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Wildstar took 9 years to make. Why is everyone so doom and gloom for EQN?
SyndromofaDown
Member UncommonPosts: 325
So you finally get a glimpse of a developement process for a game. And pretty much, for the sake of the game they are making they are not showing you anything anymore. Why are people convincing others that this will never see light of day basing this on their own opinion? Yesterday EQNext vaporware was uttered by a news site. Is it popular gossip to ruin a game like you guys did here? Seriously tired and sick of this.
Comments
I would be hopeful for it if the company had produced anything of note recently - However well before the change to daybreak and even more so after, most content/patches put out have been trash.
Not to mention they had a giant tendency to over-promise and over-hype, at least when Smedly was there.
Bought for "peanuts" by investment firm thats main business is Oil Rigs and dismantling bankrupt companies ( no previous experience in games or nothing even close ).
The company than went on and fired every leading personnel. Artist, game designer, programmers (basically 90% of the team) and left only second rate and "green" low pay personnel. And discontinued contract with story bricks, technology that was essential for what EQ:N tried to do.
Since this happened we didnt see even a slightest piece of evidence of any progress in EQ:N
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You know if you believe the game is still going to come out.
Its same like in the dictatorship countries ( Like Cuba for example)
Where dictator is so sick that they replaced every organ in his body with machine. But still media is claiming he is healthy and has a touch of flu. Because it will be end of dictatorship if people know he is dead.
So yea, believe what you can.
The best functional example of EQN is Landmark (which could be considered a prototype of EQN). And the progression in Landmark development for the last 2 years have been a bear minimum. All the major pillars of what makes EQN a mmorpg have yet to see the light of day in Landmark. (Such as; combat system, crafting, npc interaction, A.I.).
Daybreak/Sony Online Entertainment has shown and said a lot of things that has not yet come to pass. Such as, "You don't have to wait another year to see more classes".
The showcase gameplay examples, such as the group play raiding gameplay done at soe live, or soe-emote, is believed to be faux, because there is no followup on these,
and it was done within a regulated environment without external influence.
The other Daybreak/SOE projects, or more specifically H1Z1,
are considered more important than EQN, and still has received very limited development.
I think its important to ask @SyndromofaDown , when do you think EQN would realistically be released?
Lobotomist gave a much more complete account of why is is unlikely we will see EQ:N.
Also while Daybreak says they have enough of the logic from Story Bricks. I will wait until they produce actual proof of that before I believe them.
Before the buyout everyone was excited to see EQ:N.
It is just the news we have been getting from DB has not been good.
It is also a possibility that if we will see EQ:N it will not be the game everyone was so hyped for. EQ:N was suppose to have voxel terrain with dynamic AI and world events where cities built by the players are sometimes wiped out and where the story the player drove the game was different for every server. I can't see how a much smaller team, that lost contracts with the AI company that was helping them, can deliver on these promises. This isn't me blaming the dev's at Daybreak, they probably where not happy about the buyout it is just acceptance that they are likely in over their heads with the promises they made.
There hasn't been any news in years..............they were too busy doing crap like Landmark and H1Z1.
They are about to minimize loss. Milk what can be milked from existing games , while keeping only skeleton crew.
BTW there are rumors that they are trying to sell and move all SOE the business to Korean company.
I simply pay attention to what goes on,not just with one game but with the whole developer/team.
I did not know and find it very hard to believe that WS took 9 years but if it did that would explain the graphics and assuming they had no budget the state of the game design.
On the topic of EQN,i don't even find it a query anymore,i actually see it as very obvious that they have put VERY little effort into the game.This whole DBG version of SOE has not changed a thing,it is a life support operation.The ONLY way EQN gets any kind of effort is if they feel they can go without any new cash influx for a period of time.I say this because i truly believe they are not making much money off any of their games.
The recent two xpacks bought them some time to go back working on EQN but that phase is usually over after a week,not many more sales will happen after that.
