What happened to SOE anyways?

Veiled_light

Seems like Smedley went crazy and then Sony got rid, then they ran out of money and all the developers left? I haven't been following games too much in the past several years... but it's shocking to see SOE gone. I know they changed to Daybreak, but they aren't the same any more with no ambition, and really they're just waiting to die. 

I just miss them releasing mmorpgs, because even though I hated SOE, they were one of the few that were releasing anything with potential.... even if they had a hobbit of releasing too early, then ruining a good thing even if they had it lol. 

Amaranthar

Veiled_light said:

Seems like Smedley went crazy and then Sony got rid, then they ran out of money and all the developers left? I haven't been following games too much in the past several years... but it's shocking to see SOE gone. I know they changed to Daybreak, but they aren't the same any more with no ambition, and really they're just waiting to die. 

I just miss them releasing mmorpgs, because even though I hated SOE, they were one of the few that were releasing anything with potential.... even if they had a hobbit of releasing too early, then ruining a good thing even if they had it lol. 

Hobbit's don't do anything too early. lol

Slapshot1188

Amaranthar said:

Veiled_light said:

Seems like Smedley went crazy and then Sony got rid, then they ran out of money and all the developers left? I haven't been following games too much in the past several years... but it's shocking to see SOE gone. I know they changed to Daybreak, but they aren't the same any more with no ambition, and really they're just waiting to die. 

I just miss them releasing mmorpgs, because even though I hated SOE, they were one of the few that were releasing anything with potential.... even if they had a hobbit of releasing too early, then ruining a good thing even if they had it lol. 

Hobbit's don't do anything too early. lol

That's Wizards... A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

Ungood

Veiled_light said:

Seems like Smedley went crazy and then Sony got rid, then they ran out of money and all the developers left? I haven't been following games too much in the past several years... but it's shocking to see SOE gone. I know they changed to Daybreak, but they aren't the same any more with no ambition, and really they're just waiting to die. 

I just miss them releasing mmorpgs, because even though I hated SOE, they were one of the few that were releasing anything with potential.... even if they had a hobbit of releasing too early, then ruining a good thing even if they had it lol. 

Daybreak is still around, it's grown up into becoming a foster home for MMO's that refuse to die, and it takes over as publisher for them, as opposed to only taking care of their own offspring.

Tuor7

Amaranthar said:

Hobbit's don't do anything too early. lol

Maybe their second breakfast...

Theocritus

Did SOE change the name to Daybreak Games or did they sell off to a different company named Daybreak Games?

cheyane

Sold

Kyleran

Daybreak is (or was) reportedly owned by a Russian oligarch which created quite a row a year or so back.

Here's one of the more recent updates.

https://massivelyop.com/2019/03/19/daybreaks-definitely-not-owner-columbus-nova-is-back-in-national-news-again/

Utinni

Veiled_light said:

Seems like Smedley went crazy and then Sony got rid, then they ran out of money and all the developers left? I haven't been following games too much in the past several years... but it's shocking to see SOE gone. I know they changed to Daybreak, but they aren't the same any more with no ambition, and really they're just waiting to die. 

I just miss them releasing mmorpgs, because even though I hated SOE, they were one of the few that were releasing anything with potential.... even if they had a hobbit of releasing too early, then ruining a good thing even if they had it lol. 

They stopped releasing games in like 2004. You been in a coma bruh?

xpsync

I found SOE was somewhat of an integral part of all the fun and excitement back then.

They were the kings of mmorpg's, with killer MMORPG's to play such as EQ2 and SWG you didn't even need to shop around while under their umbrella.

Smed and all the devs were basically part of the community, all the drama, the rumors, the high jinx, there was basically an everyday news/drama event of some sort.

An amazing time... wait no... An amazing FUN time to be an mmorpg player.

Theocritus

xpsync said:

I found SOE was somewhat of an integral part of all the fun and excitement back then.

They were the kings of mmorpg's, with killer MMORPG's to play such as EQ2 and SWG you didn't even need to shop around while under their umbrella.

Smed and all the devs were basically part of the community, all the drama, the rumors, the high jinx, there was basically an everyday news/drama event of some sort.

An amazing time... wait no... An amazing FUN time to be an mmorpg player.

But part of me thinks with a better company those games could have been even more spectacular.

Amathe

You know how at the end of LOTR , Frodo sailed away to the Elven lands? It' s like that, except SOE sails away to the land of fail. Also known as Daybreak.

BruceYee

Theocritus said:

xpsync said:

I found SOE was somewhat of an integral part of all the fun and excitement back then.

They were the kings of mmorpg's, with killer MMORPG's to play such as EQ2 and SWG you didn't even need to shop around while under their umbrella.

