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SOE silences all EQ players...
bhug
Member UncommonPosts: 944
05.12.14
Due to cost concerns (lack of subscribers) SOE now has silenced all in their chat rooms "moderated" as they fired more $20k / yr GMs they do not have spare ones to do 1 hr shifts monitering the main chat room (they still have a GM in the 'stuckcharacter' room.) So they just silence all open chat in their chat room, you can still send harassing tells to fellow chat room people, but since we can no longer chat, ask questions nor help those new to game having problems, their main chat room is nearly deserted... another nail in the cofin of EQ.
To try and get more $, SOE will be offering by the second week in Jan 2006, their next package deal, an upgrade from the current $20 platinum 7 expansion package, to a $20 Titanium 10 expansion package. Nice since just one of the latest expansions cost like $30, soon you can get all ten for $20.
Wonder if they will do like AC2 did shortly after their latest expansion reneig and just shut down the game. EQ used to have about 80k subscribers/43 servers, now it barely has 30k/ 23 servers, legends is scheduled to shut down in two months.
At the moment SOE is allowing free play to former closed accounts (? for 23 days) to bring back people and let them check out the new EQ2 type UI and their eqplayers.com scheme. Get your last chance to play the game before it shuts down. Paudal cavern from 70 to 130 players (lvl 2 to 24) now rarely has more than 4. And pok still has 5 to 15 people asking for temp/virt and kei. Prices still way too high in bazaar.
Except for the $20 Titanium expansion package next year, SOE just does not care about EQ anymore.
...
Possibly with Vanguard: Saga of Heroes retailing mayby next summer it is best to just let EQ fade away
16 March 1999 EQ retailed, if Saga retails 16 March 2006, i know at least 50k former EQ people will be there!
Comments
Why is this posted here instead of the Everquest forum?
I opened my rotting account for the 21 day trial, and am enjoying it actually playing with all my old friends, but i don't think i will renew my account after the trial, because i am afraid it WILL die like you predit =(.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
I for one would hate to see EQ down the tubes. I may be the only one who feels this way, but I felt sorry for the AC2 players. I didn't play AC2 but I can just imagine how crummy it must have been for their player base. Yet for some reason people seem to rejoice in others hardship. If SOE is a bad company like everyone says then why don't you hope they get their act together. It takes a really mean spirited person to take it out on the EQ players though.
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</OBAMA>
Hmm suprised i am the only one so far to smell a troll.
1)you have zero evidence SoE has sacked anyone
2)Even if they did SoE has always lead the way for getting rid of CSR.Heck in 2001 when the game had well over 500k accounts they sacked some GMs!
3)if you don't know why a level 20s zone is almost empty for a 6 year old game then best not read any further.Go think about it and come back and feel the light bulb go over your head
4) last reliable figures said EQ1 has about 500k accounts and even if for some reason within the last 6-12 months they had a massive lose of accounts even 100k will still make it a profitable game and as such it will not close.
Fact you compare it to AC2 shows how little you know about what happened to AC2.It had less then 30k accounts for a looong time thus ran into the red.EQ1 for sure has well over this even now.
5)fact that u state EQ1 used to have 80k accounts shows again how ill informed you are as it used to have 500k accounts!And again you make a zero evidence statement that it has 30k .Do you sleep and dream this numbers ??
Amen Hercules, I dont play EQ1 but I do play EQ2 and have not heard anyone talking about this at all. I personaly think SOE is a great company and like every company they have made mistakes its nothing I have not seen a million times before in other games ive played.
EQ Is old its bound to have less people playing it as it once did. UO has gone through the same motions why ? simple its OLD. I still love UO and I probably have the best memories of playing it
"5)fact that u state EQ1 used to have 80k accounts shows again how ill informed you are as it used to have 500k accounts!And again you make a zero evidence statement that it has 30k .Do you sleep and dream this numbers ??"
I love that one hehe.
MY GOD A COMAPANY WANTS MONEY, SAY IT AINT SO.
I don't know if what he said is true but I too did log into the chatroom and i could not say a word..
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
WHEE
Tinfoil hats must be selling like hotcakes!
Since when does EQ1 only have 80k accounts? Last figure I saw they were still well over 400k accounts... that was 3 months ago.
EQ2 has over 500k accounts, as of September reported by the New York Times.
I don't much care for some of SOE's business practices but this post is not only pure speculation it's just made up numbers.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Merry Christmas SOE! If this is a troll trick rumor , bravo for getting 12 posts!
If its the truth , I am not suprised .
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
I played EQ... they had a lot of problems with GMs. After a while they hardly ever showed up. There's a lot of problems... dont see why they would make less people to help. My brother still plays. He basically knows how to fix every problem himself.
