Flying Duck Mount Dead in the Water?
When you’ve got one Animator and one Character Artist for a game the size of EverQuest II, development time is ever-precious. Most of Tom and Chris’ efforts go towards the annual Expansion, plus the creation of a few StationCash mounts per year. It’s just the nature of the beast that their time for fun projects is limited. It doesn’t help that not everyone was a fan of the less serious, frivolous, or “silly” mounts which push the limits of a medieval setting.
But the party might be over. After 43 pages of hilarity from Errrorr‘s “The Official Duck Mount Request thread“, the topic was abruptly closed this morning. The writing was on the wall as early as last Thursday as Tom Tobey tweeted the sad news:
Sorry everyone, We tried. It won’t be duck season.
— Tom Tobey (@giganticrobot) January 23, 2015
When asked for more detail in the official thread, Tom answered:
You are quacking up the wrong tree. I was in 39 pages ago.
We can speculate on whether the merriment of absurd mounts went too far and a higher-up put their foot down, but it’s also likely that sales of the hopping Bunny mount didn’t sufficiently multiply to the point of filling Accounting’s baskets. Here’s Errrorr‘s parting thought:
Apparently, decision was made because the Bunnies didn’t sell as well as expected, and all mounts made are compared to the Pegasus they released 4 years ago for sales. Although this wasn’t direct from an SoE Source.
The thread was finally closed with this comment from Tom:
OK I think it’s time to fly this thread south for the winter. It really did make me laugh a few times though. Onward to giraffes!
For now we can only dream of what may have been…
(technically a goose but you get the idea)
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Comments (12)
Zzzz'z
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I would rather their limited resources and developement go towards creating more xp content. I don’t think we need more mounts especially fluff mounts so I support this 100%. Use those resources on fiixng broken mechanics and improving game play. Better yet – how about some focus on server mergers before what’s left of our dead servers all up and quit too!
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Feldon
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None of which Tom Tobey or Chris Atkins has any idea how to do. They just make cool characters and make them move.
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GriffonLady
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I love it when someone is against something they don’t like (and has no actual effect on them) and hasn’t a thought for the people who were for it. :\
Also, (regarding server mergers) they are working on making it not matter what server you are on. I lost bunches of friends after each server merger due to their (admittedly silly reason) anger over losing their character’s name.
FYI, I had to sit through illusionist’s pet’s hair getting fixed while I’ve been waiting since 2006 for SOE to either fix the score keeping for the Pet Arena so the related merchant’s kill/winn requirements could be fulfilled and the items he sells be unlocked… still broken… and when I asked GMs if those items could possibly be moved to where they are not bugged to the point of inaccessibility, I was told those items were meant to be a goal for players… but there were no current plans to fix the bug… so logic is just completely broken there.
But, back to the point… people who make mounts and other art related things (and not the programing itself.. ahhhemm…) May as well make one thing a year that fans have actually requested, don’t you think? If there is one thing SOE really needs, it’s better customer relations.
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Zzzz'z
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I’m not against it…but realistically feel resources could be better used than for making fluff that will have ridiculous $ amount in SC placed on it.
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Antonia Bayles Bit on the side
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I am taking this as Duck Mounts CONFIRMED for Bristlebane Day.
Oh well, I can dream. Would be nice to have a Sergeant Quackers cosmetic pet though and a bunch of little ducklings parading in single file behind him as a next best thing though.
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GriffonLady
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The only reason the bunny mounts didn’t sell well is because not only is flight the prefered method of travel, but the expansion running at the time required flying mounts to get from quest hub to quest hub.
If they make the flight wings able to attach to all mounts, they’d see more sales of land, leaping, and gliding mounts.
The bunnies are so adorable, I bought one even though I hate taking off my flying mounts. XD
Also, they could use the frame animation of the duck flight, run, and walk animations for eagles, and those would probably sell pretty well. (Or reverse, start with eagles and recycle that to make ducks later, if that might get the project off the ground faster, so to speak.)
I was really hoping to see Guides flying in on a goose for some story based events. :\
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7rlsy
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Exactly. If it’s a sales concern, then they absolutely should liberalize the mounts appearence options, given the flying requirements for upper tiers and the plethora of non-flying mounts available, including those from the Marketplace. Bet you’d see flying bunnies with pterodon/pegasus/whatever stats.
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Archangel
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An easy simple solution, that’s probably too easy for the SOE simpleton MBAs, who require complexity.
A mount appearance slot with no requirements would bring in more SC mount sales. No new coding (mostly) would be needed for existing mounts.
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Danejasho
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Do they have those big hand mounts, or is that only in EQ1?
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Errrorr
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I tried. Onto the next project. 😥
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Hoot
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Never will I ever buy a mount for $20. Especially one that doesn’t fly.
I can theorize several other reasons why they didn’t sell, but that would be a waste of time. EQ2 along with most of the other SoE games are slowly becoming operated by skeleton crews as more and more are laid off or transferred to the next biggest and latest money grab.
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Striinger
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Novelty mounts are quaint, but I’d rather see them revisit animations and character models/armor to be more in line with the latest expac art. Playing other games recently has really highlighted how “odd” some character animations appear at times. They aren’t horrible; they’re just not quite right.
It’d be fairly minor tweaking many won’t consciously notice, but so were many of the things in AoM that had people in awe.
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