1) yea, those people are lucky they did not get completely canned when the company/project got bought out. in the business world whenever a company gets taken over or bought out pretty much everyone gets the axe and replaced with in house people. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing. they wanted the game to recoop the money they spent and drawn some profit from it with little/no effort. they moved all the best programmers (who were lucky to still have jobs) to what they invested time and money into so that they could make it better than VG. Like i said, they bought the game to bury it. 2) It was playable at launch. it did have issues like every game does, they just did what they wanted to with slow fixes to try to push people to EQ2. why wouldnt a company be concerned with things that they are making in house rather than a shoddy game that they bought and had to try to fix/release as quick as possible? hell they probably recooped all of their money spent to aquire the game on box sales and then they put together a team to try to keep it playable but not surpass EQ2. job done. 3) as for the other games you mentioned, yea like i said, swg was a mistake. they tried to mainstream it so that they would attract more people to the game. they failed. but guess what? people still play it, it still draws income, it isnt going anywhere soon. its in the same boat as UO, they made a huge game changing addition with tram, a lot of people did not like it. 12 years later its is still going strong. it just released a huge expansion. was tram a mistake? yes. are they still making a ton of money off UO? hell yes because it costs them nearly nothing to keep the servers running and a skeleton dev team. the fact that its been running for 12 years is enough said. SWG is the same.
4) never played planetside/matrix/EQOA or even heard about it that much, was not interested in it so i assume they were niche games that, like most niche games, crash and burn. at least they as a AAA company tried to appease smaller clusters even though they failed. 5) as for free realms, it is one of the most popular games out there. they are doing what they want with it, making money, attracting young people to mmo's. its a huge success. games that run for years and years and keep people playing them, even if its small population, are pure win. you may not like it, but the fact that those games have been running for 5+ years means that people are still playing them. 6) its not the company but the people who let games die. you stop paying to play them, the dev crews go away and the eventual life support of money is taken away to let it die in peace. 7) Look at eve online. it was the dictionary definition of pure shit when it was released. seriously, have you ever seen screen shots, heard from people who started playing it at release? it was terrible. but people kept paying, and kept paying, and kept paying, and today its a huge success with multiple expansions and a supposed player base of 300k subscriptions. the players kept that game alive and made it a success. if they hadn't the game would have failed (like VG is doing, like matrix did) and CCP would be no more.
edit: and to the above poster, games released around the time that EQ2, vanguard were released were all plagued with problems and ran just about as good as crap down the back of your leg. anyone remember WoW release? didnt we get an extre free month of play for how abosolutely terrible it was? but people stuck with it making it the largest populated, most popular game ever.
1) EQ2 came out 3 years before vanguard, but you are correct SOE did not want VG to take subscribers from EQ2.
Also it doesn't matter how lucky those people were to have jobs as it has not relevance to how little effort soe was putting into "saving" vanguard.
2) Correct. The second thing soe did was give current VG players free time and discounts to join EQ2 (maybe their other games, but I don't recall). It was obvious that soe was trying to draw players away from vanguard to maximize their profits.
3) SWG wasn't a mistake as soe knew that they were pushing their current players out the door. That was intentional and history cannot be revised to call that a mistake. If their plan had worked, they would never call it a mistake and would happily push more customers out the door to get a chunk of blizzards pie. Conclusion is that soe has no issues what so ever driving their players away if they think there is profit to be made by doing so. The mistake was that their plan didn't work out in their favor. Any of the times they have tried.
4) Perhaps you should do a little more research on the rest of soe titles before you make claims that soe has not ruined any of their games aside from star wars? Just a thought.
5) Free realms doesn't even have 1 full server friend and 1,000 online players would clog a server up due to the incredibly small size of the game world. Before you go reading a press release by soe about how huge a success it is, you should do a little homework. Why do you think soe had to change the game from free to play to a pure subscription +RMT revenue model? Successful games don't have to make drastic changes like that. How many of the over 5 million players have to NOT play the game in order for it to not have at least 1 full server? Think about that.
6) If you cut enough support and development any game can run for years. Ask the players of those undead mmo if they are happy to pay the same fees for a stillborn game with no hope of growing when compared to other mmos on the market that get expansions and constant updates. Is it any wonder why more people don't pay for the luxury of a dead mmo.