Smed and all the devs were basically part of the community, all the drama, the rumors, the high jinx, there was basically an everyday news/drama event of some sort.

An amazing time... wait no... An amazing FUN time to be an mmorpg player.

But part of me thinks with a better company those games could have been even more spectacular.

Those games could only be created because of SOE...

SOE was the top dawg western MMO developer at that time. What came after they started seeking quick ftp riches and making dumb decisions is a different conversation all together...

Veiled_light

So what happened? Was EQ2 flopping what killed them? I remember them having Planetside, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies in development at the same time. I remember SOE being frustrated with Lucas Arts and taking a lot of resources... which led to all three being mediocre but with lots of potential. I think that was the annoying thing about SOE, they were the mmorpg genre at that time... but they always made the wrong choices. 


However they did nothing apart from Planetside 2 like 9 years later, which was terrible and flopped. Wasn't Smedley saying something for SWG fans was coming out and that never happened, and EQ3 never happened either. 

I guess the money ran out after EQ2.

ShaddyDaddy

Wasn't EQ2 the beginning of the end? I thought SOE had rushed it to compete with WoW. I remember optimization for EQ2 was awful when it came out. Daybreak must be having some levels of success, though. I mean, it's still running the EQ games. I'm assuming the cash shops are keeping them afloat.

Kyleran

Veiled_light said:

So what happened? Was EQ2 flopping what killed them? I remember them having Planetside, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies in development at the same time. I remember SOE being frustrated with Lucas Arts and taking a lot of resources... which led to all three being mediocre but with lots of potential. I think that was the annoying thing about SOE, they were the mmorpg genre at that time... but they always made the wrong choices. 


However they did nothing apart from Planetside 2 like 9 years later, which was terrible and flopped. Wasn't Smedley saying something for SWG fans was coming out and that never happened, and EQ3 never happened either. 

I guess the money ran out after EQ2.

The wheels started to come off in 2004 when EQ2 and SWG both got WTF stomped by WOW.

This lead to string of questionable investments (i.e. buying the Matrix, Vanguard) and decisions (NGE, too many to include here)

Wikipedia has a pretty good accounting under the Daybreak games listing,  but I think here on these forums many would summarize it all into one word.

Smedley.

Mendel

Kyleran said:

Veiled_light said:

So what happened? Was EQ2 flopping what killed them? I remember them having Planetside, EverQuest 2 and Star Wars Galaxies in development at the same time. I remember SOE being frustrated with Lucas Arts and taking a lot of resources... which led to all three being mediocre but with lots of potential. I think that was the annoying thing about SOE, they were the mmorpg genre at that time... but they always made the wrong choices. 


However they did nothing apart from Planetside 2 like 9 years later, which was terrible and flopped. Wasn't Smedley saying something for SWG fans was coming out and that never happened, and EQ3 never happened either. 

I guess the money ran out after EQ2.

The wheels started to come off in 2004 when EQ2 and SWG both got WTF stomped by WOW.

This lead to string of questionable investments (i.e. buying the Matrix, Vanguard) and decisions (NGE, too many to include here)

Wikipedia has a pretty good accounting under the Daybreak games listing,  but I think here on these forums many would summarize it all into one word.

Smedley.

Well said.

I think that SOE's downfall started with EQ2.  It was a game that rehashed and retconed the lore.  It started as a watered-down version of EQ1 that couldn't even be bothered with different names.  I always felt that someone really phoned-in the EQ2 development plans; it's like they simply ran out of ideas and regurgitated what they had previously done.   Nothing new but some marginally different graphics, and hope a more glitzy implementation would save them.

All the graphics in the world couldn't hide the fact that someone apparently thought that EQ1 was too complex for the average gamer.  Instead of building on what came before, subsequent games sought to simplify.  "Pretty" overcame "interesting" and "fun" was put away to be redefined later.  I put that firmly on Smedley's influence/leadership.

I expect that it looks good on his resume, though.  "Killed an entire game genre."

Akulas

It got sold to some rich dude down the road named jason that makes movies

Veiled_light

See I played EverQuest and it wasn't complex, it just was a mix of poor design and less hand holding. I remember there wasn't really much to the game in the way of quests, so really all you did was spend your time killing mobs. Which is where I got bored of the game quite quickly... musta been 2000ish I played. 

I loved the opening hours of EverQuest 2, the game blew me away! When you were on The Isle of Refuge, and doing all the quests in the towns, and they had mini areas for noobs in the towns. However it all started to fall apart when you left them, the large areas of Antonica (was it?) and Common Lands were largely barren of quests. You saw the quality of the content really drop off though in Thundering Steppes and Nek... it just became dead. 

