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It appears that Amazon not only picked up John Smedley, but also most of the team from Pixelmage Games, the studio that recently folded after funding of Hero's Song didn't pan out. In a new blog, Smedley posted a photo of the team members that are working on what is called "an ambitious new project" and many of the faces are familiar ones from Pixelmage days.
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Could be a similar situation as Blizzard with Titan being scrapped and it being morphed into what Overwatch eventually became.
While it might not be Hero Song directly, many of the ideas behind Hero Song, I would think, will be present in the new game.
I actually think 3 is just as much as issue. I just think a game like this needs a persistent server with more people occupying the world. While multiplayer may be better than single player in that respect, you can only spend so much time in games like that before it starts to feel pointless.
He is constantly trying to con someone.That hero's song looks like some upstart indie game done in 1990.
In comparison,two young kids formed Naughty Dog productions.The work they did 20-25 years ago is better than what Smedley can achieve now a days and likely why SOE took on Naughty dog ,licensed to SOE and has never let them go.
Even the EQ series which many of us loved was imo never Smedley,he just so happened to be the guy that could get SOE to fund it.
Even though i loved the EQ franchise,imo i saw it dwindle down and ruined month by month.After a number of years i really got a better idea of where Smedley was coming from and headed.IMo the guy is a con artist.
I first got an indication i did not like Smedley when he started up his so called TESTING servers to test out his new cash shop ideas.Then he claimed he would run both,then of course forced all out cash shop on the entire franchise,he ruined everything.Then i noticed he managed to turn a suepr popular kids game that was doing incredibly well into dust and folded up shop.
Then Smedley had another great idea,the CCG game,great concept but was very apparent,had no clue how to run it and was full of bugs that he did not want to devote a team to fix,so he just folded up shop yet again.
Then ask people what they think about SWG and you get a LONG standing idea of how Smedley does NOTHING right.Fast forward to Next and Landmark and the trend continues,the guy cannot be trusted to do any justice to any game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Basically turning this:
into that:
But then he wouldn't be working on New World? Or maybe he will work on both?
1. He alienated a large player base with what happened to SWG.
2. He earned very little in profit despite having some of the best industry people cycle through his organization while also having the financial backing of Sony.
3. He consistently overhyped/overpromised like when he said H1Z1 would be the place for SWG vets to "come home" to.
4. His DC Hero game was so bad, it went F2P in record time.
5. He consistently blamed others for his issues. When moving over to Daybreak his excuse was how Sony tied his hands by not allowing his games on the XBox and how this would really help them at DayBreak. Spoiler - it did not help Daybreak and they gave him the boot.
You dont sell off your profitable divisions, SOE was sold off due to poor performance while John was at the helm. At no time did John EVER admit to doing anything wrong or take responsibility for any of his disasters. For SWG he blamed Lucus Arts, for poor performance at SOE he blamed not being able to launch on XBox.
The guy helped make the original EQ back in the 90's. That is his only claim to fame. Everything he has done since then has been average or below average which says a lot when he had access to some of the industries best talent and an almost unlimited amount of money behind him at SOE.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xlir0/iama_john_smedley_22_year_game_industry_veteran/c5neak6/
Smed is the thomas eddison of mmorpgs.
Once you get a " Name" in the business, you have to run around naked, barking at the moon every month, to ever lose that appeal to some.
I was never impressed with this name, but then again, i was never on the inside at the places that he worked at either. So my knowledge is purely personal, from a gamer's perspective.
Just have to say i will have low expectations, but high hopes. And yes that is possible:P I hope we get some good games from all the cash Amazon is throwing around, despite some of the issues i may think there are.
Time will tell. Like them or not, Amazon is not known for throwing away cash, or not performing in business.
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Say what you want about Smed. But Hero Song was game i really wanted to play