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Is EQNext Vaporware?
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As far as EQ1 goes, I think it's a mistake to reboot it. It's already seen a rise and decline, birth and death, to the point where they're welcoming projects to reboot it, openly. They aren't even defending the IP. The well is dry.
There are definitely features and aspects of the game I'd like to see return in EQN but I think it's still difficult to say what EQN is going to be right now. It will definitely have mass appeal though, that goes without saying.
there are still a lot of people playing EQ1 and 2, there is a huge fan following and the well is not dry as we seen with the rush of players wanting to play the progression servers.
I understand that there is a market for the game. It's just not one which would justify throwing 50-100 million at. We can disagree, but the facts say that steam sees fewer than a couple hundred people online, concurrently, in either game. P99 servers show maybe a couple thousand at peak? I'm not saying there aren't thousands of people who enjoy that style of game, I'm just saying that you can't spend tens of millions of dollars developing a game in hopes that you can capture a market that may or may not be there. Additionally, if these players haven't moved on, it's entirely possible that they are cemented into EQ1 or EQ2 anyway and wouldn't move even if you did give them everything they wanted.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I have played landmark. It is not hard to base what EQN will be off of landmark. Add in quests... and you will have EQN.
It is just the wrong direction to take a franchise like EQ and turn it into some game that doesn't even resemble its roots. Hell even EQ2 wasn't near as good as the original EQ.
Did they actually had any staff left on Landmark you have to wonder. As not much has happened there either lately to be honest.
So I hardly doubt this is going to be any improvement or give any confidence at all.
Well it must be hard if you came to the conclusion of "just add quests", so not sure how you know it's the wrong direction if that was your response. Was expecting some actually argument, but just the typical MMORPG response.
So what would you consider to be the right directions for the franchise?
I was really excited about Everquest Next until I participated in Landmark.
Listen guys, I don't have the same deep rooted hatred some of you have for this Smed guy, but little things have pointed towards EQN being a rotten egg IMO. I really hope they get it together, but in the meantime I'm using Crowfall as my "okay if this doesn't work out, I'm done with MMOs" game.
The only reason why I tolerate Archeage right now is because I'm eagerly looking for something better to do with my free game time. I've have evolved/devolved into this "MMORPG or nothing" mentality and it has pretty much ruined PC Gaming for me. I'm tolerating games with veiled P2W models, or subs without the content to justify the cost. FML.
.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, I don't know about the "anything" part, but he's certainly been riding the coattails of EQ1 all these years. I do agree that he should have been replaced years ago, and he is generally his own worst enemy. He should never speak publicly, and he should be banned from Twitter. I imagine him smelling like a roast beef, with hints of tacos and Aqua Velva as highlights.
But, I digress. It's far too late for that studio at this point, and EQN is still a lost cause. Removing Smedley isn't going to fix anything. It's better to just invest in one of the Indie studios if you want to help the genre improve. Daybreak ain't it, and EQN never was it either.
I think by 2020 it will be 20-20 vision and hindsight.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Lol, this is true. They could be shifting around resources the same way that 38 Studios is shifting all their resources onto Project Copernicus.
That being said, CN bought SOE. I'm sure it wasn't a 10 million dollar deal. I'm sure it wasn't a 50 million dollar deal. The whole games division was at like $10B in revenues. What was the SOE chunk? Beats me. All I'm going to say is they didn't pay chump change for it, so you better believe they're going to release any and all IPs that are sitting in "the red zone". Lord knows they aren't making their money back by selling EQ T-shirts.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
there are still a lot of people playing EQ1 and 2, there is a huge fan following and the well is not dry as we seen with the rush of players wanting to play the progression servers.
I understand that there is a market for the game. It's just not one which would justify throwing 50-100 million at. We can disagree, but the facts say that steam sees fewer than a couple hundred people online, concurrently, in either game. P99 servers show maybe a couple thousand at peak? I'm not saying there aren't thousands of people who enjoy that style of game, I'm just saying that you can't spend tens of millions of dollars developing a game in hopes that you can capture a market that may or may not be there. Additionally, if these players haven't moved on, it's entirely possible that they are cemented into EQ1 or EQ2 anyway and wouldn't move even if you did give them everything they wanted.
so let me ask you this, what about all the sandbox games that are currently in development? are you saying there is a larger market for those kind of games? if so i would totally disagree.
i don't know about spending 100m on any mmo at this point, i think we have seen that isn't a very wise thing to do from a business standpoint even for games like SWTOR and ESO who have gigantic fan bases.
but generally speaking, there is indeed a fan following for this type of mmo and if done right it could be marginally successful.
more successful than most mmo's in development right now IMO.
