When Verant was bought by SOE, that is definitely seen as a turning point in quality.. small company makes artistic flare .. big company makes generic content bland. Customer service was still a lot better than other games nowadays, even when SOE took over (they prioritized nicely - hot tickets got fast responses, trivial responses might take a week - wish other companies realized customer satisfaction).
EQ was under Sony control right up until a month before release. Verant was only independant from march 1999-june 2000. So the only thing you can really attribute to it was Kunark. Vanilla, Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all while Smedley was directly running the show.
Funny thing is, you mention this 'quality drop', but as someone who played from Kunark through DoN I cant tell you where this mythical quality drop happened. You could try and say GoD, but it was followed by OoW which was excellent.
Gates of Discord was pretty bad. That was the last expansion I bought before giving up. I think, it's been awhile and don't feel like looking it up. I did play DoN though, which was nice.
Actually the expansions you listed were from when EQ was most popular .. capping at 450k+ players, which was damn good for the era of dialup transitioning to highspeed (and the #1 game of it's time).
So listing the expansions that built this game up as awesome, then not listing the ones that attributed to EQ's decline is a little humorous
The expansion that contributed to EQ's decline was called World of Warcraft. EQ's peak popularity was Omens of War/Dragons of Norrath...right before WoW's release. GoD didnt really hurt it too bad because the extreme majority of the population was still working through content in the older expansions. It was disappointing to have new lands that were pretty worthless, but its not like people needed new stuff to do. LDoN was still popular at the time. And Omens of War redeemed GoD and pleased just about everyone.
Again, Sony re-acquired Verant right after Kunark release. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
When Verant was bought by SOE, that is definitely seen as a turning point in quality.. small company makes artistic flare .. big company makes generic content bland. Customer service was still a lot better than other games nowadays, even when SOE took over (they prioritized nicely - hot tickets got fast responses, trivial responses might take a week - wish other companies realized customer satisfaction).
EQ was under Sony control right up until a month before release. Verant was only independant from march 1999-june 2000. So the only thing you can really attribute to it was Kunark. Vanilla, Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all while Smedley was directly running the show.
Funny thing is, you mention this 'quality drop', but as someone who played from Kunark through DoN I cant tell you where this mythical quality drop happened. You could try and say GoD, but it was followed by OoW which was excellent.
Gates of Discord was pretty bad. That was the last expansion I bought before giving up. I think, it's been awhile and don't feel like looking it up. I did play DoN though, which was nice.
Actually the expansions you listed were from when EQ was most popular .. capping at 450k+ players, which was damn good for the era of dialup transitioning to highspeed (and the #1 game of it's time).
So listing the expansions that built this game up as awesome, then not listing the ones that attributed to EQ's decline is a little humorous
The expansion that contributed to EQ's decline was called World of Warcraft. EQ's peak popularity was Omens of War/Dragons of Norrath...right before WoW's release. GoD didnt really hurt it too bad because the extreme majority of the population was still working through content in the older expansions. It was disappointing to have new lands that were pretty worthless, but its not like people needed new stuff to do. LDoN was still popular at the time. And Omens of War redeemed GoD and pleased just about everyone.
Again, Sony re-acquired Verant right after Kunark release. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
Vanguard was a special case, given the person behind it. Absolutely terrible business decision though, they should have let VG become vaporware(no one else would have touched it with a 10 foot pole)
Agreed.
MxO they knew what they were getting, it was already a failure when they acquired it. they kept it running longer than it would have and Im sure made some profit off it.
I'm going to disagree on this one. If it pulled even a small profit it would still be around. Much like VG.
And SWG was a success until the powers that be fucked it up (part SoE, mostly LA though)
For that IP it was not a success. This is Star Wars. One of the most recognizable IPs ever created. Everyone has heard of Star Wars and SWG released while the new trilogy (love it or hate it) was still going on. There was a lot of interest in Star Wars at that point. The game failed to capture people because it was released as a buggy, unfinished, mess. You can blame LA for whatever but in the end it was SOEs job to create a quality, working product. SWG was not that at launch or for years after.
