So in other words SOE hopes that if they fling enough poo poo somethings bound to stick eventually...
I think so.
SOE gets your game and then bangs it over and over while your fun, great game is forced to bend over the hood of a chevy in the parking lot.They usually appoint some piece of crap lead developer like Silius of Vanguard to run the rape gang.
I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but the only reason I don't play EQ2 anymore (or ANY SOE game, for that matter) can be summed up in two words: Station Cash.
It's just plain greedy, and as I customer I choose not to be treated with such disdain. It's too bad, too, because EQ2 is, IMO, one of (if not the) best fantasy genre MMOs around.
|The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it. -Salvador Dali|
SoE was not behind Vanguard. Sigil was. Sigil ran it into the ground. SoE offered to buy the assets and did. SoE believed they could run a profit by merging the servers and cut the running costs of the game vs having low subscription numbers. Vanguard today is making a profit for SoE because they manage to run it on low costs. Not a big profit but a profit none the less.
SoE didn't buy Sigil because they believed the could turn it around suddently getting millions of subs. It was pretty much planned from day 1 of the buyout to merge servers.
EQ ran its course and earned SoE a lot of money for a lot of years. It wasn't a failure and never has been. Again they bought the assets from Verant Interactive at it's peak.
EQ2 was not a failure either. It had it's glory day.
I don't know exsactly what formular you are using to determine failure here. Are you measuring by WoW standards? Know that WoW was a freak of nature that even took BLizzard by surprise. They knew they had a good product but never in their wildest fantasies did they imagine 11 million subs. I would be surprised if they expected more than a million or two.
If the SoE games generates a profit making them worth running and releasing expansions for then they are not failing
It doesn't matter what a game once was. I'm speaking from the perspective of a station pass owner.
Even as a station pass owner your post is moot. Games have their time in the sun then they fade out. The only exception is WoW because its a freak of nature. You arrived years after these games had their glory day that's not SoE's fault. No MMO is able to retain the playerbase they had the first year from release. Like i said only WoW has been able to pull that off. One game doesn't really make for a good argument. Station pass is still a good deal for a lot of people but not for everybody. Most of them are Vets still enjoying their old games knowing the numbers has had a major decline. Something that happens to every MMO over time.
So to answer why these games are failing ..the answer is: time
Except for Matrix Online which was shit from day 1
I started EQ in Feb of 01, and for the most part been pretty happy with them.
They had some problems around the GoD expansion era with releasing unfished raid content...but that was stuff that most folks didnt see unless they were in guilds like Afterlife and FoH.
Me and the wife raided, but since we were in a casual raid guild(2 per week) our guild was like 3 or 4 expansions back of cutting edge. Thus we really didnt deal with a lot from SOE.
The cut in GM support, and 2 expansions a yr didnt make me happy to top off the Legends server....but all and all we have had a great time playing SOE games.
I just re-upped my all-access the other day. I havent MMO gamed in about 2 yrs due to my health.
I am looking forward to playing all the games I own on AAP(all except Pirates/Planetside/and EQ for PS2).
The wife has continued in EQ2 all this time.
SOE done right by us over the years. SHame other folks despise em.
But even if I had lost EQ to a new game style, I wouldnt let it blind me with rage/hate for years and years. That chit is unhealthy when you keep hate in your heart for so long.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
Originally posted by Bekkr I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but the only reason I don't play EQ2 anymore (or ANY SOE game, for that matter) can be summed up in two words: Station Cash. It's just plain greedy, and as I customer I choose not to be treated with such disdain. It's too bad, too, because EQ2 is, IMO, one of (if not the) best fantasy genre MMOs around.
I just googled Station Cash.
Wow.
I experienced the NGE in SWG. So I understand the hate on that one. But I didn't know about Station Cash. That's just plain greedy.
