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How Smedly Madeoff with EQ Next! Sad day for MMORPG's
fistorm
Member UncommonPosts: 868
Where it all began... the 80s. The movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas.
Smedly got himself a game engine. ran the company like a 80s stock. Hi Profits and Low Margrins. If it did not make mega cash, no risk was taken to make it make mega cash.
We can match up every single game rise and fall according to market trends. Games with huge IP's got Zero overhauls to the game engine or just flat out shut down. When shooter games topped the charts in sales, he went right for cashing in on Shooters, (planetside and H1Z1). When more graphic intense RPGs started to show up after 10 years of no progress, he decided to create EQ Next knowning the graphics was not next gen. Instead of putting together a team of advanced graphic designers and innovation, he decided he would squeeze one last cash in on the outdated engine he had. NO update to engine, just like games, no updates, just close them and let them crash and burn.
After successfully getting Landmark marketed, they cracked open the campaign bottles and celebrated much like the disgraced "too big to fail" companies did after the bailout. Then they marketed the company to the highest bidder capitalizing on hype with the investors of daybreak. Once they gained full bailout they wanted to stay on as CEO of the company. Dint work to well, and took their golden parachute. Once they discovered that the game engine could not compete in the future Daybreak had no choice but to retire EQ NEXT.
That my friends was the way Smedly Madeoff with EQ Next!
Comments
In fact just about the opposite of what you said. What they should have done was adopt a low risk strategy and just keep on churning out expansions for EQ1 and EQ2. They didn't. They released new products - trying the f2p market with things like Free Realms and Clone Wars (with the usual trumpeting of account numbers 20M and 10M or the other way around). They attempted to buy in "failed" games and turn them around: Vanguard, MXO. They attempted to act as a distributor for other peoples games - Flying Labs PotBS. And I am sure I have missed some titles.
And they had a bright idea with EQL (subsequently Landmark) and EQN. The idea being that people would create content in Landmark to port to EQN solving the huge issue of developers not being able to produce enough new content cheaply enough (they could make it fast enough if they hired enough people).
None of them worked that well and c. 2010 financial issues started to catch up. They stopped taking on new staff; closed down some "new concepts" and started a serious of almost annual staff reductions from a peak of over 1,000 staff. With lots of reorganisations. They still tried however to create new games. They worked on Landmark but were being pushed - not unreasonably - to generate some money to pay the bills. The cash cow that was EQ1 and to an extent EQ2 had stopped giving. So they pushed out Landmark as an alpha - as a cash grab and switched resources to H1Z1 - Smed explaining at the time they only had the resources to properly develop one game. And H1Z1 launched - as a cash grab but by then Sony had written off $60M and talks to see were underway. SoE was no more shortly after H1Z1 launched.
If they had simply maintained a team of a couple of hundred, tended to EQ1 and EQ2 and taken no risks they probably would still have been around - as SoE - today.
They took risks though - tried to develop new games, save other games etc. They just ended up being "bad" at it from a financial point of view - as in making enough money to pay the bills..
lets not forget without him there be no EQ and no WoW (if you think otherwise go watch evercracked! and you see brad gives praise directly to smed for the idea and wow devs clearly say without EQ there be no WoW)
so love him or hate him he made mmorpg mainstream but directly and indirectly.
some bad decisions made sure he is human.tried to hype his product to gain attention .er all companies do this for all products
yes i am sad to see the once great verrant then soe then daybreak be a total shadow of itself with holly as exec producer for both EQ games left /shrug.but hey we will remember them as we remember ancient rome - an empire dead but one that brought new wonders to the world
Yes, at one short point in Smedley's life he had some fantastic ideas. Everquest, Planetside 1 and Star Wars Galaxies were all brilliant games.
Planetside 1 played and felt like some really great minds sat around a table and said "How do we take the shooter genre, make it tactical and deep and then set it in a persistent world?" or "How can we make the best MMOFPS ever made?"
Planetside 2 played and felt like a group of people sat around a table and said "How can we write a game that will squeeze the most cash out of the player base with the least effort?" or "How about we take Planetside 1 and monetize every single aspect of it, and release it as a new game?"