However it was an amazing grouping and crafting game, but SOE decided to dumb them both down. You HAD to group in the game, it was fun and you had proper punishment in experience debt and item wear which cost money... but all that went. It soon became easier than WoW, where you could tank 10 mobs at once all of a sudden. 

The other problem I had was the ugly Character models... which is so bizarre as they looked amazing in the alpha, so did the armour. However in the release game the characters were made ugly, and the armour was all gone for just a few sets... wtf? I even remember them patching Humans to look really ugly in the beta. 

Oh and the class system didn't help, everyone I knew spent 20 levels working out if they liked their class, only to quit because they realised they didn't. SOE eventually changed this system, but it was years after and too late. 

Also didn't help that post release content for SOE always takes a massive dive in quality. It happens to all their games where you have this amazing detailed and unique content at release. However after launch it quickly becomes an empty room with three mobs standard in it, and everything is copy and pasted. 

Remember how they had a few servers in beta and that worked well as the game cloned zones. So you expected them to have only a few servers at launch, but they had like 80 and everyone was too spread out and that didn't help grouping lol.

Theocritus

I was the complete opposite...I loved EQ1 and didn't care for EQ2 much....I liked that EQ1 had few quests...I liked exploring new areas and going after certain drops....To me the questing that started with WoW ruined the genre....EQ2 went from a hardcore game to WoW II.

AlBQuirky

Theocritus said:

I was the complete opposite...I loved EQ1 and didn't care for EQ2 much....I liked that EQ1 had few quests...I liked exploring new areas and going after certain drops....To me the questing that started with WoW ruined the genre....EQ2 went from a hardcore game to WoW II.

EQ did have quests, but nothing like WoW or EQ2. I remember collecting taxes for someone in Qeynos. You had class quests (and the Epic ones). I think there were a handful of quests in the starting cities to get players going, if you talked to everyone

EQ was NOT, however, EverQuest

Iselin

Kyleran said:

Daybreak is (or was) reportedly owned by a Russian oligarch which created quite a row a year or so back.

Here's one of the more recent updates.

https://massivelyop.com/2019/03/19/daybreaks-definitely-not-owner-columbus-nova-is-back-in-national-news-again/

The thing I like about the whole Daybreak / Columbus Nova / Renova thing is how obvious their sleaze is making it so easy to see what AAA studios are all about these days.

I especially love how for 3 years they explicitly said hat Daybreak was a subsidiary of Columbus Nova but as soon as CN's name started to be associated with Russian sleaze this side of the Atlantic they started redacting, editing and denying what their own press releases had said for 3 years about the Daybreak / CN connection.

Jeremy Walsh and COE is small potatoes compared to this level of sleaze.

Cybersig211

mmorpgs are incredibly high risk investment, and they are pricey enough at the AAA tier to drop a large company.  SOE had several, if im not mistaken, mmorpgs in development draining tons of cash, that in all reality would have survived maybe a few months in a profitable state.

So SOE dumped it.  Some Webzen tier investment company bought it for pennies on the dollar, tried to keep a few games up (like EqNext) realized what SOE realized and kept only what they could monetize now up, hence daybreak in its current state.


IMO...everyone went after WOW, which had a weakspot (graphics) and every developer chased that, and ignored, mostly, the real reason people were playing was the insane amount of endgame content, and none were able to keep pace enough to really take off like wow did.  Rift came close, imo, when it was new, but couldnt get unbugged raids out fast enough, and didnt have enough side dish content (rifts were meh after a few times)

SOE was smart as hell to dump what they had and sell the upcoming failures before it tarnished the parent company imo.

cheyane

I miss the glory days of Everquest. Truly sad these games are being managed to death by this Daybreak or whatever they are called now.

Veiled_light

AlBQuirky said:

Theocritus said:

I was the complete opposite...I loved EQ1 and didn't care for EQ2 much....I liked that EQ1 had few quests...I liked exploring new areas and going after certain drops....To me the questing that started with WoW ruined the genre....EQ2 went from a hardcore game to WoW II.

EQ did have quests, but nothing like WoW or EQ2. I remember collecting taxes for someone in Qeynos. You had class quests (and the Epic ones). I think there were a handful of quests in the starting cities to get players going, if you talked to everyone

EQ was NOT, however, EverQuest

EQ2 Quests were so much more impressive than WoWs... but they faded after you left the Cities and so did the rest of the game.

IsilithTehroth

Smedly ruined everything good his developers have ever done. When put in charge of a direction he strips games completely of what was fun and unique. IE: Planetside 1 with builds, roles, and actual meaningful territory control compared to Planetside 2 which was everything wrong .