EQ1 Numbers Revealed

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by KrakenReality, Dec 2, 2020.

  1. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    I don't think they would put it in the producer's letter as good news if it was for a different game. They also said they are training them in the ways of the game code and game lore. One of those would make sense for another game in the genre, the other wouldn't.
  2. Leerah Augur


    Told you. Heroic toons bring in money.
  3. IblisTheMage Augur

    Would you as the owner of a number of studios ask Darkpaw to make a mobile game?

    I don’t see the fit.

    Darkpaw is a strong team running 3 million line of code, on what I speculate is among top 1% wrt complexity, for an RPG game, on a multitude of generations of code, etc etc.

    Growing that team means you want more of that, not a silly little iphone game :)
    Corwyhn Lionheart likes this.
  4. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    I am guessing modernizing the client both for players and what is on the server could go a long way to helping solve the lag problems. Having the ability to better utilize modern hardware should help a lot.
    Skuz likes this.
  5. KrakenReality Augur

    Would I as an investment firm want to have a game in the largest gaming platform? Yes, absolutely. They’ve attempted it before with EQ Worlds, and Overseer is a pretty clear attempt to mimic WoW’s companion app. I think it’s a bit naive to think that any hires would’ve strictly be for EQ1. Likely, they’ll be used between EQ1/2 and whatever new project they have going.

    Will EQ go mobile like OSRS, no but someone has probably asked that in a meeting. I do think they’ll look to add some sort of mobile EQ. Looking back LoN could’ve been the prime target for a companion app. Maybe, something Elder Scrolls Blades or Fallout there are a lot of PC gaming companies that have directed some focus towards the mobile gaming market ($111 billion).
    Stymie and IblisTheMage like this.
  6. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    Modernizing the client would help a lot with the graphical lag on raids and situations like that. Their current implementation wasn't designed for the multi-core, multi-thread processors that we have now. DX9 just doesn't use modern GPU's properly, even if it can push them to full utilization, it's not getting the expected performance from them. A modern client, 64-bit, with at least a little threading, could really make a difference there.

    To be honest i don't know what is on the server side. If they moved to a DB from flat-files as I understand they did, that system is probably 64-bit. Has whatever runs the EQ server itself been upgraded to 64-bit? I don't think anybody knows. Is the lag related to the limitations of being on 32-bit? Possibly, and if so then upgrading that should at least open up some pipelines. If the server application itself is too old to utilize threading then they are missing out on at least 3/4's of any modern processor, likely far more than that.

    Back to the client, I've found that EQ doesn't use more than 50% of any thread on my machine at any given time. I have 8c/16t, so that's just over 3% of a 4.2ghz processor. With a GTX 980 (high end card, but 4 generations old), all settings at max except clip plane, with a 144 FPS limit, the card sits around 30%. But if I fight a Frost Giant with my Bard in view, tossing notes into the air, it can max the card to 100%. Since upgrading to a RX 5700, it sits a little lower, around 20%, and maxes around 70% in that same situation.

    If they could put something together with even some light multi-threading and DX11, they would be able to utilize more of the system and get more out of it. I wouldn't even recommend they upgrade the graphics, textures, models or whatever, just let us catch up to modern hardware and see how things shake out. Then if they want to do a graphics overhaul of the content they will know what their limitations should be.
    Stymie, Mongol311 and Jumbur like this.
  7. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    I think it's reasonable to expect that these devs will be used on EQ1 and EQ2. I don't think it's reasonable to think that any future mobile development would be undertaken by this same team of devs. Some of them may have experience with mobile, and maybe that's enough, but it probably isn't.
  8. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I think the new hires are for the "EQ team" - that being primarily EQ to begin with but highly likely to eventually include helping out on EQ2 too, there's a lot to be gained from a shared approach.

