tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post1085362606136271815..comments2024-03-28T04:50:52.945+00:00Comments on Inventory Full: It's Not Easy Being DBG : Landmark, EQNextBhagpusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-75473169548199379852017-01-09T18:45:03.565+00:002017-01-09T18:45:03.565+00:00I find the current climate of fear and suspicion (...I find the current climate of fear and suspicion (a climate largely, it has to be said, whipped up and driven by MassivelyOP) entirely spurious. I see the closure of unprofitable MMOs and resource-draining vanity projects as both essential and welcome.<br /><br /><br />SOE for the longest time operated from a position of unwarranted and untested security, backed by Sony's deep pockets. That was fine when Smed reported to Sony Pictures (I think that's right - I'm sure someone (Wilhelm most likely) will correct me if not) but when the oversight moved to the Playstation Division everything began to fall apart. That's when we got the seemingly endless series of weird, half-baked "innovations" like the face-twisting thing and the various mobile apps that didn't work and also that's when the PSS1 deal was forced through.<br /><br />In the final couple of years, pretty much from when EQNext was announced, it's clear with hindsight that everything was being done with a view to preparing SOE for sale. My feeling is that nothing during those two or three years happened with the interests of any current players in mind. Smed, arguably laudably, had the interests of his team at the forefront of his plans and his bosses just wanted to get shot of SOE and cut their losses.<br /><br />Consequently Columbus Nova, when they decided to buy in, ended up with a hotch-potch of properties that may very well not have been at all what they were expecting. These things always take a year or two but now we're seeing the benefit of a company that's operating without sentiment but with a clear intent to become stable and self-supporting.<br /><br />The outcome of this, medium term, is likely to be that the games that can make money will get the resources they deserve to go on making it. With good management that should mean EQ, EQ2 and DCUO will prosper (those being the ones I'm interested in - I imagine you could put H1Z1 in there, or one version of it at least). That is a lot more than I was expecting while SOE were still in charge and as a player and customer I feel significantly more sanguine about the next 2-3 years for those titles than I did a while ago.<br /><br />In the longer term I guess either CN will be in the MMO business like it or not or, perhaps more likely, they will have a portfolio of MMOs they can sell on for a good profit over what they paid SOE for them. That's also fine. <br /><br />Nothing lasts forever but neither does the paring away of dead wood mean the imminent death of the rest of the healthy tree.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-66848872096706816432017-01-09T17:19:29.293+00:002017-01-09T17:19:29.293+00:00You summed up a lot of how I feel about all this. ...You summed up a lot of how I feel about all this. I did make the choice to buy into alpha. I don't regret the money, time and experiences I had. For me, it was also like a toy to play with when the feeling was right. <br /><br />But beta bugs forced me to put the game down as it was unplayable for me for a year, and I lost a lot of desire to pick it up again after that. I haven't been playing it much since full launch, and that's on me. I was pretty much done with it, so I can't really pitch a fit that it's getting closed down, I suppose. <br /><br />The closure of Landmark worries me more in how it reflects on other Daybreak games. :( Aywrenhttp://www.aywren.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-91445870109721960092017-01-09T13:52:41.258+00:002017-01-09T13:52:41.258+00:00Haha we're good at the xposting thing!
And I h...Haha we're good at the xposting thing!<br />And I hope you're right....I can live with leaner MMOs, I just hope we're not facing a decade of game developers avoiding all things MMO like the plague because of the big-budget failures of late serving as examples of where not to invest. :/Sylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04473554645340972749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-70140939355216267112017-01-09T04:26:19.766+00:002017-01-09T04:26:19.766+00:00Ooh, I'm a quote box now. Spiffy.Ooh, I'm a quote box now. Spiffy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-5696970818141719862017-01-08T21:21:45.263+00:002017-01-08T21:21:45.263+00:00Happy New Year! I think we were cross-posting on e...Happy New Year! I think we were cross-posting on each other's blogs just then!<br /><br />As I blogged a few days ago, this year's list of forthcoming MMO attractions is pretty miserable. Doesn't bother me because not only do I still have literally dozens of MMOs I already started playing that I'm happy to carry on with but there are half a dozen really big ones I've never even tried.<br /><br />Landmark would have been a lot better if it had ever really worked. I had a lot of fun there but it was uphill against the wind most of the time. I won't miss it in the way I miss Rubies of Eventide or Zentia or Vanguard (thank god for the emu) or a good few others. With hindsight DBG should have shuttered Landmark when they canned EQNext and taken the PR hit in one bite but I imagine they still thought there was some possibility of fixing it. Clearly that was more wishful thinking and I really hope that kind of unjustified optimism has been burned out of the company at last.<br /><br />Looking forward to a leaner, more focused approach to making MMOs from all producers in the future. I think we need a few more failures and closures yet before we get there, though.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-80021141752515911912017-01-08T19:38:39.614+00:002017-01-08T19:38:39.614+00:00It really bothered me when I heard about Landmark,...It really bothered me when I heard about Landmark, for whatever reason (not like I played it anymore) it's added to my general MMO malaise concerning the foreseeable future. Also, I have really learned my lesson about not paying for founder packs and early access ever again. *sigh* ...not sure what the future will bring in terms of new titles, for us traditional MMO players...