DBG's new MMO property... Do we know what it is yet?

Vesavius

Having had it confirmed that the Austin studio is working on... something, I am set to wonder what exactly?

Now, I know it is a new IP, not EQ3 or anything, but beyond that I haven't heard much. Has anyone else?

ultimateduck

I was looking forward to EQN...

Vesavius

ultimateduck said:

I was looking forward to EQN...

Imagine all those unused assets that they have just sitting around gathering dust from the EQN projects...

Wizardry

"ALL"
I doubt they had many assets,i believe most were made for them via Landmark which was their goal to have Landmark basically pay for and create EQN.

They tried to hype it up with Storybricks but that soon was nothing much so tried to cut ties and cost.
I remember watching  one of those video episodes about the time i became very skeptical of the game.All they had to show us for that entire episode was a few texture tiles.I thought,man if that is all they achieved over the last 2 weeks,that is really sad.

They spent all their time working on expansions for the games they already had.

All i remember from SOE was a struggle after a struggle.EQ1 had some early success with literally no competition.Later on the kids game seemed to be booming to the  point Smedley was predicting a million or more subs then funny how a year later the game shut down.Then a great looking TCG that again shut down.Just too many games for such a small team.

Then  from what i saw of H1Z1,Smedley had become a full time scammer.So if they had even a remote amount of assets and design done then imo he would have sold it to us with no care about our reaction.So if we did get a game,imo it would have been pretty bad.

Wizardry

Oh yeah the NEW mmo property.Well no secret Smedley was talking about the freedom to make a mobile game and claimed that was why he sold out to DBG.Seemingly the easiest and most profitable market ,i would suspect a cheap mobile game.

They have to tak the puny team and make expansions for the two EQ games,so how much extra time do they actually have to make another mmo?Then there is Planetside 2 ,H1Z1.yeah i doubt they are doing much for any of the games let alone time for a new quality mmo,so yeah a cheap mobile game is my guess.

Vesavius

Wizardry said:

"ALL"
I doubt they had many assets,i believe most were made for them via Landmark which was their goal to have Landmark basically pay for and create EQN.

They tried to hype it up with Storybricks but that soon was nothing much so tried to cut ties and cost.
I remember watching  one of those video episodes about the time i became very skeptical of the game.All they had to show us for that entire episode was a few texture tiles.I thought,man if that is all they achieved over the last 2 weeks,that is really sad.

They spent all their time working on expansions for the games they already had.

All i remember from SOE was a struggle after a struggle.EQ1 had some early success with literally no competition.Later on the kids game seemed to be booming to the  point Smedley was predicting a million or more subs then funny how a year later the game shut down.Then a great looking TCG that again shut down.Just too many games for such a small team.

Then  from what i saw of H1Z1,Smedley had become a full time scammer.So if they had even a remote amount of assets and design done then imo he would have sold it to us with no care about our reaction.So if we did get a game,imo it would have been pretty bad.

Dude, let Smed go... he hasn't been a part of the picture regarding this for a long time.


I think that you maybe underestimate how much work that they did before they pulled the plug. But, neither of us know, so we are armed only with our cynical negative bias or neutral guessing (whichever applies to you, I'll let you decide) on the matter.

Vesavius

Wizardry said:

Oh yeah the NEW mmo property.Well no secret Smedley was talking about the freedom to make a mobile game and claimed that was why he sold out to DBG.Seemingly the easiest and most profitable market ,i would suspect a cheap mobile game.

They have to tak the puny team and make expansions for the two EQ games,so how much extra time do they actually have to make another mmo?Then there is Planetside 2 ,H1Z1.yeah i doubt they are doing much for any of the games let alone time for a new quality mmo,so yeah a cheap mobile game is my guess.

Again, Smed... What does he have to do with their new project?

But, regardless, it may well be a mobile game.

Nilden

Hot garbage.

I mean just look at how well Planetside Arena did. Oh wait it's shut down already.

https://kotaku.com/planetside-arena-is-shutting-down-after-only-16-months-1840432599

Of course Kotaku can't do dates and it was only live for 4 months.

