I'm not a big fan of $OE after what they did to SWG, but I agree with others here about it not all being $OE's fault. If it were not for $OE casting a life line MxO wouldn't even be here (and maybe the franchise would've been better off). They inherited a turd and are at least keeping it on life support. It sounds wierd but in this case, $OE can arguably be called the hero here.
I played this game from launch up until SOE bought it out.
You can point to EQ and EQ2 as success from SOE, but for one thing those are PvE games. A different animal than games that involve PvP.
I have played many MMO's and in the games I like to play and games that keep players engaged are one where the developer listen to the paying customer and treat them accordinly.
It appears (from the SOE games I have played) that their main motivation is to cut costs wherever they can. In MxO as soon as they bought it, the page with live events says " Content is currently being updated." and it has said that ever since I left the game.
IMO it was the only thing that set this game apart, a team dedicated to developing a storyline and promoting some RP, it was great.
First thing SOE does, get rid of the live events team, hey it saves money right?
There were also some serious PvP balance issues, repetitive content, there were definately things wrong with the game but it had alot of potential.
As with SWG, SOE took a game with great potential and just made it another SOE property that eeks along on the goodwill generated by the title they are representing but providing nothing as far as gameplay improvements. They do the minimum they can and ignore their paying customers. I've seen this in more than one SOE game and MxO is no different.
If you really want to play a good MMO where the developers actually listen to the paying customers, try WoW or EvE. Much more satisfying than any SOE title.
IMHO, I would not so much as say that SOE bought MxO out, than say that WB dumped it. Actually, I bet that actually WB forced SOE to buy it if they wanted to get the rights to the superhero game.
Without SOE, I'd have placed even odds or better that MxO would have been shut down by now. Let's face it, it sold less than 50K copies, and by the SOE buyout, I would not have given it more than 30K in subs, if that.
Let's face it, the subscription level of MxO is probably insufficient currently to expect it to even exist, much less have a Live Events team. Humans are about the most expensive costs you can have (which is why 'free' support usually sucks).
I'm going to have to agree with the few that have said that it's not entirely SOE's fault the game is failing as it is. I don't really know if I'm even a legitimate voice in this, but I played the game when it was first released and it was pretty much how people have said it. An Ok game with a non-friendly community. The whole thing seemed a bit "unfinished", as if there was a lot of something missing. The community were very hardcore fans of the films, which isn't bad. However, to the casual player who wants to play a game, can be a little daunting.
Additionally, I remember when I first bought the game, my computer could barely play the thing, and I had just upgraded everything, with a new Motherboard, CPU, graphics card, the works! IMO, it's all a case of bad planning. Someone didn't do their homework, and got screwed over because of it. And that's the main reason I seem to be playing WoW the most. It's the most polished, smooth running MMO out there because they took a lot of good things from everything else, and made sure that it worked real nicely. And in turn, thousands of players subscribe because, hey, Blizzard makes good games, and WoW must be a good game too.
So...maybe I am saying SOE is a lousy company? I don't know. All I'm saying is that, MxO wasn't that great to begin with, and once you have and ONLINE game in motion, it's pretty hard to perfect it after that. Conclusion: Plan ahead next time.
Originally posted by Ranma13 Hate on SOE all you want, but the truth is that they own a BIG portion of the MMORPG market. And they didn't do it through shoddy games and pissing off customers.
The game is actually good for SOE's bundle o' niche games they have going. The few that play PS, the EQ/EQ2 crowd and now this game make a tidy bundle of money for SOE.
Am I the only person to find it sad that SOE has 3, count 'em 3 MMO's that have undergone major gameplay overhauls? Says a lot about their development team. MXO isn't their fault, but they took over the responsiblity when they bought it...
I liked MxO when i launched. It was fun to play and fun to watch the combat animations as you fought. But i will never trust SOE again after watching my characters get nerfed day after day after day in SWG.
Originally posted by Ranma13 Hate on SOE all you want, but the truth is that they own a BIG portion of the MMORPG market. And they didn't do it through shoddy games and pissing off customers.