To the OP named Bhug,
Here is something that renders your vent, rant, post ---- moot:
The thing with AC2 is... it never made its money back. It never re-couped its investment money. It truly was a failure, a bomb. It died. It never made it to the intended shelf life of a mmorpg - 5years.
EQ has loooong ago made its money back. Not only did it re-coup its investment money, it has turned an insane profit. EQ is not just a success, it is an ultra-success. EQ cost 5 million to make. It has generated over 1 billion in profit for SOE. (source: Article entitled "The Sorcer of Sony" in the magazine Buisness 2.0 )
Even with SOE paying roughly 35 million to buy back EQ from Smeadly, SOE has still made an insane profit off EQ. Enough to fund SWG, PS, EQ2, the other little online games at station.com (like Infantry, Tanarious, etc....), as well as fund the tons of expansions for EQ.
Way back when EQ2 was first announced, that was when "SOE silenced all EQ players". EQ was unofficially dying/dead when EQ2 was announced. So right now.... so what if half of EQ's servers have been consolodated? So what if EQ has less than 80k players? So what if EQ has less than 30k players? So what if EQ gets shut down? There is no loss at all to SOE. Nothing at all.
If they haven't closed EQOA by now, they certainly aren't going to close down EQL any time soon.
Sad thing about EQOA is that when the PS2 platform gets outdated...the game goes bye bye unless they somehow port it to the PC..but I tried it on my ps2 with a free trial and thought it was sucky.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
MMORPG = Mostly Men Online Roleplaying Girls
http://www.MichaelLuckhardt.com
I beta tested it and sucky is a good word for it. Is the PS3 not going to be compatible? I've not even read anything about it. Rumour has it coming out in March 2006... unless I'm thinking of something else and accidentally made up that date.
As for EQ... games get old and die just like people, I suppose. If the bajillions of expansions they continue to release are not revitalising the game and attracting new subscribers, I should think it would eventually start losing money. I have wondered what the subscription numbers are for things like the Mac EQ or EQOA... I can't imagine that they're very good.
To my knowledge, EQLive still has a sufficient number of subscribers to keep it running. They just reduce the costs so that it still remains a profitable service.
As a general comment, I really do not understand all the hate generated for SOE or any other company (more recently, NPCube for their bumpy start). If you don't like a game, you can simply cancel your account and find entertainment opportunities elsewhere. If SOE is indeed a failure in its policies, then that will show from the decreasing number of subscriptions and, eventually, financial loss.
As Signe pointed out, it's very hard to renew customer interest in an old product. Considering the data from mmogchart.com, that's the same for every MMOG on the market, as after a certain period of time (say, one or two years after release) the "successful" titles are the ones that keep the number of subscriptions steady.
Eventually, an old MMOG will die and it's death is unpreventable, though it may take even a decade.
Currently playing:
* City of Heroes: Deggial, Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. Server: Defiant.
* City of Villains: Snakeroot, Plant/Thorns Dominator. Server: Defiant.
Link please? Because last I checked EQ2 was sitting roughly at around 300,000 during September/October. I seriously doubt they gained 200,000+ subscribers in such a short amount of time.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
You hit the nail on the head Hercules. The OP doesn't have a clue about what he posted. Heck, as little as 1 1/2 years ago, EQ1 hit 100k players online simultaneously. The OP is probably one of the many banned EQ1 accounts.
======================
It's just me, so open the door.
Agreed.
Infinity: The Quest for Earth, space-sim MMO with a seamless procedural galaxy.
Link please? Because last I checked EQ2 was sitting roughly at around 300,000 during September/October. I seriously doubt they gained 200,000+ subscribers in such a short amount of time.
Don't have a link. I get the New York Times delivered, thanks. It was an editorial about online games in September. The article was actually about WOW but mentioned subscriber numbers for both WoW and EQ2. In the article they listed EQ2 at "between 450 and 550k subscribers" and WoW at "nearly 4.5 million" or words to that affect.
Hell dig through this site... someone here had linked to it at one point in time.
Go do your damn homework... I'm NOT doing it for you.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Link please? Because last I checked EQ2 was sitting roughly at around 300,000 during September/October. I seriously doubt they gained 200,000+ subscribers in such a short amount of time.
And you're wrong. In MAY it was sitting at around 300,000 per MMORPGCHART.COM. They havent posted new stats since then. I'm referring to the New York Times article in September about WoW and had a reference to EQ2's subscribers as well.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
05.12.16
Since Jan 2002, EQ new subscribers has been nearly flat
In fact for the last two years the only thing shoring up aparent ongoing populations are the schemes, letting old inactive accounts back for free play and even giving 50 and 100k free keys to come try EQ.
