Hi Nikoz, lets clear some things up and not do surgery on my comments.
First AVERAGE of players vs accounts I said was 3 accounts per player which would AVERAGE 45.00 per person, not the 75 you list for some reason. Also 1 million UNITS is very different than 1 million copies of the base game. Every article and press release I have read states units in no clear terms of base vs expansion. That still does not equate to 1 million people as is being loosely discussed right now. If I had to take a guess I would think around half a million tried the game the first year, but that is just a guess. Overall though the retention rate for the game during the Pre-Cu era was vastly superior to the NGE era. I also never said the game was Dieing, so don't put words in my mouth. I said a few thousand subscribers. If you take that to mean 50k or 10k it is personal speculation, but everyone generally agrees that the game has dwindled to be very very low populations. Either way you look at it the numbers are down between 80% and 96% compared to the [again rumored] 250k or so pre nge users.
As for Smed "apology" is says NOTHING about them not releasing games early. All that articles says is an ambigious "we made mistakes" without pointing out what that mistake was other than his infamous "we will listen to our customers". If you really read the quote in that article you can see the lie, he says they didn't listen to the fans when the truth is they never bothered to ask. If that is all you have to base your opinions on and feel that you are enlightened to their change of heart, let me refresh your memory a bit of some of his other promises to listen to the customer.
June 2004 (at the guild summit after the player boycott) At EQMac the author writes, "Smedley had us all sit down, then proceeded to start off the day. He informed us all we were there to help SOE. That they wanted player input on what to do to make the game better, and they promised to listen." terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/not_quite_camp_.html
May 2005 (right after the combat upgrade, I love the part about paying the bills) "Yes, we've seen the petition. Yes, we're reading your emails very carefully.. in fact I've responded to many of you personally. " <<snip>> "and what I'd like to ask your help in doing is to target these problems so that we can knock them down very quickly. As you've seen in the last few days, the team is working tirelessly towards fixing any problems that have arisen.. and with your help we're confident we can get the rest of them taken care of as well." <<snip>> "What would really help us is to give us ideas on how we can improve the new system and cool things you would like to see us do in the near term. We aren't going back to the old system, but with your help I'm confident in a few weeks you're going to feel this was the right call. Obviously you are our customers, and you pay the bills around here... we're trying to make changes that are going to make your experience better in the long run. Please bear with us while we make that effort, and give us a little time to respond and address your concerns." swg.allakhazam.com/news/sdetail5524.html
June 2005 ( Robert Pfister EQ Producer) We're committed to not only listening to your feedback, but working with you to make EverQuest more enjoyable for years to come. www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php
Nov 2005 (I just love that Smed has such a firm grasp of who is paying the bills, again) "You pay the bills around here, and that's not something we are forgetting." <<SNIP>> The Path forward
The real purpose of this post is to ask for your help. In this thread, could you please list the top issues you see needing to be addressed in the short term. Any big problems from your perspective - what's really keeping the NGE from being a postive thing from your perspective. We will be watching this thread carefully and taking notes, and posting an ordered list of stuff we'll take care of (and we'll try to say how quickly we can do it as well). Please keep this thread on point. We have to move forward - asking us to pull the NGE out isn't going to be productive. If you really want to help, here's your chance. www.1up.com/do/my1Up
Feb 2007 (just to show they don't care about launching early) ''Microsoft had wanted to launch this thing in July of 2006,'' Mr. Smedley said. ''We felt like the game needed more time, and we have given it more time, but at some point enough is enough, and we have to ship the game and start generating revenue.'' query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
Jan 2008 (but I thought you were listening like you have been promising for the last 5 years?) John Smedley: Because we didn't listen. I think we were a little too arrogant as a company. We thought we knew what was best as a company, and we should have listened more. That's really the biggest lesson we've learned as a company in the last eight years. Listening to our customers is everything. www.massively.com/2008/01/14/a-ces-interview-with-soe-ceo-john-smedley-pt-1/
So you will just have to forgive me if I don't readjust many years of listening to Smed and company promises that they will start listening to their customers. Also forgive me if I don't make a wild jump to conclusions that Smed admitting the NGE was a disaster financially is any indication that they will somehow finally touch a product that will release in a near finished state.
I understand that living in SOE land that any positive ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds is cause for dancing in the streets, but enough is enough already. This is a company with a long history of putting their ambitions and revenue forcasts far above the customers concerns. When they finally do what you think they might, then by all means point it out to me. Until then history has spoken.
The intent for me posting that link was to direct the anger of the "disgruntled vets" to the right person. That guy did most everything you associate with the "killing of your game", I point to the initial design, and pushing the end product out with no notice. The NGE was the worst decision made in a AAA MMORPG to date. I think everyone agrees on that. What I defend now is that the new dev team has vastly improved the game and it is fun again.
Worst decision? Almost, In my opion the worst decision was to stay the NGE course after it was a proven failure. Every day that decision wears the population down and down. New devs have made meatlumps fun again woot!! Not.
