Great post! Love him or hate him he could get the job done and I so miss that at DBG. I feel like they can't even move their existing IPs forward.
They screwed up letting him go.
Yup Absolutely. Trivial question.
Could you / me build a house? Yup. Absolutely. Given enough time and money and maybe help if needed and as long as we didn't need it to live in. Yup. Absolutely.
The unasked hard question: could you have finished EQN within a set time and within an agreed budget - whilst still producing a quality game that would have sold and made a profit. (They proved they couldn't do this.)
It's not as though he had just started working on the team either. Another unasked question: why were you unable to develop it to the point at which it could have been released. Was someone else in charge and its failure was nothing to do with him? Were his ideas ignored at every turn? Did he provide instruction but the team under him were just useless? I can speculate what the problem was but "Yup. Absolutely" throws no light onthe issues that - clearly - ultimately proved insurmountable.
Today, after more than a year in the dark, it was announced by Daybreak Games that development has ceased on the highly anticipated MMORPG, EverQuest Next. As players and fans, we’ve been in limbo for so long, but it still comes as a blow that such a wildly impressive concept will never see the light of day.
If anything CN were sold a lemon by people who had become very good at selling lemons (to Sony).
This would only be true if Columbus Nova thought EQN was a viable game they could finish developing.
The problem with that is everything says that never happened.
The very first thing the new owners did was fire almost every person in charge of EQN and close down the community forums. There is more, but CN didn't go into this blind and there is a reason no real gaming company bought SOE. EQN was already a dead project and the new owners knew that.
The problem with your reasoning though is that CN didn't get rid of the EQN team on day 1. In fact we were told that it remained the biggest team in the company.
Based on my business experience - for what it's worth - there will have been discussions with SoE and Sony before they bought SoE and a plan formulated to release the game in 2015: the year of EQN.
The problem. CN will have wanted a short term plan to release EQN quickly in order to start bringing the money in. So SoE "management" will have asked the EQN team for their absolute best plan to get EQN out: stripped out content; minimum timescales; staff cut to the bone. And they will have presented it. And CN - almost certainly - will have challenged the plan. It is what happens. Now maybe there were a few iterations but at some point, imo, CN said "surely you can do it for 20% less" and Smed and others "accepted the 20% haircut" (or whatever the challenge was). Knowing perhaps that if the deal didn't go through Sony would cut EQN and pretty much everything else at SoE. They may all have been out of a job.
And so at some point the EQN team would have been told: "You know that absolute best plan you put together? Well CN signed off on it as long after we agreed a 20% haircut. So 20% less staff; 20% quicker. You can do it though. This will be the year of EQN. And a plan that was probably unrealistic in the first place became totally unworkable.
Am I absolutely certain that this is what happened? Lets say it happens all to frequently. And CN will have been told it could be achieved. The alternative: CN were gullible or simply happy to waste money funding the EQN team for "a year". And I doubt that.
The EQ franchise has no future. Its fanbase are nostalgic old timers. They had a chance to cement themselves as the dominant MMORPG franchise with EQ2 and they botched that. Their time is over and they will be a small player moving forwards.
And to still be talking about EQ1 as being in development as if it's something any of us should recommend anyone play... is kind of laughable.
And I played EQ hardcore back in the day, and raided progression in EQ2 for years (wouldn't recommend it either, as it's basically on a decent downswing and the player population is too volatile especially with them putting that game on the "Progression Server" bandwagon).
I got to speak with him at the last SOELive along with some of the other devs and for reasons I cannot get into this was THE game I had been waiting to play since I started playing MMO's. CN taking over basically buttfucked the truely NEXT generation of MMORPG'S.
"RS: EverQuest and EverQuest II are still in active development and we are excited for what’s to come in 2016. The team will continue to explore new ways of bringing stories to life in Norrath including EverQuest’s 17th Anniversary on March 16, and EverQuest II’s 100th Game Update later this spring."
Incoming facebook/web based "MMO".
"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."
Glad they don't piss on the name that is Everquest with a trainwreck like that. Nothing in common with Everquest then some names. Hell, they switched genres ffs.
Now they can begin thinking about simply doing Everquest with modern graphics.
You don't always have to change stuff for it to be fun. Just look at all the blockbuster sequels that just switch out story and change nothing else. They are doing fine. Think AC and co.
Agree on point 1. Point 2 is never going to happen. Never. Wash that idea out of your head. IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. EQ is dead.
"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."
I don't think so, but I can't say why. Plus, CU, Crowfall, and more are coming.