Stop by the SWG forums and see if this is true!
If SOE is "reworking" MxO's combat engine... If I were you I'd be afraid!
SOE knows what you like... You don't! And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
Infadel, you're forgetting some very important points:
1) SOE is the king of sh*t events. Their idea of a live event is walking a char into position, delivering a macroed speech and leaving. Monolith had actual players behind screens interacting on a massive scale, and hanging out at parties just for the fun of it. 2)Paul Chadwick had the first year's script of the storyline done before the game launched. He has neither been heard from or seen since the SOE buyout. Any bets that there will even BE a storyline after the first year are purely fools' fantasies. 3)The Pandora's Box system you loved was also developed by 'Lith, not SOE. 4)Frankly, SOE has done nothing to change MxO content yet (beyond the server merge which *SURPRISE* was merely to save them money and create more lag) -- this of course ignores the dramatic drop in live events, and character appearance and interaction. Even the changes to interlock had all been worked out by Lith prior to the transition and are only being set up for release now. Prior to SOE buyout:
Pandora's Box designed; storyline plotted; interactive live events characters who would show up for fun, and communicate with players regardless of server -- in or out of an event; stuck-in-interlock bug traced; changes to interlock proposed and decided upon After buyout:
Live events chars reduced to rare appearance and minimal interaction (if any); changes and content designd by 'Lith slowly implemented; massive lag spike due to server merge. Hmmmmmm...
Why do I think buying the game at its one year point would be a bad idea? Addendum:
Ok guys if you are thinking of buying MXO I recomend you do so on its first aneversary. I.E the new year I may even leave it as late as march.
To buy the game on it's one year anniversary Would be waiting till March. The game didn't launch till March 22nd (19th for pre-order) 2005. Minor point, I know, but when trying to trash all that came before you, helps to know what came before you, and when.
And yes, I cannot help but laugh at people who want to trash 'Lith and praise SOE.
Monolith's definition of feedback: data to be gathered from playing and paying customers for the improvement of the gaming experience.
SOE's defintion of feedback: annoying noise to be tuned out while seeking greater profits.
Don't believe me? Post an angry and and negative post about an SOE game on their boards. Then count to 60 for it to get deleted by a mod.
/shakehead
Did a search and found that in large ths post ring true even today.
First and foremost, I don't intend to provoke or insult the poster of this comment with this response, as I don't wish another flamewar.
I also realise this thread is bumped and terribly outdated, but I'll just answer them from today's perspective.
1) SOE is the king of sh*t events. Their idea of live event is walking a char into position, delivering a macroed speech and leaving. Monolith had actual players behind screens interacting on a massive scale, and hanging out on parties just for the fun of it.
A character coming into a major player group and delivering a non-interactive speech does happen (like on briefings), mostly because they're supposed to be monologues while everyone else listens.
However, LE characters very often react to particular player comments; there have been entire conversations between 1-2 characters and a player group, or one player.
There have been a few incidents where LE characters (I mean, under SOE) appeared at parties or PvP tournaments. But even if organizing them themselves, they still often come to parties - since that's so important.
Also, events are scenarios, consisting of dialogue and action. PvP against characters and PvE against spawns plays an important role; there are tasks players have to fulfill in multiple phases (with some little influence on the scenario), and scenarios the LE one-man-team and sometimes LESIG characters play out in front of players' eyes.
These events basically progress the storyline, and are often interesting in themselves.
Yes, with only one developer behind all official characters (being able to play 2-3 characters at the same time, on different computers), the "massive scale" has significantly decreased. Although system messages or faction broadcast do happen, the events can't be called "global", and are mostly limited to a time window and a few locations in the city.
With only one man behind all these events, personal relations with players and individual player involvement, finer character development and all that jazz of course are significantly toned down, aswell.
The weather isn't changing during events, either.
Paul Chadwick had the first year's script of the storyline done before the game launched. He has neither been heard from or seen since the SOE buyout. Any bets that there will even BE a storyline after the first year are purely fools' fantasies.
