EverQuest II: Letter From The Big Cheese

Admin · February 2005

John Smedley, the President of Sony Online Entertainment released a letter to the players today. It covers all kinds of topics, but mostly the direction that he sees his juggernaut MMO company heading. The letter is below:

Sony Online Entertainment Looks Towards the Future

With the launch of EverQuest in 1999, Sony Online Entertainment (back then we were Verant) was on the leading edge of what became a revolution in the video game business... Online Gaming. We certainly didn't invent it...in fact; we stood on the shoulders of some pretty amazing games, including Ultima Online... Meridian 59 and many, many other games including some great text MUDs.

EverQuest had that magic that propelled it to selling over 3 Million units over its six year (well almost) lifespan. We've released 9 expansion packs during that time that have added an absolutely massive amount of content that we're pretty proud of. Certainly some of those expansions were better than others, but I think our goal has always been the same.... to entertain our players.

With the launch of EverQuest II, our goal was to refine EverQuest... to distill the things that made EverQuest great, but also to add its own flavor and gameplay style. I think it's fair to say we also needed to aim for a more casual gamer... and make the game appeal to people that may not have the same amount of time they had when EverQuest first came out. As a company we needed to also appeal to a wider base of people. I think you can see from the universal appeal of the Lord of the Rings books (and oh yeah, the movies too....) fantasy worlds are what we can all call "mass market". I'm really proud of EverQuest II and I honestly believe we delivered on our goals of making an incredibly fun and immersive world that our players want to be a part of and make their own.

Over the years, we've learned a lot. The biggest thing we've learned is that our players care very much about everything we do and the changes we make to their world. I cannot tell you how many thousands of emails I've gotten over the years complaining about class balance, nerfs, and overall changes we've made to the game. While I can absolutely understand and respect where each and every one of the people that took the time to write these passionate emails came from (and I read every single one of them and do my best to respond to them as well), I can also assure you that our game teams really do care about the changes they make. Remember... YOU, our players, write our paychecks.

But it's more than that.

It's also about truly caring about what we do. The vast majority of our development teams come from our player base. That's a fact that I'm incredibly proud of. In fact, it may surprise you to know that EverQuest actually was the catalyst for one of our Executive Team members to meet his wife (he just got married within the last 6 months)... she was in his guild... one thing led to another and... well the rest is as they say history.

We've certainly made our share of mistakes over the years... but overall, we've tried to stay true to our primary goal of entertaining you.

That's our job description.

Now what's been interesting from our perspective is what really serious competition is doing to the online gaming space. World of Warcraft has come on the scene and is doing awesome. Kudos to Blizzard on what I think is a spectacular game. I've played the heck out of it, and I love it (as have many people here at SOE). To a game developer, having another game developer play your game is the ultimate compliment... so to the folks at Blizzard we say "Nicely done".

But don't think for a second that we don't see WoW as both a great game AND Blizzard as serious competition.

Personally... I'm glad they are out there. They keep us honest. They keep us focused and they force us to play with our 'A' game. They've certainly opened some eyes in our company to styles of gameplay that are different than we would have come up with inside SOE. I hope they're also opening up the eyes of other MMO developers that the 'old school' probably won't cut it any more. I'm glad that we went in the direction we did with EQ II because had we stuck with making an even "harder core" game, I think bad things would have happened. We need to be about larger scale mass-entertainment... because that's what online gaming is slowly becoming. Our games just need to be fun... and easy to get into.

In the United States there are around 2 Million paying online gamers (this is after WoW btw). That's up from 250,000 back before EverQuest was released... and I'm only counting the MMOs... if you start to add in the Pogo's of the world we're probably talking about 3-4 Million online gamers... and I have no idea what scary numbers some of these online poker places are bringing in.

What this means is that making future online games is a big business that is going to be increasingly competitive. I think that's good for you, and good for us. It's going to ensure great games get made... and I can tell you we're in this for the long haul.

