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Why do SOE publish the best games and yet they're all failing?
shad0w99
Member Posts: 168
Hi guys,
I just wanted to discuss SOE games as I just got a Station Pass, which allows me to play all of their MMOs. Why is it that SOE have some of the most unique and innovation games on the MMO market yet they all seem to be failing?
Vanguard:
Wow. That's all I can say. This is the only Fantasy MMO that has really grabbed me right from the start. All the classes have something completely unique about them from the start. You don't have to wait until the mid to late levels to get the interesting skills. Why doesn't every MMO do this? The graphics are incredible. In my opinion, they are the best on the market. The sounds and soundtrack are superb. It's tough. It's not the easy-mode I'm used to in other MMOs. There are plenty of important quests you're going to need a group for. And others you could potentially solo but it's going to take a lot of thinking.
Yet despite all this, the game is not in great health. The two US PvE servers are apparently ok. But the PvP and European servers numbers are fairly low. I did /who in all the cities at peak times on the Euro servers and each one had about 10 people in it. Maybe they're in instances but that's still extremely poor.
Planetside:
I played it a few years ago and it's a pretty good game. There isn't anything else like it. Sure, it gets a bit samey after a while but it's a nice change of pace from all the other MMOs out there. This one is dying for sure. The Euro server is quite literally deserted. There is NO ONE on there. The US server isn't doing much better. You don't see the epic battles you used to see. It's much more like guerrilla warfare. People just find an unguarded base, fend off the opposition, capture and move on.
Matrix Online:
Another very unique concept. Again, I played it years ago (before SOE bought it). The combat has changed as far as I can tell. But perhaps it's changed for the better. There's quite a lot to think about, even if the pace does feel a little slow sometimes. Do I use power attacks? Speed? Grab attacks? At which point should I be blocking? I like this! You can swap out ALL your abilities at any time by going to a hardline (phone booth). While it would cost a lot to have ALL the skills in the game fully leveled up, once you have them you have unlimited free respecs. I don't mean a respec like you get on WoW. I mean, you could change from a Kung Fu master to a Spy to a hacker or crafter any time you like.
This one is as dead as the rest. The PvP and RP servers I hear are deserted. I have not tried them but I was recommended not to bother. So I am on Syntax. The numbers here are really poor so I dread to think what the other servers are like.
Star Wars Galaxies:
Yes, it's not pre-CU anymore and it's no where NEAR as good as it once was (I'm a 4 year veteran). While it has lost that magical quality it once has, let's be fair. It still retains some of what made it great (For me at least). It still has player housing and player cities. You still have viable choices other than purely combat such as Trader (crafter) and Entertainer (Buffer and general social class). The economy is still mostly player driven. I won't go into what's not so great about it these days, people have gone on about it for years now.
I'm not sure what the health of this game is. A lot of servers are dead but they're being offered free transfers to more populated servers. Bria and Chilastra, for example, seem ok. Everyone likes to think the game is dead though.
I have not tried EQ. I don't fancy it either. It's extremely old and if I wanted to play an old classic, I would play UO.
I have also not tried EQ2. I will probably try it at some point but I'm in no rush.
I have not tried Pirates of the Burning Sea either. I have no interest in this whatsoever. I'm not a fan of pirates (pirates vs ninjas? Ninjas every time!). Plus I've heard it isn't a great game anyway.
In any case, the 4 games I have talked about are all extremely unique. People say they want something other than an EQ or WoW clone. Each of these 4 games break the mold.
Why is it then, that all these games are dying?
Is it SOEs reputation? I know people hate SOE. I'm a skeptic myself but I'm willing to let them off for now.
Are the games just getting old?
Whatever the reason is, it's sad because all of these games could be great if more people played them!
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
Comments
Definetly try EQ2. I have played off and on since BETA and it is still one of my alltime favorite MMO and I have played pretty much all of them. And yes Vanguard is simply amazing why more people don't play it is beyond me......Definetly the best looking game on the market if you have the rig to run it in all it's splendor!
TBH its mostly people are hateing on SOE and lets be fair. Its mostly Deserved.
