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I'm actually glad EQN is unlikely to be released
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What doen't you like about scrum? Is it scrum itself or how some organizations use it?
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
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EQ1 was thrash for me because it was a forced grouping game that featured spawn camping and 80+ man raids. 2 of the worst ideals to ever come out of the MMO genre.
EQ2 was trash for me because it was a WoW clone with 100X worse combat and questing.
EQN was the savior for me for MMO gaming because it featured some of the elements I look forward to most in the genre. Limited hotbars that promote build diversity, action combat, Exploration centric gameplay, True Super smart NPC AI, open world non linear dynamic feelings, 2-3 month long story events that play out over the server in the form of large scale events, Hidden class quests, solo heavy gameplay, parkor movement. Etc.
Not everyone likes the same thing and everything EQN was promoting was getting a head nod from me but sadly I think it will end up getting cnacelled and even if it doesn't it won't be the same thing because A) they released the people most likely to see its vision through to fruition and
they are removing key elements in alpha like parting way with Voxel and Storybricks to save money and supposedly doing all that stuff in house.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I'm willing to bet that EQN will release, but ti's not going to do anything new. I think they'll play it safe and copy what they think is the best of what's available.
What we'll end up with is JAFMMORPG.
1) No, you clearly said "Investment firms don't buy companies that won't make money". If you want to say something is misinformation, perhaps you should stop making things up yourself.
2) I can cite references of SOE losing money (like others have) and accredited news sources that say Sony is looking to sell their other non-profitable divisions. Which again can be verified by looking at Sonys financials.
You stamping your feet and calling other liars can't change reality. Sorry. If what I say is untrue you should have no trouble posting the facts you claim to have that show otherwise. For starters, please show anything where SOE is profitable.
3 & 4) This is funny.
So Landmark is successful, because you play with and know some of the tight nit core community of players. Is that really the smoking gun you have? Why don't you post the steam numbers for this games success?
H1Z1 just released and has a few players... So did DCU, Free Realms, MTG:tactics, Clone Wars Adventures....
H1Z1 is already down half of its concurrent users as it peaked.
5) I don't need to make any figures up. SOE was sold, which is the only important factor you need to know. The fact is if H1Z1 was making serious money, SOE would not have been sold. Facts are facts, sorry.
6) First, you have no idea if Columus Novas main attraction to SOE was EQN. There you go again making up things in order to defend your view.
As for EQN, you can't deny that it does fit the definition of vaporware at this point. 6+ years in development and nothing to show the public. Which isn't exactly true, because SOE already release EQN, its called Landmark. That is all SOE has been able to accomplish with the project.
Which doesn't matter, because EQN is owned by a new company, which means ANYTHING is possible. EQN might get redesigned into a completely new game, but it also might be cancelled. There is no promise that CN is going to continue funding EQN, none. Columbus Nova might be drawing up paperwork to split SOE and sell the properties separately. You cannot say with any certainty what CN has planned, because you have no idea.
I do get you are a "long time EQ fan", but that doesn't make your guesses factually based. I'm an EQ fan from just as long ago, but how long we played a game has no real effect on the real world situations of SOE/CN. Something you seem to have trouble separating.
1) I understand what concurrent players means. Did you read what I said about how to estimate a games TOTAL playerbase if you know the daily concurrent users? This formula comes directly from John Smedley.... the guy in charge of all the games we are discussing. He says that 20% of a games total population logs on during peak hours. So if H1Z1 has 20k -concurrent- players at peak hours, then you can safely estimate it has 100k total players.
Not a success if you think the game budget was 100-200 million dollars. The math isn't that hard to figure out here. SOE only needs every single player to spend on average of $1,000 to $2,000 to break even.
2) My first definition of success would be that the product has to sell enough to keep the effing company in the black.
You are somehow twisting weird number and concluding success. Like the lifespan of SOE games where long, so they must have been popular so therefor they were a success. Which couldn't be anything further from the truth if you actually look at how those games ran and how angry SOE made their playerbase .... and that isn't even counting how many times SOE had to layoff hundreds of employees, close down games and eventually sold to an investment firm.
