EQ Never

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popsicledeath

Potato del Grande
7,547
11,831
H1Z1 is crazy profitable. EQ1 and EQ2 both are in the black by a large margin. Cutting the money pit that was EQN was smart, especially after so many years of failed development. If anything, their P&L statement just got a whole lot better, especially since any money that flushed down the EQN rabbit hole can be used as tax deductions against H1Z1 and EQ1/2 profits.
Crazy profitable? In the black by a large margin? You've never been wrong about anything related to EQN or SOE before, so I'm inclined to believe you. Really sounds like Sony made a huge mistake selling SOE! I mean, EQ 1 and 2 in the black by a large margin? Their latest title crazy profitable? They were sitting on a cash cow and must have been raking in the millions every year. Stupid Sony getting rid of SOE when it was so profitable and successful!
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
Crazy profitable? In the black by a large margin? You've never been wrong about anything related to EQN or SOE before, so I'm inclined to believe you. Really sounds like Sony made a huge mistake selling SOE! I mean, EQ 1 and 2 in the black by a large margin? Their latest title crazy profitable? They were sitting on a cash cow and must have been raking in the millions every year. Stupid Sony getting rid of SOE when it was so profitable and successful!
It's not hard to figure out. All that money was going down the hole to other projects. Yes.. EQ1 and 2 are profitable by a big margin. I saw the actual numbers before I left DBG on a regular basis. I know pretty accurately how much EQ1 made last year in pure profit. H1Z1 has probably made in the tens of millions of dollars so far. SOE was sold by Sony because of so much money going into things that didn't make any money resulting in a net loss. When you have a large number of high-salary people working on a project for 3+ years with no money coming in from it, the burn is pretty rough. The resources going into EQN and Landmark were a VERY sore spot for the EQ1/2 teams because we felt like we were keeping the company afloat while they got all the benefit from our work. H1Z1, DCUO, and EQ1/2 are all in the black.
 

Furious

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,950
5,029
It's not hard to figure out. All that money was going down the hole to other projects. Yes.. EQ1 and 2 are profitable by a big margin. I saw the actual numbers before I left DBG on a regular basis. I know pretty accurately how much EQ1 made last year in pure profit. H1Z1 has probably made in the tens of millions of dollars so far. SOE was sold by Sony because of so much money going into things that didn't make any money resulting in a net loss. When you have a large number of high-salary people working on a project for 3+ years with no money coming in from it, the burn is pretty rough. The resources going into EQN and Landmark were a VERY sore spot for the EQ1/2 teams because we felt like we were keeping the company afloat while they got all the benefit from our work. H1Z1, DCUO, and EQ1/2 are all in the black.
EQN must have really been awful to throw away 3 years of peoples time and all that money and not even push something out the door. I can only imagine how bad it must have been.

What a shame.
 

Tauro

Bronze Knight of the Realm
371
26
EQN must have really been awful to throw away 3 years of peoples time and all that money and not even push something out the door. I can only imagine how bad it must have been.

What a shame.
Make that 6-7 years and 3+ versions of EQ3/Next ...
 

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
H1Z1 is crazy profitable. EQ1 and EQ2 both are in the black by a large margin. Cutting the money pit that was EQN was smart, especially after so many years of failed development. If anything, their P&L statement just got a whole lot better, especially since any money that flushed down the EQN rabbit hole can be used as tax deductions against H1Z1 and EQ1/2 profits.
IF this 'being sold' rumor (sans proof) is real than it's obvious none of that is enough to satisfy the new owners. Or they're just not satisfied with the steady 'trickle' of cash flow from those three games. Now that's a real big if, of course. I know investment groups are pretty fickle but they also tend to be pretty damn careful about how they spend their money. Stupid investors are not investors for long.
 

Mughal

Bronze Knight of the Realm
279
39
H1Z1 is crazy profitable. EQ1 and EQ2 both are in the black by a large margin. Cutting the money pit that was EQN was smart, especially after so many years of failed development. If anything, their P&L statement just got a whole lot better, especially since any money that flushed down the EQN rabbit hole can be used as tax deductions against H1Z1 and EQ1/2 profits.
Everything loses money with the exception of DCUO. Planetside never recovered its budget. Once you account marketing costs etc nothing made sense. Did you get the monthly sales update email from the marketing team?
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
8,357
10,373
IF this 'being sold' rumor (sans proof) is real than it's obvious none of that is enough to satisfy the new owners. Or they're just not satisfied with the steady 'trickle' of cash flow from those three games. Now that's a real big if, of course. I know investment groups are pretty fickle but they also tend to be pretty damn careful about how they spend their money. Stupid investors are not investors for long.
They purchased a company that had lame horses (EQN/EQL) attached, cleaned it so it should be more profitable now, and it will be priced higher. Usual maneuver from investment funds. Those companies make the real bucks by reselling at profit (or sometimes splitting up the company and selling the parts for more than the whole). They have capital locked in DBG now, which means they'll probably want to get profit relatively quickly AND freeing that capital for their next op.