If soe bigwigs fired Smed and 90% of the higher up staff, higherd more Low staff and promised to look at the games with fresh eyes this would probably go away.
And I agree with you the games are great... only played post NGE and I hated the game but still... the rest all have a quility to them that most other companys just dont have. we just need more peons working and less jackass talking heads on top.
And Station pass = Win.
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude; greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams
As the above post hints on, the reason is not so much to do with the games, but the company behind them.
While I would agree that 'generally' SOE has made some of the best MMOs to date, they have felt that in doing so entitles them to basically treat their playerbase like cashcows, and somewhat blatantly. One moment comesto mind is when EQ2 was first coming out, and they announced regulating real life trading. When asked why, there response was basically 'because we can make more money', not 'because we think it'll make the game better'.
They do make some great games, but they also tend to be a bit elitest about it. If ever they start to adopt a mentallity of making the genre better, instead of expanding their wallets via any means available, then I will probably give them another look.
Its is because the company is managed by a moron who feels proud to have $800k subscribers for hosting 12 multi-million dollar games.
Because they are not the best games. If they were, SOE could get away with murder.
Vanguard really shines nowadays alot of good improvements and new starting area. I hope they continue to add new content and i concure that it is the best looking game out there at this time.
MAGA
In my opinion SOE games have no challenge, they are easy mode, SOLO games.
They nerf em all to death, not all people want easy boring crap.
Infact I think most don't.
The wheel is turning though, I believe game makers will see the market is changing.
Well I sure as hell hope so!!
explain world of warcraft then, that game is so easy to play that my freind's 4 year old has a level 45 warrior from just messing around on it.
explain world of warcraft then, that game is so easy to play that my freind's 4 year old has a level 45 warrior from just messing around on it.
ehh? explain WOW? haha,
well, WOW is why SOE nerfs games! they want the Subs WOW has!
They want 4 year olds running around being UBAH!
His acount is a paying account!
The mmorpg scene is awful, its darkest hour.
spoonfeed the masses!
SOE has a real issue with the, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" part of games... they are constantly making huge changes. For example, in EQ2, which I played for nearly 3 years, every expansion had some major revision to the game... eventually if you keep pissing people off by changing things they enjoyed about the game, they leave.
then you have Darth Greedious (Mr. Smed), who will do anything if he thinks it will get him $1 more and if it doesn't, it is the players fault for not liking it...
The answer is bad management. In fact, SOE is a prime example of how bad management can ruin a business. Everything from having a horrible payment system, a lack of representation in actual shops (its easier to find a gold pot at the end of the rainbow then to pick up a copy of EQ2 in a Dutch shop for example), the NGE debacle, launching games too early, selling chat and communication data to marketing companies and the list goes on and on.
For example, Vanguard, SWG and EQ2 all suffered greatly from being released too early. In the case of Vanguard and EQ2 the games improved after some time, but by then it was already to late to build up a massive subscriber base.
I remember being on the Vanguard beta forums and seeing literally hundreds of beta-testers beg to have the game released later. At the time Brad defended Sony saying it was all him, but if Sony had strong leadership they would have thrown extra money at the game and demand Brad to postpone it for a year of polishing.
Blizzards policy on releasing games is "when it's done". It's the same policy that worked for many of the most succesful single player games like Nintendo's games (Miyamoto had no problem postponing a game for a full year if he wasn't satisfied) as well as Grand Turismo (I remember GT1 was released in Januari, right after the lucrative christmas period because the designers where simply not satisifed in December, Santa Clause and his big wallet be damned).
In my opinion, that is the secret to Blizzards success. Had Sony been in charge of Blizzard, I'm sure both Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 would have already been out in the market, and they would have started work on WoW 2.
Now of course its hindsight, but if I had run Sony I would have not invested in 10+ sub average games, but instead put all my money in one title and make sure the title would not be released until it had reached a level of polish to actually compete with WoW.
No matter how you want to look at it, SOE games are still heavy group oriented games. People don't want that anymore. They would much rather have a glorified single player game with a chat box to scream out their profanities, Chuck Norris jokes, and stories about Yo' Mama. They are no longer their to help others, only to further their own growth to strengthen their e-peen.