I dont think anyone could have anticpated WoW, Blizzard certainly didnt.
I agree. The difference is how you react to it. SOE should have focused on improving the games they already had to try and keep as many of their players as possible. This is not what SOE did. Instead they went for the quanity over quality approach. Buying anything they could to try and fluff up that station pass. So many bad decisions that the company became a joke in many peoples eyes. Smed became (deservingly or not) the used car salesman of the industry. I really hope Smed has learned from his mistakes and the company takes a new and fresh approach to game development.
And SoE is hardly a footnote. When it comes to market share(western). Blizzard is obviously the leader and ArenaNet would be #2 (I would seperate them from NCSoft just as I would seperate Turbine from EA). SoE is probably still #3. yes, they have more games than anyone else, but its a pretty wide variety (themepark, console based action oriented game, MMOFPS, family friendly games, and EQ which fits none of those descriptions)
This is all just speculation. No way to prove anything either way. If you added up all of the revenue generated just from SOE MMORPGs do you really believe it would be third? Take away the MMOFPS and everything that is not a MMORPG.
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
In February 1999 EQ belonged to Sony. Are you trying to say defiance doesnt belong to trion because it hasnt been released yet?
This is all just speculation. No way to prove anything either way. If you added up all of the revenue generated just from SOE MMORPGs do you really believe it would be third? Take away the MMOFPS and everything that is not a MMORPG.
Who else would be ahead? Turbine is the only other contender, but i dont think they have the revenue if you are taking away MMOFPS than Trion is out.
Hell, if you are only looking at revenue SoE might be number 2. GW2 obviously has more players, but how much do they really make per person?
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
In February 1999 EQ belonged to Sony. Are you trying to say defiance doesnt belong to trion because it hasnt been released yet?
Sony felt it was too risky, so they passed it to Smedley (like the G4TV video I linked earlier), where Smedley took the risks and mortgaged his property to finance his Vision (tm).
It's late, can you refresh me the souce of February 1999 EQ belonging to Sony? Smedley worked for Sony at the time, but where did he lose control of an idea he had?
It's more like Smedley came up with the idea at work, so automatically any idea you come up with while on the clock becomes company property. Sony was like Pfft yeah right, "who in their right mind would pay a subscription cost just to play a game" .. and tossed it aside .. thus it became Smedleys personal EQ project?
We'll see what SoE has in store. I'm skeptical because they haven't shown that sort of design vision for EQ2. Now they suddenly 'get it'? They don't get the F2P model. They don't seem to get that "WoW chasing" was bad for their game.
I'll definitely keep my eye on the progress, but that's about all. I'm more interested in Dragon's Prophet at this point than seeing what they're doing with EQN. Hell, they don't even have a title for it yet.
EQ2 has toyed with player made dungeons, and has added outside of the box stuff like soemote.
They didnt chase WoW with EQ2, the game was pretty similar to it to begin with and the playerbase wanted it less hardcore, so thats what they did. And it makes sense, because if they wanted the EQ experience they could still play EQ.
And SoE gets f2p just fine. you dont like their model, and they dont care that you dont and shouldnt care that you dont. I would change a few things if i were in charge (under level 85 or so fabled gear should be ok but not over 85) but if the system didnt work they wouldnt have rolled it out for EQ and VG.
Why would everquest 2 ever want to chase WoW? Everquest 1 (not Ultima Online which tried it 1st) made the MMO genre popular years before WoW came out. I never liked WoW (think it is a very childish game with a juvenile community), and have played, and enjoyed, Everquest 2 since I left eq1 in 2004.
SoE is a business. They try to create a common group between making profits and creating fun for customers. It has it's goods and bads, but after trying 90% of ALL the MMOs to come out since 1999... SoE has had me as a loyal subscriber since March of 1999.
While I think alot of people want to see a return to the golden days of EQ, I jsut dont see it happening with EQNext......The main reason is they didnt even sustain it with original EQ and it seemed pretty obvious that they let the vocal minority determine how EQ should go....