He should have said it was Daybreak's last hope Bill. Since Daybreak separated from Sony it has been one screw-up after another. They have kept us in the dark for a long time and used deception to make us think they were going to keep it going all while sitting there collecting players hard earned money. At least we knew where we stood with John.
EQ current games are still doing OK. It's a good sign they scrapped after putting it all together and seeing what they had wasn't a fun game, Blizzard does the same.
Now they can stay focused on the building system and revamp of continents for the building system & resource meta game in Planetside 2 as the fleshing out of the game begins to its full potential. It's turning into a 'if you were on ground level of a Command & Conquer game' Planetside 2 action is what you'll see.
Daybreak looks set to own the FPS MMO genre, and looks like its not going to be challenged any time soon. Most have a shocked to the system when they play a game like PS2 coming from standard online fps games. The PS2 construction era is nearly upon us.
If Planetside was going to dominate the FPS market it would already have done so. If investing more money into developing new C&C systems in Planetside isn't likely to generate more players/revenue, then odds are it will not happen.
By all apperances, Daybreak looks to be limited to maintaining their current games and porting existing games to other consoles.
Additionally I think Daybreak was correct saying they thought that EQN wasn't fun, but I think the fact that the game was in development for 10 years an unable to even deliver an alpha level build played the larger role in the decision to cancel.
Learn to read he said FPS MMO, there really are very few out there. Battlefield, and CoD type games do not count.
Another example that the mmo genre is long past it's days of glory as a whole. I'm gonna make a prediction right now and say that the next new game Daybreak will announce(if any) will be a MOBA.
Guess I was one of the few who was shocked by this. I was thinking maybe an announcement saying they need to take development in a different direction or something to that effect. Bit off more than they could chew type of thing but not stopping development completely. This is a sad day. R.I.P. EQN...
Honestly the only way to salvage this franchise is to go to consoles. It's probably also the quickest way to develop a game as the hardware is standardized. I'm surprised they haven't gone there already, as they were ahead of the curve with EQOA...
There is limited competition there, so it would be a lot easier to consolidate a healthy player base. These consoles have sold so many units... They could probably get 500k-1mil solid players on PS4 - more if they go on both PS4 and XB1. The PC MMO market is filled with too many migrant gamers. A majority of gamers aren't really dedicated to any game... There is a wave of hype, but almost all of them taper off pretty steepily after release, since people can always just go back to "their other game"...
However, at this point I'm wondering if Daybreak could manage even that? I see the next EQ game being something on the scale of GW2 or Neverwinter...
Fantasy MMORPG gamers have a decent second option in FFXIV, so I'm not sure why so many people were acting like EQN was the only thing up that alley that was in development... I'm aware that different people have different preferences, though... so no need to state the obvious to me ;-)
As soon as Daybreak took over I knew EQN was never going to be released. The "fun" in the games they are going for makes me worried. They are going to release clones of hearthstone and another wow clone.
Their innovation as a company has ceased they will be only after the latest cash cow. And this cow has a bell that is tolling the death of Everquest.
"Good MMOs bring players together. The activities within the games provide social opportunities, as well as challenges and achievements that build lasting friendships, camaraderie, and long-term enjoyment. These elements, combined with scale, differentiate MMOs from most other forms of entertainment. I don’t see them going out of style, ever."
The problem is we have seen MMOs moving away from this standard for years and then some. It has not gone out of style, but the games are not living up to that desire within the gaming community. I should point out it is a much an issue with the community as it is the games. The baulk of the player base is freckles but then the nature of the player base has changed so much that was bound to happen.
Without really saying it he said there will be no more big projects from them.
"Our focus is making fun games. And usually in game development, the quicker you find the fun the better, so we are streamlining our development process to spend more time on core gameplay rather than reinventing required tech. What matters to us is fun first; everything else follows."
Basically we will continue to not go the distance to try and make anything themselves that requires tech. If someone else does it they will copy it basically. So don't get your hopes up for anything major from them, Daybreak basically wants portable cash grab games from what I have read and seen so far IMO.
Imagine all game development was Open Source. The work they did on Voxels and the destructible worlds was a great concept and is a shame that it's essentially going to waste. Imagine another studio could take the world they created and build a new vision.
Imagine all game development was Open Source. The work they did on Voxels and the destructible worlds was a great concept and is a shame that it's essentially going to waste. Imagine another studio could take the world they created and build a new vision.
The voxel engine wasn't theirs. It is already used in other games, some released, some incoming.