Where are we going? What are we going to be doing to revolutionize this business? Well let me throw out just a few of the things we're thinking about here at SOE.

What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name.....

What if players could build fantastic dungeons that become part of the worlds we create with tools we give them? How would that work exactly?

Can MMORPGs have skill-based combat?

What if?

I mention these things to be provocative. I want to make sure we're going to take what we do to the next level... and that's going to mean putting some next generation ideas out there and seeing the kinds of things you actually want... but I at least want to start this dialogue and stir the pot a little. We're very interested in your ideas about where things go from here.

John Smedley
President, Sony Online Entertainment

Minimum · February 2005

I'm really not sure what the whole point of this letter was. Other than to acknowledge the hammering they've gotten from WoW.

As far as the future, the few things he's mentioned won't work. Not in my opinion anyway.

And as for EQ2, I and 3 other friends bought it the day it went public, we were really interested in what they had done to Norrath. We were disappointed to say the least. Smed can claim that their team came from players, but the reality is, they really haven't learned much, and are suffering a real disconnect from the gaming community. Again just my opinion.

I don't know what the definition of Casual vs Hardcore is supposed to be, but I play at least 2 hours a night 5 nights a week, and 3 hours on the other 2 nights, I also usually put in 3 hours on weekend mornings. On the other hand, I don't min/max, I don't cruise websights for the latest uber cookie cutter skill layout. I just try and enjoy. I and my friends also don't group a whole heck of a lot. I'm usually in a duo with my regular hunting partner.

EQ2 wasn't fun. What was the first change they made after the game went live? It was to nerf the cons on some of the mobs. Designed only to make soloing/small group more difficult. There is also the question of loot. If your not in the group there isn't any. Again, only to make solo more difficult. If you DO group, then you have group debt. Just another way to make sure everybody suffers. The whole debt thing is unnecessary and arbitrary. It's just not fun. Again that's my opinion.

Going back to loot. I remember my first days in EQ, I started in final beta. Killing even orc pawns was fun, because I'd want to see what the loot was. A few copper, rusty weapon of some kind. I remember my first cracked staff, I took it to the vendor and it sold for over 1pp. I was so shocked I didn't sell it till I made sure there was nothing special about it. There's none of that in EQ2. Most mobs have nothing, or maybe I'd get a maple buckler. Oh Goodie. No, if you want loot you have to group, and pay the price for that.

Now they've announced that there will be more "solo" content. But again, it's very little, some more quests, big deal, and maybe if we're lucky they'll allow more loot. I'm not holding my breath. Action, not words Smedly. I've seen very little action. While I agree raid bosses and boss mobs should have special loot, the fact that you continue to deny anything real to the solo'ers and small groups, just shows that you really still don't get it.

Then of course there is the character limit. 4 characters. There's no real reason for this other than pure greed. Of course if you pay more a month, you can, gasp, have 8 characters. Pure greed.

Then there are adventure packs. Greed strikes again. It's all just an attempt to keep their hands in our pockets.

There is very little in this game that was put there purely for fun, or to show a sense of humor. There is plenty that was put purely to punish less than perfect play. My friends and I all moved on to WoW. The few positive changes made are too little too late. While you claim a desire to appeal to a bigger audience, your actions continue to show that's not the case. I'll not deny the hard work put into the game, it shows. It's stable and of good quality. But it's just NOT fun for me.

claith · February 2005

Smed is a retard,,"Old School" is what got him where hes at,he'll find out the hard way.

Bburkk · February 2005

Im really getting tired of all the sunshine getting blown up my rear by SoE. EQ2 in my opinion missed and missed huge. They can make all the changes and pretty promises they want to, but it doesnt take away from the fact that the game that a lot of us hoped for isnt there.

Heres to Vanguard the real EQ2

Anofalye · February 2005

*boggle*

I am still not sure what he want to say exactly.

