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Why SOE is going to screw-up this entire IP
It has always been John Smedley's dream to get three giant and rich demographics to play SOE games:
- The first is females;
- The second is the Asian-based market;
- The third is junior tweens (the crucial 11-15 age bracket where young tastes solidify into longterm adult buying behaviors)
He has always refused to accept that the core gamer market has always been adults - predominantly male - over twenty. If he was ever able to crack one - or more - of these demographics, relatively new to western-based games, he'd make a tonne of money and be viewed as one of the farseeing visionaries of the industry, rather than a bland game-killing lunkhead with an MBA.
Take Star Wars Galaxies, for example. This game was originally designed to be playable with just one hand because John had heard the Chinese like to smoke with the other while they play. Then, two years after launch, John spearheaded the game-killing 'New Game Enhancements' which was essentially an attempt to dumb down the game so that simple enough for kids to want to play it (remember Nancy Macintyre's 'Kill. Loot. Repeat' mantra'). Later, he launched the MMO Stars Wars Clone Wars Adventures specifically to achieve success in the 'kiddie' market (closed down, 2014). To his vacuous credit, Smedly has used SOE to launcyh a number of 'scholarships' and 'initiatives' to encourage or recognise female players within MMOs.
So what does any of this have to do with 'Landmark'?
Well, a week ago, I bought a 'Settler's Pack' and started playing. I was a very bug fan of EQ1 and a loyal and longterm subscriber to EQ2, SOE's brave but ultimately failed attempt to rival World of Warcraft. I was expecting to love Landmark which emphasises the crafting, exploring and player-led creativity that were a hallmark of old EQ games - and SWG too.
Unfortunately, for me anyway, one look at this game - and fifty hours playing it - tells me this game is not for me.
The problem is the animation and the graphic. It's not just that they're cartoonish (hell, WoW built a gigantic success out of cartoonish animation) but that Landmark's specific cartoonish-ethos is the horribly simplistic, sherbet-coloured, highly stylised tropes of junior anime. There are so many things that are red flags for me: When you chop down a tree, giant cartoon logs jump into your bag (a similar thing happens with all crafting and harvesting activities); When you walk a certain distance, you don't walk, you jump, fly and spin (wholly outside your control, mind you); and every landscape looks like its been lifted from WoW's own (failed) attempt at feminised anime, Mists of Pandaria.
Yes, I know we're only in Beta but anyone who has ever played in a SOE game beta - or any MMO-beta - knows that beta is not about changing the game, it's about polishing it. Despite the uproar relating to the patronising cartoonish-style of the game when it was first revealed a year ago - remember those Tony-the-Tiger Kerrans? - Sony is not going to change a damn thing regarding the style and look of the game.
My point- and I do have one - is that SOE is positioning this game as a sophisticated sandbox that will be the basis of another sophisticated sandbox. However, the childish look and play of the game are at absolutely cross-purposes with this dynamic and emblematic of SOE's real intention: to make 'Hello Kitty: Island Adventure' or tweleve year old Korean girls.
In consequence of fucking up Landmark, I think SOE will inevitably fuck up its much bigger brother, EQN.
See you in five years to see if I was right.
Comments
1. Landmark is not EQN.
[mod edit]
I can agree on one thing and I think many will agree with that.
And that is, that John Smedly has been on the helm for far too long and needs to be replaced by someone else.
He has made so many bad decisions over the years. And I mean really bad ones. Not to mention lying to your customers time and again. He would make Pinochio proud!
In any other private Company, he would have gotten the boot years ago. How he is still at the helm at SOE. Totally baffles me.
Good stuff. Now leave.
It may not be your intent, but you are coming across a bit bigoted, and short-sighted, in your OP. It is obvious you are male, and as such feel somehow privileged, but supposing you were female, Asian, or a junior tween, and reading your post, how would you feel?
There is nothing wrong with a developer attempting to introduce, or appeal, to a wider audience. It is all about being inclusive as opposed as exclusive. Yes you are an adult male, as am I, and yes males have been known to overwhelmingly play video games, but that doesn't mean it has to remain that way, and it certainly doesn't mean that everything should revolve around us. I am sure if you were female, Asian, or a junior tween, you would appreciate that.