After DAoC retailed 2002, SOE insisted EQ no longer show the server populations (that ranged from 2500 high [Bristlebane, Zeb and Xeg] to the Zek-pker low 200s.) And by 2003 (PoP expansion) most players were commenting about the deserted zones and inability to find people to group with. When wow retailed Nov 2004 the #s of actual players in EQ took huge hits yet if one believes that fabricated ~400k subscribers there is a problem.
1. Many had two and three subscriptions for multi boxing, meaning the actual number of unique players was 1/2 to 1/5 that 400k implies,
2. and SOE was giving free access "trial" account keys 50k and +100k that also tended to indicate way more playing/subscribing than were actually there.
3. Remember when pok had 150 to 300 people, now it has 15 to 50.
Put it this way if there are 46 glasses/servers half full and you merge that so you pour population from 46 glasses to 23, if the population remains you should have 23 full glasses, but if you have now 23 glasses half full you lost half the population, and as IS the case you have 23 servers 15 to 25% full you have lost 4/5 of that 400k population leaving about 80k and in that 80k alot are multible account holders, it is not 80k people in those 23 servers.. there are NOT near 3500 on each and every one of the current servers, there is not even 1500, not even 1000 !
Most of the servers have 1/10 the populations they used to have. Actual people playing. That's about 30k actual people playing in ALL the EQ servers. (re the AC2 comparison, AC2 had about 30k subscribers with 7 to 12k playing nightly. But AC2 sold a last expansion to gouge that last bit of $ and then announced it was shutting down.) Notice in early 2006 EQ will have the Titanium 10 expansion package for $20 (nice for people wanting to update their 3 & 5 expansion accounts to a full access account.) But with so few still playing EQ, if this GREAT deal does not bring in new blood the future for EQ is not bright.
mmo mkt by share
100 to 700k subscribers
B. consider a temp-GM post purged from the EQ bbs:
"Hello everyone. I thought I would swing by and deliver you the news personally...
I am no longer with Sony Online Entertainmnt as of today:
As most of you know from XXX server - I used to be a very active GM with events, personal investigations of your issues rather than brushing you off and/or actively hunting down hackers/exploiters...
You have seen over the last few months that I have made less of an appearance on the server to becoming a rare spawn.
This is due to SOE changing their policies, not in game but on the floor - internally - with the way the CS department is run. For the most part - it is structured pretty good but the policies are being conveyed in such a way that is making the GM staff basically turn and say something like:
**SMURF**?
As a result, some of the GMs there - both from EQ and EQ2 have altogether quit and gone to Sigil (Vanguard) because the incentive there is much more than the incentive at SOE, as have various other employees from different departments. New employees to the company will be walking into the new system, they won't know SOE like we did.
The policy change I'll mention, (because it effects YOU), is with the handling of tickets and the way that is done... Before - when the ticket count in the queue was like 500+ GM's, in addition to answering tickets, could also hold events, do side projects, etc and still get the work done that needed to be done. But now they are pushing GM's to basically grind tickets like telemarketers grind phonecalls. (Sorry, if that is what I wanted to do I'd do it for $20 an hour at some seedy telemarketing company). How does that effect you? Well - they are pushing for faster response times while keeping the quality as high as possible (of the canned responses they use I mean)...
Here is an example... (I haven't verified this myself, but it's the word on the floor and it makes sense so I'm going with it).
We also supply the CS for Final Fantasy. However - word has it - for every ticket they answer, Sony gets paid $25. So - last month or so there was a roll over... (For those of you that don't know - SOE uses temporary employees that may or may not get rolled over to the actual company. Most just get laid off when they hire more India GM's - I'll get into that in a second). So back to the roll over - 5 FF GM's got rolled over... Think about that - $25 a ticket and lets say you answer 80 tickets in a day, and you times that by 5 people... That's like... $10K. The rest of the SOE CS - do not have a price on their head such as that so no one from EQ or EQ2 got rolled over. (Not even me - yes - I was also a temp)...
When I lashed back from that directly to the Managers and brought that up directly - they denied it of course. But with the push for their CS to respond faster/better to the queue now (and mind you the queue now is about 100-200 maximum these days so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless....................) it makes me think they are trying to sell their CS services to other companies that may be thinking about coming out with MMO's. Don't get me wrong - I could be totally mistaken and crazy here...
India GM's...