But if he want to build a 3rd generation MMORPG, first gen was 2D, second gen was 3D, so technically talking, the major asset that is missing is not on the graphical engine IMO, but on the vocal engine, live voice.

Just an opinion however.

Is WoW success this great? Personnally I am disappointed and find WoW to be a failure, despite their many subscriptions, considering the Blizzard reputation, I think they fall flat, on their nose. Is WoW purely bad? Nah, but it fall short of what they could have achieve, WoW will have very little longevity for it size...achieving twice the success of EQ2 may look great, but if you consider the amount of loyal customers already addicted to others Blizzard products, we are not even yet talking in millions customers for WoW...and as peoples on this site say, this ''little'' amount of peoples(relatively, considering others Blizzard releases) speak volume in itself.

IMO, CoH, with a zero reputation achieve a far greater result, they have a 0 customer base prior release.

Someone may say 100 is greater then 20, but if you achieve 100 from 95, and the guy who achieve 20 start at 0, who is the true winner? And the guy who achieve 150 from a starting 200 is clearly failing.

Dawgs · February 2005

First off sony was never verant, sony bought verant out right after velious came out, if i remember right, and i think i do. Also sony had nothing to do with the way eq1 was made, they ruined the game after buying out verant. Sony has let the solo player and the whinners that post crap on the boards to let them have things there way. This has ruined the game in mho. Sony took away the fun we had in camping a spot in a certain zone. Youcant go anywhere now and just sit and camp, they give the solo player extra exp just because hes a solo player, they punish the player that plays for more than 4 or 5 hours at a time. I pay for this game, why should I are anyone else that plays for a extented amount of time be punished for that, and why reward a player who just plays for 2 hours a day. And where are the rare mobs now, where is the rare armor, where are the quest that once took days, or weeks to complete. They say they have rare mobs for quest hehe im sorry but a rare mob doesnt respawn 2 hours after a group has killed him. Theres no rare armor, every tom dick and harry has got the same damm armor, or weapons. In eq2 theres really no place for the high lv player to go except EF and LS. When eq1 first came out, there was quite a few places to keep the high lv people busy, they werent crowded in the same zone. Sony is trying to take the credit for starting eq, but again it wasnt them, it will never be them. Sony is saying that the hard core games, and gammers are dieing, I DONT THINK SO. Sony is pushing them out just to please the whinners, they mention vanguard, I for one will be playing that game when it comes out. For those of you who do not know , but vanguard is the same people who made eq1. They are making there game the way it should be. In other words there not going to hold your hand like sony has done with eq2 and guide you threw it. Thats the way it should be. I f people would quit whinning and learn how to play the game, there char, before whinning and posting nerf this and that, maybe, just maybe the gam could be put back the way it was meant to be played in the first place. I could go on , but ill stfu now, this wasnt a rant, it was just how I feel sony has fooked up a damm good game

Valarauk · February 2005

Originally posted by Dawgs
First off sony was never verant, sony bought verant out right after velious came out, if i remember right, and i think i do. Also sony had nothing to do with the way eq1 was made, they ruined the game after buying out verant.

I think "ruined" may be too strong a word. They just bought out a winning franchise and failed to take it anywhere new out of fear of screwing up their winning formula. Now times have changed, serious competition is present and they are left with a purchased reputation that they cannot live up to very well.

Which is why EQ2 is what it is today. They didn't change the formula much and the lack of innovation has left them with a decent game whereas people were expected another genre defining giant.

necbone · February 2005

the point of this letter was to tell people that eq2 just got their ass kicked by wow, and to let people know that eq2 isnt out of the game yet.....smedly sounds like a cool guy, he sounds honest and you cant buy honesty or sincerity....

heres how i feel.....make a dope ass game and i'll play it....i have no ties or loyalties to any of these game companies, none of these developers are my friends(no offense yall)....i'm only on my side; to quote prince, "i wanna party like its 1999"

if you build some hot shit, people will come...and eq2 isnt hot....i'm no fanboi, i'm a fuckin gamer

yea, i quoted prince up there...