At the risk of sounding too cliché, the times are a changing we will just have to deal with it.
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You wouldn't understand
Someone got it right.It is about SOE hate,it actually started when SOE made EQ2,the EQ1 vets did not like their game being depleted of players and then moved on to bash EQ2 out of anger.Sooo on comes WOW,many leave to that game,then all the new DSL people move on to that game and soon many are playing WOW.
If not for EQ,there would be no WOW PERIOD,end of story.SOE is the innovator and the CREATOR others are followers and copiers.SOE is the grandfather of gaming,there is only two things i have seen different.Asians created the F2P template albei not much a template,just a simplistic game with grind, forcing out Pay situations.The other innovator i have seen is Square Enix,i have seen totally new content created in FFXi that no other game has thought of and their sub class system makes the game far above all others.In FFXI it is not just leveling and grind but they have all aspects of gaming like skill system,elemental damage the whole shibam.
What sets SOE apart from others is their willing to hit all apsects of gaming from Fantasy to sci-fi to political,they try to cover every single type of game to keep all types of players happy.Soe also set the bar as to what we are charged for playing MMO's.
There is perhaps one aspect that fails SOE but IMO is the proper way to go,and that is CHALLENGE.SOE tends to use challenge in their games where by other games can succeed on ZERO challenge because frankly there is a lot of kiddies out there who want things handed to them.We have seen SOE bow under pressure to challenge but this shows that perhaps this is the major reason players play some games and that is for the simpleton give me everything approach.
WOW uses mounts andraiding to cater to PVP,other games like upcoming AION will try to persuade players using their flying niche.DF is succeeding by catering to the PVP players,albeit it is such a poor simplistic combat system,it really makes you wonder why they are PVP'ing their and not in a real PVP game like a FPS game,i guess it is the guild thing,but guilds do exist in FPS games,they call them clans.basically outside of WOW,ALL games right now are trying for the PVP approach to land IMO a VERY small market of perhaps 3 mil gamers in total.
Over all i have a lot more respect for SOE in their approach to gaming ,it is the simplistic players who fear a challenge of ANY kind,that cry and get SOE to whimper down their games.You may in the future see SOE start to release games in a whimper mode ,just because that is what the majoprity is crying for.So expect games like full mounts at level1 for little cost,EVERYONE can fly,any noob wit ha 24 man party can raid and instead of maybe one elite drop 10 elite drops and so on and so on.This is pittiful gaming IMO and would then lean me to be on the oppsite side claiming foul by SOE,as for now i ackowledge them as the leader of the industry.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The root of the problem is the management at soe. They simply do not know how to make games a priority and that trickles down into every facet of their games designs. Everything about upper management is about how to make more money, regardless of the effect it has on their games. That is why they are dying.
Here is my opinion game by game as you have them listed out
Vanguard:
SOE had nothing to do with the design of this game and it already had great potential before soe got their hands on it. Brad and sigil screwed up on making a game in more than enough time. SOE's problem with they game is they have done almost nothing with it. It has been 2 years and the game effectively is the same as it was when they bought it except with some performance fixes (which seem to have been undone in the last patch). Soe will not give this game the resources it needs to grow, because they never had any intentions of seeing this game do well. The game will limp along and receive an occasional update here and there, but not enough to actually capture new players.
Planetside:
Soe killed the game slowly with bad decisions and slow reaction to player requests. The first expansion was so bad it drove people out of the game. It is really just a fps with a subscription.
Matrix:
Monolith gets 100% credit for killing this game. Soe just put it on life support to get the DC comics mmo license. They have zero interest in doing anything with this game. There is no reason to ever expect this game to grow since soe is putting zero effort into it.
Star wars galaxies:
Released the game long before it was ever ready to go to market. Constantly changed the direction of the game. Tell the players one thing and then do the exact oposite. There are just so many issues of what happened it is no surprise that the game died. It is just one lone series of bad choices after bad choice. I don't say mistake, because they were intentional actions. Most of these mistakes transfer over to their handling of EQ/EQ2 also.