Wait, what? They're canceling EverQuest Next to focus on launching Landmark, whose only real reason to exist is as a stepping stone toward creating EverQuest Next?
This was the only MMO currently in development that intrigued me. Pretty bummed now, and not just because I now have no games to look forward to: I once again put my faith in these people and... yeah.
Learn to read he said FPS MMO, there really are very few out there. Battlefield, and CoD type games do not count.
Relax killer, of course we were talking about FPS-MMOs. No one said anything about CoD or Battlefield.
My comments still apply. PS isn't even dominating the few fps-mmos right now. The likelyhood Daybreak would invest into something that likely doesn't have a fair chance at a large return is slim to none.
That my friends is the dethknell of Daybreak and possibly the previous two Everquest games. This will be the end of an era.
I was recently thinking about buying EQ2 and playing that but I am glad I refrained from it, due to this. I dont totally trust EQ2 to last very long, now. Might as well stay in WoW, at least they have a future.
Everquest 2 is free to play and free to download and has been for quite some years. So if you want to try it out you can do so without loosing any money.
Not sure I can truly say I saw it coming, I don't think I did. However, I remember when their press release first hit, after taking over SOE, I got the impression that they were moving towards mobile heavy games. This just reinforces that impression.
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to Everquest Next. The more I read about it the more I disliked it. It seemed to me to be going more towards the current trend of gaming than the franchises roots. I was really hoping for them to return to their roots after the disappointment I experienced with Everquest 2. I didn't find Everquest 2 terrible, gameplay wise at least, at release but my computer certainly did. That engine... By the time I got around to being capable of playing it they had already made changes to grab the World of Warcraft crowd. That dashed my hopes of Everquest 2 being the game for me. I don't believe Everquest Next could have lived up to what I wanted it to be even under the best circumstances after that.
I think, or maybe I hope, that this is a great beginning instead of a shitty end for the genre. The big publishers have moved on to their next cash cow, MOBAs. I say good riddance. As a player they brought me very few great things, outside of amazing graphics. Hopefully we will be seeing indie games bring it back to what I loved about the genre. The past ten years have been a pretty awful time for players like myself in this genre. I can't truly see the next ten years being much worse. I'm not out of the genre yet, and if anything could have done that it would have been the past decade.
TL;DR - I am cautiously optimistic about the MMORPG genre moving forward.
Wait, what? They're canceling EverQuest Next to focus on launching Landmark, whose only real reason to exist is as a stepping stone toward creating EverQuest Next?
Two things.
First as has been said this simply removes any lingering obligtion and - you never know - may bring in some money. There might be a patch but what there is now is what there is. An alpha now called a full game.
Second staff working on EQN and Landmark - to a greater or lesser degree - will have been "shared". So this probably also implies the end of any development on Landmark. Maybe the odd patch in the future if they think they can get people to pay for it.
Comments
Could you / me build a house? Yup. Absolutely. Given enough time and money and maybe help if needed and as long as we didn't need it to live in. Yup. Absolutely.
The unasked hard question: could you have finished EQN within a set time and within an agreed budget - whilst still producing a quality game that would have sold and made a profit. (They proved they couldn't do this.)
It's not as though he had just started working on the team either. Another unasked question: why were you unable to develop it to the point at which it could have been released. Was someone else in charge and its failure was nothing to do with him? Were his ideas ignored at every turn? Did he provide instruction but the team under him were just useless? I can speculate what the problem was but "Yup. Absolutely" throws no light onthe issues that - clearly - ultimately proved insurmountable.
"wildly impressive concept"
A perfect example of the eyes being bigger than the stomach.
~~ postlarval ~~
Based on my business experience - for what it's worth - there will have been discussions with SoE and Sony before they bought SoE and a plan formulated to release the game in 2015: the year of EQN.
The problem. CN will have wanted a short term plan to release EQN quickly in order to start bringing the money in. So SoE "management" will have asked the EQN team for their absolute best plan to get EQN out: stripped out content; minimum timescales; staff cut to the bone. And they will have presented it. And CN - almost certainly - will have challenged the plan. It is what happens. Now maybe there were a few iterations but at some point, imo, CN said "surely you can do it for 20% less" and Smed and others "accepted the 20% haircut" (or whatever the challenge was). Knowing perhaps that if the deal didn't go through Sony would cut EQN and pretty much everything else at SoE. They may all have been out of a job.
And so at some point the EQN team would have been told: "You know that absolute best plan you put together? Well CN signed off on it as long after we agreed a 20% haircut. So 20% less staff; 20% quicker. You can do it though. This will be the year of EQN. And a plan that was probably unrealistic in the first place became totally unworkable.