Valarauk · February 2005

Nice blog discussion on this and the genre in general @

www.slashdot.org

Enjoy

happydan20 · February 2005

I thought this a rather funny attempt at sincerity. It was more like a political commercial where they pretend to be whomever the pollsters tell them to be. It was like he was saying, "wow is kicking our ass, but we're all on the same team right?"

Then he took the truth and stated the opposite because it was the most damaging problem... He said he was glad they didnt go hard core... when that is exactly what they did, they went super hard core i mean shared exp debt... come on. I geuss its not bad enough that you have your own.

Is it just me or is the underlying message "play wow AND play ours?"

Jackdog · February 2005

Originally posted by Admin

John Smedley, the President of Sony Online Entertainment released a letter to the players today. It covers all kinds of topics, but mostly the direction that he sees his juggernaut MMO company heading. The letter is below:

What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name.....

I wonder if has ever heard of the game Mourning?

NorrinRadd · February 2005

=======

Now what's been interesting from our perspective is what really serious competition is doing to the online gaming space. World of Warcraft has come on the scene and is doing awesome.

=======

Translation: We just got our asses kicked by another MMOG.

=======

Kudos to Blizzard on what I think is a spectacular game. I've played the heck out of it, and I love it (as have many people here at SOE). To a game developer, having another game developer play your game is the ultimate compliment... so to the folks at Blizzard we say "Nicely done".

=======

Translation: Blizzard built a better game, one our own team would rather play.

=======

But don't think for a second that we don't see WoW as both a great game AND Blizzard as serious competition.

=======

Translation: WoW is such a success we've gotta do something or EQII will die a slow death.

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Personally... I'm glad they are out there. They keep us honest.

=======

Translation: I'm blowing smoke up everyone's asses. [ex: Honey, I'm glad you found out I've been sleeping with your gorgeous, younger, double-jointed sister. Lying to you has been really hard.]

=======

They keep us focused and they force us to play with our 'A' game.

=======

Translation: We've been coasting by with our 'B', 'C', and 'D' teams for years.

=======

They've certainly opened some eyes in our company to styles of gameplay that are different than we would have come up with inside SOE. I hope they're also opening up the eyes of other MMO developers that the 'old school' probably won't cut it any more.

=======

Translation: We've been asleep at the wheel for so long that we couldn't conceive of anything different. And those companies that have been trying to emulate us better look again.

=======

I'm glad that we went in the direction we did with EQ II because had we stuck with making an even "harder core" game, I think bad things would have happened.

=======

Translation: Our EQ care bear fanbois would crucify us if we tried something new.

=======

We need to be about larger scale mass-entertainment... because that's what online gaming is slowly becoming. Our games just need to be fun... and easy to get into.

In the United States there are around 2 Million paying online gamers (this is after WoW btw). That's up from 250,000 back before EverQuest was released... and I'm only counting the MMOs... if you start to add in the Pogo's of the world we're probably talking about 3-4 Million online gamers... and I have no idea what scary numbers some of these online poker places are bringing in.

What this means is that making future online games is a big business that is going to be increasingly competitive. I think that's good for you, and good for us. It's going to ensure great games get made... and I can tell you we're in this for the long haul.

Where are we going? What are we going to be doing to revolutionize this business? Well let me throw out just a few of the things we're thinking about here at SOE.

What if you could have families in MMO's? Virtual Children... What if your characters could have children and pass on the family name.....

=======

Translation: We've decided to continue our move away from Hardcore gamers and focus on the care bear, family oriented, mass-market. MMOGs are going to be an even bigger cash cow than they are now, and we want to continue milking it. To do that we are going to focus on the millions out there who we might lure into a mediocre game. How about this idea: a fantasy based MMORPG where you can have a family. We plan on calling it: EQ:SIMs.