<br /><br />Anyway, I also I came here to say Happy New Year, ol' Bhagpuss! :) You're one of the twitter grumps, so there you go! I look forward to read about whatever gaming adventures you'll find in 2017!Sylhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04473554645340972749noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-66267717396606552182017-01-07T17:15:27.648+00:002017-01-07T17:15:27.648+00:00Massively is an odd compromise when it comes down ...Massively is an odd compromise when it comes down to it. It likely covers more MMO stuff than any other site largely because the writers are invested in the genre. <br /><br />The flip side to that is the writers carrying a lot of their own bagged to the table when they post. There is the SWG clique, for whom pre-NGE SWG was the absolute best MMORPG ever, despite the fact that Raph Koster pointing out that the game was losing subs rapidly well before the NGE. There are those for whom WoW did ruin the genre, or who feel that F2P ruins games, and so on. All of our blogger biases rolled into a single news site!<br /><br />Again, you probably notice more about the games you yourself are invested in. I noted the Landmark coverage, but never really paid much attention to the tone. I wasn't interested in anything besides general news.<br /><br />But when it comes to EVE, stories tend to get written by Eliot, who likes the sandbox nature but isn't really invested, Syp, who knows so little about the game that he cannot summarize the patch notes without making a grievous error, and Brendan, who doesn't like null sec in general, and hates Goons specifically, so his posts read like my favorite part of the game is a problem that needs to be fix starting with the removal of my team. And then there is the comments section, which has its own set of "must reinforce my oft stated opinion at every opportunity" regulars. <br /><br />Amusing side note: I sat next to Brendan at a blogger lunch at EVE Vegas and chatted with him for a bit, right up until I think he figured out who I was, after which I became invisible to him and he never once acknowledged my existence despite my saying "hello" to him at several later points.Wilhelm Arcturushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033496821708933394noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-29240743570812940092017-01-07T16:37:17.246+00:002017-01-07T16:37:17.246+00:00Yep, all true. I struggle to remember any MMO I...Yep, all true. I struggle to remember any MMO I've played where the community (for want of a better word) didn't act like they were being dragged by the hair to labor in the salt mines by a bunch of jackbooted stormtroopers rather than settling down in their leisure time to indulge in some pleasant amusements provided by hard-working professional entertainers. <br /><br />SOE/DBG does have a particularly bad history, though, stemming almost entirely from the NGE, which was probably LucasArts doing, although some stuff I read recently suggests Smed might have been a keener on it than he liked to suggest after the fact. I did think that when Smed finally departed some of that bad smell would go along with him but remarkably the response to the demise of hero's Song seems to have been almost sympathetic. Offering full refunds certainly helped there but I think maybe he earned some brownie points with his gung-ho reaction to the hacker fiasco last year (or was it the year before?) and weirdly the stain seems to have attached itself to the company instead.<br /><br />While I think closing EQNext, let alone Landmark, was absolutely the right decision I do wish they'd handled it more sensitively. Using "not fun" as a reason was positively insulting. It was either too expensive or too difficult, most likely both. We're grown up enough to take that and they would have earned credit for laying out the reasons in some detail, I think.<br /><br />Instead it just looks like they aren't interested in and have no feel for the business they are in (and by "they" I mean Columbus Nova). That may be true but it would be good business sense to keep it to themselves if so.<br /><br />Landmark, as we all know, was never a full "game". Feldon's piece amply explains that issue. Neither, however, was it the accessible, popular toolset it was meant to be. it was fiddly, buggy and just too complicated to appeal to anyone who just wanted to futz around and have fun in a ten dollar toy. Which isn't to say you couldn't wring plenty of fun out of it if you tried but that was never going to be enough.<br /><br />In the end, when I say "community" it's really Massively OP that I'm thinking of. Despite having writers who play and clearly love some DBG games, as a corporate entity they seem to revel in every opportunity to cry foul and point the finger. I'm guessing that's a commercial decision - those clickbait headlines presumably do a job. I'm at the point now where I don't even read the DBG-related posts on Massively half the time, let alone the comment threads, which i stopped reading long ago. On the other hand, some of the other MMO sites are even worse.<br /><br />All in all I think the closures and consolidations DBG have made over the last year have been very positive. A lot of deadwood needed to be cleared. We'll just have to wait to see what grows in the space they've made.Bhagpusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03499162165023939880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1510920011443550663.post-80960050642482410482017-01-07T16:16:54.887+00:002017-01-07T16:16:54.887+00:00I can't really get on board blaming the commun...I can't really get on board blaming the community. The cancellation of EQN made some people angry, but SOE/DGC had set their reputation with the community as a whole long before then. Hating on SOE goes all the way back to the EQ beta... which was, of course, better than the game at launch, because beta is always better for somebody.<br /><br />Yes, there are people out there who cheer every Daybreak stumble because they've been burned. But I'll tell you, as an EVE Online player, I see a lot of generally unnecessary hate against my game too. Also, who hates DGC more than the regulars in the EQ2 forums? And, overall, does any MMORPG get more hate that WoW? To hear it told, WoW wrecked the genre. Where does Landmark hate even add up next to that? Relative to some of the hate out there, the most damning thing you can say about the so-called MMO community is that they were largely indifferent to the game.<br /><br />In a world where EverQuest still gets an expansion every year and, by some accounts, has more regular players than any other DGC game, Landmark would have survived if it had any sort of broad appeal. But that would have taken a coherent design and real business plan. Instead, it was an attempt to get something for nothing.<br /><br />People will get over hate to play a good game. If Landmark had had enough to offer, it would have survived. It did not, which is DGC's fault.Wilhelm Arcturushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07033496821708933394noreply@blogger.com