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John Smedley Opens Amazon Game Studio in San Diego - MMORPG.com News

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  • starwarsnutstarwarsnut Member UncommonPosts: 230
    Lolz u know what happens when you upset smed dont u? He demands you make a youtube and apoligize!
  • AmatheAmathe Member LegendaryPosts: 7,630
    Title of this announcement should have been:

    Nobody Who Works for Amazon Has Played Videogames

    EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests

  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited February 2017
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    JamesGoblin
  • BurntvetBurntvet Member RarePosts: 3,465
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    Burntvet said:
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?
    JamesGoblin
  • ValentinaValentina Member RarePosts: 2,077
    I hope he wasn't put on the New World team.
  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959
    edited February 2017
    Burntvet said:
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?

    There are many examples.  Like how he would never bring a Cash Shop into a longtime running Subscription based MMO like EverQuest II.
    That it was bad business practices to double dip on both Subscriptions and a Cash Shop, assuring the playerbase it would never happen! Only in newly developed games.

    Then with an upcoming expansion for EverQuest II, it had a long closed beta for it and an open beta hinting at nothing at all and then put up preorders for the expansion, including expensive collector's editions.

    Since EQ2's playerbase was very loyal, most People always pre-ordered the expansions and he knew it!

    So he waited until the expansion launched and released a big patch on launchday that suddenly introduced a Cash Shop out of the blue straight onto the Live servers. Unanounced and untested!

    Well, you can believe the backlash that ensued and a huge number of People (me included) immediately dropped their Subscriptions and quit the game.

    This was one of the nastiest classic Bait and Switch tactics I have seen and ofcourse no refunds were giving on expansion purchase.


    And this is just one of many examples about the notorious John Smedley!
  • maskedweaselmaskedweasel Member LegendaryPosts: 12,173
    Well... something needs to be said here for determination.  "Can't stop, won't stop"  - Smedley  2017



  • CrazKanukCrazKanuk Member EpicPosts: 6,130
    Burntvet said:
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
     
    Interesting.....
    Years running:
    Everquest - 18 - Open
    Everquest 2 - 13 - Open
    DCUO - 6 - Open
    Planetside 2 - 5 - Closed
    SWG - 8 - Closed
    Vanguard - 7 - Closed
    Free Realms - 5 - Closed

    Like fuck! I'm not trying to say that the only metric of success is the amount of time you can keep a heart beating on a dead game, but it's pretty impressive. Of these games, I don't really see how Smed killed them. For SWG I can say definitively that it was Lucasarts, and Raph Koster has pretty much said as much as well. Not to mention that SOE actually had one of the most innovative and value-added subscription services of any company, ever! However, what they didn't bank on is that Americans simply don't want to pay for anything, so whether it be $15 for access to 1 game or 10 games, it didn't really fuckin' matter, lol.

    I'm not putting Smed on a pedestal here, but your post speaks directly to my previous post about hiring him as a scapegoat. It's actually hilariously accurate because if you're a publisher and you're announcing a game, it's likely that, unless you're running a crowdfunding campaign, you're a couple years out at most!!! Regardless, at the very least you've got your base framework in place, all your plumbing roughed in, and you probably have a character running around in a box killing things endlessly, or I would HOPE you have that. Regardless, point is that whatever "evil" is in this game has already been agreed upon evils. They really need to be showing something at E3 this year or next, or the games just disappear into obscurity. So, yeah, Smed is a glorified, high-paid scapegoat, lol.

    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
    ----------------

  • Kunai_VaxKunai_Vax Member RarePosts: 527
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    He is a curse on games. The only 2 examples on your list that i have actually played are EQ2 and SWG. 
    He was a disaster for SWG and EQ2 was runover by WoW because EQ2 brought non of the magic previous MMO's had. It was bland and boring. Look how badly EQ2 has aged compared to WoW. 
    Then more recently there's EQN which was also a disaster. I dont have the video link anymore but on an interview back in 2014 he casually said that Landmark wasnt taking up any resources from EQN and that EQN was on track to be released in 2015. The guy is full of sh*t and hasnt had an original thought since the 90's. 
    New world is perhaps our last shot at a AAA western sandbox MMO and having someone at the helm with 2 decades of bad decisions behind him is not a good sign at all. I would much rather have some fresh blood with fresh ideas behind the steering wheel rather than a guy whos hubris drowns out the voices of the players (see SWG). 

