Catching Up with Dave Georgeson

SBFord · October 2015

It’s been some time since before we had Dave Georgeson writing here on MMORPG.com. Turns out, he’s been a bit busy, with any number of things! We caught up with the former leader of the EverQuest franchise to chat about his own gaming habits, current projects, EverQuest Next, and his time at SOE.

Read the full story here: Catching Up with Dave Georgeson

Lobotomist · October 2015

Dave, you should check ARK

falc0n · October 2015

Good interview thanks alot!

Ikeda · October 2015

Lobotomist said:

Dave, you should check ARK

Ark IMO is where we should be going. It's Sandbox. It CAN be PVP but also is smart enough to allow us Carebears our own little playground. It also can be infinitely customizable. Just add another Ark with Alien stuff or whatnot.

ElElyon · October 2015

I've always liked Dave, he just gives off a good vibe. I'm excited to hear about his next project. I am really excited that he says he is getting into VR / Augmented Reality. I believe that is the future of gaming. I think years from now we will look back at Ingress and think "that was the first step".

Viper482 · October 2015

I would have flat out asked him what he thinks the chances are EQN will actually be released. Looking like vaporware to me.

Rukushin · October 2015

I have got to also say that Dave comes off as a great personality and figurehead within the MMO community. Every dev team would benefit from a Dave within their ranks. I am very excited to see where he directs VR when it comes to the MMO genre. I feel there is no doubt he will be at the forefront of that ship when it finally does start its maiden voyage in 2016. People are just so "ready", for lack of a better word, when it comes to VR. I think many, such as myself, are prepared for the price point that VR will be at when it debuts. Sure $350 is quite a bit, but I have been socking my pennies away since first hearing about Oculus and slowly building up my computer since then. Dave, all I can say to you, is to quote Shia Lebouf, "JUST DO IT!". Hit this VR-MMO playground hard and as fast as possible. I think you will have a Hulk of game if you do that will smash through any other game out there and retain it's spot for at least 5 years the way WoW did and of course EQ before that. Other game companies I believe will be running like chickens with their heads cut off trying to match what you end up putting out, but to no avail. Good Luck and my fingers are crossed that I can play a VR-MMO world that you have created by 2020.

bentrim · October 2015

This guy is SOOO, FOS, Would like you to actually DO SOMETHING...instead of lip service ALL THE TIME. So typical of an A** kisser, ALWAYS talking, NEVER doing....GET LOST!

Whiskey_Sam · October 2015

I'm sure Dave is a nice enough guy, but I always feel like I've been through an Amway pitch after listening to him.

V3it.M4rt1n · October 2015

More cheesy than the 80's. Visiting mmorpg.com and reading those is like talking to a salesman in a phone shop all day. Except I need a phone every now and then.

Nanfoodle · October 2015

DMKano said:

Scope and direction changes for EQN - from Dave himself, this should not be a surprise to anyone. I wonder if they scrapped world destructibility or nerfed it in a major way.

Will be interesting to see if he knows what he is talking about. As before he made that comment he said "We don't usually discuss Landmark or EQN." If there is a change in direction I hope its one old EQ fans like myself have been hoping for. As for the 100% destructibility of their world, I have been wondering about that as each prop added would need art done for it broken as well and the number of props are climbing fast. If I was to guess on a change of direction I would guess the AI as that seems like the bigger challenge.

laserit · October 2015

Hi Dave You should try Prepar3D v3 http://www.prepar3d.com/ by Lockheed Martin with your VR. They are right into it. I love the VR, but the resolutions will have to get better before I can seriously use them for extended periods. It's a no brainer that will come in the near future.

