I've enjoyed the responses from all the Dev's in what has to have been extremely hard time. From what I'm hearing most of you don't really even want to give them time to settle in and evaluate what they can get done, how long it will take or even time to let the loss of many of their friends for years and years get processed. If you hadn't watched the streams in the past or seen pictures from the Halloween celebrations maybe you didn't see how much more than just co-workers the old Soe group was. From what I've seen and read they are going to do the best they can with the resources they have to continue working on the best game Eq and I'm game to let them have the time to do just that. I wish the Dev's nothing but good thoughts and to all those behind the scenes .. yes the art director doesn't sit and color in every single mob, building, bush, grassy area, and sky, for one example, thanks for all the hard work that doesn't get a name and title but still work on Everquest.
Yeah , this Chicken-Little attitude from some people posting on this is more disturbing than the actual layoffs. In the last few weeks we have seen more response from the Developers and Designers than we have seen in the last year or two combined. I understand we lost some of the EQ team but who's to say they won't add people back into those positions. Maybe those Devs were way over compensated and they thought they can get other designers in there at a cheaper price. Let's give them a chance to work some magic. Maybe they will surprise you with what they have in store. And if they don't then you can say I told you so. Until then chill, keep playing and stop acting like a meteor just hit the planet and you have 10 minutes to live. On a side note, I do like the thought of re-purposing older zones for newer content. I would love to see the original zones be reworked into something for the end game. A harder Kithicor or a war zone in West Karana etc etc. You can even change them for good and reposition some things around the map. I still like my idea for the next expansion. Call it Everquest-Cataclysm. Major disasters and such. Shake things up a bit...just like a snow globe....lol.
Also if they change some things in the old zones, so what. Players act like they are entitled to content, which is 15 years old, to stay the same. My opinion is a major shakeup is needed to get people back into the game. I know some people will grumble but those that do also have stayed through the last four years of lackluster content. I am pretty sure they will get over it. If not, oh well, can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.
I don't disagree but your math doesn't support your own contention. 390k a month is 4.68 million Your "cost" is 1.2 million, so that is pretty profitable for a game this size. But, the expansion means $40 an expansion a year. If they sell 20k expansions that another 800k for almost 5.5 million. Overhead is the biggest thing going on here eating into that (and what you call "burden cost", never heard that before, is called benefits, covering profit sharing, healthcare, worker's comp, unemployment taxes, etc, and actually is calculated between 30-50% depending on the state for KPI analyses). I have no doubts EQ is profitable. I don't think its profitable enough to justify expending resources on it unless one considers a minimal labor investment with much of the overheard (rent on building, utilities, management salaries, supplies, equipment) being taken care of by other games (games like Landmark with 50 employees). However, if they were hurting for profitability on any of these SOE games they would have moved their headquarters out of San Diego a decade ago. They could probably cut their operating costs in half by moving to a place like Atlanta or Nashville. If I was any of the former SOE employees I'd be waiting for an announced facilities move about a year from now, as that is one of the biggest ways they could make huge savings.
Sure, use 5.85 per year if you want. Keep in mind that i didn't factor in operational costs, support roles, nor upper management. Just the 12 production employees that worked on CoTF and TDS directly. You weren't supposed to just take 4 million (5 if you want), subtract 1.2 and say "Hey! Profit!!" You were supposed to take from it that when calculating only the cost of the development team comes up as 25% of your total revenue...(20% with your guesstimate number) your business and product is not healthy and you need to cut that to 10%.
You also left out SC transactions. I'm guessing those exceed subscription fees, otherwise where is the money coming from for R&D on their 3 current projects? That doesn't come out of thin air.
Windstalker is a producer, not a designer. Thom Terrazas (Phathom) held this position for EQ1 before the layoffs, while Windstalker was the EQ2 producer. EQ2 team probably was slashed in half as well. Now she's the producer for both games, coordinating the work or two half-teams. I cannot imagine 4-5 designers creating anything close to a full expansion. Maybe they are going to put what's left of EQ1 and EQ2 teams together and work on both games. IIRC somebody mentioned different release dates. That would make sense: one game releases spring expansions and the other - fall expansions. Holly, can you tell us how these two half-teams are going to operate now?