    Amazon has tons of cash, buy the EverQuest IP and let him finish EQN. Dont let him anywhere near New World. 

  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    edited February 2017
    JeroKane said:
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?

    There are many examples.  Like how he would never bring a Cash Shop into a longtime running Subscription based MMO like EverQuest II.
    That it was bad business practices to double dip on both Subscriptions and a Cash Shop, assuring the playerbase it would never happen! Only in newly developed games.

    Then with an upcoming expansion for EverQuest II, it had a long closed beta for it and an open beta hinting at nothing at all and then put up preorders for the expansion, including expensive collector's editions.

    Since EQ2's playerbase was very loyal, most People always pre-ordered the expansions and he knew it!

    So he waited until the expansion launched and released a big patch on launchday that suddenly introduced a Cash Shop out of the blue straight onto the Live servers. Unanounced and untested!

    Well, you can believe the backlash that ensued and a huge number of People (me included) immediately dropped their Subscriptions and quit the game.

    This was one of the nastiest classic Bait and Switch tactics I have seen and ofcourse no refunds were giving on expansion purchase.


    And this is just one of many examples about the notorious John Smedley!
    Broken promises suck and I understand how it may have angered a lot of players to pre-order an expansion in which they've added a cash shop without announcing it. I do not consider it a lie (changing idea or moving away from original plans, for whatever reasons, is not lying if we really believed at that time that we would / could fulfill this promise) but that's certainly not an honest move imo. Otoh I make mistakes too and I'm not always honest, and it's hard to judge a situation without knowing the full context.
    JamesGoblin
  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    My view about JS is unchanged. And whatever his failings - if any and I suggest we don't know - at SoE the fact remains that he has run a company during changing times and as a result has first hand knowledge of e.g. the difficulties with a sub model; the difficulties with a f2p model; the difficulties trying to generate a steady flow of content - which led to the key idea behind EQN; simpler games like Hero's Song - the sort of title that may thrive on Lumberyard - along with the problems faced by KS start ups etc.

    And that is before you get into simple management skills, understanding of ad campaigns and so on. With experience of games on PC and console as well.

    Not hard at all to see why he has been hired.

    And to mirror what @CrazKanuk said: it was LucasArts who closed SWG so that they could sell the SW IP rights to Bioware (now EA of course). (And its PS1 that closed, PS2 is still going).
  • ForgrimmForgrimm Member EpicPosts: 3,059
    Apparently his team at Amazon is going to be the same team from Pixelmage, with the exception of a couple people. http://massivelyop.com/2017/02/16/smeds-new-amazon-studio-is-basically-pixelmage-games/
  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959
    edited February 2017
    JeroKane said:
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?

    There are many examples.  Like how he would never bring a Cash Shop into a longtime running Subscription based MMO like EverQuest II.
    That it was bad business practices to double dip on both Subscriptions and a Cash Shop, assuring the playerbase it would never happen! Only in newly developed games.

    Then with an upcoming expansion for EverQuest II, it had a long closed beta for it and an open beta hinting at nothing at all and then put up preorders for the expansion, including expensive collector's editions.

    Since EQ2's playerbase was very loyal, most People always pre-ordered the expansions and he knew it!

    So he waited until the expansion launched and released a big patch on launchday that suddenly introduced a Cash Shop out of the blue straight onto the Live servers. Unanounced and untested!

    Well, you can believe the backlash that ensued and a huge number of People (me included) immediately dropped their Subscriptions and quit the game.

    This was one of the nastiest classic Bait and Switch tactics I have seen and ofcourse no refunds were giving on expansion purchase.


    And this is just one of many examples about the notorious John Smedley!
    Broken promises suck and I understand how it may have angered a lot of players to pre-order an expansion in which they've added a cash shop without announcing it. I do not consider it a lie (changing idea or moving away from original plans, for whatever reasons, is not lying if we really believed at that time that we would / could fulfill this promise) but that's certainly not an honest move imo. Otoh I make mistakes too and I'm not always honest, and it's hard to judge a situation without knowing the full context.

    It's as dirty as a dirty move can get! Come on now! This is a classic example of Bait&Switch tactics!

    He knew it would anger a lot of people and that it would cause a huge backlash, so he deliberately hide it during the beta phase and pre-order phase to maximise expansion sales and screw People over and then just added it through a launch day stealth patch with no announcement whatsoever!

