Everquest Shutdown

Discussion in 'Off Topic Discussion' started by Thorak2, Oct 7, 2013.

  1. Thorak2 New Member

    Does Everquest or Everquest 2 run the risk of ever being shutdown?

    Over the last couple of years several MMO have been shutdown; Warhammer Online, City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, and many others. Even Sony saw a couple of its games join the MMO graveyard; Star Wars Galaxy, Everquest Online Adventures, The Matrix Online.

    More recently, Dragon's Prophet joined the Sony lineup but that game appears to be a failure. Did Sony purchase Dragon's Prophet? If so, why purchase something that appeared to be dead on arrival?

    I realize Everquest is a flagship product and with Everquest Next in development they will definitely not want to turn off the lights yet. But what about after Everquest Next is released? Even worse, what if Everquest Next only enjoys moderate success like Everquest 2?

    But what about Sony's financial future? I understand Sony had a rough go the last couple of years and Sony Online Entertainment is such a tiny part of Sony. However, with PS4 Sony looks poised to make a huge comeback.

    I wish they would turn these MMO into community projects after they shutdown. Like upload the source to github and give it LGPL license.
    Avianna likes this.
  2. Avianna Well-Known Member

    if they did that i would definitely run my own server
  3. Finora Well-Known Member

    I imagine all MMOs eventually will be shut down. That doesn't mean that it's going to happen before you tire of playing.

    SWG got the cut for several reasons, Lucas Arts not being a small part of that from my understanding of the situation. The Matrix Online had only something like 1000 players total left paying when it was shut down. I don't know any sort of details about EQOA but it's possible it is due to the fact it was on such an old game system and they didn't want to support a low population game on newer consoles (having never played a mmo on a console I don't fully understand how that all works. Possibly would cost them too much either dollars or time to make it compatable with the newer systems).

    Things to consider, EQ1 has been going for more than a decade and content is still regularly released for it, including expansions enough people still happily pay for that SOE deems it worth keeping up. EQ2 has nearly a decade under their belt and is in the same situation, regularly gets new content & paid expansions. They already have content for next year in developement from what I understand. That doesn't sound like something you do for a game you are getting ready to chuck in the trash.
  4. RadarX Community Manager

    Moving to Off Topic as this really isn't gameplay related.

    To answer your Dragon's Prophet question, no we did not purchase the game. We are publishing this title in North America which means we do not provide specific game development. We work very closely with the folks who do however.
  5. Styan New Member

    From my experience (playing EQ for several months), I think EQ is doing fine within the scope SOE has set for it. The community is still pretty robust and I would bet they make enough money to more than justify its continued existence. The newbie forum is full of returning players asking questions, which is a good sign.

    My experience with EQ2 so far is mixed. To my surprise I am finding EQ2 more fun than I expected and like EQ it is jammed with content. To my utter shock, I enjoy EQ2 combat over EQ combat. Although, the DPS focus of EQ2 does put a small damper on things. The main thing I find discouraging about EQ2 is the forum for newbies. Where in EQ there is a forum dedicated to welcoming newbies and old players back (which was very alive and helpful), the section for new players in EQ2 is rather imprecise and the players and sticky threads are not as helpful. If I were in charge at SOE, I would make a dedicated newbie forum with many sticky threads and encourage veteran players to politely help newbies in that forum.

    In summary about EQ2, from my perspective the online community isn't doing as well as EQ, but I am not sure how that relates to overall game health. On a side note, ZAM has a much better EQ area than EQ2. Not sure what that says either.
  6. Gilasil Active Member

    EQ2 has far more players then EQ. I figure that as long as they're willing to keep EQ running they'll also run EQ2. I'm not so sure how many fantasy MMOs one company can (or wants to) support however.
  7. Boox Member

    It's never a question of IF, but WHEN. These games won't last forever, but many of them have gone on a heck of a lot longer than I would have gambled on.

    Vanguard has an even lower population than EQ and it's still chugging along with regular fixes and updates (well, at least pre-SOE "restructuring").

    It would be nice if companies would release the code to the public, but I just don't see that happening. At least not for another 15 years.
    Finora likes this.
  8. Wingrider01 Well-Known Member

    would get pretty expensive since it is run on a server farm not single machine
  9. Gilasil Active Member

    The threshold when they'd shut it down has to be MUCH MUCH lower then what it is now. Sure everything gets shut down eventually, but I suspect that eventually is many years off for EQ2. When the place is a ghost town, original EQ is long gone, there has have been no expansions for years, and everything has been merged down to one server maybe then you can start worrying. I just don't see it now.