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
In February 1999 EQ belonged to Sony. Are you trying to say defiance doesnt belong to trion because it hasnt been released yet?
It's late, can you refresh me the souce of February 1999 EQ belonging to Sony? Smedley worked for Sony at the time, but where did he lose control of an idea he had?
Verant broke off from 989 studios in early 1999, its right there in red already.
A quote from Brad right after the spin-off
Brad McQuaid: 989 Studios made the decision a few months back to concentrate on PlayStation development. They were, and still are of course, very interested in EverQuest, and so the decision to 'spin-off' a new development company was made. Verant Interactive is owned partially by Sony, and partially by the employees of Verant. EverQuest remains a 989 Studios game, but the entire EverQuest development team is currently employed by Verant. The changeover had negligible impact on the game itself both in terms of its development and release (which was for obvious reasons very important to both 989 and Verant).
Lets look at this logically-Smedley was always involved(he was Verant's CEO), Sony had full ownership for all but a year, and had partial ownership over that year. EQ is a Sony game and Sony should get full credit for its success.
elease. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
In February 1999 EQ belonged to Sony. Are you trying to say defiance doesnt belong to trion because it hasnt been released yet?
It's late, can you refresh me the souce of February 1999 EQ belonging to Sony? Smedley worked for Sony at the time, but where did he lose control of an idea he had?
Verant broke off from 989 studios in early 1999, its right there in red already.
A quote from Brad right after the spin-off
Brad McQuaid: 989 Studios made the decision a few months back to concentrate on PlayStation development. They were, and still are of course, very interested in EverQuest, and so the decision to 'spin-off' a new development company was made. Verant Interactive is owned partially by Sony, and partially by the employees of Verant. EverQuest remains a 989 Studios game, but the entire EverQuest development team is currently employed by Verant. The changeover had negligible impact on the game itself both in terms of its development and release (which was for obvious reasons very important to both 989 and Verant).
Lets look at this logically-Smedley was always involved(he was Verant's CEO), Sony had full ownership for all but a year, and had partial ownership over that year. EQ is a Sony game and Sony should get full credit for its success.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
Originally posted by Theocritus While I think alot of people want to see a return to the golden days of EQ, I jsut dont see it happening with EQNext......The main reason is they didnt even sustain it with original EQ and it seemed pretty obvious that they let the vocal minority determine how EQ should go....
Of course they sustained it with EQ, you look foolish trying to say they didnt. They had the drop off because of WoW/EQ2/ and the second generation of MMOs. they are the healthiest of the first generation MMOs still, and the game is still uspported with new content.
You are right that EQNext wont be like EQ though. In fact, i think it will be closer to a fantasy SWG than it is to EQ1, setting excluded.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
You want to squabble about the month? just do a search and you can easily find that verant was spun off in 1999. Does it really matter what month? Someone had to own EQ in Decemeber 1998 since it was 3 years in development at that point and a few months away from release. If Verant didnt exist, than who owned it?
3. When Verant spun off, SCEA remained the owner of the EverQuest IP, so Verant was the developer of EverQuest for SCEA, receiving a royalty from the game's profits.
This is important to make clear: Verant essentially became SOE -- Smed and I and others were still running the show -- a cadre of suits did not come in and start running the company -- Sony Pictures smartly understood that the acquisition of Verant included all employees, from an associate artist all the way to upper management.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
You want to squabble about the month? just do a search and you can easily find that verant was spun off in 1999. Does it really matter what month? Someone had to own EQ in Decemeber 1998 since it was 3 years in development at that point and a few months away from release. If Verant didnt exist, than who owned it?
Indeed .. who owned it?
Unless it was documented as Sony's IP, then it was Smedly's.
I realize you are pro-SOE and want to promote them. If you want to do so effectively, you need to prove it.
"Someone must have owned it, so it must have been Sony", doesn't cut it.
It was Smedley's Vision, he put all his personal assets on mortgate. Sony balked, Verant was formed. Later Sony had second thoughts and wanted it, but only after EQ was successful.
