I really wish they would be held accountable for what they say. They spin these things knowing people will never ever find out the real numbers. Not long ago someone said Vanguard's numbers are on the rise also. Yeah, they're so on the rise, that's why they merged all the servers into 1, and that SOE laid off a couple of its team members.
You really can't trust what SOE says. As for the cash shop, some people have a right to get upset at them. If you play EQ1 or played EQ1 when they shoved cash shop down our throats, you would know exactly why it's wrong. EQ1's cash shops and LoN (gambling cards) pushed over the line, that line that Smed promised to never cross. Now you can indeed purchase items that give your chraracter powers in EQ1, including mounts that give you stats.
The anger towards SOE is well warranted, they deserve it.
Oh really? When did EQ2 announce a server merge? Where are they discussing merging servers for EQ2?
And on the cash shops, I look at it this way....if you don't like a cash shop, don't play a game that has one. If they put one in and didn't have one when you subbed....unsub, quit, go find something else to play.
I don't think cash shops make games better or worse. They have relatively little to do with the ACTUAL game. Just one opinion.
Someone else pasted and linked the information you requested about EQ2 getting ready to merge servers. So yeah, cash shops didn't save those games. In fact they didn't even do enough to keep soe from laying off employees, which suggest they might have done more harm overall. Maybe players took your advice and quit the game and the overall effect has created a situation that has made the game overall worse.
As for your theories of why people don't like cash shops and their limited effect on their respective games, you are welcome to your opinions.
However, it is hard to deny that when a companies releases an expansion that is in such poor condition (and small) that they can't merge servers, then perhaps all the time spend designing and implmenting the subsystems for cash shops could have been better spent elsewhere.
Sure the items may not give direct advantages (even though some do), that doesn't mean there isn't a direct effect on the game. The cash shop didn't create, implement, balance and design iteself. Every minute that is spent making anything related to the cash shop come straight out of the development cycle for regular content updates and game maintenance.
So some people don't like it for the principle of what it is doing and don't need to have a narrow view that only looks at the items and how they affect the game. They see the bigger picture and don't find paying extra for removed content makes for a better game, especially when the company struggles at delivering basic elements.
Man people are dense, getting mad at a cash shop that only effects the grind aspect of gameplay.
People are only mad at the idea of a cash shop, rather than the reality. And here is something, chances are if VG had a cash shop, it would be doing a lot better now.
Vanguard would be doing better if they werent laying off developers . . .
Just saying.
If they had a cash shop, chances are it'd be making quite abit more money, IE good chance it'd have more than 1 dev.
All the other soe games with cash shops don't seem to be doing any better than before they got cash shops. That sort of makes it hard for what you say to be possible. Actually, Vanguard has a player to player cash shop right now and again, no real help there.
In fact all of them have since announced server mergers or plans to merge servers. As if putting things in a cash shop has taken priority over fixing the horrible problems the last expansion created.
Maybe players don't like cash shops going into subscription based games, because the developers have done such a poor job at the regular content and don't feel they are getting anything out of the deal. If you really look at the track record of the games post cash shop it would be hard to conclude that things have improved in most of their games.
Oh really? When did EQ2 announce a server merge? Where are they discussing merging servers for EQ2?
And on the cash shops, I look at it this way....if you don't like a cash shop, don't play a game that has one. If they put one in and didn't have one when you subbed....unsub, quit, go find something else to play.
I don't think cash shops make games better or worse. They have relatively little to do with the ACTUAL game. Just one opinion.
EQ2 desperately needs a server merge. All but probably 2 servers are ghost towns.
Man people are dense, getting mad at a cash shop that only effects the grind aspect of gameplay.
People are only mad at the idea of a cash shop, rather than the reality. And here is something, chances are if VG had a cash shop, it would be doing a lot better now.
Vanguard would be doing better if they werent laying off developers . . .
Just saying.
If they had a cash shop, chances are it'd be making quite abit more money, IE good chance it'd have more than 1 dev.
All the other soe games with cash shops don't seem to be doing any better than before they got cash shops. That sort of makes it hard for what you say to be possible. Actually, Vanguard has a player to player cash shop right now and again, no real help there.
In fact all of them have since announced server mergers or plans to merge servers. As if putting things in a cash shop has taken priority over fixing the horrible problems the last expansion created.
Maybe players don't like cash shops going into subscription based games, because the developers have done such a poor job at the regular content and don't feel they are getting anything out of the deal. If you really look at the track record of the games post cash shop it would be hard to conclude that things have improved in most of their games.
Oh really? When did EQ2 announce a server merge? Where are they discussing merging servers for EQ2?
And on the cash shops, I look at it this way....if you don't like a cash shop, don't play a game that has one. If they put one in and didn't have one when you subbed....unsub, quit, go find something else to play.
I don't think cash shops make games better or worse. They have relatively little to do with the ACTUAL game. Just one opinion.
EQ2 desperately needs a server merge. All but probably 2 servers are ghost towns.