Anything this company does will be absolute garbage. Just keep tending the elephant graveyard.

laserit

DMKano said:

ultimateduck said:

I was looking forward to EQN...

It was a pie in the sky project that they couldn't complete as promised - nobody could as the storybricks technology that it was going to use turned out to be incapable of scaling up to what they wanted 

Bottom line - EQN was a lie

Quite the interesting premise.

Can you elaborate on your line of thinking?

Utinni

laserit said:

DMKano said:

ultimateduck said:

I was looking forward to EQN...

It was a pie in the sky project that they couldn't complete as promised - nobody could as the storybricks technology that it was going to use turned out to be incapable of scaling up to what they wanted 

Bottom line - EQN was a lie

Quite the interesting premise.

Can you elaborate on your line of thinking?

The tech they had couldn't do what they needed it to in the end. I don't think they maliciously planned this as a "lie" though. That's a stretch.

Nanfoodle

laserit said:

DMKano said:

ultimateduck said:

I was looking forward to EQN...

It was a pie in the sky project that they couldn't complete as promised - nobody could as the storybricks technology that it was going to use turned out to be incapable of scaling up to what they wanted 

Bottom line - EQN was a lie

Quite the interesting premise.

Can you elaborate on your line of thinking?

The game was unplayable. The block system to make a 100% destructible world was too much to process even for the most powerful rig. Having just a dozen people in one area lagged out the game to the point it was unplayable. Also as pointed out in the thread, the story bricks story telling tool did not scale to an MMO. The game was doomed to fail before it started. They should have made the first iteration they planed. The fans were just looking for EQ1 reborn. 

Vesavius

I don't disagree with the storybricks assertions, or even their handling of EQN (though I don't think it was a malicious plan at all... I think that's just bitter mudslinging... 

But.

The point of this post was to discuss what they might be working on, not a re raking of the past through biased lenses.

I know, this is mmorpg.com forums, no one is expecting a constructive positive conversation, but i just wondered if anyone had heard anything substantial.

Kyleran

Vesavius said:

I don't disagree with the storybricks assertions, or even their handling of EQN (though I don't think it was a malicious plan at all... I think that's just bitter mudslinging... 

But.

The point of this post was to discuss what they might be working on, not a re raking of the past through biased lenses.

I know, this is mmorpg.com forums, no one is expecting a constructive positive conversation, but i just wondered if anyone had heard anything substantial.

Even money has it that DBG goes under this year.

GladDog

Here's a chain of thought - As some of you know, NCsoft just filed for trademarks on the City of Heroes IP.  Not CoH2, or CoH anything, just for City of Heroes and City of Villains.  Since it is highly unlikely they are planning to resurrect the game, it becomes far more likely that they are firming up their claim to the IP so they can sell it.

As some of you also know, Jack Emmert was the master strategist behind the original CoH, and he is running DBG.

What if DBG is purchasing the CoH IP from NCsoft and that is their new project?  Maybe they want to regain the IP and rebuild it using the UE4 or CE5 engine?  Or maybe even the Storybricks engine?  They don't have to make a new game, just remaster the existing game.  Of course, that is easier said than done, but they could put up CoH as a F2P or a sub game to finance the remaster.  

Tokken

I don't have much faith in DBG anymore to bring us any new game

Mendel

GladDog said:

Here's a chain of thought - As some of you know, NCsoft just filed for trademarks on the City of Heroes IP.  Not CoH2, or CoH anything, just for City of Heroes and City of Villains.  Since it is highly unlikely they are planning to resurrect the game, it becomes far more likely that they are firming up their claim to the IP so they can sell it.

As some of you also know, Jack Emmert was the master strategist behind the original CoH, and he is running DBG.

What if DBG is purchasing the CoH IP from NCsoft and that is their new project?  Maybe they want to regain the IP and rebuild it using the UE4 or CE5 engine?  Or maybe even the Storybricks engine?  They don't have to make a new game, just remaster the existing game.  Of course, that is easier said than done, but they could put up CoH as a F2P or a sub game to finance the remaster.  

