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is DBG's silence a good thing or a bad thing?
Bane82
Member UncommonPosts: 1,242
Pretty straightforward, I'm sure some of us have read the article here on MMORPG.com wherein DBG's response was mainly "when we have something, we'll let you know"
I can kind of understand what they're getting at, as they've been getting a lot of heat because of how the game, and perhaps more so, the community has been handled. However, I'm not 100% sure this might be a good idea. Again, I understand where they're coming from, and they probably did not know what kind of burden they were getting when they decided to take over the EQ IP. But keeping the audience in the dark for too long isn't going to help your cause either.
I've heard more often than not, that since most of what we keep seeing is just concept art after concept art within the workshop shows, it lends people to believe that DBG is way behind in terms of progress (I don't know, don't ask, I'm not the one who made the comment). One such comment though, was pretty valid, in that, in as long as this game is supposed to be in the works, why has so little been revealed in terms of races. How is it possible that they don't have 3D concept even for those, as these should usually be the first out the gate. Honestly, I think this is a valid question. As a 3D modeler/animator (for short films mainly) I do have to scratch my head at this, as this is usually job one for me as well, and it's typically the one you want done right out the gate.
I don't know, perhaps this is all just too much over my head, but I can't help but wonder. Don't get me wrong, I do want this game to succeed badly, mainly because I was around for the first EQ and loved my experiences in that Norrath. But at the same time, I don't want to let my rose colored glasses blind me either.
I can kind of understand what they're getting at, as they've been getting a lot of heat because of how the game, and perhaps more so, the community has been handled. However, I'm not 100% sure this might be a good idea. Again, I understand where they're coming from, and they probably did not know what kind of burden they were getting when they decided to take over the EQ IP. But keeping the audience in the dark for too long isn't going to help your cause either.
I've heard more often than not, that since most of what we keep seeing is just concept art after concept art within the workshop shows, it lends people to believe that DBG is way behind in terms of progress (I don't know, don't ask, I'm not the one who made the comment). One such comment though, was pretty valid, in that, in as long as this game is supposed to be in the works, why has so little been revealed in terms of races. How is it possible that they don't have 3D concept even for those, as these should usually be the first out the gate. Honestly, I think this is a valid question. As a 3D modeler/animator (for short films mainly) I do have to scratch my head at this, as this is usually job one for me as well, and it's typically the one you want done right out the gate.
I don't know, perhaps this is all just too much over my head, but I can't help but wonder. Don't get me wrong, I do want this game to succeed badly, mainly because I was around for the first EQ and loved my experiences in that Norrath. But at the same time, I don't want to let my rose colored glasses blind me either.
Comments
I would say their silence is a bad sign...
best, longest tenured, and overpaid, are all different things.
You are correct that SOE->Daybreak is going through massive change and it is going to take some time for things to shake out. However this isn't the first time this company has downsized teams and the presentation was that quicker, more nimble, more focused, targeted development would somehow be the result. I think the body of work over the last half a decade of these changes says this will not be how things shake out here.
While it does remain to be seen how things turn out, I suspect at that time we will look back at all the events surrounding this project showing and conclude that despite hopes it all pointed to how things ended up turning out.
My answer is simple: Shut up and wait, until then you're wasting your time and energy.
Or not, just don't flood the forums with another of the same topic.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
DBG are just hoping that if they keep absolutely quiet for long enough people will give up and wander off to do other things. Then when they eeeeventually announce the game is canned, nobody will care anymore...
This game is really bringing out some aberrant behavior in people. Its been basically half a year and we haven't heard anything, except all bad stuff, layoffs, restructuring, etc. Even before daybreak when it was still SOE, it was basically little to no news in the case of EQN, and only a minor bit of "news" in regards to Landmark.
Anyone who thinks this game is going to come out in any way, shape, or form, resembling what they talked about during the first year, is literally out of their mind. *IF* it does come out, and that's a big if, it will likely be some frankensteined version designed for mobile and will be extremely p2w, monetized, etc.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Progression servers provide the company with great statistical information and alienating their player base is proven to not be a great idea as that is pretty much the direction most mmos went and the current market reflects this with tons of player frustration.
I await to see what is in fact happening with great interest.
You stay sassy!
Right now they are trying to figure out a realistic approach of creating everquest next and depending on that process we will get to hear about the game they are actually building. If they aren't happy about the new approach they scrap the project altogether and put their energy on projects that carry less risk.
You would notice lots of similarities between the production of EQ and the production of EQNext.
1) Devs primarily Rosie Rappaport (she was art director back then) didn't think the game would ever ship. Staff people starting calling it "Neverquest". Smedley on the other hand, knew the game would ship (It was due to the workload the devs were experiencing)
2)It was a HUGE gamble at the time. Similar to what Next is.
3)Devs didn't think it would succeed or not.
4)There were heated arguments about the concepts of the original Everquest. Would they pursue a DnD license or would they make their own game. DnD being popular at the time and the granddaddy of rpgs.
5)"Hit the reset button" was in the devs minds during the making of the game.