Success isn't hard to define. SOE wasn't successful enough for Sony to keep. That sums up pretty much everything.
3) LOL, you are only pointing out more SOE failures. You are pointing to 2013 with 11 million registered users growing into 2014 with 18 million registered users.
Tell me something professor. If SOE had SEVEN MILLION NEW USERS join DCU in one year, where are they? Why were all the DCU servers closed down and merged into 2 PC and 2 PS3 servers, which are almost always low population 24/7?
How can you point to SOE having 18 million users over 3 years of a game, but they can't make enough money to avoid being closed and/or sold off?
Seriously, this is beyond stupid at this point. Do you realize just how many MILLIONS of players have had to leave DCU for SOE to not be financially viable?
I simply cannot believe you continue to move to goal posts in order to fabricate something to make SOE seem like it did something successful.
SOE was sold, because it was posting tens of millions of dollars in losses, closing games, constantly merging servers in all their franchises, etc.
My original point was that SOE made so many epic blunders with licenses that should literally have printed money, that it drove more developers away from creating games than anyone else. With the conclusion that just shutting down a project before it suffers yet another terrible failure is actually better for the genre as a whole.
You point about some people liking the games and concluding that that makes them a success is not relevant. The same could be said for anything, because even the worst game has its hardcore fans.
The current voxel based, in Forgelight EQN has not been in development for six years, more like three. Allegedly the Norrath of EQN was seeded before SoELive '13 and hand formed geographical landmarks were being worked on. Who knows what has changed since but my point is that EQN has apparently been worked on in parallel with Landmark.
EQN is becoming another MMO the world does not need...i hope Nova will go Super over it ;D
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Consider that SOE/CN/Daybreak also said they expect EQN to have more resources as a result of the merger know that they were laying off almost half of the company a few days later. I don't think anyone really expects them to share the darker troubles of the company. If they were planning to do something carve up SOE and sell off the games individually, I doubt they would come right out and say that.
I don't really think Landmark and EQN are two different games in the sense some are making them. I think Landmark was cobbled together out of some of the functional parts of EQN and sold in an attempt to generate revenue to save SOE from sale/closure. One team, splitting time between making two games which are essentially the same thing? It doesn't make any sense any other way.
As for all the other alleged content that has been worked on since who knows when. I would love to see it, but I'm not holding high hopes.
Wow! What an amazing discussion. It's going back and forth constantly. There is a lot of information coming out in this thread.
Personally, I think we're going to see more cuts. When a month or two has passed since their major release of people, they'll see if they're still leaking money. I think they're still leaking.
We shall see soon enough.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I'll do one better than the previous poster....
EQ2 release date = November 9 2004
WoW release date = November 23 2004
How exactly is EQ2 a copy of WoW when they were released within two weeks of each other with Wow being released later?
You really need to just move along, the fact you dislike Daybreak and their games this much and still post here repeatedly makes me wonder your motives. I cringe every time I see your name.
You keep saying that like a broken record. You do get companies get to pick what they spend their money on? You may think it should be spent on staff but at the end of the day, your opinion is just that. But as always you head right to the most negative end of the spectrum you can so it must be true. Here is the facts. We dont know how this union is going to go. We dont know if EQN will be awesome. All we can do is take them at their word till we can point at something valid that says other wise. Take off the tin foil hat your starting to really look odd.
I agree, I would like to see the content too and I also agree that they wouldn't disclose information like selloffs or "darker troubles', but no company would.
In the end, though I would like to see these people still at DGC, the cuts to the company did theoretically give EQN more resources. Of the "almost half the company" only a small portion had to do with their MMO titles. Going farther only a small portion of that had to do with EQN, five if I'm not mistaken. Going farther still only one person of the EQN team let go (that I have read) was working on the title in a technical fashion. So in the interest of monetizing the production of EQN there is more money than there was. Again, I wish that they were all still on the team.
You can use dismissive terms like "cobbled together" but in reality Landmark is, up until now, exactly what DGC said it would be and was/is a great idea. At it's current state it only speaks to a small population of players (builders) but if they continue adding the features they claim will be a part of it's final build it will attract a lot more than that. They've been as clear as they can be about the differences and similarities of EQN and Landmark. The issue now is the willingness to seek the information out.