Long winded point was to paint a picture of their entire operation.We should expect this game to 99% release one day but it will be a very slow process.What i said long ago was there is the VERY likely chance they simply do as they have been doing and release the game way too early to create that cash influx.I do not for one minute believe this is vaporware but i do very strongly believe this will be nothing more than a B rated product.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Despite some people's opinions this studio does own some really nice games. H1Z1 is nothing to laugh at and Planetside 2 along with DCUO are really solid games. Not to mention that DCUO is multiplatform. EQN has too much promise and I think they are just holding it until they are ready to continue development.
But think what they could have done if they didn't spent time and energy making Landmark and H1Z1.
Prioritizing those 2 games over trying to refresh their flagship IP tells you everything about SoE leadership.
Of course now that they are broke don't have the people to undertake such a big project, but that certainly wasn't the case 3-4 years ago.
Everything you guys said about Venture Capitals is true.
Generally they are expert in squeezing every single penny out of a dying Company.
They are not interested in building Businesses, they just keep them running so long as they make profit.
After profits dry up, they pull the plug.
Since SOE became Daybreak, we know these things were done:
- they redid the combat system and tested it internally over the summer
- upgraded the engine to support DX11 and seamless world map (probably broke many things, should have been done long before that too, DX11 was released in 2008...)
- had their first in-house EQNext server test on September 3rd
Then they had devs taken over to EQ/EQ2 to work on the new expansions and progression servers which most probably wasn't planned and slowed down EQNext development process.
Coupled with that, the internet draws out the worst in people. Because there is no recourse from their words, people feel emboldened to say terrible things and swarm in internet mobs looking for people or companies to bash. Often saying things they would never dare to say in real life. A term being used for that type of person in the internet is called a "Cry Bully" You know if you are part of that problem. If you are, you will try and justify it or flat out deny it.
Then there is a very small group of people. People who really dont like DGC as a company or dislike DGC games. We hear from them from time to time but dont normally stick around like poop on the bottom of your shoe.
What makes you think EQ:N isn't vaporware?
Faith?
For instance, Starcraft Ghost is possibly the best Blizzard game ever created.
Duke Nukem sold pretty much because of the vaporware status.
EverQuest Next is possibly the best sandbox open world mmo, and the first one to make AI intelligence only based on the player actions, and everything is destructible.
Columbus Nova's main business is software. They bought the game development company Harmonix in 2010. All other acquisitions are also software companies. None, as far as I can tell, have been bankrupt and/or dismantled.
Columbus Nova's parent company is a Russian conglomerate that, yes, has a lot of other business in telecom, energy, and nanotechnology. The Japanese conglomerate Daybreak just came from sits in similar sectors. I understand Sony Corporation has also made a significant name in gaming, to understate tremendously, but it seems fair to bear in mind that for the PC and MMOs that name was SOE. Without it, the subsidiary Sony Computer Entertainment is a console company.
As a related side-note, I point out that it's only since being bought by Columbus Nova that Harmonix has been developing non-console-exclusive titles. They're even working in VR now.
Nope. We only know about five layoffs from the EQN team. A fundraiser, a couple of other upper management, a writer (who had not much left to do), and one programmer. This from the largest team at the company. I think you're confusing it with other teams. EQ and EQ2 were certainly gutted.
There may well have been much more we don't know about, but that is no kind of excuse to just make shit up like "basically 90% of the team".
Nope. Daybreak was not licensing technology from StoryBricks, it was a company doing work in collaboration with Daybreak to create their own AI platform. After some time, it became Daybreak's platform. That's how those relationships work.
Nope. There's been a damned hour-long Twitch stream every week for the last year and a half. Currently on hiatus due to the move to the new studio.
It's understandable that you might find the first few years of game development boring. Most non-game developers do. That's why we usually don't see anything for those years.
*Example: Terry, the lead on EQNext/Landmark, closed some bugs on Landmark public bug-tracker with "fixed internally" on November 18th. That patch haven't even issued yet.
It's not because gaming news aren't talking about a game every month that said game is vaporware. Also, it's pretty clear by now that EQNext was announced ~6 months after they started to work on it to attract a potential buyer for SOE. Then they tried to do open development (and early access with Landmark) and that seems to have backfired so they returned to behind closed door development like 99% of gaming studios do instead.