Agree.. I played every night for about a week recently. Aside from people I actively looked for, I can count the number of random people I ran into on two hands, and most of them were afk. lol
An even better thing would be for Sony to sell their online unit and get out of the mmo business entirely. They fail because they are trying to be a jack of all trades and specializing in nothing and so their products are at best average or below.
What I'm wondering is...what is up with Smedley's unnatural life cycle as SOE's lead? (President, or whatever he counts as post-the reorganization a year or two ago)
Obviously the company is doing very well financially for 35 employees to only count as 4%, That's some 875 employees pre-layoffs, no?
So I assume they make a lot of money somehow...just have no idea how they're doing it with their current Station Access line-up which seems to be in decline.
But back to the main point about Smedley. Whether he or SOE deserves all the negative criticism they get or not (and I personally don't think they deserve 90% of it), the idea of executive matyrdom isn't at all uncommon, especially during layoffs and a string of failures.
Smedley must look much, much better on the balance sheets than he does in perception to his customers. But damn, it seems even Presidents/CEOs/Execs who do GREAT walk away from a job eventually in the interest of giving a company fresh blood and insight. SEO has long since been at risk of being a brand synonymous with Smedley.
I guess i'm one of the "sick-headed" people who still plays and loves my SoE games. Got the Station Access which I use for EQ2, Vanguard, AND SWG. And i'll tell you something else: I LOVE playing em all. They offer so much that I haven't found in any other game, F2P or P2P. Shoot, the different types of vision you can use in EQ2, the depth of underwater content in both EQ2 and Vanguard, they alone keep me interested in SoE games. I find a level of immersion and fluff that I don't find anywhere else. I've got a LTS to LOTRO, and I LOVE it, yet still I play EQ2 instead, simply because I can't swim underwater in LOTRO. Horribly immersion-breaking to me.
Finally, I will add that DCUO looks AMAZING. The trailer from Blur Studios is one of the greatest things ever seen. I've ordered my CE copy. I can only hope now that they add it to the Station Access.
What I'm wondering is...what is up with Smedley's unnatural life cycle as SOE's lead? (President, or whatever he counts as post-the reorganization a year or two ago)
Obviously the company is doing very well financially for 35 employees to only count as 4%, That's some 875 employees pre-layoffs, no?
So I assume they make a lot of money somehow...just have no idea how they're doing it with their current Station Access line-up which seems to be in decline.
But back to the main point about Smedley. Whether he or SOE deserves all the negative criticism they get or not (and I personally don't think they deserve 90% of it), the idea of executive matyrdom isn't at all uncommon, especially during layoffs and a string of failures.
Smedley must look much, much better on the balance sheets than he does in perception to his customers. But damn, it seems even Presidents/CEOs/Execs who do GREAT walk away from a job eventually in the interest of giving a company fresh blood and insight. SEO has long since been at risk of being a brand synonymous with Smedley.
Once you get past the idea that, everybody hates SOE and all SOE games are failing its really not to hard to understand how they are making money. This site seems to be a gathering place for the angst ridden and has gone as far as to dedicate a forum to SOE haters so yes, things are a bit skewed here to say the least. These people are a minority even within this site let alone the over all gaming community.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Makes sense. It's always off-perspective to see things from the outside looking in. Obviously SOE is still very financially sound to have as many MMOs in development as it does, and being able to afford keeping games like Vanguard afloat where companies like NCSoft and EA would've been axed it.
I don't think it takes any real effort to see that the mmo empire that soe once had is a shell of its former self and not the figment of some imaginary hater campaign.
I think people let their hate of SOE blind them to everything related to it (also, MMOFRINGE is like the home of CU/NGE rage, so providing a link to anything they have is guarenteed to have a anti-SOE slant). Vanguard would be done like dinner if SOE hadn't put it on the SOE Life Support pass. Anyone who played the game when Sigil went under knows first hand that no one on god's green earth would pick anything up in that bad of state. SOE made the smart play in picking it up, fixing some bugs and letting the existing customer base sputter on (they even picked up a few along the way).
It would take a mountain of money, time and PR to recover from as bad of a launch as Vanguard had (if its even possible), so why does anyone expect that SOE would risk it? As to EQ2, I haven't played it in a long time, but from what I;ve seen and read, the subs are pretty much the same as they have been all along. A server merger doesn't always mean death, player populations migrate.....servers get upgraded so they can handle more pers....Age of the game means there are few low lvl toons hopping about, merging allows them to bring more of them together.
So I assume they make a lot of money somehow...just have no idea how they're doing it with their current Station Access line-up which seems to be in decline.
Cash shops, it's the new thing, and they are milking EQ playerbase hard with it. What's funny is SOE is trying very hard to move in a new direction, creating games that are different. But they are still supported by the playerbase that got them where they are today, the Everquest playerbase. Both EQ1 and EQ2 are still the games that probably makes them the most money. EQ2 has more players, while EQ1 has a loyal fanbase that buys cash shop items.
