Druidess Our own Druidess gives her perspective on the long-term effects of StationCash and what Free-to-Play means for the future of EverQuest II.
Since SoE decided not to sugar coat the news on F2P, I figured I’d return the favor and save the sugar for cookies I plan on baking later.
When I came back to this game and had perused the Marketplace for all the fluffy goodies it offered, I was disappointed. I think it’s really sad that Station Cash is offering the best looking armor and house items in the game. It’s as if the art department is allowed to slack on anything subscription wise and able to really throw their good ideas into practice so long as it can be bought in the Marketplace.
I think it’s absolutely horrid that only two of the legacy servers are given this upgrade when so many other servers have stated the same issues (and it has been proven it is not client side.) Before diving into a whole new project, fix the issues you (SoE) currently have. Or hey, how about stop firing people so that you have enough staff to work on the issues that are there?
You know, if they want to shut down the majority of the legacy servers, why not just come out and say it? Save us the slow and painful death. Merge the lower populated ones together, upgrade those to the new hardware, and keep the Free to Play servers just as they are.
I also think it’s a swift kick to the teeth to the loyal playerbase, for putting up with usual SOE ridiculousness as long as they have, only for them to come up short and dive knee deep into a new project (F2P) when it’s already been stated what issues needs to be fixed. It’s obvious that they don’t really spend a whole lot of money on Advertising. I’ve yet to see 1 EQ2 commercial. So, that basically means they’re relying on word of mouth. Don’t cut your fanbase at the knees before launching something that has the Chicken Littles of the game ducking for cover.
And lastly, Fighter Revamp changes are being disguised as for the good of the game, but it is obvious to all of us that certain changes are being done specifically for PvP and Battlegrounds. If it’s that much of a problem for fighters to have a few self-heals in Battlegrounds, then put a debuff on fighters in Battlegrounds that reduces the effectiveness of heals. Balancing PvP issues should not have effects on PvE servers. We were promised this from the beginning, but time and time again, we see changes on PvE to solve a PvP issue. This isn’t WoW. This is a PvE game with SOME PvP aspects.
I am not entirely certain how far down the rabbit hole it’s going to go. I do know that the slope they’ve set up for themselves is extremely slippery and several people have already answered with their wallets.
It is a sad state that finds loyal customers cursing instead of complimenting the company. Even worse will be the fact that the word of mouth that they rely on is getting worse by the minute. They remind me of some old history lessons.
Hey dad, How did MMO’s start
Well son, there was this company called SOE. They had a great idea at the time, but they let greed ruin it. I think they are still around, but they are in another business now because no one would trust them anymore.
That’s sad do you think the game I play will go away too? If they get greedy it will.
Sorry, but the fighter heal changes are not a PVP issue. I’ve detailed it on the official forums in several places, but they are a global issue with fighters.
Unless you think a fighter should be able to solo current tier heroic zones, or if you think its ok for a fighter to solo SoH raid zone up to and including Maestro?
Just cause the issue is much more pronounced in pvp, doesn’t mean the issue didn’t impact pve as well.
I can appreciate that EQ2 is a SOE product that has to meet their profit targets or go away (first and foremost). EQ2 is not a public service or a not-for-profit. Kudos on them for pressing that forward because it means that MMO’s have a future.
That said, they have some really unprofessional people steering the boat. Whoever thought ANY decision that divides the player base in an MMO didn’t think it through. Undoubtedly, there will be NO satisfying ALL of the players that are out there. Let’s face it, collectively the EQ2 community lacks the ability to reasonably define what they do/will pay for…but there are ways to discover the requirements buried within. Playing “follow the leader” with someone that’s behind you isn’t the way.
I often wondered why, if the true intent is to get new blood into EQ2, why they’d split the servers? Is it that the existing ‘vets’ aren’t very welcoming to new players that don’t live on their PC dozens of hours at a sitting? Maybe it’s that there’s such an outrage from getting in a ‘next generation’ of players just isn’t worth the headache.
Frankly, if they’d made the early levels F2P (even up to reasonably decent levels…maybe 70’s) with restrictions…they’d get the cheap guys hooked. Allowing purchased gear for a reasonable price at those levels isn’t going to nerf the whole game…I mean, who really spends a LOT of time in low level content anyway? Finally, I’ve always been against the idea that buying gear is the WORST thing they could do…but comparing to other industries, they could make it work in their favor.
Some thoughts on what would have maybe been a better compromise, IF a compromise HAD to be made:
1. F2P that’s a bit crippled ala the shareware type model gets people in
2. Allow the purchase of really good gear, but make it expensive enough that it remains fairly rare in the game
3. Make lots of fluff gear that’s cheap to help the revenue streams
4. The biggie…reinvest a portion of the new revenue into content that gives people a reason to want to pay.
Some people would threaten to leave, especially over the gear purchase…but putting a reasonable price tag on my efforts to get gear might not be a bad thing. i.e. I earn my full set of hard mode gear….someone else buys it. How much they buy it for places some price tag on my efforts. Is it worth $100? $500? $800? I’m sure there’s a number that is both a good revenue generator (in small volumes) AND respectful to the effort put in by those to play to get the gear.
And let us not forget….you can’t BUY skills….playing with them will tell all.
If Sony was really interested in bringing in new customers they would implement a free, unlimited trial like AoC did. Allow new people to pick whatever server they want (since they don’t do advertising and rely on word of mouth…maybe on servers where friends who got them to sign up are?) and play the game without restriction and for free but only to a point. Put a cap on leveling or features or whatever and then fix some of the glaring issues in the game so that they have a reason to subscribe and become a paying customer. I don’t see this new F2P server that is separate from other servers as doing anything helpful to the player base of EQ2 and it will likely do it harm by siphoning off any potential new players for regular servers to this F2P server. How is that supposed to help bolster the *paying* EQ2 server population? This whole idea seems like a very short-sighted attempt to bilk a few more people for money as more and more people lose faith abandon ship. Not to mention the fact that they are using their limited resources on this tells you exactly where their priorities are and it’s not with maintaining the game or satisfying it’s long standing *paying* customers. Sad really.