I strongly agree that the dev's need to be delivering content that the players want ... not nerfing existing content to fit a picture the Dev may have of a game he doesnt even play. Note the above post has 29 likes.
Not that they're doing that, but there's also ways of getting around that Whosurdaddy. It's a little harder in California, but trust me it still happens.
No. I said I factored in micro transactions to level off the subscription rate for people who buy a year pass. Most people use their free all-access SC for something stupid, but they really don't spend money in that store at any level close to subscription fees. The money actually does come out of thin air. SOE came up with a product and a business model and then pitched it to Sony. Sony liked it and gave them venture capital to start up the new project. Sometimes a company will put up stocks as collateral and get a loan if they don't have the cash. SOE was sold to get that venture capital back and to let a private company take a shot at keeping Norrath going.
There aren't any labor laws that prevent a private company from releasing higher paid employees and hiring cheaper employees. There is no union here, and they are salaried employees anyway making them exempt employees.
That's honestly a bit of a cheap shot. Customers say they want something but are often wrong. They may say they want to be able to grind out monotonous content to progress but they also may say they want meaningful content vs monotonous grind content. People contradict themselves all the time and part of a developer is to attempt to decipher what someone really wants vs. what they say they want. I'm not saying the EQ team are masters at it or will suddenly become so, but their attitude is exactly what I wanted and would expect from a dev team. They did what they did *for reasons*. Someone once put it to me in a very good way, if you think someone else's perspective or choice was stupid then you probably just don't have all the information or their full perspective. People do things for reasons that make sense at the time... I am glad they are cautiously looking at how to address the problem in a way that solves the immediate pain but also improves the overall situation that the solution was trying to resolve. Customers have never been true experts for any sort of product and doing everything your customers say they want without trying to filter and identify root needs/wants is a surefire way to destroy a product. It's like a reader hating the ending of a book by an author, and saying they want X people to do Y in the end. It would be ridiculous for the author to change their ending or even take that precise ending and mold it in a future book. What the author should (and good ones do) is take the feedback and try and identify what the root desire for the reader is, more action, more story, better dialogue, etc... then folder that in according to their expertise.
I spend a lot in the store, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one. I know at least 3 people who routinely spend a large amount of money buying legends of norrath packs too, and there hasn't been a new expac in a long time (please give us one or 3) also: can we make Aspect of the Brood Heirloom like all the other illusion items? I redeemed it on my monk not realizing it wasn't and now I can't even really use it because monk abilities are hindered by several illusions and being mounted. Thanks
To Holly, and game devs: I think one of the biggest things you guys could do for the next project/expansion/ whatever form it takes, is to give the classes something new. We have all gotten the same spells with new names and bigger numbers in the same pattern for like the past 6 expansions. AA's have been similar. If there was a way to give us each something new, some new mechanic, some new nuke, some new something, it would be something to be super excited about. I know, there have been new things added in every now and then, and they've been great. But sometimes it seems like they spent more time coming up with new names for the same nukes, than they did coming up with new content.
Really don't see why you think this. California as an at will labor state. Coming right from the state's website it clearly states it is an at will employment state and employees can be fired for any reason at any time. The only restrictions are the normal protected ones like race and age etc. And you can't be fired for refusing to engage in illegal activity. If you are a unionized worker you have different things related to collective bargaining (why companies abuse the visa system to fire skilled U.S. workers and hire cheap foreign tech guys claiming they couldn't find skilled U.S. workers), but exempt employees aren't union employees.
Unless you have access to their data, any financial analysis is fiction at best. The only key factor that is known is at this state is EQ is running a profit. If it wasn't it would be shut down. The layoffs are going to be more of a factor of return on investment, they have purchased SoE they want a given return for that investment. They are cutting the fat, and leaning the organization. And I suspect the xp nerf is going to be reversed, Since I'm certain they could see and additional 3-5 percent increased subscriptions if they do that and doesn't have a huge impact on the game not including TDS game sales (and yeah my guess is speculative as well). Ruven