1.) EQ2 Launched before WoW did, it began development before WoW did. EQ2 was the sequel to the largest and most successful MMO to date when it launched, WoW was the very first attempt at an MMO by a company who built its success on a single player IP.
- WoW was Blizzards ultimately successful attempt to rival EQ2
2.) Calling EQ2 a failure by any standard only makes you seem like you have no idea what you are talking about and that you are only another hater that's trolling SOE.
www.90and9.net
www.prophecymma.com
I'm going to avoid going on a rant about how the OP appears to be a little bigoted, equating "cartoony" with "feminine".
Instead I'm going to ask the OP a simply question. What would you do to make SOE games, or Landmark more oriented towards "Adult Males"? More precisely, what would you do to make it oriented less towards Asians, Teenagers, and Adult Women?
I think you may be being too literal.
Just because EQ2 launched first does not mean that it was not intended to rival Blizzard's WoW. And, as we know, the drastic changes that took place within both EQ2 itself - and other SOE games such as SWG - were designed to make the games more like WoW.
And, of course, EQ2 is a failure - if you compare it to tjhe subscriber numbers and revenue streams of WoW. It's fruitless to try to argue otherwise.
I have been playing MMO games now - including such SOE games as EQ, EQ2, SWG and Vanguard - for more than tebn years so, as a customer, I am qualified to talk about my experiences of this company.
"I'm going to avoid going on a rant about how the OP appears to be a little bigoted, equating "cartoony" with "feminine". "
Well, I'm glad you didn't because that's not what I said. What I said was that SOE seems to equate 'cartoony' with 'feminine'.
In my experience, female gamers want the same as male gamers - it's only idiot developers who think that female gamers respond to huge-eyed toons with sexy bodies in landscapes full of beautiful flowers and stylised nature.
To be fair, I did say this was my opinion from my perspective.
My post was - as clearly stated - not intended to be some objective analysis.
Smed is nothing without McQuaid.
Thanks for taking the time to write a white paper on the state of SOE. I will see you and your post in five years when I have time to read it. Too many games to play right now.
If you actually look into EQ2 and SOE's stated intentions when they made it, it did exactly what they wanted it to do. Their intent was to have a player base of around 200k and maintain that base for several years and thats exactly what they did. EQ2 wasn't meant to compete with WoW, even just looking at the difference in money spent developing the two games shows that as false. I played EQ2 from beta to three years after launch, still stopping in now and again on now that its f2p.
SOE has made a lot of missteps over the years, but they have also been making MMOs longer than most other studios. Landmark is most definatly not for everyone, but it is a interesting concept and even more importantly, it lets the players directly influence everything from the styling to the core crafting and building systems for EQN. The amount of community input SOE has given us on both these products is pretty awesome.
I don't think either of these games will fail. SOE is taking it time in development, consulting the community at each step and giving us information as they go. That sounds like a pretty good dev model to follow.
None of that really matters though, this site was founded on hating SOE no matter what they do.
IMO really big business is more about ass kissing not making the best choices.EA for example has a bad reputation but the last guy in charge was actually well respected and liked yet they decided he had to go,which led to the so called stepping down ordeal.
I doubt the board looks at each individual area of SOE and blames Smedley,yet we as gamer's know he is ruining SOE online games.Soe is still having great success with their consoles and some single player games have also done well so overall the board sees it as turning the corner.
We as gamer's however have seen the overall change in online gaming and i think do not like it.I used to consider SOE as my favorite top gaming entity,yes even more so than Square Enix but that has long changed,SOE has dropped right off the charts while Square remains decent enough but also not as good as i once cherished.
I think one area alone will ruin ALL of SOE games and that is this new FAKE direction of f2p or as i like to call it "All out cash shop gaming".Having no set direction or price will always leave a foul taste in my mouth,i don't like secrets or gimmicks i want to know straight up what i am getting for my initial investment and what to expect long term.