Warcriminal · February 2005

Holy cow Norrin, I totally dig your way of thinking.

I thought a lot of the same thoughts while reading it

necbone · February 2005

good stuff^^

poor eq2 people=( if you havent yet, come to WoW, cuz its fun...

darkraptor · February 2005

guild wars > WOW > EQ2.

That is how it will end up, because Guildwars will charge less and support masses of people better even in beta...at least this has been my prediction from the start and has pulled through.

I watch people who play WOW rationalize off the downtime and server caps and stuff but it's really not acceptable. I think DAOC dealt with server populations accurately including this new thing they did with frontiers clustering.

necbone · February 2005

Originally posted by darkraptor

guild wars > WOW > EQ2.
That is how it will end up, because Guildwars will charge less and support masses of people better even in beta...at least this has been my prediction from the start and has pulled through.
I watch people who play WOW rationalize off the downtime and server caps and stuff but it's really not acceptable. I think DAOC dealt with server populations accurately including this new thing they did with frontiers clustering.

woah woah woah....the downtime of WoW(which is small)....if you want to rationalize the downtime of wow its summed up by the 350k+ people playing...what other game is getting slammed like wow right now? get yur facts straight, no other online game has ever been in the situation wow is in....they didnt even fuckin advertise(example, EQ2)

first of all, guildwars is a cool game, but it does not hold up to wow; its a different kind of game; and if yur complaining about paying a monthly bill, pleae please go some where else, most people who play wow(or any other online game) play more than 70hrs a month, which is more than most console games(playstation,xbox,gamecube); so why not thro them some $$$ for playing +50hrs a month to a game that has a somewhat live crew working on it(dev team).

darkraptor · February 2005

Nec,

your customers = your responsibility
whether its 6 billion or 1 person, it's the responsiblity of the provider of whatever it is, in this case WOW, to be able to be up 24/7 or as close as possible. If it's something that is available all the time then that's exactly how it needs to be.

Is it unrealistic? no. It's expecting them to do their job. Also, since Blizzard offers pay by the month what does it matter how much or how little people play? They're getting paid the same either way. Their incentive is that by doing their job, more people join and the same people stay.

Also, everyone advertises somewhere. And don't tell me blizzard started from 0, because people knew about WOW before it even got to it's first closed beta. I heard news about WOW development maybe a week after publications that EQ2 was in development. Hell, I think it was shortly after LOY was released for EQ that I heard about EQ2 development and WOW, pretty much at the same time or within a week of eachother.

Personally, after playing EQ2, WOW, and Guild Wars, I have to say that guild wars has the best system in place for questing and a very well set up PVP system. Reason? Limitations are placed that make things more difficult and more balanced. The 8 person quest in guild wars (as opposed to their standard 6) represents flexibility within a single party, not "500 person raid on big fat npc"

I applaud WOW. they made a great game, and they made some screwups. Add that all together, and my vote isnt' for WOW either.

CerebralM · February 2005

dont really feel like going on a long post about the matter.... but honestly I see both WoW and EQ2 as massive titles that failed to meet their mark... I played almost every mmo out on the market from UO toi present day and I'm not impressed with either.... I would say the Original EQ and AO are probably still the breadwinners in the MMO family.. I played EQ for 5 years and AO for 3 and both... are what I like to see in games... even though I long for something new...

DDO, Vanguard, and IF Trials of Ascenstion ever makes it gold, I'm better on those three over anything else.

necbone · February 2005

things change and sometimes people do too, i dont really know what that means, but i'm trying to say, you're going to stick with the game you first started with over a new game.....yur first game has soul and a heartbeat feeling too it, but at some point yur going to have to choose whether you want the '76 vette or '05 lexus......eventually you're going to have to ride in yur new whip, just because its effecient, but you can take yur vette out on the sunny days and the weekends....

i explained the car analogy to a chick about another chick one time....it dosnt hold up well...

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