    I do however think there is some very serious money on the table for an "EQ classic Mobile" in much the same vein as OSRS but I think if that was happening it would have a discrete team experienced in mobile development - something I thought was going to happen with the Nantworks deal that went radio-silence.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  9. Zinth Augur

    "give BACK to us" so much money were "stolen" from us to make EQ2 (and EQ NEXT) that should have been put into making EQ better (new engine, revamps, better expansions with less copy paste)
  10. Zinth Augur

    they still got very got credit for all the other zones... Nektulos 2.0 aside (3.0 is great) Nektulos 2.0 and Freeport 2.0 were their BIGGEST mistakes... the rest of the revamps are nice, they resemble the old zones etc. etc. (would have preferred they kept Oasis of Marr a separate zone but whatever)
    Skuz and Jumbur like this.
  11. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    The problem with the freeport revamp, is that the old city consisted of a lot of unique buildings, and resembled a town where people lived.
    The revamp was plagued with "mono-texturing", where it looked like everyone was living in the "citywalls" that made up the different courtyards, instead of houses. It didn't really looked like a town anymore.

    The rest of the zone revamps were pretty good. :)
    Zinth and Skuz like this.
  12. Iven Antonius Bayle

    Zone revamps are very problematic. They can attract new players but alot old players will hate them as it does prevent them to relive past memories and does lead to dissaffection. Freeport and all the other so called revamped zones got not even revamped, they go completely replaced. The replacement of dead old zones by dead new zones in a well advanced game just to maybe attract a few new players is rubbish. It had been done correctly in The Feerrott where the players are able to select the version. To old players the technical aspects of such changes are unimportant as it is about memories, immersion and emotions.

    It was a logical process to create Crescent Reach as the newbie main hub. It definetly is far away from being perfect as it had removed about all racial roleplay aspects but new players now can start in a more modern looking area with a good turorial while old players can still choose old beginner zones. The next logical step is to recreate Norrath and its starting cities which is only possible in a new game. Such a game will attract EQ1 players, EQ2 players and most importantly new players.
  13. Jennre Band Leader

    If they would migrate to Azure cores, server life would be much better and easier to troubleshoot. Its easier to clone a core that is misbehaving than replace failing hardware on a server.
    Mongol311 likes this.
  14. Waring_McMarrin Augur


    You could say that for a lot of the cloud services but that doesn't mean it is easy to do.
    The real Sandaormo likes this.
  15. henry0918 Journeyman

    Some People often being pessimistic about eq’s future some even saying claw of veeshan would be its last expansion
    For a “ dead “ game it’s doing great
    I wish daybreak would increase the budget in marketing hiring some new hot streamer to play the game
    Putting up billboards
  16. quakedragon Augur

    Is it your opinion they put twice the money in EQ2 than EQ or is there fact of it?

    New code is easier to make stuff with than legacy code.
    EQ is legacy code so its a lot more effort to get nice things compared to EQ2.

    It's like
    C+, takes a lot of effort to do something, still working on this EQ1 thing, no time for new stuff
    Python, import it 2 more lines, DONE. I guess since I'm done with EQ2 tasks, I'll do even more.

    Coders know of the python 1 liners and other languages gotta do some complex multiline.
    Also with EQ1 there isn't much out there for old code, most of the open sources are if your using the latest and greatest.

    So in EQ1, stack overflow probably wont help much, in EQ2 stack overflow answers all the issues!

    Also, updating legacy code takes a long time, like a year. I believe last time EQ updated legacy code was properly Ykesha, hence why not much was added to that expansion. Who knows, maybe they updating legacy code now, hence we haven't heard of the expansion yet. So what you get is not based off of how much $$ they spend on it. Generally older stuff is harder to get new features than newer stuff.
  17. HeatherPurrs Augur

    I have two paid accounts. Most people have at least that. So yes, EQ has about 12k customers and about 12k bots...

    How'd that former "elite guild leader for EQ" work out for Blizzard/Activision? He literally bankrupted the company. What a "Told you so!" I predicted 15 years ago.
  18. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    I think your math is a bit off there 66k accounts and 12k users would mean the average 5.5 paid accounts per person.
    henry0918 and Skuz like this.
  19. Evertrek Augur

    all the above data is not true at all.

    nothing but a troll. the only true numbers would be presented by DB and company. lets stick to playing the games and let this bs be handled by the gaming news.

    the numbers i see are low online counts and prices going way up for things that should be included in the base subscription....
  20. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    Are you mentally deficient? The owners of this game RELEASED ALL THE NUMBERS FOR ALL THE GAMES. Try clicking on the link in the first post on this thread you responded to and read it, or read any of the quoted posts in this thread where the data was pulled out nice and neat for everyone.
    henry0918 and Fenthen like this.