tixylix · October 2015

I feel like both times he was at SOE he was in charge of projects that went tits up due to things probably out of his control. I remember with Planetside, the game came out and it was well received, but an expansion came out 3 months after launch, it wasn't tested, it felt rushed and no one liked it. Then the game development died off until BFRs which ruined the game and everyone left. With EQ2, I don't care because I feel like that was another project that came out too early and then SOE just failed to make the right calls with it. However EQN (terrible name) entered development and again it's looking like it is going to be a rocky development. EQL just isn't fun, it didn't capture peoples attention and I really feel like SOE put too much hope into that one. I can bet EQN will come out half done, no one will play it and that'll be the final nail for SOE. I don't understand SOE because there was EverQuest, it was amazing and then Luclin and PoP came out and people hated it. Instead of giving the players what they wanted, they said "fuck you" as they always do and now we have Project 1999 which is what I play from time to time. However then we had SOE at it's peak, SWG, PS and EQ2, but those projects felt so behind, obviously the pressure from Lucas Arts was on them and so it felt like PS got massively scaled back and EQ2 suffered as well. Then SWG came out, it was a huge flop but SOE made smart changes and by 2004 with JTLS, it was looking positive. It needed changes to the armour and buff system, it needed some more content, but by and large it was great and they could have turned it into a great game. PS was dead by that time because SOE ruined it and then ignored it, then EQ2 came out and flopped. It felt about 50% done, we kept saying in beta that it wasn't ready but no... The weird thing is though, in beta there was one server where each zone was cloned over and over, but at launch there were 40 odd servers and everyone was split up too much . Once the population declined it was impossible to get groups and more people left. Instead of just having the beta system of very few servers, SOE kept too many for too long and their fix was to dumb the game down and make it too easy. Then the famous SWG NGE incident in 2005 which made everyone hate the company once and for all and it was the last time I played an SOE game seriously. For several years after that, SOE was just dead, there was nothing coming out and they were just maintaining ruined MMOs that no one wanted to play. Until suddenly we had PS2 and EQN on the horizon and even a game that Smedley said "SWG fans would love". However PS2 came out, it was another half finished mess, everyone stopped playing within 2 weeks and that was that. EQN is nowhere to be seen, it looks like the scope of it will be nothing like what we wanted and... well who knows. Frigging H1Z1 came out which was that apparent SWG lovers game and it was crap, It felt like something a group of 4 guys put together in a few months. I've made better maps than what SOE did, it feels so amateurish and bad. The whole story of SOE though is one that could have been avoided if they just listened to their fans. CCP listens and guess what, EVE is doing great because of it. Also though, CCP know how to manage an online world, they treat it like a proper world and they don't add anything that'll ruin that world, they keep it balanced. Where as SOE don't care, they treat their games as games and they all end up top heavy and inconsistent like linear paths through a history lesson, instead of updating the world and keeping it consistent. The other thing I don't get is why all their games have the quality content done in development. Then every bit of content and expansion after that, it all feels rushed and sub par. I remember lots of SWG content just being the same copied and pasted caves with randomized NPCs standing in there and that's it. The same happened with EQ2 and they didn't even bother to keep doing voice acting, they took it out instead. SOE were the MMO genre to me back in the day, I adored my time with their games. I even loved EQ2 in beta where I'd have groups every night because there was only one server. All the content was so hard, I'd be doing forest ruins or something for hours, then you'd wipe and get XP debt and that made it thrilling because loss was harsh. I loved all the voice acting, the running round an immersive city, doing all these amazing quests which were a new concept at the time. I loved that beta more than WoW because the quests were generally fun and more engaging, I remember after launch there were the Froglok quests, you had puzzles and just something more than "kill 10 of these" and it was so far ahead of WoW. I just wish'd SOE listened, little thing annoyed me like taking out boat rides and why on earth wouldn't they update the character models so they actually looked good? SOE was also a company that pissed me off more than any and and blind one. I don't get how every fan could see what they needed to do, yet they ignored all the feedback and ruined their games and made all their fans leave. That is one thing I can never forgive SOE for, they never admitted they were wrong, they never said sorry and they never did something about it and rolled back.

But yes, the mmorpg genre is dead, they were all turned into hub games and the persistent world the genre was created for is now gone. This is because people feel like the world gets in the way, but that was because they all focused on boring content to get you to end level ASAP. There are open world games where people love exploring like Skyrim or GTA, even Dayz did it.

I did format that correctly, for some reason when I hit post it all got bunched together $:\$

bcbully · October 2015

Whiskey_Sam said:

I'm sure Dave is a nice enough guy, but I always feel like I've been through an Amway pitch after listening to him.

Great guy and best salesman ever. He was able to sell many of us Landmark with no ill intent. Pretty amazing considering the project was never going to be what we believed we were being sold.

Xanzo · October 2015

I'm excited to see what he has coming up in the future. Always liked the guy.

SBFord · October 2015

Free Mobile MMORPG List and MMO Games - MMORPG.com

It’s been some time since before we had Dave Georgeson writing here on MMORPG.com. Turns out, he’s been a bit busy, with any number of things! We caught up with the former leader of the EverQuest franchise to chat about his own gaming habits, current projects, EverQuest Next, and his time at SOE.