I think as someone said earlier in the thread, SOE know they make some of the best MMOs so they just screw people around. I'm starting to see a pattern here. The point about SOE not understanding the concept of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is very true as well.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
SOE has a problem with customer service. In that they have none. They do not listen to their customers only those outside of their customer base so they alienate those who are actually paying them. They also have a history of dumbing down their games to make them cheaper to work on. They found that the template based systems kept them from having to hire and actually pay real developers. They had three really solid platforms that they have ruined. Matrix could have been a great MMO, SWG was a great MMO when it started and EQ was good at the start too, but look at them now.
That is why they have problems, they do not listen to their paying customers.
As the above post hints on, the reason is not so much to do with the games, but the company behind them. While I would agree that 'generally' SOE has made some of the best MMOs to date, they have felt that in doing so entitles them to basically treat their playerbase like cashcows, and somewhat blatantly. One moment comesto mind is when EQ2 was first coming out, and they announced regulating real life trading. When asked why, there response was basically 'because we can make more money', not 'because we think it'll make the game better'. They do make some great games, but they also tend to be a bit elitest about it. If ever they start to adopt a mentallity of making the genre better, instead of expanding their wallets via any means available, then I will probably give them another look.
I think if I agree with you, I'd be over agreeing or something lol cause you've explained SOE in the best way possible. It's quite sad because I believe they have the capabilities to produce really good games but they're more bothered about their wallets.
I mean I heard the guy in charge of 'Vangard' is a right a**hole lol. Ah well, lets see what they do in the future.
We're all Geniuses. Most of us just don't know it.
I would think the answer is obvious. To put it simply SOE does NOT make the best games. SOE makes the same game over and over and over again.
SWG was probably the most original MMO pre-cu. No classes, no levels, what you did was up to you. I'm not going to say it was perfect, but it was slightly more original and a hell of a lot more fun than it's current incarnation.
SWG is THE perfect example of what kind of company SOE really is. They misled and blatantly lied to the entire community about the CU. And what was the CU? Turning their most original product into a WoW copy, an EQ2 copy a clone of a clone of a clone. And that's all SOE makes, clone games that show a severe lack of imagination and an even larger lack of customer appreciation.
SOE is a company full of stubborn, pedantic fuckheads. If they had listened to the majority of the community and rolled SWG back to pre-cu and kept evolving the game in that same non-linear, open ended vein it would be still be popular today. The same goes for all of their games. If they would just LISTEN to their players and stop lying and ignoring their customers they would be a more successful company. I won't be sorry to see SOE collapse as a company if/when it does.
SOE has a problem with customer service. In that they have none.
Then how do you explain how popular WOW is, where it took me 15 emails, 3 long distance phone calls, and 5 weeks for them to get a simple thing like updating a credit card expiration date fixed?
Originally posted by havlen Vanguard's problem was that it was poorly handled prior to becoming an SOE game. Brad McQuaid totally messed that game up -- which is sad because many thought he would bring MMOs back to being actually difficult and community-based. While SOE deserves some of the bad rep it gets, there's no doubt that coming under SOE was a good thing for Vanguard. It also released about 2-3 months too early .
Putting the soe label on vanguard chased away a sizable portion of thier potential customers. It wasn't all roses for sigil when they made this choice. Both companies immediately put up posts to spin some damage control. How bad does a companies reputation have to be in order for them to appologize and make promises preemptively when they announce a parntership?
Sure brad screwed vanguards production up, but underneath all the performance issues was a decent game. Many say better than anything soe has put out. Yet soe didn't exactly save it either. They cut the staff to about 20 of the original sigil team and spent close to 2 years working on the basic problems of the game. Not exactly a task worthy of applause if you really look at it.
All of the good aspects of Vanguard were already created by Brad and company. They just didn't get it finished and cutting the staff to such low levels ensured it would not do so in any decent time frame.
Vanguard is essentially the same game it was at launch, but with better performance. Not much of a rescue if you ask me.