    Remember that as the number of people playing the game goes down, the resources required to host the game also goes down. You need less bandwidth, and fewer machines on the server farm. As long as things can scale down I suspect they'll be fine.

    Also keep in mind that right now that EQ2 is relatively popular by SoE standards.

    In any event, nobody here really needs to worry. They won't shut down EQ2 until the population is MUCH less. So much less that everyone here will have probably long since moved on.
  10. Vlahkmaak Active Member

    EQ1 has released expansions every year and has since launch. Rain of Fear (the 19th XPAC) was launched last November 2012. For reference: http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Expansions
  11. Avianna Well-Known Member


    Once the game dwindles down to the need to shut off the lights (if that ever happens) I would be able to run the game on two towers easily, one for game one for broker system. I would not have thousands of players on my server but rather invite only server so the required database and load would be much MUCH less than 10 separate servers with thousands of players each.
  12. xephier Active Member

    Ya don't expect the parents to pass on before the grandparents do ya? So why be in fear of Eq2 biting the dust when Eq1 is still up and running?
    ConcealFate likes this.
  13. Wingrider01 Well-Known Member

    the zones are on different servers, so a farm is required
  14. Saroc_Luclin New Member


    Actually their latest expansion, Call of the Forsaken (which ties into EQ2 lore since the point of the expansion is to return one of your dragons to you guys) launches today.

    But the post you were replying to was basically looking to the future, to a day when EQ is gone, EQ2 has compressed to a single server, etc... as the point when EQ will be shut down. As is, EQ and EQ2 are still doing well; more than well enough to continue receiving support and updates. Since they are purely within SOE's control, there are no outside factors that would affect their survival (like with SWG and Matrix Online).

    So in a nutshell,both EQ and EQ2 are still very safe and in no danger of shutting down any year soon. Beyond that, who knows? But short to medium term, they are safe.
  15. suka Well-Known Member

    you took his message out of context. he never said that eq1 is gone and has no expansion for years. The whole quote is: "The threshold when they'd shut it down has to be MUCH MUCH lower then what it is now. Sure everything gets shut down eventually, but I suspect that eventually is many years off for EQ2. When the place is a ghost town, original EQ is long gone, there has have been no expansions for years, and everything has been merged down to one server maybe then you can start worrying. I just don't see it now.

    if you are going to quote someone you really should quote the whole statement to get what they are saying.
  16. Avianna Well-Known Member


    the zones are on different servers to support a population of thousands, if the population was in the hundreds it could be done on less. this is really getting old arguing this with you. Point being is whether I could do it on two towers or ten I already have the equipment to do it and I would.
  17. Vlahkmaak Active Member

    The post I quoted was full of grammatical errors. At the time of my reading I mistook the information that the poster was trying to relay and thought s/he was under the mistaken impression that EQ1 was no longer producing expansions. I merely took this information and thought to provide a helpful link to current expansions. As there are quite a large number of people in the gaming world that believe EQ1 is no longer a viable game I justifiably mistook this for the posters assumption too. Thank you for putting on your forum police uniform and correcting me. I will sleep well at night now knowing the forums are well guarded from potential misunderstandings and I will think twice before offering helpful advice/links so as not to upset your delicate sensibilities on these matters.

    Cheers!
  18. Vlahkmaak Active Member

    Yes, It would seem I misread that post.
  19. suka Well-Known Member

    actually, i had no problem reading it. seems you are the grammar police. to provide a link is one thing, but to make it seem that someone says something they didn't is not a nice thing to do at all. i would hate to have someone take something i say out of context and attribute a totally different meaning to me. in fact, i would be highly insulted. i actually thought they would have caught it and said something but sometimes people don't check the forums for awhile. don't think i would call your assumption justified though.
  20. Shazbot Active Member

    As long as Sony Online Enterprises owns the intellectual property there's nothing that would drive them to shut down the games. Lord of the Rings Online is published by Turbine under an IPA (Intellectual Property Agreement) that gives them rights to run the game. When that IPA is up the question is whether the terms the other party wants to continue the deal are worth the cost of running the game.