Recent developer statements questioned this "first year storyline" idea, but that's as a marginal note. Anyway, he had never said he wouldn't continue with the second year and stuff, but with the slower pace, this "year" talk doesn't make much sense anymore.
Paul Chadwick has, in fact, been heard from in at least one live interview at some sort of "SOE block party" or whatever - with several fans and players as witnesses. Apart from that, he keeps writing character blogs and the Sentinel newspaper at an, admttedly, low pace.
Quite recently, he's said to have reacted to the slow progression pace of the storyline and maybe some player feedback on the content, and has done (or is doing) a "revision" to the storyline, starting with the next chapter. I don't exactly know how much this revision changes apart from speeding up events, but fact is, he's still working on the storyline.
Just recently, he "requested" a floating code RSI of Neo to be put into the game.
The upcoming cinematics have been written by him later. Chadwick has also drawn the cinematics in the recent chapter 5 by hand, and done the storyboards for chapter 6 and I think upcoming 7.
Apart from that, lots of storyline has been either executed or invented by other people than Chadwick - five mission designers (of which only one is now left and has a larger influence on the storyline - the same who does events btw) and the former Live Events Team. I don't consider those any close to "fools".
3)The Pandora's Box system you loved was also developed by 'Lith, not SOE.
True.
4)Frankly, SOE has done nothing to change MxO content yet (beyond the server merge which *SURPRISE* was merely to save them money and create more lag) -- this of course ignores the dramatic drop in live events, and character appearance and interaction. Even the changes to interlock had all been worked out by Lith prior to the transition and are only being set up for release now.
Changes to Interlock and everything else CR 2.0 includes have been done by SOE. But consider, the Devs in SOE are the same from Monolith, or what's left of them.
They started it at Monolith and finished under SOE.
Live events and character interaction all happen at an almost daily basis nowadays.
Prior to SOE buyout:
Pandora's Box designed; storyline plotted; interactive live events characters who would show up for fun, and communicate with players regardless of server -- in or out of an event; stuck-in-interlock bug traced; changes to interlock proposed and decided upon
After buyout:
Live events chars reduced to rare appearance and minimal interaction (if any); changes and content designd by 'Lith slowly implemented; massive lag spike due to server merge.
Hmmmmmm...
Why do I think buying the game at its one year point would be a bad idea?
Addendum:
Ok guys if you are thinking of buying MXO I recomend you do so on its first aneversary. I.E the new year I may even leave it as late as march.
To buy the game on it's one year anniversary Would be waiting till March. The game didn't launch till March 22nd (19th for pre-order) 2005. Minor point, I know, but when trying to trash all that came before you, helps to know what came before you, and when.
And yes, I cannot help but laugh at people who want to trash 'Lith and praise SOE.
Monolith's definition of feedback: data to be gathered from playing and paying customers for the improvement of the gaming experience.
SOE's defintion of feedback: annoying noise to be tuned out while seeking greater profits.
Don't believe me? Post an angry and and negative post about an SOE game on their boards. Then count to 60 for it to get deleted by a mod.
/shakehead
The removal of a really angry and negative post doesn't mean a thing, because one can always say that the removal was caused by the aggressiveness and flamebaiting. That's still the case.
That's just too hilarious, ZippyDodah. You bump a thread that's like a year ago and terribly outdated, and the claim everything to be true right now, and that despite most of these points being so unimaginably easy to disprove.
Then why did you dance around and shift attention rather than disproving it (which is impossible) along with the other threads. You're a noob to MXO and always will be because you never saw what it was.
The first two points have been conretely disproven by every trick in the book.
The rest is either just repetition of the same stuff, or correctly states what's been planned by Monolith rather than SOE. Yea, not every sentence in the post was wrong.
Maybe I forgot a point - the feedback. If SOE's developers (which are the old ones, as stated) really wouldn't give a rat's arse about player feedback (concerning gameplay), they wouldn't have several feedback threads and constantly posting there, and refusing to accept any feedback or suggestions in a certain thread called "Ask the Devs an MxO question".