Submit a tcket - chances are the first bonehead response you get will be from a India GM... Something like: "I don't know ****, but hang on while I forward this ticket to an American GM who can give you a canned response." Don't get me wrong - there are a few GM's on the American side that kick ass such as GM Darcfae, GM Dartuan, the other guy... I can't remember his GM name at the moment. I don't really pay attention to the rest... Oh - the rest. LOL. That includes about 5-10. Yeah, there are about............ 5-10 American GM's on the floor g/t. The rest are all India GM's staged out of..... Cambodia? I can't remember but it doesn't really matter anyway...
Well... In the end - it's been fun playing games for a living and Xegony is "easily" the best server of the bunch... (Trust my words - other servers suck - I say that based on the tickets I read every day). Not to mention there are the coolest people you'll meet - on Xegony. I know that from personal experiences as I have met some of you - and in more ways than one but uh... ...yeah - that's confidential LOL
Anyway.............................
Oh - why am I no longer there? Lets just say I am a very outspoken, street wise individual with an attitude. So when the changes came across the board - people knew how I felt pretty fast. Namely the managers...
...and I was a little bitter about not being rolled over as well so my "performance" dropped... I guess I didn't really see a point anymore after all that in maintaining the standard...
So all you hackers and exploiters out there... Take a deep breath - because there is "no one" in the company that even came close to being as good as I was at tracking you, catching you, and sticking a hot iron right up your ass as a reminder to please stop using hacks and/or ban your little account... You're good to go now... Just don't be stupid and do it right in front of a GM like some of you are notorious for doing...
So that's it... My run is over..."
For in Life is Death, and in Death is Life.
Shards of Time Druid Class Advisor
Saryrn Server
You really don't know when to be quiet bhug lol.
So who do we believe mmogchart.com that is a dedicated site that researches this numbers and on quite a few occasions has been shown to be right or u who just goes on a "i hate SoE" crusade?
By the way you do know what active subscriptions are and the difference between a trial account and that?
You again shot yourself in your leg by linking mmogchart.com which shows EQ1 over 450k subs as of july 2005 which is over 7 months after WoW and EQ2 launched as you state EQ1 became empty after WoW went live.
Also you state multi accounts.Ok so lets say by your reasoning each 30k left in EQ1 has 15 accounts each(no one laugh pls lets think like bhug) to make the 450k (the reliable figure given to us ).
You do realise thats still paid accounts.So even if there is 450k paying accounts by 30k ppl or 450k actual ppl on single accounts its the same $$$$ .Simple maths my friend.
Then you post a statement that may or not be from an ex-GM who talks about his grip with the company and no time states the EQ1 numbers been in any trouble.
Whats up dude???
05.12.18
... let's see if one can simplify,
Implied from that chart a steady if not increasing # of EQ subscribers since summer 2001 through summer 2005, aparently all of the 46 EQ servers are quite full... but wait this summer they merged the 46 to 23 servers, that must mean now all the servers have double the number of players.
But wait, since 2002 (PoP expansion) we have been complaining about deserted zones and inability to find others to group with. That must be delusional, because the chart indicates there are as many now if not more playing than were when Eq was considered the top game.
Back to reality, will people out of the goodness of their heart continue subscriptions to EQ, a game they no longer play (ie. deserted servers... so deserted SOE had to purge and merge down to half?) Or are the #s being cooked.
+400,000 subscriptions into 23 servers means about 17,000 possible per server. Now EQ had tremendous problems when there were +3k on a server that led to new servers (last one Morden Rasp Feb 2004, a flop population wise; while Stromm May 2003 held it's own population wise, one of the few not merged) and server splits (SH Feb 2002, AB Nov 2001.)
More likely, thanks to instancing the 23 servers could tolerate one tenth that 17k. But 1700 is like an old EQ server on the lower population side, we saught the +2500 population servers (eg. Stromm) and always asked what were the high population servers, but the chat room GMs always refused to divulge that info, (**because there were NO high population servers anymore**) And the current 2005 servers are nowhere near as populated as they were in 2001-2002. Where have all those 100s of THOUSANDS of people gone, because they sure are not in the current EQ servers... but wait that chart indicates they still are subscribed to EQ.
All that $ coming in 400k X $13 = + $5 million monthly... That is why they have to fire GMs to save $, pharm out CS to save $, consolidate servers yes to save $... not because there are less people playing !!
That 200k going to DAoC, that 500k going to FF11, the 200k going to swg, the 200k going to eq2, the 300k going to Runescape, the 200k going to Ragnarok, the MILLIONS each going to Lineage & L2, MILLIONS going to wow !! Yes that makes sence those millions and millions new subscribers going to other games and EQ keeps it's number of subscribers flat or slightly increasing, no loss of numbers there, yea right... you actually believe that. All you have to do is check for yourself how deserted the EQ servers are. Yet if you believe that +400k EQ subscriber chart is it beyond your comprehension something is not adding up there?!