I truly believe SOE has no long term plans,they just wing it as they go and look for ideas to make rmt work in their favor.This is what almost all the developers are doing now,market the crap out of each new game and make a ton of up front money,then let the game slowly slip away and die.I look at SOE's efforts on their EQ2 xpacs and i just shake my head not even clsoe to FAIR value,imo an utter crap effort and this is how i see SOE right now,it is up to them or the guy in charge to change our opinion of SOE.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
OP's post would have been good, if it was true, but it not, so lets crack on!
I noticed as well that you compared EQ2 to WoW based on subscriptions and said it had failed, I'd like to point out that by that reckoning every game released since 2004 has failed...
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money
Totally agree with the both of you. Smedley has needed to go for a long time. What's bad is he probably thinks he does a fantastic job.
I agree with you. Very few MMOs have been successful in that regard - which is why we are now seeing so many of them shuttered or going F2P. Aside from perhaps EVE and the new ESO, I cannot think of any MMO which has been an unqualified and ongoing commercial success.
'Another rant about graphics'
Don't you think that the fact that there are so many of - what you rather rudely call - these 'rants' might mean there is something significantly wrong with the game? These complaints don't just come out of thin air.
This is better written, and more accurate than the vast majority of what the OP typed. There's so much wrong in the OP it would take far too long to point out all the errors in logic and info.
You're definitely right about Smedly, and he's ruined so many potentially good games. Hopefully he won't be doing the same with EQN, but it's kind of a wait and see type of deal. Ultimately the thing that will kill EQN is if they try and put too much 'sameness' into the game. It's clearly being designed to function in a unique way to other games. If they either can't get the tech to work correctly, or they try and sugar coat it w/ too much 'safe' design, it's going to suffer.
- Oh, and btw it's Pinoccio.
No, it doesn't mean anything. These complaints may not just come out of thin air, but they do spring out of random internet forumn nonsense. Which is less impressive, and more meaningless.
The graphics are stylized, as can be said of most games that have been made throughout history. They aren't done cheaply, and mimick those that can be found in games like TF2, and dishonored / bioshock infinite (though dishonored and bioshock are obviously more dark in tone). Secondly, when you talk about graphics, what you are actually talking about is the art style. The shading, rendering, & shadows of the game thus far are fairly standard when it comes to graphics tech.
- Lastly, aesthetics (graphics / artstyle) are the first and biggest thing most gamers notice when playing a game. it is also the most frequently criticized and complained about aspect of games today. The fact that people are criticizing the graphics in this game is nothing special. People do so about literally every game.
Most of what the OP said I can agree with however the reason we have to put up with the poor graphic/art style is that SOE are using their own crap engine and wont pay a third party to use a more modern one and this will always be the same with poor graphics going forward.
They don't like giving their profit to third parties normally, though that looks to be changing and lets hope that Smed gets replaced once share holders see the return on EQL. I'm not a fan of gender bashing as in my opinion if you have the talent for a job then good for you and it should go where it needs to go where the person with the best ability can produce the goods and anything less is a failure by the company employing any person.
My problem with $OE is that they have a lack of vision, people are screaming out for a modern MMO with hard game play and modern graphics/art style and I'm sure many of the people who played EQI have at some point in their hunt for the holy grail MMO said give me EQI with modern look and feel to it. Many people I speak to in all the games I play are fed up with the same old shit and want a more challenging game to play so this is where they need to focus in my opinion.
EQL has a childish look and feel to it okay its mind craft with a twist and great if you have the time or mind and talent to build all your time in a game but that's not for me. I want to make items which are useful not real estate on narcotics.
Asbo
It's easy to look from the outside and think poorly because we don't like the direction or decisions they've made. But if he were actually costing Sony money rather than making them money I don't think he'd have been left in charge so long.
I actually think SOE is doing really well right now. But the opinions of a dozen hardcore and vocal haters on these forums can kind of make it look like that's not true.
It wouldn't surprise me if Landmark is already profitable and it's not even out of closed beta. DCUO is a hit on PS4/PS3 as a F2P. PS2 will probably do even better I would imagine. Console players love shooting each other lol.
No... I think he's doing fine. Though I could be wrong but we are all just basing this off our own opinions and assumptions rather than any real data.
So true
But I gave you facts.
The fact that you didn't like them doesn't change that.