A company can only go so far when they constanly piss on their customers and rush out unfinished products. As a company soe just doesn't care enough about its players (or employees) to do what is needed to succeed.
A handful of SOE hating nerds on a few message boards wont cause these games to fail. Casuals comprise a majority of the video game populace, casuals that dont know or care about SOEs past.
They are failing because SOE will only give EQ2 the marketing it needs to survive. So, while EQ2 has expansion after expansion that gives EQ2 all important shelf space and consumer awareness everything else is left to fend for itself.
Vanguard has done a complete turn about since its disastrous launch(caused by the incompetence of Brad McQuaid) to become a fairly decent MMO. But does SOE advertise this? No. Do they even bother to advertise the free trial?! No!!!
But compared to Planetside and Matrix, Vanguard is some kind of golden child. Planetside and Matrix are basically being kept on life support because people wouldnt even know these 2 games were still alive if it wasnt for Stationpass.
But we will see how long EQ2 remains as SOEs top priority with a slew of MMOs aimed at casuals and console gamers on the horizon.
Vanguard's problem was that it was poorly handled prior to becoming an SOE game. Brad McQuaid totally messed that game up -- which is sad because many thought he would bring MMOs back to being actually difficult and community-based.
While SOE deserves some of the bad rep it gets, there's no doubt that coming under SOE was a good thing for Vanguard.
It also released about 2-3 months too early .
Oh give me a fracking break!
SOE and Silius have so competely screwed up Vanguard that in the last poll all of 500 players voted. Vanguard WAS a cool game, then Salim or whatever the heck he is called janked it up. The coolest things in Vanguard were there at launch, SOE and Silius havent done crap that is cool.
They fixed some bugs and then ruined gameplay by tinkering with mechanics that didnt neet to be tinkered with.
I'll give the same reply to every other post like this 1, "Sony Online Entertainment - Where games go to die".
"Life is not judged by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
I recently want to try vanguard agian and since i never played eq 2. I got station pass for all their games.I notice one thing they don't have a lot of servers.Which leads me to believe buiness wise the have found correct amount of servers to have so they can make a profit.To you guys SoE is failing but i would bet money that every game other than planetside and matrix is making a profit.
Like a white elephant graveyard.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
SoE was not behind Vanguard. Sigil was. Sigil ran it into the ground. SoE offered to buy the assets and did. SoE believed they could run a profit by merging the servers and cut the running costs of the game vs having low subscription numbers. Vanguard today is making a profit for SoE because they manage to run it on low costs. Not a big profit but a profit none the less.
SoE didn't buy Sigil because they believed the could turn it around suddently getting millions of subs. It was pretty much planned from day 1 of the buyout to merge servers.
EQ ran its course and earned SoE a lot of money for a lot of years. It wasn't a failure and never has been. Again they bought the assets from Verant Interactive at it's peak.
EQ2 was not a failure either. It had it's glory day.
I don't know exsactly what formular you are using to determine failure here. Are you measuring by WoW standards? Know that WoW was a freak of nature that even took BLizzard by surprise. They knew they had a good product but never in their wildest fantasies did they imagine 11 million subs. I would be surprised if they expected more than a million or two.
If the SoE games generates a profit making them worth running and releasing expansions for then they are not failing
It doesn't matter what a game once was. I'm speaking from the perspective of a station pass owner.
MMOs played (In order of how much I've liked them): Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Vanguard, City of Villains / Heroes, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa, Anarchy Online, Ryzom, Final Fantasy XI, Matrix Online, RF Online, Rappelz, Hero Online, Roma Victor
Because SOE is in the money making business, not in the making good games business.
A business model based on a game being good is rewarding, but risky. Base making money on having many crappy games and you can factor out the risk.
So in other words SOE hopes that if they fling enough poo poo somethings bound to stick eventually...
So in other words SOE hopes that if they fling enough poo poo somethings bound to stick eventually...
Partially but if you take into account their resources they can afford to make money from crappy games that would bankrupt smaller companies (Matrix Online, SWG) So really they don't care. Their threshold of the number of subscribers needed to make a game profitable is a lot lower than other companies.