Read the full story here

Charlie.Cheswick · October 2015

+1 VR is the future.

iceblast · October 2015

EQ Landmark and EQ Next was going great, then SOE sold out to Daybreak, and they got rid of Dave, and reduced the staff, and stopped talking to players. It took them so long to finally say anything to us again, just to tell us what was going on, and what they said was so pathetic, that most of us really lost faith in them, and that really hasn't changed since. I have pretty much Zero faith in either Landmark, or Next ever being anything like they were going to be under Dave. I really haven't heard of any game, that really sparks my interest. I had actually gone back to playing EQ 1 again for about 8 months. I had a great deal of fun, playing again. Then I hit a wall, and couldn't really go any farther, without a bit help and a lot of work. They have a new expansion pack coming out at the end of the year, and it feels pretty weak, and VR is coming out shortly after. That will probably be the end of a lot of these games. I won't be spending anymore money on EQ.

It's sad to see the end coming, but no game has given me more enjoyment then EQ. Tera Online has great fight mechanics, the best I've come across. I really think it should be the future of MMO combat. It really brings a players skill into the game. I'm tire of games, that gear, lvl, and stats are the only thing that matter. I think if a player is good enough to dodge, block, parry, and use the environment around them, they could be able to beat a mob much higher, and better equipped. Of Course, the fights would be short, but it feels great when you over come the odds. Of course, the reward for killing something so far outside of your weight class, should be well worth it. Because if it's just crap exp and nothing loot. Then it isn't worth the time. But if the reward scales up, then it would never be boring. Tera use to be this way, but last I played, was like a year or so ago, they had dumbed down the game a bit. The fights aren't that long, where it could take 30mins to kill a huge group mob by yourself, but you use to get a ton of exp and gear to make up for it. So, you didn't feel like you wasted, or lost anytime fighting something so big, and sometimes you won a title for doing it. Which was cool. It also felt great winning the fight, because it took everything you had, and a ton of focus, to pull it off. Now, if you do something like this, the exp doesn't scale up, it's just like kill any other normal mob, which just makes it a rip off. There also made it more time consume to do tradeskills, and at that people, I just quit playing. Very disappointing. I was hoping EQ Next would have the fighting mechanics, but, from what I saw of them, it just isn't going to happen. Maybe some other game will pull it off. Maybe in VR, who knows. If EQ Next doesn't have VR play, that's good. It's probably going to crash and burn anyway.

Wizardry · October 2015

IDK if people are being honest or not but i always try to be.

I do not for a minute feel EQN will be a triple A game but i also have the utmost confidence that they will release a game after all ,why wouldn't they.

They got a ton of assets made for them,generating a world is super easy.Also judging by what i saw in eq1>EQ2 i would assume a lot of rehashing old models just adding a new skin.So in reality they likely already had 75% the core assets of the game with little to no effort.

However being a long time gaming vet and being VERY fussy,i can spot a triple A game in the first 5 minutes.So i guess it is in their best interest to not show us anything because many people will spot a dud from a quality game.

The other very simple reason for not letting us in on anything is they no longer have a community team ,so this game will be what it is with no community feedback.

Vorthanion · October 2015

I felt like it was the community whining that changed it from an EQ successor to the minecraft, bunny hopping parkour twitch fest it became.

nennafir · October 2015

Great interview. I think Dave Georgeson has real talent. I think VR gaming is not yet ready for prime time, so hopefully he chooses to pursue other options.

Fugenchutenz · October 2015

So does this mean EQN is dead? Dammit and I had such high hopes for this one.

H0urg1ass · October 2015

Fugenchutenz said:

So does this mean EQN is dead? Dammit and I had such high hopes for this one.

Doesn't sound like it's dead. It just sounds more like they brought Dave's ideas back in line with all the other MMO's out there. Which is a shame. EQN, the way Dave was selling it, was actually sounding pretty good. I think he had a lot of really innovative and fun ideas packed into EQN.

Except the double jump crap. FFS, MMO's lay off the idiotic double jumping crap.

plescure · October 2015

its rare that i do anything more than skim read interviews, but this was a good article and read in full. Dave talks a lot of sense and is spot on with most of his opinions.

mmoguy43 · October 2015

Good for you mmorpg for doing Q&A with him. Was well worth the read.

Rasiem · October 2015

Whiskey_Sam said:

I'm sure Dave is a nice enough guy, but I always feel like I've been through an Amway pitch after listening to him.

I totally agree

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