What EQ1 fanbase do not like is the fact that SOE milks them for lots of money, but they spends these money elsewhere. Like instead of spending the money to give EQ1 new player models, which the playerbase overwhelmingly are for, they spend the money to advertise Free Realms and EQ2.
Instead of concentrating their resources on a few games to make sure they are AAA quality, they are spreading their dev resources thin and creating new games. If you play EQ1, Vanguard, SWG, you will be told that they lack dev resources to create anything huge or to really improve the games. EQ1 for an example, we haven't gotten new class epics in a long time. But devs have been avoiding making them because, as they admitted, they do not have the dev resources to create class epics. They state it would take too much time. This is EQ1 we're talking about, the game that practically invented class epic quests in the genre, the game that got SOE where they are today. It's just sad to see what SOE is doing and how they are leaving some games up to dry.
I'm using EQ1 because I'm familiar with the game and did go back to play it for a full year recently. I see what the game needs, but SOE isn't giving the team enough resources & money to do what it needs. So anyways, cash shops, it's probably what's keeping SOE afloat. It's quite ironic. And they seem to still be getting these contracts to create new games for various IP's. I'm guessing people still go to them to create some games because 1) they're seasoned, they aren't new, 2) they have the servers and data centers to host these games, 3) they have the billing department, support department, and marketing department, something new companies will find it hard to staff for, and 4) It's SOE, a known name in the genre.
I think people let their hate of SOE blind them to everything related to it (also, MMOFRINGE is like the home of CU/NGE rage, so providing a link to anything they have is guarenteed to have a anti-SOE slant). Vanguard would be done like dinner if SOE hadn't put it on the SOE Life Support pass. Anyone who played the game when Sigil went under knows first hand that no one on god's green earth would pick anything up in that bad of state. SOE made the smart play in picking it up, fixing some bugs and letting the existing customer base sputter on (they even picked up a few along the way).
It would take a mountain of money, time and PR to recover from as bad of a launch as Vanguard had (if its even possible), so why does anyone expect that SOE would risk it? As to EQ2, I haven't played it in a long time, but from what I;ve seen and read, the subs are pretty much the same as they have been all along. A server merger doesn't always mean death, player populations migrate.....servers get upgraded so they can handle more pers....Age of the game means there are few low lvl toons hopping about, merging allows them to bring more of them together.
It is really strange that we seem to have two seperate levels of expectations for gaming companies when it comes to mmos.
On one hand you think that no company would be crazy enough to buy vanguard and invest in it enough to make it a competitive product. Even though there is still a massive void waiting to be filled in the fantasy market right now, but I guess we will never know since soe got involved very early. For sake of argument, lets just assume you are right.
Then we look at soe purchasing the game just to put it on some sort of life support where it can slowly die is somehow the victory condition for "saving" the game? Is that really what we want to consider a win? Soe picks up a failed product from microsoft and fails to fund it to completion. Then when it does crash and burn they buy it and kick down a deep dark hole were it can quietly die on life support, but somehow it is worth the $15 industry standard for premium mmos?
I don't think it is to hard to see why people might not be happy with those types of business practices. One doesn't have to hate soe to think that is a shitty way of doing business.
As for server mergers, can you name a game that has closed servers not in direct relationship to declining popluation? I can't. If player migration was the real problem, which do you think would be the very first step in addressing that problem? A) restricting transfers to/from problem servers -or- server mergers.
Server mergers are complex, problematic, disruptive to players and communites, but worst of all they are very bad publicity for games. I would think a company would do everything possible to avoid server mergers and not do them as a first step approach to evening out populations.
I think people let their hate of SOE blind them to everything related to it (also, MMOFRINGE is like the home of CU/NGE rage, so providing a link to anything they have is guarenteed to have a anti-SOE slant). Vanguard would be done like dinner if SOE hadn't put it on the SOE Life Support pass. Anyone who played the game when Sigil went under knows first hand that no one on god's green earth would pick anything up in that bad of state. SOE made the smart play in picking it up, fixing some bugs and letting the existing customer base sputter on (they even picked up a few along the way).
It would take a mountain of money, time and PR to recover from as bad of a launch as Vanguard had (if its even possible), so why does anyone expect that SOE would risk it? As to EQ2, I haven't played it in a long time, but from what I;ve seen and read, the subs are pretty much the same as they have been all along. A server merger doesn't always mean death, player populations migrate.....servers get upgraded so they can handle more pers....Age of the game means there are few low lvl toons hopping about, merging allows them to bring more of them together.
They don't have any dev resources yet they keep on popping out crappy MMO's like welfare mommas.
Come on, the sooner this company goes out of business the better it would be for all involved. The devs can go work for a company that has a good reputation and SOE wont be around to put out anymore garbage.
Come on, the sooner this company goes out of business the better it would be for all involved. The devs can go work for a company that has a good reputation and SOE wont be around to put out anymore garbage.
lol your crazy to think SOE is going anywhere soon. Don't confuse them cutting back on what they consider dying games that don't suit their future 'vision' with not having any money.
