"The devs don't play the same game as us!"

[Itzena]

It's called a vision (or, if you prefer a Vision(tm) )

EQ, back when Verant ran things, used to have one which was stuck to rigidly (unless it was near a competitor's launch date). Net result: close to half-a-million subscribers at peak.

EQ, when SOE started running things, dumped the Vision and whored itself out to drama queens, messageboard warriors with charts & theories, and Thott. Wait, I repeat myself. Net result: A slow decline, then (as soon as viable rivials started appearing) a subs base haemorraging worse than a haemophilic at a glass-eating contest.

WoW has a vision which tends to result in changes based on said vision being pushed live, then toned down/tuned up/rolled back depending on the screams of agony from the playerbase. Net result: One and a half millions subs and climbing.

Vanguard seems to be designed around a similar style to original-EQ (We're the Devs, we know best.Alchemy is working as intended). Predicted result: A few hundred thousand subs, then MS take over and steal as much as they can from WoW to increase subscriber base.

[Surlok TP]

Actually EQ's popularity peaked sometime in mid pop ,more than a Year after SoE took over from Verant.

They made a pretty big deal out of it,having broke the 450,000 subscriber mark.It was also around that time that they broke 100,000+ simultaneous users online at one time,course most of those were bazaar bots but whatever.

[Braen]

Originally posted by Itzena
It's called a vision (or, if you prefer a Vision(tm) )

EQ, back when Verant ran things, used to have one which was stuck to rigidly (unless it was near a competitor's launch date). Net result: close to half-a-million subscribers at peak.

EQ, when SOE started running things, dumped the Vision and whored itself out to drama queens, messageboard warriors with charts & theories, and Thott. Wait, I repeat myself. Net result: A slow decline, then (as soon as viable rivials started appearing) a subs base haemorraging worse than a haemophilic at a glass-eating contest.

WoW has a vision which tends to result in changes based on said vision being pushed live, then toned down/tuned up/rolled back depending on the screams of agony from the playerbase. Net result: One and a half millions subs and climbing.

Vanguard seems to be designed around a similar style to original-EQ (We're the Devs, we know best.Alchemy is working as intended). Predicted result: A few hundred thousand subs, then MS take over and steal as much as they can from WoW to increase subscriber base.

Funny MS never did that with AC 1 or 2. MS basically left them alone. MS made the X-box and sold the console at a loss in order to have a market share with PS2. That is the main reason there is not a hard drive in the X-box 2. They ahve shown that , jsut to be seen as a competitior to the best in the genre, that they will take a hit. And trust me MS has a lot more cash in reserve to compete at a loss than anyone else.

Nothing is a guarenteed 2 million subscriber MMO no matter how "easy/hard/painful" it is. I stil say that if Blizzard made Warcraft 4 RTS and made people pay a montly fee for it they would have a million subscribers.

Just because it is popular doesn't make the game good, see "The Sims" I know this is dev/company speak, but Brad has said that if he has 2 million subscribers then great, but he will be happy for old EQ numbers, ecause they can still be profitable and call it a success. To me, playing a game run by Brad and company means I know what to expect. I know that once I start playing, that the game will not be changed on a whim or by who screams the loudest or the longest. He stuck by "The Vision" Now some of his stuborness was unfounded and blind (i.e. pets not duel weilding and alchemy) but still he tried to keep the basics the same and keep the game hard and challenging.

Ideas like PoK, Summon Corpse and the like, watered down game play in the name of "accessability" and EQ lost it's hard edge shine. Now with WoW out, more people are expecting a less painful MMO... And that to me is the wrong direction.

Bring back the days of a painful Death Penalty, CRs, large world with few quick ports. Bring back the time when the world was harsh and a challenge, where death isn't a 5 minute run back to your corpse and then back in the fight. Where the world isn't a zone with doors to anywhere you want.

Brad said Vanguard won't be for everyone. That. above all he has said, has made me want to learn more about Vanguard. Sometimes, I want a game that only a few like-minded players will enjoy, cause as you start to please all the groups, like WoW, you start ingorning the details they all see differently.

And about the Devs know best thing... So far Brad and company have gone out of their way to talk to the community and to share as much informaiton as possible. They have discussed many different topics on the boards. I think they listen more to their playerbase then they ever did in the past, and certaintly more than other companies do now. That is a good sign.

Edit: spelling. And now I know why Bards were broken every patch, they kept spelling them BRADS!

[findar]

Bring back the days of a painful Death Penalty, CRs, large world with few quick ports. Bring back the time when the world was harsh and a challenge, where death isn't a 5 minute run back to your corpse and then back in the fight. Where the world isn't a zone with doors to anywhere you want.

lineage 2?

[Braen]

Originally posted by findar
lineage 2?

Hmm Never played it. I take it they have all those features?

[Cybsled]

Bring back the days of a painful Death Penalty, CRs, large world with few quick ports. Bring back the time when the world was harsh and a challenge, where death isn't a 5 minute run back to your corpse and then back in the fight. Where the world isn't a zone with doors to anywhere you want.

As was said, L2 is like that...and it FUCKING SUCKS. Grinds, long ass CRs, painful death. Fuck that shit. It was fine long ago, but I'm tired of it. We all wax nostalgic about our 4 hour Plane of Fear CRs....but honestly, was it fun? Not really. It came down to alot of waiting and sitting and not actually progressing your character but TAKING STEPS BACK, just so one can flaunt their digital e-peen and go "HA I AM HARDC0R3!!!" as they are forced to jump back on the tedious treadmill just to break even.

Why do you play a MMO? To have fun or to slam yourself in the balls and convince yourself it's worth it.

[Thorbadin]

Sometime it's a combination of power to act versus laziness.

I'm not sure exactly of the details on the CoH things but I know that if say I post something on a board (like I said a few time I'm currently the main dev for www.startsonata.com, a small mmorpg) saying this is how it is, and every player suddenly go in great lenght to contradict me, I might think that something is wrong.

My next in general would be to log in the game and try to speak with some key player I trust. I know that big game companies are really reluctant to do that anymore. A bit sad. Anyway so speaking with a player I respect that player could tell me what is the problem exactly.

Sometime it's also necessary to test on the live server for things like that. A GM make an anonymous real character, power level him a bit (if the problem is with the powerleveling process like it was for alchemy back then you have another problem but refer to step #2 when you speak with player you thrust about it) and go kill/test stuff.

In fact I remember specifically when Brad explained that he went on different live server and spoke to real shaman asking them about alchemy and then went in the dev room telling them it wasn't working and they had to unfuck it.

Thorbadin