7) That was something like 7 years ago and ccp (from what I can tell) listens to their players? People no longer need to pay for the hope that a shit game might someday get better. There is no need for that in todays market and people should not be expected to pay for post release development of a game for the honor of it MAYBE getting fixed and being fun. This is the exact mentality that soe used to ruin EQ2. They rushed it out the door unfinished just to beat blizzard to market and look how that worked out for soe. They spent the better half of the games life revamping and redesigning the majority of the game. That is why it sucks.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
EQ2 released in nov 2004.
Vanguard released Jan 2007.
pwned!
yes it does seem to make that particular argument fall apart slightly doesnt it. sometimes the degree of conspiracy theories bandied about over SOE do approach the tinfoil hat levels of saturation, i dont particularly believe that SOE is really the empire of evil, but, do have to admit that their current lineout is a tad on the mediocre side, for whatever reason, conspiracies or no..
SOE could release the Messiah game that revolutionizes the whole genre tomorrow, but I won't be impressed until they straighten out the mess they've already got.
... This is where I draw the line: __________________.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
EQ2 released in nov 2004.
Vanguard released Jan 2007.
pwned!
yes it does seem to make that particular argument fall apart slightly doesnt it. sometimes the degree of conspiracy theories bandied about over SOE do approach the tinfoil hat levels of saturation, i dont particularly believe that SOE is really the empire of evil, but, do have to admit that their current lineout is a tad on the mediocre side, for whatever reason, conspiracies or no..
Well there is a lot of misinformation on this site about a number of games and a lot of people do not have their facts straight. Even though their hearts are in the right place.
As for SOE, I don't think they are some evil empire plotting to ruin the world. I do think they are completely mismanaged by a group of people who have no desire or passion about making games and are only interested in getting their hands on their customers wallets. Their level which they disregard and lack any understanding of their customers has caused their brand name immeasurable harm and is the prime reason their games are shit and/or underperform.
Some will call it conspiracy and some just call it unethical business practice, but it is easy to show that soe has no problem hiding the truth or outright lying to their players and they are more than willing to make changes they fully understand will cause people to leave their games if they think it will increase their revenue short term.
I have played Vanguard and first of all I don't think it is better then EQ2 nor did they come at the same time and there is at least a 3 or 4 year difference. SOE is not great but i think they should focus on less MMO projects at one time. 2008-2009 was just horrible for the MMO genre in general i think. Things will get better I am sure. Happy New year.
Originally posted by kefkah Originally posted by Daffid011 What exactly was a comeback year for soe in 2009? The matrix online closed down. Free realms launched to 5 million users trying the game, but the game doesn't even have 1 full server. Things are going so poorly that soe had to change the revenue model within a few months of the game releasing. Still no version of Free Realms for the PS3, which is supposed to be their new focus. 7 of the 9 mmos on station pass did not see an expansion pack and most likely will never see an expansion. DCU online was pushed back The Agency was pushed back. The leadership of their Seattle office left. More loot card and cash shop antics driving more customers away this year. There has been employee turnover in almost every major leadership role for each of their projects. An overall percentage layoff of their workforce in addition to some teams being downsized beyond that.
I am sorry, but what exactly are the details of this comeback they had?
Will 2010 be any different? DCU will be lucky to be ready for release by Q4 of 2010 and even then it needs to be an unquestionable success. The agency is in big trouble despite what soe says. For a game this far along in development to be this quiet raises some questions. To see the leadership of the project walk out when they should be ramping up for release makes things seem even worse.
This > than actual article. 100% more truth and a ton less guesstimation and generalizations. Just need to add Vanguard's recent turn of events and what you have is enough material to post a bevy of interesting articles that help keep the industry from following the "self proclaimed leader of mmos". Then again, I find it very hard to believe the writer missed the slew of layoffs, pushbacks, cancellations and misdealings by SOE that MMORPG did post this year. 2009 was far from a new start and far less of a foundation to build 2010's future upon.
Come on Garret this is such a trash piece, it does not become you. Comeback year? Unless you posted that with a healthy dose of sarcasm you are living in a fantasy world.
Previous posts lay out all the travails SOE had this year. As long as Smedley is at the helm SOE is going nowhere. The people in this industry with any talent can't stand him. With this industry turning around this year SOE will lose more talent if they have any left.
SOE is just a shell of what it once was with little chance of returning to anything near what it was.
It is the most pathetic company in this genre and will continue to remain so.
Come on Garret this is such a trash piece, it does not become you. Comeback year? Unless you posted that with a healthy dose of sarcasm you are living in a fantasy world.