I am no SOE fan, though I do play EQ2 for lack of better options, but Free Realms is MASSIVE and DCUO and The Agency are gonna be huge as well.
Come on, the sooner this company goes out of business the better it would be for all involved. The devs can go work for a company that has a good reputation and SOE wont be around to put out anymore garbage.
lol your crazy to think SOE is going anywhere soon. Don't confuse them cutting back on what they consider dying games that don't suit their future 'vision' with not having any money.
I am no SOE fan, though I do play EQ2 for lack of better options, but Free Realms is MASSIVE and DCUO and The Agency are gonna be huge as well.
Oh, I don't think they are going anywhere, but I would like to see them go somewhere. I also would like to see them make all those crappy MMO's they have out f2p because that is about as much as they are worth.
Come on, the sooner this company goes out of business the better it would be for all involved. The devs can go work for a company that has a good reputation and SOE wont be around to put out anymore garbage.
lol your crazy to think SOE is going anywhere soon. Don't confuse them cutting back on what they consider dying games that don't suit their future 'vision' with not having any money.
I am no SOE fan, though I do play EQ2 for lack of better options, but Free Realms is MASSIVE and DCUO and The Agency are gonna be huge as well.
Oh, I don't think they are going anywhere, but I would like to see them go somewhere. I also would like to see them make all those crappy MMO's they have out f2p because that is about as much as they are worth.
I am confused... why do you think they should be (so called) F2P is you think they are 'crappy'? You wouldnt like them or play them anyhow right?
As for them going somewhere, the place they are likely going is right to the top in the next year or two, so get used to seeing the SOE logo. If The Agency and DCU hit anywhere near as hard as Free Realms SOE are going to be major players again.
If free realms was so successful then why did soe instantly move the lead producer from free realms to eq2 when they shit canned the lead producer of EQ2? Obviously soe put more value in running EQ2 than it did free realms. How so? Soe then filled the hole at Free Realms producer with a team member from EQ2.
There are a lot of things that suggest free realms isn't anywhere close to the success that people seem to think it is. Namely the game only having 10 servers with less landmass than one eq2 server.
Nope, EQ2 is still the top producing product over at soe and that is exactly why they acted so quickly to fix the problem at EQ2 at the expense of Free Realms.
As for soe going to the top in the next year or two, first they would have to attract and retain quality developers. I'm sure most have noticed the hemorrhaging of senior developers soe has been going through that last several years. When is the last time we have seen a veteran developer leave a company to join soe?
I think people let their hate of SOE blind them to everything related to it (also, MMOFRINGE is like the home of CU/NGE rage, so providing a link to anything they have is guarenteed to have a anti-SOE slant). Vanguard would be done like dinner if SOE hadn't put it on the SOE Life Support pass. Anyone who played the game when Sigil went under knows first hand that no one on god's green earth would pick anything up in that bad of state. SOE made the smart play in picking it up, fixing some bugs and letting the existing customer base sputter on (they even picked up a few along the way).
It would take a mountain of money, time and PR to recover from as bad of a launch as Vanguard had (if its even possible), so why does anyone expect that SOE would risk it? As to EQ2, I haven't played it in a long time, but from what I;ve seen and read, the subs are pretty much the same as they have been all along. A server merger doesn't always mean death, player populations migrate.....servers get upgraded so they can handle more pers....Age of the game means there are few low lvl toons hopping about, merging allows them to bring more of them together.
It is really strange that we seem to have two seperate levels of expectations for gaming companies when it comes to mmos.
I don't think we're really that far off, I tend to think 90% of what is released is not up to par. I wish that a game would come out that was something new and exciting in this genre, instead of the same old clones. I just believe that a lot of people hate SOE for reasons they don't even truly know, other than they hate what happened to a certain Star Wars Game. They are a company and out to make money, not the Satan.
On one hand you think that no company would be crazy enough to buy vanguard and invest in it enough to make it a competitive product. Even though there is still a massive void waiting to be filled in the fantasy market right now, but I guess we will never know since soe got involved very early. For sake of argument, lets just assume you are right.
No, I said no company would be crazy enough to buy it in the state it was in at release. SOE only got involved after Microsoft backed out and left Sigil holding the bag. SOE came in to publish it in late beta and then a few months after launch, bought it outright since Sigil was toast. There is no requirement to assume/pretend I am right, as neither of us is going to admit anything like a win/loss at the end of this discussion.
Then we look at soe purchasing the game just to put it on some sort of life support where it can slowly die is somehow the victory condition for "saving" the game? Is that really what we want to consider a win? Soe picks up a failed product from microsoft and fails to fund it to completion. Then when it does crash and burn they buy it and kick down a deep dark hole were it can quietly die on life support, but somehow it is worth the $15 industry standard for premium mmos?
I never said it was either a victory condition, I would say it was reality. As to saving it, the game still exists. Without SOE buying it, it would not. The SOE Stationpass is like $29 a month. No where do I say that it is worth $15 a month. Again, SOE did not purchase it until after release. I have heard many vague ref to SOE aggreeing to fund it to the lvl of microsoft, but everything I have read said that they were simply publishing the product and not involved in development (in fact McQuaid even posted at the time that SOE was limited to a simple publishing role).