If you think I'm beding the truth, quote those green texts, disprove them all in a convincing way, and then tell everybody here why you said it was true.
Then, and only then, your accusations will gain validness.
No they're valid because you are completely full of it. No one agrees with you but the MXO marketing team and just look what other people say. You really have no clue as to what you're talking about and it's just plain silly to watch you dance and try to sell.
You haven't disproven any single point so far, thus your post is worthless, no matter how true it might be.
Ceasing this flamebait.
I always "disprove" aka own your, "points." But hen you change the subject, dance a bit...wait a sec, that's called Trolling. You sir are a master troller.
My answers to point 1 and 2 were as concrete as possible and required for these basic, and at least from today's perspective, absolutely false statements.
You haven't disproved them, or made an attempt to do that. Thus, if you claim they're invalid and the statements apply even today, it's meaningless.
I've explained that for the last time, for real now.
You haven't disproven any single point so far, thus your post is worthless, no matter how true it might be.
Ceasing this flamebait.
I always "disprove" aka own your, "points." But hen you change the subject, dance a bit...wait a sec, that's called Trolling. You sir are a master troller. Hmph. Ok.
Comments
I'm not a big fan of $OE after what they did to SWG, but I agree with others here about it not all being $OE's fault. If it were not for $OE casting a life line MxO wouldn't even be here (and maybe the franchise would've been better off). They inherited a turd and are at least keeping it on life support. It sounds wierd but in this case, $OE can arguably be called the hero here.
Guild Wars is still an MMO.
I played this game from launch up until SOE bought it out.
You can point to EQ and EQ2 as success from SOE, but for one thing those are PvE games. A different animal than games that involve PvP.
I have played many MMO's and in the games I like to play and games that keep players engaged are one where the developer listen to the paying customer and treat them accordinly.
It appears (from the SOE games I have played) that their main motivation is to cut costs wherever they can. In MxO as soon as they bought it, the page with live events says " Content is currently being updated." and it has said that ever since I left the game.
IMO it was the only thing that set this game apart, a team dedicated to developing a storyline and promoting some RP, it was great.
First thing SOE does, get rid of the live events team, hey it saves money right?
There were also some serious PvP balance issues, repetitive content, there were definately things wrong with the game but it had alot of potential.
As with SWG, SOE took a game with great potential and just made it another SOE property that eeks along on the goodwill generated by the title they are representing but providing nothing as far as gameplay improvements. They do the minimum they can and ignore their paying customers. I've seen this in more than one SOE game and MxO is no different.
If you really want to play a good MMO where the developers actually listen to the paying customers, try WoW or EvE. Much more satisfying than any SOE title.
IMHO, I would not so much as say that SOE bought MxO out, than say that WB dumped it. Actually, I bet that actually WB forced SOE to buy it if they wanted to get the rights to the superhero game.
Without SOE, I'd have placed even odds or better that MxO would have been shut down by now. Let's face it, it sold less than 50K copies, and by the SOE buyout, I would not have given it more than 30K in subs, if that.
Let's face it, the subscription level of MxO is probably insufficient currently to expect it to even exist, much less have a Live Events team. Humans are about the most expensive costs you can have (which is why 'free' support usually sucks).
I'm going to have to agree with the few that have said that it's not entirely SOE's fault the game is failing as it is. I don't really know if I'm even a legitimate voice in this, but I played the game when it was first released and it was pretty much how people have said it. An Ok game with a non-friendly community. The whole thing seemed a bit "unfinished", as if there was a lot of something missing. The community were very hardcore fans of the films, which isn't bad. However, to the casual player who wants to play a game, can be a little daunting.
Additionally, I remember when I first bought the game, my computer could barely play the thing, and I had just upgraded everything, with a new Motherboard, CPU, graphics card, the works! IMO, it's all a case of bad planning. Someone didn't do their homework, and got screwed over because of it. And that's the main reason I seem to be playing WoW the most. It's the most polished, smooth running MMO out there because they took a lot of good things from everything else, and made sure that it worked real nicely. And in turn, thousands of players subscribe because, hey, Blizzard makes good games, and WoW must be a good game too.
