Smedley speaks on the future of MMO's

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Skitterfast, Apr 28, 2015.

  1. Sabbaticus New Member

    Bravo...I totally agree with this. I remember when it took all night to get down to Nagafen and someone in the group says....S_____ I forgot to do _____. Yep we called out and spent another all niter going back down again. Yea bring back the old game. It's what brought us all here in the first place. I remember the group in the road in Antonica that were a pain in the a__ to get passed. Oh the good days for sure.
    FriggaWitch and Griff like this.
  2. Dequi Active Member

    Those scarecrows were great XP
  3. Fleshdecay Well-Known Member

    And to add:

    14) AA slider (no more open world exploring or crafting, just hiding in instances and mass pulling.

    15) Too many uncontested instances

    16) Gear seperation (should be 1 set of gear for every aspect of the game)

    17) Dumbed down stats (you would be surprised at how big of a negative impact removing the benefits of all stats for all classes has made, it has taken away any uniqueness or personal play style from players)

    18) Instant travel/guild flags/cov etc. (This takes away from content being explored, so many wonderful zones uninhabited because they can be easily skipped or never known to exist.)

    19) Resists (I simply miss when they meant something and worked)

    20) Buffs/Debuffs ( So many useless buffs and debuffs that are left outdated and unused, I feel bad for bards)
    FriggaWitch and Iadien like this.
  4. Feara Well-Known Member

    Agree.

    I disagree,

    First ~ I don't know of anyone who is only playing this game just so they can buy silly mounts and outfits. That's just fluff and though I don't buy much of that myself, I am sure glad they offer it. Why? Playing for many years can warrant a need for variety. HELLO.

    Don't even get me started on house decorators. I am one. I'll just stop right there.

    Second ~ The game has not devolved. I think the (evolving) changes I have seen in the last few years are totally awesome. The user friendly ui makeovers, the fixes, Heroic Characters, Agnostic Dungeons and the ever expanding content.

    I realize we are all different players and wanting/needing different things in this game but in the last three years there have only been a few things I personally did not like or feel they gave their all in. What stands out in my mind the most is the Overlands. I just couldn't get into the last few ones, AoM is doable.
    FriggaWitch, Moonpanther and Griff like this.
  5. Fleshdecay Well-Known Member

    Oops meant questing not crafting.
  6. Ardur Duradan Well-Known Member

    talks about how short term gaming is the new cats pajamas.

    Keeps making rarity in his games so high forcing invested players into playing short term game design over and over and over to attain the things they want. Makes elite mercs so rare you have to ride around doing nothing for hours and hours on end.

    Talks about how long term investment games are a thing of the past, yet WoW has over 10 million subs and he fronts a game that takes alot more time to get rare items in, and gates mobs with ridiculous stat requirements and little to no skill required.

    Lets face it, the only reason eq/eq2 are around is because the fan base is consistent, so we are pretty much used to fund the short sighted ideas/games of smedley, and at one point smokejumper. This is why numbers are in slow decline for both of these games. It takes a while to snap out of the honeymoon/enjoyment phase and get to the " what the hell are they trying to sell me?" Phase, and even then most people will stick around because its a way to contact friends, and family for some. I mean, after they launched PS2 look how much the efforts going towards eq2 were reduced ( Destiny of Velious was the last large scale expansion released before they sold us a "feature expansion" with no content, followed by CoE which was very broken and unpolished in terms of heroic and raid content) Now they are so small that they are delivering piecemeal "campaigns" because it milks more money out of whats left of the population because its in decline. They state they do things like this for the people that play, but its just a nice thing that they say in hopes of keeping the carrot dangling in front of your face.

    Personally, I find the statements they use insulting to people who play. They always have a double meaning, or a soft approach to whats realistically happening. Its all to control the inevitable decline. If things were improving, they would offer transparency in terms of that improvement to prove it to you and encourage more to join in on what people like. It would be a selling point. Thats why they dont show you things like server pop and profits.

    If you judge someone by what they say, Smedley seems to know very little about the industry he represents. Maybe if they were honest about the state of this game in terms of its performance and success they could win over the population thats left, but I doubt thats the goal at DBG.

    How foolish is it to take something that has been such a good long term investment and burn it down like they have? I look at this game and sigh because I love what I have experienced in it, but fully know what it actually is now. A shell of what it was.
  7. Griff Well-Known Member

    I guess I interpret things a little differently. Opening up for a good flaming, but here goes.

