Open Letter regarding the future of Player Studio

I actually sent a very polite message to Gninja, Kaitheel and Chrol directing them to this thread and asking for clarification. They had no information to offer and told me to seek out Kander and Haomaru which I did, but they have not had time to even read the message probably, but hopefully it will get them to see your letter.

I am sorry I do not have better news to report.

Well thanks for trying to get us some answers!

Thanks for doing what you did!! It is much appreciated.

It makes me sad to see they are shutting down PlayerStudio, as the players who contribute to it do such a lovely job. I wish DBG would have had the staff to dedicate to this program, as I really think the program could have been much more successful then. I hope that those who have already contributed are allowed to continue to contribute, and that this program will not be entirely disassembled, but if it is, I would like to give a shout out to our PlayerStudio artists and say thank you for bringing so much joy to the decorating community over these past several years. I do hope the devs see this thread and reconsider this move.

Pretty sure decorators keep the lights on around here.

I'm certain that has to be true! And HI FELDON!!!!

Yep!

Frankly, if people are dead set on PVP, or raiding, or cross-server anything, there are better games out there for that. But this is probably the best for tradeskilling in general and decorating in particular. ;->

And hey, Feldon! Nice to see you back!

Uwk

I wont get into specifics but killing off ps is a pretty big blow. You dont really make very much from it but it could fill in gaps between contracts so you dont go hungry. After self employment taxes though...they steal about quarter of what you made for the year, so this was a terrible time for this to happen.

Im not suprised though, the numbers have been dwindling, this year an average check was about a quarter of what it was in 2016-17. What this says is either:

1. Theres not enough player base to support this.
Im not sure this is the case or that people are purchasing less from the market, i think eq2 has a stabilized user base, it doesnt grow or shrink. I dont think people are purchasing any less either.

2. Things we make are never advertised and people barely know whats out there.
This is definitely true, when was the last time anything from ps was announced on the website or anywhere else. hell even the announcement of canceling it was thrown up with no warning. This especially is a kick in the face to people like a friend of mine whom signed up for ps and payed the tax fee when they found out there was a deadline coming to participate last month.

3. The market is such a mess that finding anything or knowledge of items is lost in the ptw items that are splashed all over the front of the market.
This is also very true, just a month ago i had to post some of the full houses i made, these have been on the storefront for years yet most players arent knowledgeable about it.

I get with diminishing returns, they cannot afford to pay employees to work on implementation as it doesnt make sense, thus the backlog currently going on. I was excited when they announced changes to player studio coming soon and was hoping for a more automated system that would require more from us and less from employees. I would have happily created collision and done hookups myself if it sped the process along more. Its a shame really because if 2 and 3 were addressed there may not have been an issue.

You are always great Cy and LOl about the person.

I am one sad puppy with this announcement

This is true, if it wasn't for me posting and you replying with a list I would of had no idea. The buildings are not easy to get to imo.

I love, love, love the sets I have purchased so far. Thank you for your creations.

I have purchased some really nice things from PS and I will continue to do so as long as I can.

I believe that is true. We are here long after others rush through content and go check out the next shiny. We used to get a lot like the dev picks on the leaderboards, now we have to do our own activities to get our homes seen. Thanks to all the wonderful folks who do tour videos now. Now our guilty secret, Player Studio is coming to an end, and it is just sad. We are not going to buy your potions and other stuff on there, we were there for the Player Studio stuff that we could use in our decorating.

And while they say they will go through the backlog, I have a bad feeling we won't see much come from that either. Of course, we will still partake of the items they have made in the past, but nothing matches the excitement of seeing new items.

Nice to see you pop in Feldon!!

Both SOE and DBG have been simply awful about knowing anything about how to advertise, up to and including the game itself. I can understand SONY being a wee bit reluctant to advertise for something that could compete with its console games (the big hoo-rah in movie theaters for EQ2's release in 2004 notwithstanding), but DBG should have no excuse, being hungry for players and without necessarily a lot of support from a media giant like SOE had. It may be a silly cliche now from G.I. Joe, but "knowledge is half the battle" of getting new customers...be it for Player's Studio or anything else. :-/

I sincerely hope those employees who were working on Player Studio wear at least one other hat, and won't get laid off when PS shuts down.

Uwk

Well I am guessing that we are not going to get any response from DBG. It has been long enough that everybody I sent the message to has had long enough to see it and look at the thread, Gninja and Kaitheel did, they just didn't have any information to give to us and suggested others that might.

I have been saying for years that it is not the ones that are being catered to that keep the lights on. The ones that are the silent majority are keeping the lights on and the paychecks flowing. We accept what we get, we do not make demands, we make polite requests, we hope, we make do with what we have, if we get something new we rejoice. But we stay, we pay our subs, we buy at least the mid-level expacs so we can get the house and the building block books and the housing fluff items for at least one account, usually more. A lot of us spend more than just our sub and our expac purchase, we buy extra DBCash when we can so we can purchase PS items, extra Prestige homes, other housing items, plushies, and other things for our houses. I will be honest, but it will be about 2017, not about current, in 2017 I spent $2365 with DBG between subs, expansions, and DBCash across 4 accounts. Show me one of the catered to players that spent that amount. Before 2017, some years it was less, some it was the same, some it was more.

Dang!!! You have me beat by probably double, I think the most I've spent in a year between 2 accounts and expansions, was maybe $1,500 probably more like $1,200.00 but there were a few times I would go crazy on the DBC

But that was 4 accounts, so if you doubled yours its comparable.

OMG if I doubled mine I'd go bat**** crazy, I sometimes have a hard enough time with the ones I have, I'm already slapping my hand not to get another character slot because I really really really want to play on Kaladim.

ROFL! Unless you're doing a lot of F2P, shouldn't be too much of a worry (says the giant kitty with 102 toons now)... ;->

Uwk

All I can say is OMG you need another meeting LOL 102????

Yeah, and I was debating about remaking my eighth (!) Monk into my seventh Bruiser or -- gasp! sob! -- deleting her and remaking her as a female Aerakyn, who'd be a Channeler, both of which I need for my quotas. ;->

Or just making a new one from scratch, but then that'd be 103, and would mess up my balances here and there... X-P

But, but, but...deleting! One of my babies!

Granted, she's only 10th level, and was a transferee from Fallen Gate, but still... :-/

Uwk

Well since the meetings haven't really helped any of us anyhow. I would say don't delete her, just make 2 more so then what you'd have 8 Bruisers and 8 Channelers? That way you can meet all your quotas.