TV advertising might make sense to anyone who has never created, bought, or sold advertising, but to those of us who have, comments like that just hurt the more salient points of your argument. Bottom line: just thank your lucky stars that SOE is not WASTING money and other resources on producing TV ads.
I agree and disagree with some of the points here.
Firstly I agree on the need to fix what is in the game over spending time trying to resell it as a RMT game. There is a lot of broken content there in the game, at the maximum level many stats are largely irrelevant e.g.
No one cares about power, and has done for a long long time.
Critical, double attack are 100% for legendary geared characters, these and other stats are now pointless.
Mitigation for tanks is way too high, I was hitting 72/73 mitigation/avoidance on my legendary geared guardian, basically I was ready for the hardest raid, before I’d stepped into a single 90 raid.
etc
They need to fix this, I don’t agree that fighter self heals being nerfed is a bad thing, fighters are too powerful already with massive dps and massive survivability, they should need a healer, so this is a buff for grouping and healers.
The fact that in BG’s people could see it clearly is just a sidenote, if they only cared about PVP they could have changed it for PVP only, they didn’t. Instead people have written about running whole dungeons with a fighter and not healing once even for a boss fight, that’s broken.
Maybe its a good thing that this RMT model is being pushed just at a time when so many core mechanics for EQ2 are not working (mentoring down is a joke), it’ll be just one more factor to shut down this wretched chinese style RMT service.
But is this the start of the end for SOE? The agency looks like its going to tank as the shooter at the heart of it looks awful and its had a troubled life already.
So they have a lot now riding on their super hero game, but they have a similar problem to BP now, both brands are poorly received. It has been said for example that American assets in BP’s hands that are profitable will likely be more profitable in another companies hands, I think this is the same for the Everquest brand now.
So, will we finally see John Smedley go? Another year of bad results and another NGE on a game and I think its quite likely.
SOE has a business model that is very different than most other online game companies. Station Access and Station Credits are the primary offerings, not EverQuest 2 or DC Universe Online or The Agency.
A single title, even if only a modest performer, adds tremendous value to the package. (Nevermind that EQ is still profitable after launching a decade ago.) Credits are tied into each product, including the Facebook properties. The margins on online games, and especially microtransactions, are simply amazing.
Don’t forget several studio acquisitions, major license transactions, wider digital distribution, Station Exchange, Station Publishing, Fan Faire, and several additional revenue sources, including providing business services to third parties. Overall, I wouldn’t be surprised if SOE is one of Sony’s top-performing divisions.
“if you think its ok for a fighter to solo SoH raid zone up to and including Maestro?”
I bet that almost all of these fighter are in top line Raid gear.. The average Joe out there in treasure and master-crafted gear most likely can not do this.
My 2 cents
– Sorry, but the fighter heal changes are not a PVP issue. I’ve detailed it on the official forums in several places, but they are a global issue with fighters.
(That’s all well and good, but what are the Crusaders going to get to fill in that AA line? When the nerf happens, that pretty much makes that line dead in the water. The whole nerfing wasn’t completely thought out and was a knee jerk reaction to the Battlegrounds. Log into a battleground and you see Zerkers and Wardens. That wasn’t something they wanted to see and whether you admit it or not, the main reason why it was looked at to begin with.)
– TV advertising might make sense to anyone who has never created, bought, or sold advertising, but to those of us who have, comments like that just hurt the more salient points of your argument. Bottom line: just thank your lucky stars that SOE is not WASTING money and other resources on producing TV ads.
(Really? And the whole Celebrity WoW ad campaign hurt WoW subscriptions?)
Purchasing all new servers would be a mistake – at least initially. I agree that trying new hardware on the most populated servers makes sense. The new hardware may not fix the lag issues.
And the last thing we want is Sony blowing a whole ton of cash they could have spent on development on hardware that doesn’t fix a problem.
I am all for testing new equipment before going full on, with all the servers. I’m glad they’re doing that. What I’m not glad with, is that they decided to take on this huge project (F2P) before fixing the server issues first.
Take care of your currently client base BEFORE opening up the door for others.
Apples and oranges.
You going to explain how? I’m actually curious how advertising a product on TV hurts it.
“Don’t forget several studio acquisitions, major license transactions, wider digital distribution, Station Exchange, Station Publishing, Fan Faire, and several additional revenue sources, including providing business services to third parties. Overall, I wouldn’t be surprised if SOE is one of Sony’s top-performing divisions.”
I would be surprised if it was a top business, the reason is that SOE is just not mentioned at all in the Sony report, the games division its in talks about everything but SOE which I find odd.
I think SOE is profitable, but I also wonder if the management is top heavy there, I’m betting Smedley is as well paid as the top guy at Blizzard, which might account for the desperation that seems to drive the requirement to earn more cash.
I think you can answer your own question. Imagine you work for an advertiser. Your vice president just charged you with evaluating TV advertising as a means of achieving specific goals (e.g., increase brand awareness, call attention to a unique feature) for an aging product within specific constraints (e.g., time, treasure, talent.) Ultimately, you need to determine if TV advertising is the best use of available resources. What questions would you need to address in order to produce a business impact analysis and feasibility study?
This doesn’t mean anything at all. SOE is a division of SCEA, which is part of SCE, which is then part of the Networked Products & Services segment. SCE is identified by name because SCE is a principal business. The annual report provides shareholders, investors, and top Sony executives with a broad, high-level overview of the performance of the entire global conglomerate.