You realize you're basically accusing him of shouting "hey that big cat has stripes, i think its a tiger, tiger's are dangerous, i should get out of here!" and then you saying that he shouldnt be worried about being killed by said tiger because we havent actually witnessed said tiger maul somebody...
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The idea that CN is going to cut up and sell parts of DGC just because other entities have done the same is unrelated circumstantial evidence at best. Putting that up to reiterations of comments made by the only entity that would have first hand knowledge of the situation is, well, it's not even comparable IMO. Plausible? Just as plausible as EQN already being done but DGC waiting another 29 days so Dave can Twitch stream the announcement that it was all a ruse and give a web address to the client.
We have no idea so until it's otherwise stated or proven, I'll believe the only sources that would know.
Are you suggesting that the layoffs wasn't to save money? That they just wanted to put that money somewhere else?
Save money and stop wasting money is to different things. The norm in the video game industry is finish a project and then a massive lay off happens. A lot of of the staff at SoE had worked there 10-15 years and some longer. Thats unheard of in this industry. Not saying they were not great people. Im a huge fan of David G but in the end if they are not needed, why are they there?
Wowwzers.. lol I go to work for a day and all hell breaks lose.. lol Very entertaining day of posting I see.. I see some are still championing EQN as the next WoW killer and the next super MMO of the universe.. Please don't be offended if I place my faith somewhere else.. I'm surely not to going to move my retirement account over into Columbus Nova either anticipating an explosion in stock value when EQN goes live (if that even happens). lol
I'm still waiting for some "written in stone" facts to come out and shown to the public..
+5 could not agree more with what you have written and now the remaining people left are trying to make out nothing has changed when clearly it has and they even control their social media comments due to the under handedness of what has gone on since the take over. The right thing to do would be to pay all the people back who bought their blazer packs and let people start over again then see where they are...However that aint going to happen otherwise they would be closed tomorrow. Also the fact that Storybrick try to buy them out and go a different direction would or could of been a blessing, however now we will see the same old shit but with a different badge. I personally hope that they fail and it closes for good at least that will stop the idiot at the top from scamming money from people.
Asbo
Quite harsh and not the way i would have put it, but i agree. This game would have done a lot of good for the genre, so i find i confusing when people want it to fail and rather have a rehash of EQ, which in it's self would be a middle finger to the entire genre.
Why? we've been wanting to break away from the same shit we have had for the past 10 - 15 years, a rehash of EQ would put us right back at the start to continue this cycle. Yes there are some questionable elements, but some of them, if they worked, would have been great steps forward.
It seems people would rather relive memories than move forward, something the genre does not need, but unfortunetly these people might get what they want, due to what happened recently. So next time you complain "the genre is going nowhere" please don't pretend as we know this is something you're not intersted in
1) Ok, well the all-time peak was 40K players. Therefore, we should be able to safely assume that they made 200,000 Early Access sales. Apples to apples, I know that DayZ had mentioned that they would consider their game a success with 250k sales, so we can probably assume that H1Z1 will be "successful". Also, a 100-200 million budget for H1Z1 isn't realistic. You're preaching logic and then throwing out those numbers? Sheesh! The size of the entire team was like less than 30 people. Soooo, 200k * 20 == probably not too bad. Oh, and that's Early Access and Pre-console.
2) I don't think that I'm using obscure numbers. I'm may not be using sales numbers, no, but I'm using general popularity. I've already said that one of their biggest problems was with monetization. Howver, if you want to go the numbers route, DCUO registered 500k PS3 sales with vgchartz. I would say that's a conservative number. I don't think there's a logical reason that would be inflated. Smed himself said that the PS3/PC split was 50/50, meaning PC sales were also 500k (although vgchartz registers 250k - probably not accounting for digital). So there would have been, conservatively, 1 million copies sold, plus subs, etc. So even if they had a 2 month retention of that 1 million users, you're talking about $30 million. The game itself cost $50 million. So I'm sure that box sales more than made up the outstanding $20 million. Oh, and that's 2 months into the game. So anything from there on out is basically gravy and maintenance.