Bought EQ collectors edition (EQ+Scars of velios+extra things and maps), problem with a borked cdkey, had me sending it back and taking a couple of months to be returned, however the return was not a collectors edition box (they didnt have any left) so they sent EQ in a faded box and scars of Velios (also in a faded box), neither had any instructions or maps or anything but just a cd jewelcase in a huge box and that was it. After that and the umpteen mths to sort it out i lasted all of 1 week before cancelling my account and vowing never to touch another SoE game at all.
Then Came SWG, 2 friends tied, but try as they might they could not get me touch touch it, nor even take a look at it running on their PC's, too close to the bad taste i had been given for my 2nd online subscription based game i tried. (1st was one called legend of mir II).
Daoc came out and i played this in closed beta/open beta and release for a couple of yrs. Best fun i have had for a subscription based game to date. Eventually though i grew bored (mainly when most of my friends had fallen by the wayside).
I stopped playing online games for several months, that was untill EQ2, when 3 of my RL friends finally got me to take it up and give SoE another chance. I did but i refused to pay the full price for the game, fortunatly i managed to get a collectors edition for 1/3rd off marked price from amazon.co.uk
At first EQ2 was great, it wasnt long however before you found that to play teh game you had to group, you could not do anything solo at all (literally nothing). There was a lot of bugs, but thats to be expected, and to give them due they were fixing things regualry with updates, however some things they just kept blaming on players systems and the good ole - our game in yards ahead of any technology out and its that at fault not us, even used that when the new 6800 g-cards came out LOL (yeah right SoE). I left because i got tired of having an LFG tag/flag above my noggin and also doign LFG shouts and waiting 99.9% of your gameplay time. Boredom did wonders at killing the game back then. Eventually after the 3rd month (or was it the 2nd) WoW came out and i have been there ever since.
I did not like the way SoE ran things with content updates = not free like other games but rather called adventure packs that you had to buy to play, however you also would need to group with others who had also purchased these packs to even play them. It seemed to me SoE is all about getting as much money from the customer as they can, rather than giving teh customer a good experiance and value for money. From what i have read they have done it even more with item malls now (what hey look those free games have item malls, we will too, but we will charge a monthly fee also) hmmm lets also sell gear to players too.
Vanguard - was a big pile of buggy shite at release, i even took a look at it over a course of 3 days with the first (and 2nd) free comeback free month offers, but i really did not see much of a differance in bugs and lagg. I havent taken the last 2 offers (last recent one i didnt know about untill there was only 1 day left to run), i might take it up next time around to see whats changed.
Man, SoE make me laugh. No wonder their playerbase is just simply falling apart and their games are not doing as well as they actually should be doing. They are truly alienation players which will be very hard to get back.
I think part of the reason why SOE published so many games and they all seem to be struggling was due to what Wizardry mentioned before. SOE was willing to cover themes from fantasy and pirates to sci-fi and politics within their MMORPGs, but did not cover a wide range of ways to play MMOs.
I felt that all the SOE titles I've played were played in ways similar to EverQuest - with Station Access I got to play EverQuest, EverQuest 2, EverQuest 2.1, EverQuest Pirates, EverQuest Star Wars, and EverQuest Matrix. I think DC Universe and The Agency looks to break the mold. Granted, SOE didn't develope all of those games.
I liked SWG, EQ2, and V:SoH, but at times I was hoping that SOE would provide a shooter or a racer for times when I felt like I needed a break from MMORPGs.
TBH its mostly people are hateing on SOE and lets be fair. Its mostly Deserved.
A bit of an exageration I would say.
I would guess that most people that post "I hate SOE" threads do, but that is only about .0056% of the users here.
Not at all. Soe has Done treable things to the players of their games. Saying anything else would be a lie. that said I applaude them for not shuting them down like NCsoft does.
And im No soe hater.. But i am disgruntled at them for lots of reasons.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. Samuel Adams
Oh give me a fracking break! SOE and Silius have so competely screwed up Vanguard that in the last poll all of 500 players voted. Vanguard WAS a cool game, then Salim or whatever the heck he is called janked it up. The coolest things in Vanguard were there at launch, SOE and Silius havent done crap that is cool. They fixed some bugs and then ruined gameplay by tinkering with mechanics that didnt neet to be tinkered with.