Sony was tied to EQ from it's conception (ala Qeynos), but they didn't have majority of ownership ever, right? You said they did. .. ?? No proof of that.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
You want to squabble about the month? just do a search and you can easily find that verant was spun off in 1999. Does it really matter what month? Someone had to own EQ in Decemeber 1998 since it was 3 years in development at that point and a few months away from release. If Verant didnt exist, than who owned it?
Indeed .. who owned it?
Unless it was documented as Sony's IP, then it was Smedly's.
I realize you are pro-SOE and want to promote them. If you want to do so effectively, you need to prove it.
"Someone must have owned it, so it must have been Sony", doesn't cut it.
It was Smedley's Vision, he put all his personal assets on mortgate. Sony balked, Verant was formed. Later Sony had second thoughts and wanted it, but only after EQ was successful.
Sony was tied to EQ from it's conception (ala Qeynos), but they didn't have majority of ownership ever, right? You said they did. .. ?? No proof of that.
Facts:
EVERQUEST WAS DEVELOPED BY 989 STUDIOS UP UNTIL SPIN OFF
989 STUDIOS = SONY
SONY ****ALWAYS***** OWNED THE IP <---said so by Brad McQuaid himself
This shouldnt be very difficult for you to understand.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
You want to squabble about the month? just do a search and you can easily find that verant was spun off in 1999. Does it really matter what month? Someone had to own EQ in Decemeber 1998 since it was 3 years in development at that point and a few months away from release. If Verant didnt exist, than who owned it?
Indeed .. who owned it?
Unless it was documented as Sony's IP, then it was Smedly's.
I realize you are pro-SOE and want to promote them. If you want to do so effectively, you need to prove it.
"Someone must have owned it, so it must have been Sony", doesn't cut it.
It was Smedley's Vision, he put all his personal assets on mortgate. Sony balked, Verant was formed. Later Sony had second thoughts and wanted it, but only after EQ was successful.
Sony was tied to EQ from it's conception (ala Qeynos), but they didn't have majority of ownership ever, right? You said they did. .. ?? No proof of that.
Facts:
EVERQUEST WAS DEVELOPED BY 989 STUDIOS UP UNTIL SPIN OFF
989 STUDIOS = SONY
SONY ****ALWAYS***** OWNED THE IP <---said so by Brad McQuaid himself
This shouldnt be very difficult for you to understand.
"3. When Verant spun off, SCEA remained the owner of the EverQuest IP, so Verant was the developer of EverQuest for SCEA, receiving a royalty from the game's profits."
I'm excited about the game, but I'm hoping it will have what blizzard has with battle.net, where I can contact any friends on Everquest 1 or 2 by being logged into EQNext, it is really sweet that you can talk to people on Starcraft while you are playing WoW...
Other facebook features like sharing and videos I want to just disable, and please don't fill my screen with ugly cash shop nonsense like you have on Everquest 2 sony, the repair your gear with station cash option is stupid, who would pay station cash instead of 50 gold or 2 platinum if you have some awesome hot level 95 raid fabled gear on... My chars lose virtually nothing paying all repair costs with in-game currency, who would even want to waste real dollars on repairing your equipment? Now, I have both a krono icon and a repair icon when my gear is damaged on EQ2 that I get to ignore on the persona screen!!
Please, don't over complicated EQNext with Facebook and Twitter nonsense, its bad enough on Farmville... Every single pop up that wastes my time, and even worse freezes farmville so I have to keep refreshing the page... Grr... In fact, somedays like today I have to cancel sharing to my friends because I'm tired of the game freezing up...
Just give us a fun sandbox fantasy game, like Star Wars Galaxies with awesome crafting and the ability to design your classes with talent trees preferably... or a variety of AA... not boring abilities that require thousands of AA like on Everquest 1, abilities that define you as a class and are fun... Like if you had made Cleric divide Templar/Inquisitor on Everquest 2 via AA and not a class on creation level 1... *sigh*
Don't do the oversimplication of WoW, where they ruined talent trees in Mists of Pandaria, please give us variety and choice to have non-homogenized classes, don't treat us like we are babies with no idea of how to spend points, who need constant hand holding to design a "viable cookie cutter build" character...