1) The Landmark staff and the EQN staff are the same people. They are not 2 different teams. I'm pretty sure nothing internally has changed with this new "focus on EQN and ignoring Landmark" and the only real change is branding the work for Landmark as now being for EQN.
2) SOE was operating at -$60 million dollars a year and mass layoffs were coming. I doubt SOE was sold for very much. For perspective, Storybricks was able to secure enough funding to purchase SOE (a bit late) and they were a company with no clients other than SOE.
No, I definitely don't think that sandbox games have a larger market.
I think you can be successful with a $100M MMO still. There are just so many other paths with less resistance. If I was going to throw $100M at a game, do I do an MMO or do like 100 Mobile Games?
As for their niche games, I think that DBG should leverage their parent company's assets (since they own so much tech) to figure out a way to run this stuff more efficiently and relaunch games like Vanguard, SWG (if they had source), etc. There is a market, for sure, but it's just not that big. Not big enough to justify the cost to set up and maintain.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Regarding your point 1) when CN took over they could have created one team or two. The producer's letter suggests they tried to have an EQN team - presumably funded by a development budget - and an EQL team funded by the revenue from EQL. And if so the implication is that EQL isn't bringing in enough revenue to fund an EQL team; hence the team has - essentially - been stood down and moved onto EQN. And given the number of staff realignments there have been since 2009 it could have flipped between two teams and one team several times.
Regarding your point 2) we don't know that SoE was operating at -$60M a year. What Sony announced was a $60M write down on development costs. Which is not the same.
The way it works is that in 2014 SoE will have spent $X1 on development; $Y1 on supporting released games and they will have taken in $N. Bottom line for 2014 = $N - $X - $Y.
Given the lay-offs in e.g. 2013 and the about having to align costs with revenue probably fair to assume that what they made was not a lot or a loss. Same deal for 2013, 2012 etc. Probably fair to assume that SoE would be a tough sell.
So what Sony did is they zeroed the $X's. And the $60M is probably the development costs incurred in 2014, 2013 and maybe even earlier. Financial sleight of hand in a way but the sales pitch then becomes:
Without development costs this is what SoE can make. And CN will have bought the company on this basis. They also opted to keep a development team - and they will have factored in how much they wanted to "gamble" on "new products" when they sat down with Sony. Built in into the price essentially. A fixed budget: so many people for so long. And once the budget has gone .... well I don't think there will be another write down.
Your comment about the purchase price not being very much I agree with. Interestingly the Storybricks comments suggested that Sony wanted more but ultimately sold "it" for less to CN than they were offering. Which suggests to me that what SoE bought was a different package than what Storybricks was looking to buy. Maybe CN guaranteed decent severance packages; maybe Sony still own the right to EQ and the price for that will be determined in the future - based on how well the EQ brand performs. The value of a brand is always hard to pin down.
I lol'd at "SOE was operating at -60 million a year". I understand where people get the number, but I do not understand the utter lack of sense as to context. Use your head.
edit: 60 million is not even development cost. Holy cow. I can't even...
For someone who says so much about EQN and Landmark you sure not reading up on what they say lol. Landmark and EQN are being made by the same team yes, but very different games. They wont even have the same classes. Landmark is still being developed but only in the direction of tools needed to make EQN. So props all EQN based, SciFi props will have to wait. Combat will be pushed forward and anything else needed for EQN. EQN is not even going to have the building side of the game Landmark has. Very different games.
You have no clue what SoE was sold for. Also -60 million behind is chump change when you have 3 MMOs in development. Matter of fact its small with 1 MMO in the works. From info over the last 4-8 years. Spending 100 million just gets you in the door to make a triple A MMO. You can call it doom and gloom or SoE was worth almost nothing but you are just guessing. My guess with rumors around the web, many people were interested in buying SoE. Seems this was in the works for a long time and SoE had a say in where they went. If Sony was trying to just dump them or they got next to nothing for them. Why didnt they get sold off on one of the first few offers? Could it be they are worth more then you keep saying? In the end, this line of thought is useless, why? We will never know.
