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Several Z1 Battle Royale Developers Laid Off, Future of the Game Remains Unknown - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Several Z1 Battle Royale Developers Laid Off, Future of the Game Remains Unknown - MMORPG.com
Adam "Arclegger" Clegg, lead designer of Z1 Battle Royale, has tweeted that he has been laid off by NantG, a move that may spell big trouble for the game formerly known as H1Z1. Clegg also penned a lengthy farewell to the community and to the development team that is a mea culpa of sorts about the rocky road the game has traveled since first revealed years ago.
Comments
Gotta wonder if Daybreak is just going to hunker down around the EverQuest series and ditch all the rest? I mean, what's left? DCUO, PlanetSide 2 (which has had its BR mode delayed already) and...? They also publish DDO and LOTRO which makes me worried about them too.
Daybreak seems to be in dire straits.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A real shame both for players and staff in those games.
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If EQ and EQ2 can't float them and they end up going under, all I can hope is that a company capable of doing justice to EQ buys the IP and they can continue the series.
They changed the game MANY months ago,over a year ago.They tried to pull the scam of a century and divided what was then not even HALF of a full game and split it into two to try and scam people to buy it twice.
I NEVER saw any effort going into the game ./..EVER.Instead what looked like was going on was one small team moving from game to game but mostly working on the EQ expansions because that was where the money was.
The whole BR idea is just sad to me,that DM stuff was cool many years ago but now it is just a form of real cheap content,takes no effort no money to make.
Since DBG took over i have seen NO EFFORT,just lame gimmicks to create cash flow.Sure i guess gamers got an expansion for the EQ games,i wouldn't know i never bought them.There has been no creativity in an EQ game for years if ever,just more maps more loot and more levels.
IMO DBG has to be finding a buyer but is the EQ franchise just dead?IMO it is unless they get some actual creative minds working on it and have the budget to make it happen.Right now imo the best way for devs to go is to make a survival type game with building and crafting and pets/mounts and learning new technology over time with player progression.
I THOUGHT H1Z1 was going to be that game,i didn't quite yet fully understand SOE's situation but then realized it was just a quick cash grab to create revenue flow.So SOE's intent was similar to DBG,lazy cheap effort to create cash flow,that is not the type of games i want to play.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If DBG folds, they'll sell whatever they can to the highest bidder, no further questions asked.
Perhaps EQ will join Rift over at Gamigo, who'll no doubt blow some life into... the Cash Shop !
They literally have done nothing but release new TLP servers on Eq and Eq2. Aside from that they basically have been in maintenance mode. They don’t do shit and the patches they do throw out are a mess. Shits gone downhill big time since they took over.
EQ:Next #neverforget
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Damn that’s harsh. Why so much hate for the franchise that paved the way for so much? It should be celebrated. It was a good franchise, it was fun. Now they’re just milking it making TLP after TLP leeching as much money as thy can.
Time to throw in the towel.
Think they will keep a few games crawling along. Do not know what they are getting out of it, but it is not making games.
You know, you may be onto something.... they are not making new games and the games they currently have are just on maintenance mode. I wouldn’t be surprised if something shady like that came to light about Daybreak
I suggest that it will make sense if you:
Think of buying DBG as <<buying shares>>. If all goes well each year they will make a profit <<pay a dividend>> and if all continues to go well in X years they will get back all their money. And anything above that pure profit.
The basic plan for the games: keep them running as long as possible - spend small amounts to boost them periodically; close them when they stop making money. Anything else they make from the IPs etc. would be a bonus.
And in that sense the new owners are not "game developers" but "caretakers".
So they had these progression servers,we know the story,many games doing this LAZY idea even Wow is doing it.They NEVER work,a few months later and it becomes obvious.Gamers want to relive the honeymoon but that will never happen either,the past is the past,move on.
So since i am sure MOST realize ,DBG has been in a steady mode of no effort yet trying to generate revenue.So what is their plan to change a progression server back to a full blown regular server but releasing a new expansion EVERy single month lol.So they need to speed things up to get players spending more often.
WTF is the purpose if your just going to crap on the idea and revert to same old?However the funny part is that they keep the other progression server as is,wtf !!.is it working or not,why one not the other?This is EXACTLY what Smedley did idk was it 7-10 years ago?He said ok just testing this new cash idea,only one server will have it,then 2 then more then the entire operation was nothing but a cash shop business.
Who is making all these dumb decisions,Smedley is gone yet it feels like he is still there,what a mess of a business.There is no way this operation exists much longer,500k-1 million selling an expansion for each game is not going to do much at all,sure get rid of 90% of the overhead but then you have nobody left to put out a good product in the expansions.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Could DCUO be spun off - its a joint venture with DC and WarnerBros at the end of the day? Not sure.
I would be surprised though if whatever "publishing" services they provide for Standing Stone Games couldn't be replaced. A concern, hopefully minor one, though as you say for DDO and LotR.
NantG didn't seem to have any history of game development and the only game related company leg seemed to centre on mobile VR.
NantG seemed to be putting up the money though so whilst I am not at all surprised by this it may be that DBG may not have lost out. Maybe it just put off the inevitable by 6 months.
We were of course mistaken. Taken in by all those press releases that Sony/SoE/DBG put out saying the company had been bought by CN. When in fact it had been bought by an individual who was simply a partner in CN and not one of those named by SEC etc.
So nothing fishy at all about the whole thing.
hope people learn not to buy skins.
Why they dumped the solo game i dont know, especially when there are 2 or 3 other battle royal games out there that do it soo much better.
Really big businesses can do it just to gain assets and wanted the team to work with new projects,so taking a loss is nothing to them.Like Blizz/Activision can do something like that easily,they have money to burn.
Like this buyout or whatever it was had to be known to 90% likely be a failure,so why we all ask?
I have a 99% certainty this owner is very much directly related to the Ogliarch so from that point onwards,anything is a possibility.They kill people over there to get what they want,you think money laundering or any other deceptive reason is out of the question,i don't think so.I already did a ton of research on the guy and the Ogliarch so i am not about to relive it and research again i just know something has always looked fishy about this SOE purchase.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
And most importantly the Company was on a downward spiral to oblivion long before the sale. If anything the sale and new ownership has prolonged the circling of the drain before the inevitable collapse.
I do not see any EQ1 numbers,i just wanted to get a picture of where things stand.So possibly 1k players,maybe the same for both.So 2k players possibly spending a bit here and there.$5-10 a fair guess.10k a month hmm.That's not good,if i double that to give it a max high that is 20k that would pay for about 20-25 employees not too good.
So what i think is about to happen is they need the hardware from H1Z1 because they have some quick cash grab game about to release.I have no idea what that could be,some form of EQ off spin,like a different genre using EQ assets idk what could sell.An EQ moba an EQ arpg,both really cheap to make but again need to survive on a cash shop.
So if i have to guess,H1Z1 for 2-3 more months then it closes and some new game pops up.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.