Hi Nikoz, lets clear some things up and not do surgery on my comments. First AVERAGE of players vs accounts I said was 3 accounts per player which would AVERAGE 45.00 per person, not the 75 you list for some reason. Also 1 million UNITS is very different than 1 million copies of the base game. Every article and press release I have read states units in no clear terms of base vs expansion. That still does not equate to 1 million people as is being loosely discussed right now. If I had to take a guess I would think around half a million tried the game the first year, but that is just a guess. Overall though the retention rate for the game during the Pre-Cu era was vastly superior to the NGE era. I also never said the game was Dieing, so don't put words in my mouth. I said a few thousand subscribers. If you take that to mean 50k or 10k it is personal speculation, but everyone generally agrees that the game has dwindled to be very very low populations. Either way you look at it the numbers are down between 80% and 96% compared to the [again rumored] 250k or so pre nge users. As for Smed "apology" is says NOTHING about them not releasing games early. All that articles says is an ambigious "we made mistakes" without pointing out what that mistake was other than his infamous "we will listen to our customers". If you really read the quote in that article you can see the lie, he says they didn't listen to the fans when the truth is they never bothered to ask. If that is all you have to base your opinions on and feel that you are enlightened to their change of heart, let me refresh your memory a bit of some of his other promises to listen to the customer.
June 2004 (at the guild summit after the player boycott) At EQMac the author writes, "Smedley had us all sit down, then proceeded to start off the day. He informed us all we were there to help SOE. That they wanted player input on what to do to make the game better, and they promised to listen." terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/not_quite_camp_.html
May 2005 (right after the combat upgrade, I love the part about paying the bills) "Yes, we've seen the petition. Yes, we're reading your emails very carefully.. in fact I've responded to many of you personally. " <<snip>> "and what I'd like to ask your help in doing is to target these problems so that we can knock them down very quickly. As you've seen in the last few days, the team is working tirelessly towards fixing any problems that have arisen.. and with your help we're confident we can get the rest of them taken care of as well." <<snip>> "What would really help us is to give us ideas on how we can improve the new system and cool things you would like to see us do in the near term. We aren't going back to the old system, but with your help I'm confident in a few weeks you're going to feel this was the right call. Obviously you are our customers, and you pay the bills around here... we're trying to make changes that are going to make your experience better in the long run. Please bear with us while we make that effort, and give us a little time to respond and address your concerns." swg.allakhazam.com/news/sdetail5524.html
June 2005 ( Robert Pfister EQ Producer) We're committed to not only listening to your feedback, but working with you to make EverQuest more enjoyable for years to come. www.graffe.com/forums/showthread.php
Nov 2005 (I just love that Smed has such a firm grasp of who is paying the bills, again) "You pay the bills around here, and that's not something we are forgetting." <<SNIP>> The Path forward
The real purpose of this post is to ask for your help. In this thread, could you please list the top issues you see needing to be addressed in the short term. Any big problems from your perspective - what's really keeping the NGE from being a postive thing from your perspective. We will be watching this thread carefully and taking notes, and posting an ordered list of stuff we'll take care of (and we'll try to say how quickly we can do it as well). Please keep this thread on point. We have to move forward - asking us to pull the NGE out isn't going to be productive. If you really want to help, here's your chance. www.1up.com/do/my1Up
Feb 2007 (just to show they don't care about launching early) ''Microsoft had wanted to launch this thing in July of 2006,'' Mr. Smedley said. ''We felt like the game needed more time, and we have given it more time, but at some point enough is enough, and we have to ship the game and start generating revenue.'' query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html
Jan 2008 (but I thought you were listening like you have been promising for the last 5 years?) John Smedley: Because we didn't listen. I think we were a little too arrogant as a company. We thought we knew what was best as a company, and we should have listened more. That's really the biggest lesson we've learned as a company in the last eight years. Listening to our customers is everything. www.massively.com/2008/01/14/a-ces-interview-with-soe-ceo-john-smedley-pt-1/
So you will just have to forgive me if I don't readjust many years of listening to Smed and company promises that they will start listening to their customers. Also forgive me if I don't make a wild jump to conclusions that Smed admitting the NGE was a disaster financially is any indication that they will somehow finally touch a product that will release in a near finished state. I understand that living in SOE land that any positive ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds is cause for dancing in the streets, but enough is enough already. This is a company with a long history of putting their ambitions and revenue forcasts far above the customers concerns. When they finally do what you think they might, then by all means point it out to me. Until then history has spoken.
/bmoc @ daffid011
seriously, this info should be re-posted in its own thread, titled something like...
"John Smedley, President of SOE, and Biggest Douchebag in the Online Gaming Industry"
"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"
Comments
Bravo Daffid011, good stuff.
they sould put it out of its misery.
Bullet to it's brain pan....
Rip $WG
Worst decision? Almost, In my opion the worst decision was to stay the NGE course after it was a proven failure. Every day that decision wears the population down and down. New devs have made meatlumps fun again woot!! Not.
/bmoc @ daffid011
seriously, this info should be re-posted in its own thread, titled something like...
"John Smedley, President of SOE, and Biggest Douchebag in the Online Gaming Industry"
"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now.
We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?"