Im not sure why anyone would buy a $oe product. Eq was their one and only "hit" and it happened by accident and only due to lack of competition.
1. Matrix (dead) - Not made by SOE, bought by them once it was already dying
2. SWG (dead) - Great game, Killed by LucasArts, not SOE
3. Vanguard (one server,might as well be dead) - Not made by SOE, bought once already dying
4. Eq1 (still their most successfull game) - Hugely successful and the MMO to start it all, still going strong after 14 years
5. Eq2 (not a failure but hardly a success) - Great game, large playerbase still going strong after 9 years
You also missed:
Planetside 1 - great innovative MMOFPS game
Planetside 2 - Awesome engine, awesome game
DC Online - Fantastic super hero game
And don't forget a plethora of online Card games, long before Blizzard announced theirs.
Come on man, do your research first before slagging off a company.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
I'm excited about the game, but I'm hoping it will have what blizzard has with battle.net, where I can contact any friends on Everquest 1 or 2 by being logged into EQNext, it is really sweet that you can talk to people on Starcraft while you are playing WoW...
SOE offered this chat service long before Battenet did
when EQ2 launched in 2004 -- players could talk to their friends playing other SOE games
I was talking to my EQ friends while playing EQ2 9 years ago -- using cross server chat
Comments
The expansion that contributed to EQ's decline was called World of Warcraft. EQ's peak popularity was Omens of War/Dragons of Norrath...right before WoW's release. GoD didnt really hurt it too bad because the extreme majority of the population was still working through content in the older expansions. It was disappointing to have new lands that were pretty worthless, but its not like people needed new stuff to do. LDoN was still popular at the time. And Omens of War redeemed GoD and pleased just about everyone.
Again, Sony re-acquired Verant right after Kunark release. So Velious, Luclin, PoP, LDoN...those were all SoE. And vanilla EQ was also Sony.
The affiliation was pretty tight from the start. I dug out my old EQ box and while it did say (C) 989 Studios .. it also says stuff like "You're in our world now" is a copyright of Sony Interactive.
Which doesn't invalidate anything really, just interesting. Bottom line might just be someone had The Vision (tm), ie Smedley, and got Sony to fund at least a part of it, then sold their invention to Sony in it's entireity at a latter date.
As far as sony re-acquiring EQ .. I still see no evidence that they even owned them in the first place, outside of being a stakeholder for Smedley and his dream.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
989 studios = Sony
Wikipedia:
The 989 Sports title developed from a long history of name changes and corporate shuffling within Sony centered around operations in Foster City, California. In August 1995, the video game business of Sony Imagesoft was merged with the product development branch of SCEA, becoming Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA).[1] On April 1998, SISA was renamed 989 Studios, after the street address of the building they worked in (989 E. Hillsdale Boulevard, Foster City, California, which Sony still uses). The part of 989 developing EverQuest (and other online and PC games) broke off to become an independent studio named Verant Interactive in early 1999.
And of course, one of the game's main cities is SonyEQ backwards
The red part was what I was talking about. You said EQ was operating under sony at release then went to Verant Interactive, then back to Sony later.
EQ came out in 1999. Having Verant separate in Early 1999 when EQ released contradicts what you said?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Agreed.
I'm going to disagree on this one. If it pulled even a small profit it would still be around. Much like VG.
For that IP it was not a success. This is Star Wars. One of the most recognizable IPs ever created. Everyone has heard of Star Wars and SWG released while the new trilogy (love it or hate it) was still going on. There was a lot of interest in Star Wars at that point. The game failed to capture people because it was released as a buggy, unfinished, mess. You can blame LA for whatever but in the end it was SOEs job to create a quality, working product. SWG was not that at launch or for years after.