The idea that DBG might be interested in purchasing CoH from NCsoft is intriguing.  I don't know that Daybreak has the manpower to actually build a new game, but it's much more feasible that they would be able to host another existing game.  It gives something else for Daybreak to sell for another trickle of revenue (suggested new motto: "Daybreak - Where games go to die").

A sale also gives NCsoft more solid legal footing to deal with the spate of pirated CoH servers that have arisen in the past year, if they want to pursue that avenue.  I think NCsoft was surprised by the popularity that their game still has, and were unprepared to deal with people resurrecting an otherwise shuttered game.  That's got to be missing revenue in NCsoft's minds.

I don't think DBG has the talent to do more than a minor revamp to get a game to work with their All Access program, maybe not even that.  They could run it similar to the way LotRO runs, independent from the main SOE legacy games.  Major modifications, like a graphics revamp, seems very unlikely.  Storybricks was just a pipe dream; moderately good idea, next-to-no functional code, certainly not any code suitable for use with an MMORPG.

Game developers seem to have ties to their prior successes.  Emmert may not have let CoH go in his mind, and he may choose to pursue a (legal) rejuvenation of this game.  So, at least there is some motivation that could drive such a sale.  Good job, @GladDog.  I didn't think of that connection.

laserit

I use to subscribe to SOE's and then DBG's game pass. Not because I was playing any of their games but because I wanted to see something like EQN produced.

The voxel thing wasn't important to me, it was the AI and Story Bricks.

AlBQuirky

GladDog said:

Here's a chain of thought - As some of you know, NCsoft just filed for trademarks on the City of Heroes IP.  Not CoH2, or CoH anything, just for City of Heroes and City of Villains.  Since it is highly unlikely they are planning to resurrect the game, it becomes far more likely that they are firming up their claim to the IP so they can sell it.

As some of you also know, Jack Emmert was the master strategist behind the original CoH, and he is running DBG.

What if DBG is purchasing the CoH IP from NCsoft and that is their new project?  Maybe they want to regain the IP and rebuild it using the UE4 or CE5 engine?  Or maybe even the Storybricks engine?  They don't have to make a new game, just remaster the existing game.  Of course, that is easier said than done, but they could put up CoH as a F2P or a sub game to finance the remaster.  

I had no idea Jack Emmert was with Daybreak. Interesting...

For smiles,
https://imgur.com/0dO7Yt8 (Image embedding not working. Imgur link.)
One of my Super Group buddies hitting Statesman (aka Jack Emmert) with the infamous "Nerf Bat!"

Aeander

Bankruptcy Online. 

Albatroes

Lets look into DBG more recent developmental project, Planetside Arena: https://www.mmorpg.com/planetside-2/news/planetside-arena-hitting-steam-early-access-september-19-multi-platform-2020-1000053556

followed by: https://www.mmorpg.com/planetside-2/news/planetside-arena-shutting-down-january-10-1000054751

Didn't even make it 6 months....

gervaise1

Maybe its the computer equivalent of a tabletop microgame; smaller than mobile!

Without demeaning the OP's post people can be "working on stuff" for years that never see the light of day. I was sceptical of previous mmorpg.com articles about "DBG hiring for new projects", followed by the same type of article "a year later". We have had announcements about them teaming up for mobile game developments as well - well over a year ago.

The bottomline is that the money that SoE was spending on development - ultimately wrote off by Sony prior to the sale - was not being covered by the games they had running that were bringing in money. Development was shrinking the business not growing it - or even keeping it afloat.

As a result SoE were bought, almost certainly, for the revenue the existing games could bring in - with the intent of culling development. With an outside bet on Brad's "this is the year of EQN" - which clearly faced much more scrutiny from the new owner and was scrapped after c. 6 months .

So unless there has been a change in fortunes - which the steady drip, drip of closures has not suggested - its very hard to expect anything.

Amathe

The part of me that loves EQ and wants an EQ3 hopes that can happen.

But it's not going to happen, not like this anyway, because Daybreak will screw it up and quit on it again. They just don't have the talent for such a project.