There sure seems to be a lot of people in this thread using the word "promise".
Keep in mind, nobody that matters (nobody here) or that has the answer to your question has used the word "promise".
As I have mentioned before, no one here appears to have any clue as to how venture capital companies work.
EQN will not be released in 2020, no VC company would EVER pay for development that long.
EQN will not have a $100 mil price tag, for the same reason.
EQN will not be a full feature MMO, which would require several more years of development.
VC firms are worried about the return on investment this quarter or this year. All of that stuff I just mentioned are a bunch of naive hopes from people that do not understand how things work. VC firms are not in ANYTHING for the "long haul".
I suspect (although no one not on the inside can say for sure) that when the VC firm bought SOE, they gave them 1 year to get everything out the door or it would be getting canceled. That's the long and short of it, that's how VC firms operate.
As such, I think it is even money that EQN will either be canceled late this year, or a very much stripped down EQN will release some time in first month or two of 2016 (and look something like Neverwinter).
Anything else is just not supported by what VC firms are, or how they run.
As you correctly say we don't know what CN paid for SoE.
Why didn't they get sold off on one of the first offers? I think Storybricks gave us the answer: Sony wanted more than they were prepared to offer.
So why - it seems - did Sony sell SoE for less? As you say we don't know the price but nor do we know what Sony sold / CN bought. Faced with lower bids Sony either lowered their price or altered what they were selling. Did they sell the EQ IP or licence it? Were assets sold or leased? Was the price fixed or is it based on revenue over the next couple of years. And so on. As you say we just don't know.
Daffid011 wasn't guessing about the $60M figure however he misinterpreted it. The number came from Sony's 2014 results. It was a write down though not a loss.
However the $60M was a big number though for SoE. Reason: the 2013 lay-offs were supposed to align revenue with costs and they were left with 450-500 staff. So in context for SoE the $60M was - broadly - a years operating budget (maybe more). Even more of course for DBG.
They might be very different games someday, but that may never happen and has no bearing on how things currently stand.
I mean the devs are still talking about core systems being concepts subject to drastic change and they have no idea if they will even work or even be fun. Yet you are speaking like they are inevitable truths that have already happened.
I think you are confusing having an idea and know specifics. I think anyone can get a good idea of the sale price and it wasn't huge as some suggest.
Just look at what was purchased
- a few dying MMO's
- a pre-alpha MMO
- a 7 year project that didn't even have an alpha
- multiple rounds of 100+ layoffs with another ready to happen after purchase
- multiple studios closed
- over a dozen cancelled or closed games/projects
Even the Asian studios which have been snapping up games and developers passed.
Who was "competing" for this gem?
-a Russian investment firm
-a group of indie developers who had no clients other than SOE... and they managed to secure funding.
What other "first offers" are you referring to? Things that take a long time to sell are typically A) over priced
not very desirable or C) both.
Come on, SOE was almost bought out by their vendor.. a startup company of maybe 10 people that didn't even have a product on the market yet. Just how much do you think a bank would give them to buy a failing MMO developer?
Oh, and again you are ignoring roughly a dozen products SOE was running that should have not only paid for developing 3 MMO's, but also turned a profit. What is the point of giving SOE the hundreds of millions you think they spend developing games if try never turn a profit on those investments.
I'm actually intrigued by this. I think the MMO industry needs someone to light a fire under their butts; and make sure teams don't bite off more than they can chew. Make a smaller version of a game; and build upon its success gradually; rather than taking five years to build an enormous monstrosity or morph into vaporware.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Funny as MMOers we bitch when games get rushed and the games not polished and when a company takes their time to get it right we bitch they are going to slow lol. EQN could have just made the game years ago and put an EQ IP stamp on it and said there go play but they decided to go in the direction of an RD game and make something new and unique =-) Thats another area we bitch as MMOers. Sick of the same game being made with new skin, we call them WoW clones for some dumb reason. Again DGC is trying to make something new and what do the gamers do? We bitch. We cant even pick what side of the fence we are on.