Exactly.
**************************** Playing : Uncharted Waters Online ****************************
But the PvP and European servers numbers are fairly low. I did /who in all the cities at peak times on the Euro servers and each one had about 10 people in it. Maybe they're in instances but that's still extremely poor.
The Euro server is quite literally deserted. There is NO ONE on there. This one is as dead as the rest. The PvP and RP servers I hear are deserted. A lot of servers are dead ...
They're only working hard on EQ2, old game... POTBS, VG aren't old.
I tried one more time (LOL) to play Vg and found Halgar EMPTY. I am alone in Kojan, really alone. Saw some players in Tursh, maybe 4/5 no more, played ALONE in SWG, you can find players ONLY in Cantina/Mos Eisley lol.
Comments
So in other words SOE hopes that if they fling enough poo poo somethings bound to stick eventually...
I think so.
SOE gets your game and then bangs it over and over while your fun, great game is forced to bend over the hood of a chevy in the parking lot.They usually appoint some piece of crap lead developer like Silius of Vanguard to run the rape gang.
I obviously can't speak for anyone else, but the only reason I don't play EQ2 anymore (or ANY SOE game, for that matter) can be summed up in two words: Station Cash.
It's just plain greedy, and as I customer I choose not to be treated with such disdain. It's too bad, too, because EQ2 is, IMO, one of (if not the) best fantasy genre MMOs around.
|The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it. -Salvador Dali|
It doesn't matter what a game once was. I'm speaking from the perspective of a station pass owner.
Even as a station pass owner your post is moot. Games have their time in the sun then they fade out. The only exception is WoW because its a freak of nature. You arrived years after these games had their glory day that's not SoE's fault. No MMO is able to retain the playerbase they had the first year from release. Like i said only WoW has been able to pull that off. One game doesn't really make for a good argument. Station pass is still a good deal for a lot of people but not for everybody. Most of them are Vets still enjoying their old games knowing the numbers has had a major decline. Something that happens to every MMO over time.
So to answer why these games are failing ..the answer is: time
Except for Matrix Online which was shit from day 1
And Vanguard which was not originally a SoE game
It cracks me up all the "SOE is da debil" talk.
I started EQ in Feb of 01, and for the most part been pretty happy with them.
They had some problems around the GoD expansion era with releasing unfished raid content...but that was stuff that most folks didnt see unless they were in guilds like Afterlife and FoH.
Me and the wife raided, but since we were in a casual raid guild(2 per week) our guild was like 3 or 4 expansions back of cutting edge. Thus we really didnt deal with a lot from SOE.
The cut in GM support, and 2 expansions a yr didnt make me happy to top off the Legends server....but all and all we have had a great time playing SOE games.
I just re-upped my all-access the other day. I havent MMO gamed in about 2 yrs due to my health.
I am looking forward to playing all the games I own on AAP(all except Pirates/Planetside/and EQ for PS2).
The wife has continued in EQ2 all this time.
SOE done right by us over the years. SHame other folks despise em.
But even if I had lost EQ to a new game style, I wouldnt let it blind me with rage/hate for years and years. That chit is unhealthy when you keep hate in your heart for so long.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
EQ2 and SWG just aren't fun games, imo. Never were.
EQ died, because of PoP and GoD. WoW put a nail in the coffin, because its so braindead friendly.
I just googled Station Cash.
Wow.
I experienced the NGE in SWG. So I understand the hate on that one. But I didn't know about Station Cash. That's just plain greedy.
I think as someone said earlier in the thread, SOE know they make some of the best MMOs so they just screw people around. I'm starting to see a pattern here. The point about SOE not understanding the concept of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is very true as well.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
SOE has a problem with customer service. In that they have none. They do not listen to their customers only those outside of their customer base so they alienate those who are actually paying them. They also have a history of dumbing down their games to make them cheaper to work on. They found that the template based systems kept them from having to hire and actually pay real developers. They had three really solid platforms that they have ruined. Matrix could have been a great MMO, SWG was a great MMO when it started and EQ was good at the start too, but look at them now.