So...maybe I am saying SOE is a lousy company? I don't know. All I'm saying is that, MxO wasn't that great to begin with, and once you have and ONLINE game in motion, it's pretty hard to perfect it after that. Conclusion: Plan ahead next time.
And all their games suck..... yes
MXO before SOE buyout = crap game
MXO after SOE buyout = crap game
Not much Sony can do with it, to be honest.
The game is actually good for SOE's bundle o' niche games they have going. The few that play PS, the EQ/EQ2 crowd and now this game make a tidy bundle of money for SOE.
Am I the only person to find it sad that SOE has 3, count 'em 3 MMO's that have undergone major gameplay overhauls? Says a lot about their development team. MXO isn't their fault, but they took over the responsiblity when they bought it...
I liked MxO when i launched. It was fun to play and fun to watch the combat animations as you fought. But i will never trust SOE again after watching my characters get nerfed day after day after day in SWG.
Stop by the SWG forums and see if this is true!
If SOE is "reworking" MxO's combat engine... If I were you I'd be afraid!
SOE knows what you like... You don't!
And don't forget... I am forcing you to read this!
And yes, I cannot help but laugh at people who want to trash 'Lith and praise SOE.
Monolith's definition of feedback: data to be gathered from playing and paying customers for the improvement of the gaming experience.
SOE's defintion of feedback: annoying noise to be tuned out while seeking greater profits.
Don't believe me? Post an angry and and negative post about an SOE game on their boards. Then count to 60 for it to get deleted by a mod.
/shakehead
Did a search and found that in large ths post ring true even today.
Thank you.
First and foremost, I don't intend to provoke or insult the poster of this comment with this response, as I don't wish another flamewar.
I also realise this thread is bumped and terribly outdated, but I'll just answer them from today's perspective.
1) SOE is the king of sh*t events. Their idea of live event is walking a char into position, delivering a macroed speech and leaving. Monolith had actual players behind screens interacting on a massive scale, and hanging out on parties just for the fun of it.
A character coming into a major player group and delivering a non-interactive speech does happen (like on briefings), mostly because they're supposed to be monologues while everyone else listens.
However, LE characters very often react to particular player comments; there have been entire conversations between 1-2 characters and a player group, or one player.
There have been a few incidents where LE characters (I mean, under SOE) appeared at parties or PvP tournaments. But even if organizing them themselves, they still often come to parties - since that's so important.
Also, events are scenarios, consisting of dialogue and action. PvP against characters and PvE against spawns plays an important role; there are tasks players have to fulfill in multiple phases (with some little influence on the scenario), and scenarios the LE one-man-team and sometimes LESIG characters play out in front of players' eyes.
These events basically progress the storyline, and are often interesting in themselves.
Yes, with only one developer behind all official characters (being able to play 2-3 characters at the same time, on different computers), the "massive scale" has significantly decreased. Although system messages or faction broadcast do happen, the events can't be called "global", and are mostly limited to a time window and a few locations in the city.
With only one man behind all these events, personal relations with players and individual player involvement, finer character development and all that jazz of course are significantly toned down, aswell.
The weather isn't changing during events, either.
Paul Chadwick had the first year's script of the storyline done before the game launched. He has neither been heard from or seen since the SOE buyout. Any bets that there will even BE a storyline after the first year are purely fools' fantasies.
Recent developer statements questioned this "first year storyline" idea, but that's as a marginal note. Anyway, he had never said he wouldn't continue with the second year and stuff, but with the slower pace, this "year" talk doesn't make much sense anymore.
Paul Chadwick has, in fact, been heard from in at least one live interview at some sort of "SOE block party" or whatever - with several fans and players as witnesses. Apart from that, he keeps writing character blogs and the Sentinel newspaper at an, admttedly, low pace.