Greedy cash grab Smedley can fuck right the fuck off into the sunset on the horse he rode in on. When he's out in the desert contemplating why everyone hates him maybe he'll change his tune and make some smart and fun games that don't try to harpoon our wallets at every turn.
ole smed sold out to the highest bidder, as would any highly skilled American worker should do. Why would he or any DEV would want anything less than their fair share just to keep you lollypops happy?
This is my opinion, if we all want change or something different in games, you wont find that in Smed. It makes sense to find and try out new talent or what I hope for, a new game developed in a garage like Apple.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
At some point everything changed, and he went from brilliant mind Smedley to wallet harpooning cash grab Smedley. NGE was the first step in that transformation to the dark side, but by no means the only step.
You can make a great game that also makes money, but rather than trying to go down that road, he led the company down the path of "How do we make a game that makes money" with no real care if the game was good or not.
Cash grab Smedley can fuck right off. If brilliant game designer Smedley wants to come back, then I'll be happy to have that guy back.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
it was announced when company was still called verrant but during development it was already SoE
At some point it was rewritten totally when koster was brought in.McQuaid has absolutely nothing to do with SWG so lets not give him any credit here for something he had nothing to do with.
In short if i recall right he left SoE very early 2002 well before SWG launch and even prior to that he was focused on everquest purely.
though i do wish koster would make a mmorpg .i like his style
The reason EQ was so great was that it offered something we never seen before, most of us played either M59 or UO before. It was new and full of great ideas.
A new EQ should have that pioneer spirit while still keep the feeling of Norrath. And yes, EQN probably wouldn't have pulled that off and the change in art style was a huge misstake. The art of an IP sets the mode and something that looks cartonish would never really be a EQ game just like making Wow 2 with realistic graphics would be as huge misstake as well.
Pantheon is trying to do some of that though, I think SOE/DB big misstake was to not hire in Brad again, he is a visionary (even though he isn't great with money).
Another problem SOE always had is that they never had any programmer nearly good enough, all their engines had their issues and they never been good at bugfixing. Heck, EQ2 still doesn't run good enough 11 1/2 years after release.
An EQ3 that just would be an updated version of the 2 earlier games would have earn some money but it would never get close as many players as the first game.
Lets hope Pantheon will become a large success and that they will buy or license the IP. That is the only hope we have for a new EQ game by now.
Don't get me wrong I detest a lot of decisions I have seen made, but in the long run if it is more profitable for the developer it is what is going to happen.
It was pretty obvious he either had to be reigned in, or he was going to become a liability.
If anyone tried to redirect him, it wasn't enough.
His name still has some weight, but how much of it is truly earned? I don't know, but he certainly was part of a team. His stupid actions I recall were obviously his and his alone and not part of creating a game. He's his own worse enemy.
I don't trust his decisions, and feel he is like a lit stick of dynamite rolling around on the deck of a ship.
If you're lucky, he'll jump ship, otherwise, somethings going to get blown up.
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Smedley fired al the good devs at daybreak before he himself was walked. David Georgson should have taken the lead of that company, Smedley knew that and fired him ..
The new owners fired them. They also fired Smedley at the same time, but gave him 6 months so that it wouldn't be obvious that they were "cleaning house".
So the shocks are delivered in gradual stages, like announcing that Smedley would be taking an "extended leave" and would be replaced by a new CEO. But no worries folks, Smed will be returning to the company in "some other capacity". Lmao !
EQN was actually cancelled shortly after the DBG take-over. They fired all the senior EQN project members, and then the whole thing went dark. Next, they pretended to still be working on it for the next 12 months...
it's all about keeping up appearances and trying to lessen the impact of the massive changes that were taking place. We are only now (a year later) seeing some of the changes that were made then already.
No, never mind. That would make a fun thread, tho.
Maybe... just maybe...
Daybreak wanted to fire Those people at SOE and claim the EQ brand... for a future
EQ3 under a high tech next gen team...
worth having...
/smiles