Am I absolutely certain that this is what happened? Lets say it happens all to frequently. And CN will have been told it could be achieved. The alternative: CN were gullible or simply happy to waste money funding the EQN team for "a year". And I doubt that.
And to still be talking about EQ1 as being in development as if it's something any of us should recommend anyone play... is kind of laughable.
And I played EQ hardcore back in the day, and raided progression in EQ2 for years (wouldn't recommend it either, as it's basically on a decent downswing and the player population is too volatile especially with them putting that game on the "Progression Server" bandwagon).
I got to speak with him at the last SOELive along with some of the other devs and for reasons I cannot get into this was THE game I had been waiting to play since I started playing MMO's. CN taking over basically buttfucked the truely NEXT generation of MMORPG'S.
Incoming facebook/web based "MMO".
"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
Agree on point 1. Point 2 is never going to happen. Never. Wash that idea out of your head. IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. EQ is dead.
"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
He should have said it was Daybreak's last hope Bill. Since Daybreak separated from Sony it has been one screw-up after another. They have kept us in the dark for a long time and used deception to make us think they were going to keep it going all while sitting there collecting players hard earned money. At least we knew where we stood with John.
There is limited competition there, so it would be a lot easier to consolidate a healthy player base. These consoles have sold so many units... They could probably get 500k-1mil solid players on PS4 - more if they go on both PS4 and XB1. The PC MMO market is filled with too many migrant gamers. A majority of gamers aren't really dedicated to any game... There is a wave of hype, but almost all of them taper off pretty steepily after release, since people can always just go back to "their other game"...
However, at this point I'm wondering if Daybreak could manage even that? I see the next EQ game being something on the scale of GW2 or Neverwinter...
Fantasy MMORPG gamers have a decent second option in FFXIV, so I'm not sure why so many people were acting like EQN was the only thing up that alley that was in development... I'm aware that different people have different preferences, though... so no need to state the obvious to me ;-)
Their innovation as a company has ceased they will be only after the latest cash cow. And this cow has a bell that is tolling the death of Everquest.
The problem is we have seen MMOs moving away from this standard for years and then some. It has not gone out of style, but the games are not living up to that desire within the gaming community. I should point out it is a much an issue with the community as it is the games. The baulk of the player base is freckles but then the nature of the player base has changed so much that was bound to happen.
"Our focus is making fun games. And usually in game development, the quicker you find the fun the better, so we are streamlining our development process to spend more time on core gameplay rather than reinventing required tech. What matters to us is fun first; everything else follows."
Basically we will continue to not go the distance to try and make anything themselves that requires tech. If someone else does it they will copy it basically. So don't get your hopes up for anything major from them, Daybreak basically wants portable cash grab games from what I have read and seen so far IMO.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
Relax killer, of course we were talking about FPS-MMOs. No one said anything about CoD or Battlefield.
My comments still apply. PS isn't even dominating the few fps-mmos right now. The likelyhood Daybreak would invest into something that likely doesn't have a fair chance at a large return is slim to none.
So if you want to try it out you can do so without loosing any money.
To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to Everquest Next. The more I read about it the more I disliked it. It seemed to me to be going more towards the current trend of gaming than the franchises roots. I was really hoping for them to return to their roots after the disappointment I experienced with Everquest 2. I didn't find Everquest 2 terrible, gameplay wise at least, at release but my computer certainly did. That engine... By the time I got around to being capable of playing it they had already made changes to grab the World of Warcraft crowd. That dashed my hopes of Everquest 2 being the game for me. I don't believe Everquest Next could have lived up to what I wanted it to be even under the best circumstances after that.
I think, or maybe I hope, that this is a great beginning instead of a shitty end for the genre. The big publishers have moved on to their next cash cow, MOBAs. I say good riddance. As a player they brought me very few great things, outside of amazing graphics. Hopefully we will be seeing indie games bring it back to what I loved about the genre. The past ten years have been a pretty awful time for players like myself in this genre. I can't truly see the next ten years being much worse. I'm not out of the genre yet, and if anything could have done that it would have been the past decade.
TL;DR - I am cautiously optimistic about the MMORPG genre moving forward.
First as has been said this simply removes any lingering obligtion and - you never know - may bring in some money. There might be a patch but what there is now is what there is. An alpha now called a full game.
Second staff working on EQN and Landmark - to a greater or lesser degree - will have been "shared". So this probably also implies the end of any development on Landmark. Maybe the odd patch in the future if they think they can get people to pay for it.