    Early on we had those great malt shops and burger joints (EQ-1). They were great not just because they had good stuff, but because they were the "place to go"; as in make it home or visit Pop's Malt Shop! Pop's is a little slow, a little pricey, but hey, all my friends are there so it's worth it.

    Then came along Mr. Kroc (McDonald's Fame) who figured out how to sell more milk shakes for less money even faster! I liken this to the release of WoW by Blizzard. People started flocking to McDonald's because they had *sorta* the same stuff with *almost* the same quality (not really) for less money. That meant more of your friends and family could afford to gather there.

    Pretty soon the game in town was between Pop's and McDonald's with a few start ups that really could not pull enough attention away from the two big players.

    Then some of the people that missed going to Pop's, since even Pop's started to change came up with a great idea, a gourmet burger place for those that appreciated the good old days (Vanguard). Idea was great, but people still wanted that fast food at dirt cheap prices. Not enough interested people so improving that game failed in the end.

    I think the lesson in all this is that there is a small niche for those not seeking instant gratification as well as the fast food of gaming that is WoW out there. Others have tried to enter that market and compete with either side and lost. What's out there (pretty much "Us and them" ) will most likely stay profitable and be out there for a long time. Newcomers to our favorite genre? I really don't see that happening. I can see continued building on the Everquest franchise, but I really don't see them releasing a whole new MMO based on the times we so much enjoyed in the early days of EQ-1. That ship has long sailed.
    FriggaWitch and Belenos like this.
  8. Ardur Duradan Well-Known Member

    Its a niche based game for sure. But niche markets are very profitable on the internet if you know how to serve them. If you look at MMO sub data, wow is just better at maintaining its subscribers than sony is. Every game gets a population spike and drop off at their release, yet WoW has managed drop off the best.

    EQ2 stopped releasing subscription data right after 2010, right when the first f2p server experiment started. Probably to conceal how much they could profit off current players. It had major drop offs at release because it released around the same time as WOW, and rushed release as well. Blizzard didnt rush anything, as you know they test the hell out of their games.

    thats the difference between the two. One tested and tested until they felt confident with the product. the other kind of tested and then rushed the product out the door. Its obvious why one is superior over the other. One was more of a gamble.

    some references for data

    http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

    http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-2.png
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  9. Skitterfast Well-Known Member

    I like your analogy.

    For the record, I've not eaten at McDonald's in years. The Woodside Deli, on the other hand, is a place I eat dinner frequently.
    Moonpanther and Griff like this.
  10. Pariel Active Member

    Again with the reddit threads... are the heirarchy of Daybreak afraid of posting on these forums?
    FriggaWitch and Wirewhisker like this.
  11. Ratza Well-Known Member

    Mostly what I hear and see is that players want to see old zones revamped so they can go have fun as maxed out toons. Why not make a few of the most popular zones into lv 100 instances or contested zones like they did with Runnyeye back in the day....folks loved Runnyeye2....gave them a chance to go in an all time favorite zone and have fun with some challenge. Players have been begging for this!!! The agnostics somewhat serve this purpose when leveling up alts/new players but it doesn't give the max players that old nostalgic thrill they seek.
    Pipsissiwa likes this.
  12. Lasai Well-Known Member

    Hmm. I'm still hearing "SWG is too hard and takes too much reading" and "players want Fast Paced and Starwarsy".

    Oddly, Smed claimed he learned something from that debacle. Guess he forgot.

    Industry leading moments of pure stupid are nothing new for this guy.
    FriggaWitch and Wirewhisker like this.
  13. Malleria Well-Known Member

    The best thing Smed could do for his company right now is give us a straight up honest interview, not this sugar coated marketing bs he's currently putting out. The latest interview by Zam is just more of the same rubbish.
  14. Delishus Active Member


    Who cares what Smed says really? Nobody even cared back at 989/Verant when Brad McQuaid was the real brains of the operation.

    He's a kid with money that latches on to whatever smells like a good investment to hang his hat on, at any given time. Absolutely nothing wrong with that until they start blathering on about what the future of anything is, as if they have a clue. This guy alone has caused more grief in online gaming for the last nearly 20 years now than anyone else at his level of operation in gaming.

    Smed taught the MMO galaxy how to really, REALLY hate your players, aka customers.
  15. Avirodar Well-Known Member

    The problem is when "Pop's Malt Shop" becomes envious of the "Mr. Kroc" outlets opening all over the country. The owners of Pop's Malt Shop want a share of the market which Mr Kroc exposed/generated. The owners of Pops Malt Shop think that they can tap into this great market by incorporating (copying) some of the designs found in the Mr. Kroc outlets. However, the owners of Pop's Malt Shop were not smart enough to recognize the importance of all the media advertising which Mr Kroc was doing. And the changes they do make are neither here nor there, thus upsetting existing customers while failing to attract new customers.