Quite recently, he's said to have reacted to the slow progression pace of the storyline and maybe some player feedback on the content, and has done (or is doing) a "revision" to the storyline, starting with the next chapter. I don't exactly know how much this revision changes apart from speeding up events, but fact is, he's still working on the storyline.
Just recently, he "requested" a floating code RSI of Neo to be put into the game.
The upcoming cinematics have been written by him later. Chadwick has also drawn the cinematics in the recent chapter 5 by hand, and done the storyboards for chapter 6 and I think upcoming 7.
Apart from that, lots of storyline has been either executed or invented by other people than Chadwick - five mission designers (of which only one is now left and has a larger influence on the storyline - the same who does events btw) and the former Live Events Team. I don't consider those any close to "fools".
3)The Pandora's Box system you loved was also developed by 'Lith, not SOE.
True.
4)Frankly, SOE has done nothing to change MxO content yet (beyond the server merge which *SURPRISE* was merely to save them money and create more lag) -- this of course ignores the dramatic drop in live events, and character appearance and interaction. Even the changes to interlock had all been worked out by Lith prior to the transition and are only being set up for release now.
Changes to Interlock and everything else CR 2.0 includes have been done by SOE. But consider, the Devs in SOE are the same from Monolith, or what's left of them.
They started it at Monolith and finished under SOE.
Live events and character interaction all happen at an almost daily basis nowadays.
Prior to SOE buyout:
Pandora's Box designed; storyline plotted; interactive live events characters who would show up for fun, and communicate with players regardless of server -- in or out of an event; stuck-in-interlock bug traced; changes to interlock proposed and decided upon
After buyout:
Live events chars reduced to rare appearance and minimal interaction (if any); changes and content designd by 'Lith slowly implemented; massive lag spike due to server merge.
Hmmmmmm...
Why do I think buying the game at its one year point would be a bad idea?
Addendum:
To buy the game on it's one year anniversary Would be waiting till March. The game didn't launch till March 22nd (19th for pre-order) 2005. Minor point, I know, but when trying to trash all that came before you, helps to know what came before you, and when.And yes, I cannot help but laugh at people who want to trash 'Lith and praise SOE.
Monolith's definition of feedback: data to be gathered from playing and paying customers for the improvement of the gaming experience.
SOE's defintion of feedback: annoying noise to be tuned out while seeking greater profits.
Don't believe me? Post an angry and and negative post about an SOE game on their boards. Then count to 60 for it to get deleted by a mod.
/shakehead
The removal of a really angry and negative post doesn't mean a thing, because one can always say that the removal was caused by the aggressiveness and flamebaiting. That's still the case.
That's just too hilarious, ZippyDodah. You bump a thread that's like a year ago and terribly outdated, and the claim everything to be true right now, and that despite most of these points being so unimaginably easy to disprove.
Then why did you dance around and shift attention rather than disproving it (which is impossible) along with the other threads. You're a noob to MXO and always will be because you never saw what it was.
The rest is either just repetition of the same stuff, or correctly states what's been planned by Monolith rather than SOE. Yea, not every sentence in the post was wrong.
Maybe I forgot a point - the feedback. If SOE's developers (which are the old ones, as stated) really wouldn't give a rat's arse about player feedback (concerning gameplay), they wouldn't have several feedback threads and constantly posting there, and refusing to accept any feedback or suggestions in a certain thread called "Ask the Devs an MxO question".
ROFL!
Yeah they're good at using feedback. There are no limits to how far this kid can vaugely bend the truth.
Then, and only then, your accusations will gain validness.
No they're valid because you are completely full of it. No one agrees with you but the MXO marketing team and just look what other people say. You really have no clue as to what you're talking about and it's just plain silly to watch you dance and try to sell.
Stay the course man, you're winning the war!
Ceasing this flamebait.
My answers to point 1 and 2 were as concrete as possible and required for these basic, and at least from today's perspective, absolutely false statements.
You haven't disproved them, or made an attempt to do that. Thus, if you claim they're invalid and the statements apply even today, it's meaningless.
I've explained that for the last time, for real now.