I think the "silence" is because they are just swamped with work...on other titles. I doubt Domino was the only devs taken from the team like 6 months ago to work on EQ2 new expansion. EQ1 too had a new expansion and one of EQNext dev mentioned something about testing EQ1 new progression server on twitter recently as well.
I suspect Daybreak is understaffed for the number of games they are working on. They have also been playing technological catch-up with Forgelight in the last year. That shouldn't have happened and it probably broke many, many things when they did it. Why the company heads let them work with a DX9 only engine since 2009 is beyond me.
They really don't have any choice to do things differently because they don't have much done aside from player made assets and they got rid of the community aspect because there really is nothing to discuss with the community.
If you ever watched any of their shows it was 90% just them showing you player made assets.Then once i saw the two expansion packs,i realized ok they were doing absolutely nothing on the game until xpacks were done.
Even right now ,i have to wonder how many resources are going into Next,it was clear before DB got the game that it was going to be funded a bit at a time from Landmark which can't be bringing in money anymore.So it is quite possible most of their team is working on something else instead,perhaps a new gimmick or unfinished game as another cash grab.
I don't think they are under staffed on each game,i feel they are under staffed as a whole.I think they just move from game to game,whatever looks like the best cash grab.I do not see them making enough money from any of their games right now to warrant much effort,that's why they went all in on the xpacks.
I don't know how many xpacks they sold between EQ1/2 but i doubt it is anywhere near what DBG had hoped for.Then if those numbers are small,how will DB feel about long term spending on Next?I honestly feel this operation is on life support everyday and if not for the luck of H1Z1 DB may have already given up.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Dragnon - Guildmaster - Albion Central Bank in Albion Online
www.albioncentralbank.enjin.com
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
1 No more Smedley nor Brad either.
2 $$$$ Back then SOE was doing mildly ok,still had a tough time selling it to the big dogs.I do not think DB is in a position to just give up yet since the ydid invest into buying this operation.However i believe every game is on a short leash,signs of losing money and game is gone,no revamps,no fixing no secondary marketing strats,just gone.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The 2nd one is more worrying than the 1st for me. Every cent spent on EQN up to the point of the buyout was Sony money. CN may well have looked at the budget required to finish the game and decided that money could be used elsewhere, to make the games they want for consoles and mobile platforms. They'd certainly be cheaper than a full fledged MMO.
Now this is wild speculation on my part and I have nothing solid to base it on other than a gut feeling. The lack of any news about EQN does make me wonder though. About the only thing we've heard is that Storybricks was dropped. This was around 20 days after the buyout. It doesn't inspire confidence.
It's either vapourware or it's being stripped down and simplified to the point that it can be easily ported to consoles and mobiles. I don't think for a second that we're going to see the EQN Dave Georgeson told us we'd be getting. That's just what I think, there's nothing to suggest I'm right, no links or news, just my own paranoia/cynicism at work.
The key difference is at this point SOE was the most experienced MMO development company in the world. Working on more titles, IPs, projects than anyone else. Having doubts about the viability of an mmo 15 years ago was fine, because SOE was blazing new ground and there was no prior example to use as an estimate of how Everquest would turn out.
The current team having doubts about the games viability isn't some sort of positive as you are putting it.
You are right about EQNext being a gamble. How do you think that gamble turned out for SOE?
Its a bad thing. Silence has never been met with overwhelming success with mmorpgs, its always the exact opposite.
Silence means two things, one or both. They are out of money, they cant keep staffed a dedicated media employee to keep the game in the lime light while they work on it. And/or they keep running into issues with developing (be it all their staff who knew the code left, which they did or they cant get the game to do what they want in the time frame they need)
What silence is, its them completely losing all the hype gains they had when landmark came out. The game is quickly fading into bad public spaces on the internet. DB had a lot to prove taking over a massive project without the endless pockets of sony to keep the advertising, be it viral, flowing.
So I see two things here. Lack of funds to properly promote the game and/or nothing of value or significant to report. Both are bad signs.
Mind you no one else is making a large budget mmorpg anymore (traditional mmorpg the ones that are actually RPG games) those who did in the last generation all failed by just about every measurement for their cost to produce. I see the release of SOE into DB as sony going "look everyone else had huge budget mmorpgs and none of them were the big cash cows they had hoped, EQN and H1Z1 are both build on established and fading trends, lets cut our losses now before we embarrass our selves. Mind you Everquest wasn't a small IP, they ditched the entire future of that IP which is a big sign that mmorpgs are not going very far moving forward.
Part of me thinks the magic touch would have been to incorporate "mine craft" into "world of Warcraft" which I had always assumed EQN was going to be, not sure if that's possible unless they really are almost done, near broke, and sitting on a soon to be classic mmorpg.
Simply put, if anything positive was happening we all would be hearing about it. Doesn't cost anything for a lead dev (in lieu of a proper employee to do this) could easily go onto reddit, here, their forums, anywhere and just spill all the goodness they are working on, how close to complete they are, or how great the game is turning out. Stuff like that gets people excited who work on it...I don't see any of that...do you? I can remember even the games that failed had excitement from within about their work. This game has none of that, and DB doesn't have a track record where they can do this, get away with it, and the game still be hyped.