because they were there. It's because they were made of the strongest substance imaginable...Auraxium Wood.
Granted the only reason I ended up on this website was because of SOE.
Yet somewhere in the back of my tiny mind I'm wondering... can't we at least wait until there is a beta to see some of the game to start these threads?
Agreed. From what I've heard, the game's heart is in the right place and it's not trying to be anything but the best MMOFPS they can make. There's not even a huge market for those, so people shouldn't be calling "FAIL" already. I'm actually pretty excited about PS2 after first hearing about it the other day in a SWTOR thread.
Over-promise and under-deliver? Ever heard of Peter Molyneux?
Ok, this was evil, and Molyneux deserves more than that...
Most of what SOE promises is in Planetside 1. What do you expect them to say, but their goals and aims? If we want to see an MMO-FPS, I think it is SOE that can deliver? They have 8+ years of experience with the genre, that is 8+ years advantage on the market.
And the devs are young? Was that supposed to be an argument? Man, this is game design, art and programming. You know, with computers? This was the last field I expected to see this kind of objection. And they have senior members in the team, like the senior art directior (17 years in the industry, working on titles like Fallout...) and some others in key positions, veterans from other SOE titles.
They have made a great turn with their communication and their relation with the fanbase too. They seem to serve us and they promise they will take care of the info flowing towards them. That is the major component of a successful MMO.
The guy is responsible for EQ1 after all
How did they sabotage Vanguard? Explain this to me. Salvage is the word. SoE saved Vanguard from becoming vaporware. It was so horrible no one else would have taken the chance after Microsoft dumped sigil. They spent almost 2 years cleaning it up. And when all they had was 20k subs after that huge money sink they gave up (for a while, development has started again). The only reason VG exists is because of SoE.
How did they ruin EQ? By listening to the customers? Instant ports and things like that were CUSTOMER REQUESTS. They made one poorly received expansion (GoD) and followed it up with a very well received one (OoW). SoE didnt ruin EQ1, it grew old.
Everquest 2....Very few people would say EQ2 was better at launch than 2 years in. And while it was rushed slightly to beat WoW, it had a stable launch, had content in place and was fairly polished. Did they make it easier? Sure, but it was what the CUSTOMERS ASKED FOR.
The cash shop, the dreaded cash shop. THAT EVERY GAME HAS. Some disguise it more (Rift), some favor ridiculously overpriced mounts twice a year (WoW) but they all have microtransactions. EQ2 still leads the market by a large margin in free, in game obtainable fluff so I dont see the issue. As longas its not pay 2 win, which it isnt. And unlike WoW I can actually think that they reinvest that money into their games.
Yes SWG was bad. And yes, the development over the last couple years has slowed down (and Smokejumper probably isnt the right man for the job). But that slow down also has come after losing over half their staff the last few years and coincides with when they were placed direstly under Harai and SCE as opposed to doing their own thing under SMP. So the people thinking 'the japs' firing him is the solution need to look elsewhere. Because thoseguys have even less of a clue about MMORPGs than Smedley (who at least hires people like McQuaid, Koster and Hartsman)