I don't think it is to hard to see why people might not be happy with those types of business practices. One doesn't have to hate soe to think that is a shitty way of doing business.
Again, I am not saying they are happy or SOE is a good company, I more state that they are, in fact, a company. Meaning they are out to turn a profit and in this instance, they did.
As for server mergers, can you name a game that has closed servers not in direct relationship to declining popluation? I can't. If player migration was the real problem, which do you think would be the very first step in addressing that problem? A) restricting transfers to/from problem servers -or- server mergers.
I cannot off the top of my head list any games that have, but from what I have read, the population of EQ2 hasn't moved a heck of a lot up or down since launch. Certainly not enough to justify the end of the world posts we are seeing here.
Server mergers are complex, problematic, disruptive to players and communites, but worst of all they are very bad publicity for games. I would think a company would do everything possible to avoid server mergers and not do them as a first step approach to evening out populations.
It is really strange that we seem to have two seperate levels of expectations for gaming companies when it comes to mmos.
I don't think we're really that far off, I tend to think 90% of what is released is not up to par. I wish that a game would come out that was something new and exciting in this genre, instead of the same old clones. I just believe that a lot of people hate SOE for reasons they don't even truly know, other than they hate what happened to a certain Star Wars Game. They are a company and out to make money, not the Satan.
On one hand you think that no company would be crazy enough to buy vanguard and invest in it enough to make it a competitive product. Even though there is still a massive void waiting to be filled in the fantasy market right now, but I guess we will never know since soe got involved very early. For sake of argument, lets just assume you are right.
No, I said no company would be crazy enough to buy it in the state it was in at release. SOE only got involved after Microsoft backed out and left Sigil holding the bag. SOE came in to publish it in late beta and then a few months after launch, bought it outright since Sigil was toast. There is no requirement to assume/pretend I am right, as neither of us is going to admit anything like a win/loss at the end of this discussion.
Then we look at soe purchasing the game just to put it on some sort of life support where it can slowly die is somehow the victory condition for "saving" the game? Is that really what we want to consider a win? Soe picks up a failed product from microsoft and fails to fund it to completion. Then when it does crash and burn they buy it and kick down a deep dark hole were it can quietly die on life support, but somehow it is worth the $15 industry standard for premium mmos?
I never said it was either a victory condition, I would say it was reality. As to saving it, the game still exists. Without SOE buying it, it would not. The SOE Stationpass is like $29 a month. No where do I say that it is worth $15 a month. Again, SOE did not purchase it until after release. I have heard many vague ref to SOE aggreeing to fund it to the lvl of microsoft, but everything I have read said that they were simply publishing the product and not involved in development (in fact McQuaid even posted at the time that SOE was limited to a simple publishing role).
I don't think it is to hard to see why people might not be happy with those types of business practices. One doesn't have to hate soe to think that is a shitty way of doing business.
Again, I am not saying they are happy or SOE is a good company, I more state that they are, in fact, a company. Meaning they are out to turn a profit and in this instance, they did.
As for server mergers, can you name a game that has closed servers not in direct relationship to declining popluation? I can't. If player migration was the real problem, which do you think would be the very first step in addressing that problem? A) restricting transfers to/from problem servers -or- server mergers.
I cannot off the top of my head list any games that have, but from what I have read, the population of EQ2 hasn't moved a heck of a lot up or down since launch. Certainly not enough to justify the end of the world posts we are seeing here.
Server mergers are complex, problematic, disruptive to players and communites, but worst of all they are very bad publicity for games. I would think a company would do everything possible to avoid server mergers and not do them as a first step approach to evening out populations.
Sorry I wasn't exactly clear by what I mean about 2 seperate standards for companies. I didn't mean the two of us have different standard and I agree that we are closer in agreement to things that this discussion might sound. What I meant was that the mmo community seems to have 2 seperate standards about the purchase of vanguard.
Most agree that it would have been difficult for another company to buy it and try to fix it up.
Yet most commend soe for "saving" vanguard by purchasing it when soe never put forth any real effort to try to make the game functionally complete. They failed to fund/manage the game when they were publisher and they failed when they owned the game. None of that says saviour to me. It shows a company that did not mind watching this game die under three different companies. All their actions did was prevent some other company from really trying. In addition to that they charge the same top rate as other mmos and INCREASE the station pass $3 for the added "value" of having vanguard on it.
If EA or Microsoft had bought the game and the same results happened everyone would be calling them fools, but when SOE achieved the same results through a course of action that was designed to let the game die people cheer them as heroes. How does that make any sense?
Pulling something from the center of the fire only to set it on the outer rim of the fire isn't a save. It is closer to torture than anything else.
SOE was funding the game and there are several quotes given by Brad and Smed to that effect. Clearly that funding wasn't enough for any rational company to think vanguard was in a condition to release and turn a profit, so I wouldn't be so quick to say this was a profitable investment in terms of revenue.