    Outside of the original customer base of Pop's Malt Shop, no one knows/cares about Pop's Malt Shop. But everyone knows about how awesome Mr. Kroc is because they advertise. So when someone is at home on a hot day, and feels thirsty, guess where they go to buy that nice icy cold drink?

    Location, location, location. Finding EQ2 is like going on a 4x4 track after a week of solid rain, through roads that are not on the map. And when you happen to find the unicorn in the woods, the servers are really slow in taking your order, especially if 23 other people happen to be sitting at the tables. After that kind of service, would you make a point of trying to find them again?
    FriggaWitch, Wirewhisker and Charlice like this.
  16. Kham Active Member

    I love you Avi
  17. Gramma Active Member

    *Avoids eye contact*
    *Whistles a tune*
    Feara and Strings like this.
  18. Vainamoinen Well-Known Member

    [IMG]
    Wirewhisker likes this.
  19. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    Smed has some valid points, which is why I laugh at the people that talk about bringing back the 'original' Eq2 would 'save it'.

    it's not going to work, and here's why. most those changes were asked for. pleaded for, on these very boards.

    the boat ride? people complained it wasted time, it was just a tutorial. the boat ride quests between the islands? same thing. it's a waste of their time, if they want to go to EL or Zek or LS, they should damn well be able to without doing a stupid/boring/tedious questline. so they got changed.

    the starter isle? hardly anyone actually used them. same with the burbs. I got a bunch of toons, like 10, and when I made my last 6, there wasn't anyone on the starters, and I hadn't seen anyone in the burbs since maybe 2005. so they cut them/revamped them into something that at least MIGHT get used if your interested int eh city questlines.

    the overlands? again, the playerbase flooded these boards with threads complaining about it. Overlands shouldn't be hard, the dungeons should be. I shouldn't need a group in the overland, why are there heroics and raids out there in the overland. OMG Holly killed me AGAIN! how am I supposed to do the 'solo' quests in windstalker village with wandering heroic holly? So it got changed.

    contested instances again got a flood of people complaining about how thier lack of group/guildmates made them undoable, or that higher level characters could monopolize the content for mentoring their friends, my playtime/schedule means when I try a contested it's flooded with people, double xp weekends make them unplayable, ect. so they've gotten away from contested stuff to put in more instance stuff.

    and it still happens right now. the AoM sig line? why should i have to do it, it's just a tedious timesink. why do I need to work through the zones to get the tiers of gear? it's just a timesink. anything in this game that takes longer then 20 minutes to complete gets complained about as a time sink. or that it's tedious. hell they are doing it right now with the Rum Cellar. the solo quest it s tedious timesink because I can't plow through it in 4 minutes and have to sneak and learn to pay attention.

    you can blame WoW, you can blame facebook gaming, or that it seems a lot of people in EQ2 have ADHD, but whatever it is, all you would do by 'bringing back the original' EQ2 at this point is even further lower the population.
    Belenos likes this.
  20. Justbecause Active Member

    Why are we blaming WoW and facebook games again? Or even people who have ADHD? SoE had all of the chances in the world to fix "the problem". One complaint this week would swing the community in one direction and the game would change in that direction and the next week it would be the total opposite. If there is anyone to blame its the company itself. Name another game out there that makes every financial decision based on what the highest complainagory wants in their game every week? All of the other games create their platform and build on it rather than change it ever couple months to please the complaints of a handful of it subscribers.

    Players loved this game because even though the platforms were so close it was still different from WoW, because there was challenge, because there was a sense of accomplishment for having to work together to complete a sig line or epic quest. Now as soon as someone can't complete something on the first or second attempt they go complain and guess who gives into them every single time. I posted before about this and its the same thing. No accountability. They would rather aim the blame at the kids who have cell phones at the age of 6 and are lost in bejeweled, candy crush, farmville, and all of the other pay to win games. Seems like the logical choice when its the only other thing you can think of to keep the finger pointed away from yourself. The majority of the people who play this game are older than 14 years old so blaming kids seems like the easy way out to me. Its obvious saving anything is about as out of reach as winning the lotto at this point. Just sad to me when all of the power house companies out their can admit fault for their imperfections even in the automobile industry when people die due to them and they still manage to sell their product. This should be all the info you could possibly need to make your decision about the future games they intend to release.
    flameweaver likes this.