EQ Never

I can't weigh in with the same insight as Mughal or Elidroth but even if it turns out to be a dumb purchase, it's hard to argue that CN has done worse with management. I mean, they came in to clean house because it's quite obvious leadership was abysmal at SOE and failed project after failed project after failed project should have probably led to a complete closure. People bent out of shape about CN should be thankful that DBG is even around right now in whatever state they're in to host their decaying software. They weeded out a shit load of people that needed to be weeded out and canceled a project that went on for too long already.

Now people are getting hurt about some ex-EA guy getting hired when they should be shocked that someone is making any amount of effort to run DBG anywhere other than straight into the ground.

Ponytail's pretty lucky he got let go when he did, now he can just forever claim his project would have been a golden palace on a hill, if only those darned meddling investors had let him work his oily magic. The reason they couldn't "find the fun" was obviously due to lack of SOEmote focus.

That pisses me off so much and some people are so quick to believe Dave's load of shit. It's a low blow and completely disingenuous; trying to pass off his years of fuck ups as completely not-related to the demise and fuckery of EQN.

How competent were the programmers at SoE though? I mean, EQ2 was/is a mess. The idea guys are supposed to dream big. The programmers are the ones who bring realty into focus when it turns out that what the idea guys want is not possible. If it wasnt possible to make MOB pathing in Landmark, why were the design team continuing to work on a game that was technically impossible?

I think you answered your own question. The idea guys/bosses forced their dreams that would never work on the team thus years of a broken mess that eventually got canceled.

gogojira_sl said:

I can't weigh in with the same insight as Mughal or Elidroth but even if it turns out to be a dumb purchase, it's hard to argue that CN has done worse with management. I mean, they came in to clean house because it's quite obvious leadership was abysmal at SOE and failed project after failed project after failed project should have probably led to a complete closure. People bent out of shape about CN should be thankful that DBG is even around right now in whatever state they're in to host their decaying software. They weeded out a shit load of people that needed to be weeded out and canceled a project that went on for too long already.

Now people are getting hurt about some ex-EA guy getting hired when they should be shocked that someone is making any amount of effort to run DBG anywhere other than straight into the ground.

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Yeah, was just curious if CN bought them then gave them a mandate to get their house in order and to start making money or else, or has there been someone looking over Russell Shanks shoulder the whole time, pulling the strings.

Felmega_sl said:

How competent were the programmers at SoE though?

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It's the company where changing the name of A Muffin to Muffins broke the Bard class's songs for a month. So, not very.

There was probably a decent amount of programmer churn over the years, and if they didn't have some rock solid documentation going into it (as well as not having spaghetti code to start off with) it's pretty easy to see why they might have had issues as time went along. Not sure if that says more about the coders or about the person directing them, hah.

Kuro_sl said:

The reason they couldn't "find the fun" was obviously due to lack of SOEmote focus.

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Dear God don't get me started on that festering fuckup of an idea.

Felmega_sl said:

How competent were the programmers at SoE though? I mean, EQ2 was/is a mess.

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SOE/DBG had/have some absolute wizard level coders in the company.. Steve Klug, Terry Michaels, Jenn Chan, and several others are BRILLIANT people.. But with any project when you try to brute force it with sheer numbers, you get some jackasses in the mix too. Some very good talent also left the company on their own.. some for new game companies, others just to be closer to family. It happens.

Reht_sl said:

Yeah, was just curious if CN bought them then gave them a mandate to get their house in order and to start making money or else, or has there been someone looking over Russell Shanks shoulder the whole time, pulling the strings.

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No way to tell really. I certainly wasn't at the level to know that. I never really saw the CN guys around, but then I wasn't in the admin building, so I wouldn't have anyway.

Elidroth_sl said:

No way to tell really. I certainly wasn't at the level to know that. I never really saw the CN guys around, but then I wasn't in the admin building, so I wouldn't have anyway.

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Cool, thanks!

Elidroth_sl said:

No way to tell really. I certainly wasn't at the level to know that. I never really saw the CN guys around, but then I wasn't in the admin building, so I wouldn't have anyway.

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I will say that of anybody, the one person I would trust what they say about SOE/DBG it would be Elidroth.

I saw you at the conferences in Vegas a number of times, and you could tell you was one of the few that got it at that company. Watching you shoot people down in the EQ Q&A sessions was always great.

When I saw you left the company, I said EQ was fucked. I still believe that, and everything that keeps happening just keeps pointing to that reality.

Elidroth_sl said:

Let's be clear too.. Landmark was Dave's obsession, and there simply was no way to convince him otherwise about it being a game. I believe this ultimately killed EQN.

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There was a lot going on behind the scenes between him, Smed and Sony with budgets and the sale of SOE that took more than a year. Having said that Dave approached the project with the wrong assumptions and when the market pushed back he doubled down on his mistakes. EQN was his responsibility and he blew it, and Smed should have removed him sooner when it became clear what was happening.

Not a fan of him whitewashing his responsibilities and offloading blame to others.

In regards to CN's hires, they are finally restructuring DBG from a money pit to a company that can turn a profit. This is why they finally appointed a creative director, a head of monetization, financial controllers etc. Under Smed it was a leaky ship that was hiring nice-but-ultimately-incompetent people that unsurprisingly attended the same church as him on Sundays.
This means making some shitty pay2win card games from time to time (or zombie survival games). The moment the company is profitable again and has a nice pipeline with decent metrics (again something that did not exist during SOE as products were finished in the morning and then shipped after 4 hours of internal QA) they will sell, probably to a Chinese company.

EDIT: just to be clear I wish Smed the best. Ultimately he was not full of it and really cared about games and gamers. He just built a broken process from which only broken games could come out. His new company is no different. I hope for his sake that he proves me wrong.

Jysin_sl said:

I'd be curious to know how many of those $100 early access packs they actually sold for Landmark.

I will fully admit, I was duped and bought into it. Played for a few days and decided world building wasn't my thing. Wish I had that money back.

The only positive I will say is that it was a life lesson. I will NEVER pay to Alpha or Beta anything ever again! Companies can fund their own development.

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I paid the $100 bucks for that piece of shit too.

But, let me be clear about something. I did not buy it to play Landmark!

I bought it to invest in to Everquest Next. Fuck Landmark! It's a God damn tool; not a game.

I still want my money back because they cancelled EQNEXT. Those bastards releasing Landmark as a game is bullshit. We paid the $100 to be founders of EQNEXT. not Landmark.

Those duchebags ripped us off.

I can't help but think that most people probably invested in EQN:Landmark it was because they believed that in some way it would pay some benefit toward EQN. There may have been some curious Minecraft-ish folks that wanted to check it out but I would think they were the minority.

I know I bought in hoping to build for EQNext or at the very least become familiar with tools that would be used in their housing/guild hall features. I thought Landmark peeps may get preference on Alpha and Beta invites as well. Regardless, I still feel they should have given every person some free Access time depending on what level of Landmark pack you purchased.

Convo_sl said:

I wonder if that internal play test was just a straight up lie..

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Nope.. it was real. I played it as did most of the company.