Previous posts lay out all the travails SOE had this year. As long as Smedley is at the helm SOE is going nowhere. The people in this industry with any talent can't stand him. With this industry turning around this year SOE will lose more talent if they have any left.
Regarding The Agency talent. It's doubtful it will ever be released.
Chad Barry was Sr. Technical Architect, now at the Amazing Society
Hal Milton was Lead Designer now at Griptonite games
Paul Ehreth was game designer now at Microsoft
Corey Dangel was art director, now founder Detonator Games.
Heather Sowards was producer at soe, now at Edge of Reality,
Andy Seavy was game designer at soe, now at loose cannon studios.
Sherry Floyd now art development director at monolith.
Most of these within the last 9 months. Bad stuff is happening in this shop or this was cleanup to fix bad stuff.
Where is the deluge of infomation about DCUO? There's nothing out there and lately they're just releasing snapshots of various character models of obscure characters like Bizarro. Was anyone's purchase really teetering on wether or not they nailed the Bizarro model?
Where is the deluge of infomation about DCUO? There's nothing out there and lately they're just releasing snapshots of various character models of obscure characters like Bizarro. Was anyone's purchase really teetering on wether or not they nailed the Bizarro model?
Considering the game centers around players taking the part of sidekicks of major heroes, it might.
Where is the deluge of infomation about DCUO? There's nothing out there and lately they're just releasing snapshots of various character models of obscure characters like Bizarro. Was anyone's purchase really teetering on wether or not they nailed the Bizarro model?
Considering the game centers around players taking the part of sidekicks of major heroes, it might.
You consider Bizarro a major hero? Either way my question still stands - where's all the DCUO info hiding?
Unfortunately given their track record SOE can only be considered an 'average' MMO developer at best. They have a fairly long history of poor launches, poor development, and even poorer customer service. I'm excited by DCO but I've been burned by SOE too many times to give them another chance. I suppose it's the whole fool me once prinicple. Also, every time I see John Smedley's name mentioned with anything I'm reminded of why this company is, and will continue to be average at best. Between he and Hayden Blackman it suprises me that Sony hasn't axed their MMO division.
SOE>>Blizzard.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Comments
1) EQ2 came out 3 years before vanguard, but you are correct SOE did not want VG to take subscribers from EQ2.
Also it doesn't matter how lucky those people were to have jobs as it has not relevance to how little effort soe was putting into "saving" vanguard.
2) Correct. The second thing soe did was give current VG players free time and discounts to join EQ2 (maybe their other games, but I don't recall). It was obvious that soe was trying to draw players away from vanguard to maximize their profits.
3) SWG wasn't a mistake as soe knew that they were pushing their current players out the door. That was intentional and history cannot be revised to call that a mistake. If their plan had worked, they would never call it a mistake and would happily push more customers out the door to get a chunk of blizzards pie. Conclusion is that soe has no issues what so ever driving their players away if they think there is profit to be made by doing so. The mistake was that their plan didn't work out in their favor. Any of the times they have tried.
4) Perhaps you should do a little more research on the rest of soe titles before you make claims that soe has not ruined any of their games aside from star wars? Just a thought.
5) Free realms doesn't even have 1 full server friend and 1,000 online players would clog a server up due to the incredibly small size of the game world. Before you go reading a press release by soe about how huge a success it is, you should do a little homework. Why do you think soe had to change the game from free to play to a pure subscription +RMT revenue model? Successful games don't have to make drastic changes like that. How many of the over 5 million players have to NOT play the game in order for it to not have at least 1 full server? Think about that.
6) If you cut enough support and development any game can run for years. Ask the players of those undead mmo if they are happy to pay the same fees for a stillborn game with no hope of growing when compared to other mmos on the market that get expansions and constant updates. Is it any wonder why more people don't pay for the luxury of a dead mmo.
7) That was something like 7 years ago and ccp (from what I can tell) listens to their players? People no longer need to pay for the hope that a shit game might someday get better. There is no need for that in todays market and people should not be expected to pay for post release development of a game for the honor of it MAYBE getting fixed and being fun. This is the exact mentality that soe used to ruin EQ2. They rushed it out the door unfinished just to beat blizzard to market and look how that worked out for soe. They spent the better half of the games life revamping and redesigning the majority of the game. That is why it sucks.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
EQ2 released in nov 2004.
Vanguard released Jan 2007.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
EQ2 released in nov 2004.