I agree. The difference is how you react to it. SOE should have focused on improving the games they already had to try and keep as many of their players as possible. This is not what SOE did. Instead they went for the quanity over quality approach. Buying anything they could to try and fluff up that station pass. So many bad decisions that the company became a joke in many peoples eyes. Smed became (deservingly or not) the used car salesman of the industry. I really hope Smed has learned from his mistakes and the company takes a new and fresh approach to game development.
This is all just speculation. No way to prove anything either way. If you added up all of the revenue generated just from SOE MMORPGs do you really believe it would be third? Take away the MMOFPS and everything that is not a MMORPG.
In February 1999 EQ belonged to Sony. Are you trying to say defiance doesnt belong to trion because it hasnt been released yet?
Who else would be ahead? Turbine is the only other contender, but i dont think they have the revenue if you are taking away MMOFPS than Trion is out.
Hell, if you are only looking at revenue SoE might be number 2. GW2 obviously has more players, but how much do they really make per person?
Sony felt it was too risky, so they passed it to Smedley (like the G4TV video I linked earlier), where Smedley took the risks and mortgaged his property to finance his Vision (tm).
It's late, can you refresh me the souce of February 1999 EQ belonging to Sony? Smedley worked for Sony at the time, but where did he lose control of an idea he had?
It's more like Smedley came up with the idea at work, so automatically any idea you come up with while on the clock becomes company property. Sony was like Pfft yeah right, "who in their right mind would pay a subscription cost just to play a game" .. and tossed it aside .. thus it became Smedleys personal EQ project?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
EQ2 has toyed with player made dungeons, and has added outside of the box stuff like soemote.
They didnt chase WoW with EQ2, the game was pretty similar to it to begin with and the playerbase wanted it less hardcore, so thats what they did. And it makes sense, because if they wanted the EQ experience they could still play EQ.
And SoE gets f2p just fine. you dont like their model, and they dont care that you dont and shouldnt care that you dont. I would change a few things if i were in charge (under level 85 or so fabled gear should be ok but not over 85) but if the system didnt work they wouldnt have rolled it out for EQ and VG.
Sad thing here is EQ1 wasn't even theirs. They bought EQ1 from Verant and it went down hill.
Why would everquest 2 ever want to chase WoW? Everquest 1 (not Ultima Online which tried it 1st) made the MMO genre popular years before WoW came out. I never liked WoW (think it is a very childish game with a juvenile community), and have played, and enjoyed, Everquest 2 since I left eq1 in 2004.
SoE is a business. They try to create a common group between making profits and creating fun for customers. It has it's goods and bads, but after trying 90% of ALL the MMOs to come out since 1999... SoE has had me as a loyal subscriber since March of 1999.
Verant broke off from 989 studios in early 1999, its right there in red already.
A quote from Brad right after the spin-off
Brad McQuaid: 989 Studios made the decision a few months back to concentrate on PlayStation development. They were, and still are of course, very interested in EverQuest, and so the decision to 'spin-off' a new development company was made. Verant Interactive is owned partially by Sony, and partially by the employees of Verant. EverQuest remains a 989 Studios game, but the entire EverQuest development team is currently employed by Verant. The changeover had negligible impact on the game itself both in terms of its development and release (which was for obvious reasons very important to both 989 and Verant).
Lets look at this logically-Smedley was always involved(he was Verant's CEO), Sony had full ownership for all but a year, and had partial ownership over that year. EQ is a Sony game and Sony should get full credit for its success.
Only vague mentions of "partially owned by" references. Who owned the majority? Can you include a reference to February 1999, as eluded to before?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Of course they sustained it with EQ, you look foolish trying to say they didnt. They had the drop off because of WoW/EQ2/ and the second generation of MMOs. they are the healthiest of the first generation MMOs still, and the game is still uspported with new content.
You are right that EQNext wont be like EQ though. In fact, i think it will be closer to a fantasy SWG than it is to EQ1, setting excluded.