That is why they have problems, they do not listen to their paying customers.
I think if I agree with you, I'd be over agreeing or something lol cause you've explained SOE in the best way possible. It's quite sad because I believe they have the capabilities to produce really good games but they're more bothered about their wallets.
I mean I heard the guy in charge of 'Vangard' is a right a**hole lol. Ah well, lets see what they do in the future.
We're all Geniuses. Most of us just don't know it.
I don't get it...
ALL the game companies seem to not understand "Make a fun game and the money will follow"
seriously...make a game that the devs would actually WANT to play...because chances are that if they like it...there are others like them out there.
But NO! They are so sure they know what everyone else wants. They have all the statistics! What else do they need?
Make them fun and make them something that even the dev team would want to play.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guys! I'm hopelessly lost in a mountain of mole hills! Them damn moles!
I would think the answer is obvious. To put it simply SOE does NOT make the best games. SOE makes the same game over and over and over again.
SWG was probably the most original MMO pre-cu. No classes, no levels, what you did was up to you. I'm not going to say it was perfect, but it was slightly more original and a hell of a lot more fun than it's current incarnation.
SWG is THE perfect example of what kind of company SOE really is. They misled and blatantly lied to the entire community about the CU. And what was the CU? Turning their most original product into a WoW copy, an EQ2 copy a clone of a clone of a clone. And that's all SOE makes, clone games that show a severe lack of imagination and an even larger lack of customer appreciation.
SOE is a company full of stubborn, pedantic fuckheads. If they had listened to the majority of the community and rolled SWG back to pre-cu and kept evolving the game in that same non-linear, open ended vein it would be still be popular today. The same goes for all of their games. If they would just LISTEN to their players and stop lying and ignoring their customers they would be a more successful company. I won't be sorry to see SOE collapse as a company if/when it does.
This.
Go cut off your own head Silius.
A bit of an exageration I would say.
I would guess that most people that post "I hate SOE" threads do, but that is only about .0056% of the users here.
Then how do you explain how popular WOW is, where it took me 15 emails, 3 long distance phone calls, and 5 weeks for them to get a simple thing like updating a credit card expiration date fixed?
Putting the soe label on vanguard chased away a sizable portion of thier potential customers. It wasn't all roses for sigil when they made this choice. Both companies immediately put up posts to spin some damage control. How bad does a companies reputation have to be in order for them to appologize and make promises preemptively when they announce a parntership?
Sure brad screwed vanguards production up, but underneath all the performance issues was a decent game. Many say better than anything soe has put out. Yet soe didn't exactly save it either. They cut the staff to about 20 of the original sigil team and spent close to 2 years working on the basic problems of the game. Not exactly a task worthy of applause if you really look at it.
All of the good aspects of Vanguard were already created by Brad and company. They just didn't get it finished and cutting the staff to such low levels ensured it would not do so in any decent time frame.
Vanguard is essentially the same game it was at launch, but with better performance. Not much of a rescue if you ask me.
Sony may make or publish big games but many have (or had) some severe screwups:
Vanguard : http://gamesnafu.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=125
Star Wars : http://gamesnafu.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=124
Pirates : http://gamesnafu.com/readarticle.php?ArticleID=123
Guess they just cant catch a break lately.
yes, me for 1.
Bought EQ collectors edition (EQ+Scars of velios+extra things and maps), problem with a borked cdkey, had me sending it back and taking a couple of months to be returned, however the return was not a collectors edition box (they didnt have any left) so they sent EQ in a faded box and scars of Velios (also in a faded box), neither had any instructions or maps or anything but just a cd jewelcase in a huge box and that was it. After that and the umpteen mths to sort it out i lasted all of 1 week before cancelling my account and vowing never to touch another SoE game at all.