Keep in mind we have not even touched on the manner in which soe developed, promised and communicated with the players of vanguard.
Yes I completely understand why people do not like the business practices of soe. I also think it is doing a great disservice to sweep that all under the rug as if any complaints against soe stem from the nge. Just because it was the single biggest blunder and middle finger to players in the mmo genre, doesn't mean soe hasn't done things of the same nature outside of swg. This companies history is littered with this type of indifference to thier players and mismanagement of their products.
Just for example: tell me what other company would let a brand new community relationship manager have an all out open flame war with his customers, calling them crybabies and whiny bitches (not paraphrased), and let that person not only keep their job, but later promote him and do a community spotlight on what a great guy he is? What company would not have fired that asshole right on the spot for those types of actions? How about naming a company that did not fire developers who were caught by players exploiting bug reports they had subbited. So instead of using player feedback to fix the game, they instead left the bugs in the game and exploited them for the benefit of their ingame guild.
Soe is a disfunctional cesspool right now that can't get their act together. Things like this are just how the company operates and it is not hard to understand why people do not like this company or trust them. The NGE was just the biggest example, but it is by no means the only example.
As for EQ2, it has seen a lot of decline. The game has been through several rounds of server mergers from the orignal merger a year after release, the closure of all the asian servers and other small closures over the years (mostly feature set servers). EQ2 is no where near what it was at release when it had around 330,000 players by soes count. The game has roughly half the total servers now as it did back then and soe it getting ready to do yet another round of server closures. The game isn't dead and closing yet, but it is pretty clear that its prime days passed by some years ago.
Comments
I really wish they would be held accountable for what they say. They spin these things knowing people will never ever find out the real numbers. Not long ago someone said Vanguard's numbers are on the rise also. Yeah, they're so on the rise, that's why they merged all the servers into 1, and that SOE laid off a couple of its team members.
You really can't trust what SOE says. As for the cash shop, some people have a right to get upset at them. If you play EQ1 or played EQ1 when they shoved cash shop down our throats, you would know exactly why it's wrong. EQ1's cash shops and LoN (gambling cards) pushed over the line, that line that Smed promised to never cross. Now you can indeed purchase items that give your chraracter powers in EQ1, including mounts that give you stats.
The anger towards SOE is well warranted, they deserve it.
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Someone else pasted and linked the information you requested about EQ2 getting ready to merge servers. So yeah, cash shops didn't save those games. In fact they didn't even do enough to keep soe from laying off employees, which suggest they might have done more harm overall. Maybe players took your advice and quit the game and the overall effect has created a situation that has made the game overall worse.
As for your theories of why people don't like cash shops and their limited effect on their respective games, you are welcome to your opinions.
However, it is hard to deny that when a companies releases an expansion that is in such poor condition (and small) that they can't merge servers, then perhaps all the time spend designing and implmenting the subsystems for cash shops could have been better spent elsewhere.
Sure the items may not give direct advantages (even though some do), that doesn't mean there isn't a direct effect on the game. The cash shop didn't create, implement, balance and design iteself. Every minute that is spent making anything related to the cash shop come straight out of the development cycle for regular content updates and game maintenance.
So some people don't like it for the principle of what it is doing and don't need to have a narrow view that only looks at the items and how they affect the game. They see the bigger picture and don't find paying extra for removed content makes for a better game, especially when the company struggles at delivering basic elements.
EQ2 desperately needs a server merge. All but probably 2 servers are ghost towns.
Agree.. I played every night for about a week recently. Aside from people I actively looked for, I can count the number of random people I ran into on two hands, and most of them were afk. lol
An even better thing would be for Sony to sell their online unit and get out of the mmo business entirely. They fail because they are trying to be a jack of all trades and specializing in nothing and so their products are at best average or below.
What I'm wondering is...what is up with Smedley's unnatural life cycle as SOE's lead? (President, or whatever he counts as post-the reorganization a year or two ago)
Obviously the company is doing very well financially for 35 employees to only count as 4%, That's some 875 employees pre-layoffs, no?
So I assume they make a lot of money somehow...just have no idea how they're doing it with their current Station Access line-up which seems to be in decline.
But back to the main point about Smedley. Whether he or SOE deserves all the negative criticism they get or not (and I personally don't think they deserve 90% of it), the idea of executive matyrdom isn't at all uncommon, especially during layoffs and a string of failures.
Smedley must look much, much better on the balance sheets than he does in perception to his customers. But damn, it seems even Presidents/CEOs/Execs who do GREAT walk away from a job eventually in the interest of giving a company fresh blood and insight. SEO has long since been at risk of being a brand synonymous with Smedley.
I won't play a game where the cash shop items are limited use "ez mode" garbage. They make MMO's more expensive than what they are worth.