Vanguard released Jan 2007.
pwned!
yes it does seem to make that particular argument fall apart slightly doesnt it. sometimes the degree of conspiracy theories bandied about over SOE do approach the tinfoil hat levels of saturation, i dont particularly believe that SOE is really the empire of evil, but, do have to admit that their current lineout is a tad on the mediocre side, for whatever reason, conspiracies or no..
SOE could release the Messiah game that revolutionizes the whole genre tomorrow, but I won't be impressed until they straighten out the mess they've already got.
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
How about this for a fact? The very first action soe took in their "investment" of Vanguard was to remove the most talented programmers and move them to new projects at soe. I don't know what you think is everything in their power, but the very first action by soe showed they were more concerned with everything other than vanguard.
. they never wanted for vanguard to succeed as it came out the same time as EQ2 which was going to be their next big thing.
Really? I seem to recall Vanguard launching (pay for beta) around the time of EQ2's fourth expansion Echoes of Faydwer.
EQ2 released in nov 2004.
Vanguard released Jan 2007.
pwned!
yes it does seem to make that particular argument fall apart slightly doesnt it. sometimes the degree of conspiracy theories bandied about over SOE do approach the tinfoil hat levels of saturation, i dont particularly believe that SOE is really the empire of evil, but, do have to admit that their current lineout is a tad on the mediocre side, for whatever reason, conspiracies or no..
Well there is a lot of misinformation on this site about a number of games and a lot of people do not have their facts straight. Even though their hearts are in the right place.
As for SOE, I don't think they are some evil empire plotting to ruin the world. I do think they are completely mismanaged by a group of people who have no desire or passion about making games and are only interested in getting their hands on their customers wallets. Their level which they disregard and lack any understanding of their customers has caused their brand name immeasurable harm and is the prime reason their games are shit and/or underperform.
Some will call it conspiracy and some just call it unethical business practice, but it is easy to show that soe has no problem hiding the truth or outright lying to their players and they are more than willing to make changes they fully understand will cause people to leave their games if they think it will increase their revenue short term.
I have played Vanguard and first of all I don't think it is better then EQ2 nor did they come at the same time and there is at least a 3 or 4 year difference. SOE is not great but i think they should focus on less MMO projects at one time. 2008-2009 was just horrible for the MMO genre in general i think. Things will get better I am sure. Happy New year.
This > than actual article. 100% more truth and a ton less guesstimation and generalizations. Just need to add Vanguard's recent turn of events and what you have is enough material to post a bevy of interesting articles that help keep the industry from following the "self proclaimed leader of mmos".
Then again, I find it very hard to believe the writer missed the slew of layoffs, pushbacks, cancellations and misdealings by SOE that MMORPG did post this year. 2009 was far from a new start and far less of a foundation to build 2010's future upon.
Its Tough to contradict the truth.
Unaware of the Jestor?
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Come on Garret this is such a trash piece, it does not become you. Comeback year? Unless you posted that with a healthy dose of sarcasm you are living in a fantasy world.
Previous posts lay out all the travails SOE had this year. As long as Smedley is at the helm SOE is going nowhere. The people in this industry with any talent can't stand him. With this industry turning around this year SOE will lose more talent if they have any left.
SOE is just a shell of what it once was with little chance of returning to anything near what it was.
It is the most pathetic company in this genre and will continue to remain so.
Regarding The Agency talent. It's doubtful it will ever be released.
Chad Barry was Sr. Technical Architect, now at the Amazing Society
Hal Milton was Lead Designer now at Griptonite games
Paul Ehreth was game designer now at Microsoft
Corey Dangel was art director, now founder Detonator Games.
Heather Sowards was producer at soe, now at Edge of Reality,
Andy Seavy was game designer at soe, now at loose cannon studios.
Sherry Floyd now art development director at monolith.
Most of these within the last 9 months. Bad stuff is happening in this shop or this was cleanup to fix bad stuff.
Where is the deluge of infomation about DCUO? There's nothing out there and lately they're just releasing snapshots of various character models of obscure characters like Bizarro. Was anyone's purchase really teetering on wether or not they nailed the Bizarro model?
Currently Playing: The Game
Considering the game centers around players taking the part of sidekicks of major heroes, it might.
Considering the game centers around players taking the part of sidekicks of major heroes, it might.
You consider Bizarro a major hero? Either way my question still stands - where's all the DCUO info hiding?
Currently Playing: The Game
SOE>>Blizzard.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.