Then Came SWG, 2 friends tied, but try as they might they could not get me touch touch it, nor even take a look at it running on their PC's, too close to the bad taste i had been given for my 2nd online subscription based game i tried. (1st was one called legend of mir II).
Daoc came out and i played this in closed beta/open beta and release for a couple of yrs. Best fun i have had for a subscription based game to date. Eventually though i grew bored (mainly when most of my friends had fallen by the wayside).
I stopped playing online games for several months, that was untill EQ2, when 3 of my RL friends finally got me to take it up and give SoE another chance. I did but i refused to pay the full price for the game, fortunatly i managed to get a collectors edition for 1/3rd off marked price from amazon.co.uk
At first EQ2 was great, it wasnt long however before you found that to play teh game you had to group, you could not do anything solo at all (literally nothing). There was a lot of bugs, but thats to be expected, and to give them due they were fixing things regualry with updates, however some things they just kept blaming on players systems and the good ole - our game in yards ahead of any technology out and its that at fault not us, even used that when the new 6800 g-cards came out LOL (yeah right SoE). I left because i got tired of having an LFG tag/flag above my noggin and also doign LFG shouts and waiting 99.9% of your gameplay time. Boredom did wonders at killing the game back then. Eventually after the 3rd month (or was it the 2nd) WoW came out and i have been there ever since.
I did not like the way SoE ran things with content updates = not free like other games but rather called adventure packs that you had to buy to play, however you also would need to group with others who had also purchased these packs to even play them. It seemed to me SoE is all about getting as much money from the customer as they can, rather than giving teh customer a good experiance and value for money. From what i have read they have done it even more with item malls now (what hey look those free games have item malls, we will too, but we will charge a monthly fee also) hmmm lets also sell gear to players too.
Vanguard - was a big pile of buggy shite at release, i even took a look at it over a course of 3 days with the first (and 2nd) free comeback free month offers, but i really did not see much of a differance in bugs and lagg. I havent taken the last 2 offers (last recent one i didnt know about untill there was only 1 day left to run), i might take it up next time around to see whats changed.
Man, SoE make me laugh. No wonder their playerbase is just simply falling apart and their games are not doing as well as they actually should be doing. They are truly alienation players which will be very hard to get back.
Because they are a company devoted to making money, not games.
SoE may have big names under their belt but they sure do screw them up in a BIG way.
I think part of the reason why SOE published so many games and they all seem to be struggling was due to what Wizardry mentioned before. SOE was willing to cover themes from fantasy and pirates to sci-fi and politics within their MMORPGs, but did not cover a wide range of ways to play MMOs.
I felt that all the SOE titles I've played were played in ways similar to EverQuest - with Station Access I got to play EverQuest, EverQuest 2, EverQuest 2.1, EverQuest Pirates, EverQuest Star Wars, and EverQuest Matrix. I think DC Universe and The Agency looks to break the mold. Granted, SOE didn't develope all of those games.
I liked SWG, EQ2, and V:SoH, but at times I was hoping that SOE would provide a shooter or a racer for times when I felt like I needed a break from MMORPGs.
A bit of an exageration I would say.
I would guess that most people that post "I hate SOE" threads do, but that is only about .0056% of the users here.
Not at all. Soe has Done treable things to the players of their games. Saying anything else would be a lie. that said I applaude them for not shuting them down like NCsoft does.
And im No soe hater.. But i am disgruntled at them for lots of reasons.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
Exactly.
****************************
Playing : Uncharted Waters Online
****************************
Because SoE sucks and can and does screw up any good game they get their hands on. Games start out great then SoE runs them into the ground
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
They're only working hard on EQ2, old game...
POTBS, VG aren't old.
I tried one more time (LOL) to play Vg and found Halgar EMPTY. I am alone in Kojan, really alone. Saw some players in Tursh, maybe 4/5 no more, played ALONE in SWG, you can find players ONLY in Cantina/Mos Eisley lol.
Pathetic.