I guess i'm one of the "sick-headed" people who still plays and loves my SoE games. Got the Station Access which I use for EQ2, Vanguard, AND SWG. And i'll tell you something else: I LOVE playing em all. They offer so much that I haven't found in any other game, F2P or P2P. Shoot, the different types of vision you can use in EQ2, the depth of underwater content in both EQ2 and Vanguard, they alone keep me interested in SoE games. I find a level of immersion and fluff that I don't find anywhere else. I've got a LTS to LOTRO, and I LOVE it, yet still I play EQ2 instead, simply because I can't swim underwater in LOTRO. Horribly immersion-breaking to me.
Finally, I will add that DCUO looks AMAZING. The trailer from Blur Studios is one of the greatest things ever seen. I've ordered my CE copy. I can only hope now that they add it to the Station Access.
SoE still rocks for some people.
Once you get past the idea that, everybody hates SOE and all SOE games are failing its really not to hard to understand how they are making money. This site seems to be a gathering place for the angst ridden and has gone as far as to dedicate a forum to SOE haters so yes, things are a bit skewed here to say the least. These people are a minority even within this site let alone the over all gaming community.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Makes sense. It's always off-perspective to see things from the outside looking in. Obviously SOE is still very financially sound to have as many MMOs in development as it does, and being able to afford keeping games like Vanguard afloat where companies like NCSoft and EA would've been axed it.
I don't think it takes any real effort to see that the mmo empire that soe once had is a shell of its former self and not the figment of some imaginary hater campaign.
I think people let their hate of SOE blind them to everything related to it (also, MMOFRINGE is like the home of CU/NGE rage, so providing a link to anything they have is guarenteed to have a anti-SOE slant). Vanguard would be done like dinner if SOE hadn't put it on the SOE Life Support pass. Anyone who played the game when Sigil went under knows first hand that no one on god's green earth would pick anything up in that bad of state. SOE made the smart play in picking it up, fixing some bugs and letting the existing customer base sputter on (they even picked up a few along the way).
It would take a mountain of money, time and PR to recover from as bad of a launch as Vanguard had (if its even possible), so why does anyone expect that SOE would risk it? As to EQ2, I haven't played it in a long time, but from what I;ve seen and read, the subs are pretty much the same as they have been all along. A server merger doesn't always mean death, player populations migrate.....servers get upgraded so they can handle more pers....Age of the game means there are few low lvl toons hopping about, merging allows them to bring more of them together.
Cash shops, it's the new thing, and they are milking EQ playerbase hard with it. What's funny is SOE is trying very hard to move in a new direction, creating games that are different. But they are still supported by the playerbase that got them where they are today, the Everquest playerbase. Both EQ1 and EQ2 are still the games that probably makes them the most money. EQ2 has more players, while EQ1 has a loyal fanbase that buys cash shop items.
What EQ1 fanbase do not like is the fact that SOE milks them for lots of money, but they spends these money elsewhere. Like instead of spending the money to give EQ1 new player models, which the playerbase overwhelmingly are for, they spend the money to advertise Free Realms and EQ2.
Instead of concentrating their resources on a few games to make sure they are AAA quality, they are spreading their dev resources thin and creating new games. If you play EQ1, Vanguard, SWG, you will be told that they lack dev resources to create anything huge or to really improve the games. EQ1 for an example, we haven't gotten new class epics in a long time. But devs have been avoiding making them because, as they admitted, they do not have the dev resources to create class epics. They state it would take too much time. This is EQ1 we're talking about, the game that practically invented class epic quests in the genre, the game that got SOE where they are today. It's just sad to see what SOE is doing and how they are leaving some games up to dry.
I'm using EQ1 because I'm familiar with the game and did go back to play it for a full year recently. I see what the game needs, but SOE isn't giving the team enough resources & money to do what it needs. So anyways, cash shops, it's probably what's keeping SOE afloat. It's quite ironic. And they seem to still be getting these contracts to create new games for various IP's. I'm guessing people still go to them to create some games because 1) they're seasoned, they aren't new, 2) they have the servers and data centers to host these games, 3) they have the billing department, support department, and marketing department, something new companies will find it hard to staff for, and 4) It's SOE, a known name in the genre.
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It is really strange that we seem to have two seperate levels of expectations for gaming companies when it comes to mmos.
On one hand you think that no company would be crazy enough to buy vanguard and invest in it enough to make it a competitive product. Even though there is still a massive void waiting to be filled in the fantasy market right now, but I guess we will never know since soe got involved very early. For sake of argument, lets just assume you are right.
Then we look at soe purchasing the game just to put it on some sort of life support where it can slowly die is somehow the victory condition for "saving" the game? Is that really what we want to consider a win? Soe picks up a failed product from microsoft and fails to fund it to completion. Then when it does crash and burn they buy it and kick down a deep dark hole were it can quietly die on life support, but somehow it is worth the $15 industry standard for premium mmos?
I don't think it is to hard to see why people might not be happy with those types of business practices. One doesn't have to hate soe to think that is a shitty way of doing business.