If you'd like to show a game as being a failure, then come up with some financials. Trust me, it's not easy. Instead you resort to anecdotal information and the fact that Sony sold SOE so they must not have been successful. Developing a game is expensive and would be subsidized by other, profitable games in your portfolio. How big is the EQN team? 200? 300? Shoot, the Star Citizen team is like 250. I believe that WoW was around 250 developers while they were actively developing WoD. That's developers. Not QA (of which there are over 200), not marketing, not artists (like 50), or designers (another 50 or so). Just developers. So your monthly burn on developers alone is probably 2.5 million. After everyone else on the project is considered, we're probably talking about another 2.5 million. So you're, basically, burning 60 million a year to develop this product. That's not even considering the H1Z1 team, or Landmark (assuming they have dedicated staff). I mean that's basically your annual losses right there. Now, there were an equal number of resources dedicated to Landmark, for instance, you could be looking at another 30 or 60 million there. So now SOE is all of a sudden into the black.
If you've got more accurate numbers on team size for EQN then feel free to toss them out there.
3) See above as to why DCUO is hardly a failure. Again, if you want to suggest it's a financial failure, then please do show financials specific to DCUO that show it's losing money. Game companies in development frequently post losses, even the successful game companies.
Again, you're using anecdotal information to show that SOE was a failure. You're saying that SOE was sold, therefore they must not have been successful. So, using that same logic, Minecraft is obviously not successful either because it was sold also. It's ridiculous! So just as much as I'm grasping at straws to show that SOE was successful, you're doing exactly the same thing to show they were a failure. In fact, I've now at least provided numbers to show the success of some of their games. What have you done? Give some numbers! If you don't have numbers, don't even respond because I'm done arguing over your opinions.
Crazkanuk
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I didn't say my opinion of what Daybreak should spend their money on. I'm just pointing out facts that seem to unnerve you and then you turn things around as if I'm making things up... which is ironic considering your "facts" you keep offering.
Fact: Having a massive amount of the company fired is a net loss of resources. Sorry if you don't like that.
Fact: Daybreak cancelled their support deal with Storybricks developer support. Again, this is a resource that does not exist to Daybreak anymore. Sorry if you don't like that.
Assumption (you): Daybreak has extra money to spend as a result of those layoffs. This is baseless speculation. Daybreak could still be running at a loss.
Assumption (you): Daybreak will spend this fictional saved money on resources that will exceed the net loss of resouces from layoffs and cancelled storybrick support.
Assumption (you): There exists resources that are better than those lost which Daybreak can now go pursue.
I find if funny that you argue that anyone being negative is simply making things up and then trying to discredit them while ignoring the facts of the situation.
Case in point: in the insider leaks thread, someone pointed out SOE posting a $60 million dollar loss for the year. You can charging in to defend SOE, because companies like this scoff at $60 million dollar losses, because triple AAA mmos ost 50-200 million to develop. Then you went on to take their challenge that SOE wouldn't be around much longer, because you know they are in good shape based on the speculation you make.
Seeing the SOE no longer exists and it was sold due to the massive losses, you were wrong.
See you just look at the things that you want to see. You see MMOs costing a lot and that somehow justifies the huge loss. Meanwhile you ignored the fact that SOE wasn't some startup. They had around a dozen games that should be generating revenue to not only fund the company, but development costs and... and a profit. That is what companies do after all.
I will concede this to you. EQN might be a great success. Anything is possible.
However based on the current information about the trainwreck of the EQN project, the failures of the company overall and the loss of so many resources, I just can't with any amount of faith think this project will end up in decent shape. I can't even point to a game SOE has made this past decade as an example of a success to suggest they might pull something good off. If it even releases.
Again, sorry if that bothers you, but that is how things are. Please note I did not say the game is cancelled or storybricks are out. Please don't put more words in my mouth. I just think this is another trainwreck in progress and the facts look to support that.
I want a good mmorpg,release anything good please!
gaming is a monopoly that's why only a view companies make mmos and control the quality of gaming.
so they bkeep the wquality just good enough to sell,and then they don't understand why people get bored in a month.
spend less on your marketing and more on innovation!