    People logged in unaware and were suddenly confronted with a big Cash Shop popping up right in their faces!


    I will never forget this. It completely destroyed the community, splitting it up in two camps with many Guilds (including mine) falling apart shortly after.
  • LeiloniLeiloni Member RarePosts: 1,266
    Forgrimm said:
    Apparently his team at Amazon is going to be the same team from Pixelmage, with the exception of a couple people. http://massivelyop.com/2017/02/16/smeds-new-amazon-studio-is-basically-pixelmage-games/
    Interesting. I'll wait until MMORPG reports on that to read it. Not a fan of Massively.
  • OzmodanOzmodan Member EpicPosts: 9,726
    Burntvet said:
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?
    Easy one, he lauded a new SWG expansion with all sorts of changes with the knowledge of NGE being very close and then threw NGE in without telling anyone.   How could you forget!
  • francis_baudfrancis_baud Member RarePosts: 479
    JeroKane said:
    JeroKane said:
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?

    There are many examples.  Like how he would never bring a Cash Shop into a longtime running Subscription based MMO like EverQuest II.
    That it was bad business practices to double dip on both Subscriptions and a Cash Shop, assuring the playerbase it would never happen! Only in newly developed games.

    Then with an upcoming expansion for EverQuest II, it had a long closed beta for it and an open beta hinting at nothing at all and then put up preorders for the expansion, including expensive collector's editions.

    Since EQ2's playerbase was very loyal, most People always pre-ordered the expansions and he knew it!

    So he waited until the expansion launched and released a big patch on launchday that suddenly introduced a Cash Shop out of the blue straight onto the Live servers. Unanounced and untested!

    Well, you can believe the backlash that ensued and a huge number of People (me included) immediately dropped their Subscriptions and quit the game.

    This was one of the nastiest classic Bait and Switch tactics I have seen and ofcourse no refunds were giving on expansion purchase.


    And this is just one of many examples about the notorious John Smedley!
    Broken promises suck and I understand how it may have angered a lot of players to pre-order an expansion in which they've added a cash shop without announcing it. I do not consider it a lie (changing idea or moving away from original plans, for whatever reasons, is not lying if we really believed at that time that we would / could fulfill this promise) but that's certainly not an honest move imo. Otoh I make mistakes too and I'm not always honest, and it's hard to judge a situation without knowing the full context.

    It's as dirty as a dirty move can get! Come on now! This is a classic example of Bait&Switch tactics!

    He knew it would anger a lot of people and that it would cause a huge backlash, so he deliberately hide it during the beta phase and pre-order phase to maximise expansion sales and screw People over and then just added it through a launch day stealth patch with no announcement whatsoever!

    People logged in unaware and were suddenly confronted with a big Cash Shop popping up right in their faces!
    After reading a bit about the topic, I found out that:
    1. in June 2010, SOE announced EQ2X, a free-to-play version of EQ2 that would feature microtransactions
    2. on November 10, 2011, SOE announced that EQ2 would soon adopt the pricing model of EQ2X
    3. on December 6, 2011, SOE released the expansion Age of Discovery while fully switching the pricing model to free-to-play
    So if I'm correct it's different than what you claimed "just added it through a launch day stealth patch with no announcement whatsoever!"
    JamesGoblin
  • Rommie10-284Rommie10-284 Member UncommonPosts: 265
    As long as it's a new project, it's Amazon's dime so they can take the risk all they want.  If it's New World - guh, way to put the stinkeye on the project.  We'll see what it is.

    And, once again, experience trumps success.  Smed is the Toonces of MMO development.

    Avatars are people too

  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 6,959
    edited February 2017
    JeroKane said:
    JeroKane said:
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?

    There are many examples.  Like how he would never bring a Cash Shop into a longtime running Subscription based MMO like EverQuest II.
    That it was bad business practices to double dip on both Subscriptions and a Cash Shop, assuring the playerbase it would never happen! Only in newly developed games.

    Then with an upcoming expansion for EverQuest II, it had a long closed beta for it and an open beta hinting at nothing at all and then put up preorders for the expansion, including expensive collector's editions.

    Since EQ2's playerbase was very loyal, most People always pre-ordered the expansions and he knew it!

    So he waited until the expansion launched and released a big patch on launchday that suddenly introduced a Cash Shop out of the blue straight onto the Live servers. Unanounced and untested!