As for server mergers, can you name a game that has closed servers not in direct relationship to declining popluation? I can't. If player migration was the real problem, which do you think would be the very first step in addressing that problem? A) restricting transfers to/from problem servers -or-
server mergers.
Server mergers are complex, problematic, disruptive to players and communites, but worst of all they are very bad publicity for games. I would think a company would do everything possible to avoid server mergers and not do them as a first step approach to evening out populations.
They don't have any dev resources yet they keep on popping out crappy MMO's like welfare mommas.
Come on, the sooner this company goes out of business the better it would be for all involved. The devs can go work for a company that has a good reputation and SOE wont be around to put out anymore garbage.
lol your crazy to think SOE is going anywhere soon. Don't confuse them cutting back on what they consider dying games that don't suit their future 'vision' with not having any money.
I am no SOE fan, though I do play EQ2 for lack of better options, but Free Realms is MASSIVE and DCUO and The Agency are gonna be huge as well.
Oh, I don't think they are going anywhere, but I would like to see them go somewhere. I also would like to see them make all those crappy MMO's they have out f2p because that is about as much as they are worth.
I am confused... why do you think they should be (so called) F2P is you think they are 'crappy'? You wouldnt like them or play them anyhow right?
As for them going somewhere, the place they are likely going is right to the top in the next year or two, so get used to seeing the SOE logo. If The Agency and DCU hit anywhere near as hard as Free Realms SOE are going to be major players again.
If free realms was so successful then why did soe instantly move the lead producer from free realms to eq2 when they shit canned the lead producer of EQ2? Obviously soe put more value in running EQ2 than it did free realms. How so? Soe then filled the hole at Free Realms producer with a team member from EQ2.
There are a lot of things that suggest free realms isn't anywhere close to the success that people seem to think it is. Namely the game only having 10 servers with less landmass than one eq2 server.
Nope, EQ2 is still the top producing product over at soe and that is exactly why they acted so quickly to fix the problem at EQ2 at the expense of Free Realms.
As for soe going to the top in the next year or two, first they would have to attract and retain quality developers. I'm sure most have noticed the hemorrhaging of senior developers soe has been going through that last several years. When is the last time we have seen a veteran developer leave a company to join soe?
Sorry I wasn't exactly clear by what I mean about 2 seperate standards for companies. I didn't mean the two of us have different standard and I agree that we are closer in agreement to things that this discussion might sound. What I meant was that the mmo community seems to have 2 seperate standards about the purchase of vanguard.
Most agree that it would have been difficult for another company to buy it and try to fix it up.
Yet most commend soe for "saving" vanguard by purchasing it when soe never put forth any real effort to try to make the game functionally complete. They failed to fund/manage the game when they were publisher and they failed when they owned the game. None of that says saviour to me. It shows a company that did not mind watching this game die under three different companies. All their actions did was prevent some other company from really trying. In addition to that they charge the same top rate as other mmos and INCREASE the station pass $3 for the added "value" of having vanguard on it.
If EA or Microsoft had bought the game and the same results happened everyone would be calling them fools, but when SOE achieved the same results through a course of action that was designed to let the game die people cheer them as heroes. How does that make any sense?
Pulling something from the center of the fire only to set it on the outer rim of the fire isn't a save. It is closer to torture than anything else.
SOE was funding the game and there are several quotes given by Brad and Smed to that effect. Clearly that funding wasn't enough for any rational company to think vanguard was in a condition to release and turn a profit, so I wouldn't be so quick to say this was a profitable investment in terms of revenue.
Keep in mind we have not even touched on the manner in which soe developed, promised and communicated with the players of vanguard.
Yes I completely understand why people do not like the business practices of soe. I also think it is doing a great disservice to sweep that all under the rug as if any complaints against soe stem from the nge. Just because it was the single biggest blunder and middle finger to players in the mmo genre, doesn't mean soe hasn't done things of the same nature outside of swg. This companies history is littered with this type of indifference to thier players and mismanagement of their products.
Just for example: tell me what other company would let a brand new community relationship manager have an all out open flame war with his customers, calling them crybabies and whiny bitches (not paraphrased), and let that person not only keep their job, but later promote him and do a community spotlight on what a great guy he is? What company would not have fired that asshole right on the spot for those types of actions? How about naming a company that did not fire developers who were caught by players exploiting bug reports they had subbited. So instead of using player feedback to fix the game, they instead left the bugs in the game and exploited them for the benefit of their ingame guild.
Soe is a disfunctional cesspool right now that can't get their act together. Things like this are just how the company operates and it is not hard to understand why people do not like this company or trust them. The NGE was just the biggest example, but it is by no means the only example.
As for EQ2, it has seen a lot of decline. The game has been through several rounds of server mergers from the orignal merger a year after release, the closure of all the asian servers and other small closures over the years (mostly feature set servers). EQ2 is no where near what it was at release when it had around 330,000 players by soes count. The game has roughly half the total servers now as it did back then and soe it getting ready to do yet another round of server closures. The game isn't dead and closing yet, but it is pretty clear that its prime days passed by some years ago.