You want to squabble about the month? just do a search and you can easily find that verant was spun off in 1999. Does it really matter what month? Someone had to own EQ in Decemeber 1998 since it was 3 years in development at that point and a few months away from release. If Verant didnt exist, than who owned it?
try this out
http://otherworlds31279.yuku.com/topic/1391/background-to-Verant-as-told-by-Brad-McQuaid#.UVPdnByG2Gk
3. When Verant spun off, SCEA remained the owner of the EverQuest IP, so Verant was the developer of EverQuest for SCEA, receiving a royalty from the game's profits.
This is important to make clear: Verant essentially became SOE -- Smed and I and others were still running the show -- a cadre of suits did not come in and start running the company -- Sony Pictures smartly understood that the acquisition of Verant included all employees, from an associate artist all the way to upper management.
Indeed .. who owned it?
Unless it was documented as Sony's IP, then it was Smedly's.
I realize you are pro-SOE and want to promote them. If you want to do so effectively, you need to prove it.
"Someone must have owned it, so it must have been Sony", doesn't cut it.
It was Smedley's Vision, he put all his personal assets on mortgate. Sony balked, Verant was formed. Later Sony had second thoughts and wanted it, but only after EQ was successful.
Sony was tied to EQ from it's conception (ala Qeynos), but they didn't have majority of ownership ever, right? You said they did. .. ?? No proof of that.
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
Facts:
EVERQUEST WAS DEVELOPED BY 989 STUDIOS UP UNTIL SPIN OFF
989 STUDIOS = SONY
SONY ****ALWAYS***** OWNED THE IP <---said so by Brad McQuaid himself
This shouldnt be very difficult for you to understand.
Will you link the sources?
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/devtracker/index.php?go=posts&get=thread&fromsite=1&id=51141
"3. When Verant spun off, SCEA remained the owner of the EverQuest IP, so Verant was the developer of EverQuest for SCEA, receiving a royalty from the game's profits."
From Brad himself.
I'm excited about the game, but I'm hoping it will have what blizzard has with battle.net, where I can contact any friends on Everquest 1 or 2 by being logged into EQNext, it is really sweet that you can talk to people on Starcraft while you are playing WoW...
Other facebook features like sharing and videos I want to just disable, and please don't fill my screen with ugly cash shop nonsense like you have on Everquest 2 sony, the repair your gear with station cash option is stupid, who would pay station cash instead of 50 gold or 2 platinum if you have some awesome hot level 95 raid fabled gear on... My chars lose virtually nothing paying all repair costs with in-game currency, who would even want to waste real dollars on repairing your equipment? Now, I have both a krono icon and a repair icon when my gear is damaged on EQ2 that I get to ignore on the persona screen!!
Please, don't over complicated EQNext with Facebook and Twitter nonsense, its bad enough on Farmville... Every single pop up that wastes my time, and even worse freezes farmville so I have to keep refreshing the page... Grr... In fact, somedays like today I have to cancel sharing to my friends because I'm tired of the game freezing up...
Just give us a fun sandbox fantasy game, like Star Wars Galaxies with awesome crafting and the ability to design your classes with talent trees preferably... or a variety of AA... not boring abilities that require thousands of AA like on Everquest 1, abilities that define you as a class and are fun... Like if you had made Cleric divide Templar/Inquisitor on Everquest 2 via AA and not a class on creation level 1... *sigh*
Don't do the oversimplication of WoW, where they ruined talent trees in Mists of Pandaria, please give us variety and choice to have non-homogenized classes, don't treat us like we are babies with no idea of how to spend points, who need constant hand holding to design a "viable cookie cutter build" character...
You also missed:
Planetside 1 - great innovative MMOFPS game
Planetside 2 - Awesome engine, awesome game
DC Online - Fantastic super hero game
And don't forget a plethora of online Card games, long before Blizzard announced theirs.
Come on man, do your research first before slagging off a company.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
SOE offered this chat service long before Battenet did
when EQ2 launched in 2004 -- players could talk to their friends playing other SOE games
I was talking to my EQ friends while playing EQ2 9 years ago -- using cross server chat
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/tells.html
EQ2 fan sites