    Well, you can believe the backlash that ensued and a huge number of People (me included) immediately dropped their Subscriptions and quit the game.

    This was one of the nastiest classic Bait and Switch tactics I have seen and ofcourse no refunds were giving on expansion purchase.


    And this is just one of many examples about the notorious John Smedley!
    Broken promises suck and I understand how it may have angered a lot of players to pre-order an expansion in which they've added a cash shop without announcing it. I do not consider it a lie (changing idea or moving away from original plans, for whatever reasons, is not lying if we really believed at that time that we would / could fulfill this promise) but that's certainly not an honest move imo. Otoh I make mistakes too and I'm not always honest, and it's hard to judge a situation without knowing the full context.

    It's as dirty as a dirty move can get! Come on now! This is a classic example of Bait&Switch tactics!

    He knew it would anger a lot of people and that it would cause a huge backlash, so he deliberately hide it during the beta phase and pre-order phase to maximise expansion sales and screw People over and then just added it through a launch day stealth patch with no announcement whatsoever!

    People logged in unaware and were suddenly confronted with a big Cash Shop popping up right in their faces!
    After reading a bit about the topic, I found out that:
    1. in June 2010, SOE announced EQ2X, a free-to-play version of EQ2 that would feature microtransactions
    2. on November 10, 2011, SOE announced that EQ2 would soon adopt the pricing model of EQ2X
    3. on December 6, 2011, SOE released the expansion Age of Discovery while fully switching the pricing model to free-to-play
    So if I'm correct it's different than what you claimed "just added it through a launch day stealth patch with no announcement whatsoever!"

    LOL! That one is entirely different.  That was much later.

    The intial Cash Shop was released long before that, with the Shadow Odyssey expansion on November 18, 2008.


    Smedley even messed around with a Station Exchange server (Live gamer hosted), the infamous Bazaar server, where people could sell and buy characters and Equipment with real cash.
    That server was released somewhere in 2005 and terminated in 2011 before the Free2Play model transition happened.
    That was another controversy and Money grab invention by The Smed. Something that Blizzard tried to copy later in Diablo III with the real money auction house. 
  • Kunai_VaxKunai_Vax Member RarePosts: 527
    Forgrimm said:
    Apparently his team at Amazon is going to be the same team from Pixelmage, with the exception of a couple people. http://massivelyop.com/2017/02/16/smeds-new-amazon-studio-is-basically-pixelmage-games/
    Okay doesnt look like he has anything to do with New world, so good luck to him and his new project :)


  • BruceYeeBruceYee Member EpicPosts: 2,556
    Maybe the San Diego office will develop a Smedley of Pixel GFX games.
  • mistmakermistmaker Member UncommonPosts: 321
    Ozmodan said:
    Burntvet said:
    Kunai_Vax said:
    Just keep him away from ''New world'' and ill be happy. 
    I hope he's working on New World. He oversaw the development of many great MMO games (Everquest, Planetside 2, DC:UO, SWG, Vanguard, EQ2, Free Realms, etc.) and I believe he could bring something positive to this project.
    And subsequently wrecked most of them, trying to make more money. This idiot has killed the golden goose more times than I can remember, and not just on a game or two. Plus he has been caught lying so many times, nothing he says can be believed.
    I'm interested to know about those lies you're referring to. You've got any concrete example?
    Easy one, he lauded a new SWG expansion with all sorts of changes with the knowledge of NGE being very close and then threw NGE in without telling anyone.   How could you forget!
    what a devil he is.... lol

    people always need the antagonist. the witch they can burn.

    you know, running a business is difficult. its not always a choice you can make but a must. 

    give it a chance. it doesnt have an mpact on your real life anyway, so calm down.
  • kitaradkitarad Member LegendaryPosts: 7,885
    These SWG nuts will be going on about this for eternity if they were immortal.

  • JeffSpicoliJeffSpicoli Member EpicPosts: 2,849
    I cancelled my amazon Prime today based on their hiring of smeldley do the same if you you do not support him and let amazon know why!
    • Aloha Mr Hand ! 

  • JeffSpicoliJeffSpicoli Member EpicPosts: 2,849
    Torval said:
    thunderC said:
    I cancelled my amazon Prime today based on their hiring of smeldley do the same if you you do not support him and let amazon know why!
    That's hilarious if it's true. What's funnier is you're okay with Bezos but not Smedley.
    I don't know who that is enlighten me
    • Aloha Mr Hand ! 

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