The fact that the company is profitable is double bonus: it means their locked capital earns something in the meantime, and it does help with the higher valuation.

(At least it's what it looks like from an outside perspective; no real way of knowing the owner's strategy but it would be consistent with how these groups operate)
 

Sylas

<Gold Donor>
3,740
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The people who bought soe also bought gawker before thw hulkageddon, so that should tell you the research vs cocaine intake of those investors
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,795
8,159
The people who bought soe also bought gawker before thw hulkageddon, so that should tell you the research vs cocaine intake of those investors
I see Russian's are about as good at playing the market as they are at playing video games.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
3,531
I think there's a lot that can be done with the EQ IP. I just don't think destructible environments nor some unproven (and eventually failed) dynamic AI quest base were the right direction. Even if this gets picked up by a company that might do it up right, we're looking at 3+ years before we might get our hands on anything.
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
5,918
4,504
Don't get me wrong, I loved EQ1 as much as anyone, but even from a fan's perspective the EQ IP isn't really worth saving. Take a look below at the lore cliff notes as of Rain of Fear (found after 15 seconds of googling on the DBG forums). It's a mess, and honestly not interesting in the least. There's a reason they were rebooting the entire franchise and using only loose connections with names and locations.

I wouldn't even hazard a guess at what an investor would value EQ's IP. If long-dead franchises like Homeworld can be bought up then I guess there's always hope, but I won't hold my breath.

To start, Veeshan swoops down and implants Norrath with life. The other gods start to create their own beings. Tunare creates the elves, Innoruk taints them creating dark elves. Brell forms the dwarves and gnomes. Rallos creates the Ogres and Giants which he makes into the greatest army ever seen. He uses this army to fight the creations of the other gods and they team up and curse his creations to be all brawn and no brain.

Kunark, basically elves and pirates discover a lost continent of Kunark. Iksar live there. There former slaves to the Shissar until the Sebilisian army rose up and used the green mist to defeat them. When we come in sebilis is in ruins, cabilis is /meh. The great civilizations have crumbled. There were multiple great empires including the Ring of Scale, Sebilisian and Shissar. The ring of Scale and Sebilisian empire still hold some control, the sebilisian due to the necromantic powers of their leaders and the ring of scale because they are dragons... and they are hard to get rid of.

Velious, again some adventurers find a lost continent. 3 major factions, the dragons, giants and dwarves. Their cities being Skyshrine, Kael Drakkel, and Thurgadin. We enter while they are all at war. Players were able to pick a side and work with the group they supported. Thurgadin is the main city but the king (Dain frostreaver) resides in Icewell keep which is deeper within the mountain. Kael drakkel is a giant city headed by King Tormax. Skyshrine is headed by Lord Yelinek. The continent also holds the temple of veeshan which is ruled by Vulak'Aerr. If that wasn't enough though there is a Prismatic Dragon... something that should have never existed stuck in a long slumber in the eastern wastes. We being meddling mortals awaken him only to find out how bad of an idea that really was. We stood no chance against this great dragon.

Luclin- The combine era was one of great research and magic, so much so that they were able to transport themselves to the moon where they discovered the remnants of the shissar empire after they fled the greenmist of kunark. The combine empire broke into factions on Luclin creating 2 major cities Katta Castelum and Sanctus Seru, lead but Seru and Katta. The moon also was home to a feline breed of Vah Shir in their home city of Shar vhal. We find the remnants of the combine using the great wizard spires they left and harness their magic to transport us to the moon. There we discover the dark creatures of Vex Thal which is headed by Aten'ha Ra

Planes of Power- We begin to understand the planes and the power of the gods. TBH I'd look up allahkhazam lore or other peoples for this because to me it's the most interesting lore we ever get. But basically Zuberux and some other great mortals start to learn too much. We enter the planes and start causting trouble. We enter the plane of time basically really really messing with things. Zubberux(i know i spelled it wrong!) is trapped for helping the mortals (think prometheus) and we end up freeing him. And now I want to look over this lore again since i've forgotten so many of the details of it!

Lost Dungeons of Norrath we discovered some unexplored areas of norrath in butcherblock mountains, the deserts of Ro, and everfrost. IIRC it's Morden Rasp who spearheads the discovery.

Gates of Discord. We discover another continent but this time it's inhabited by creatures not of norrath. We find great armies and generals building a force to take over norrath. This army are the Discordians. Basically aliens came here to take us over... this is kinda where it gets weird to me.

Omens of war - after defeating Tunat and his armies we face Mata Muram who is Tunat's higher up. After we defeat Mata Muram we assume the discordians are done with.

Depths of Darkhollow is the rise of mayong. Another very interesting expansion lore wise. Mayong is the most powerful non god that we know of, so powerful that he gains control of his own plane, the demiplane of blood and he uses this as he attempts to ascend to godhood.

Prophecy of Ro- Mayong after being killed but being his powerful immortal self he tries to take someone elses plane. This time the Plane of Music controled by Ayonae Ro. Again we must thwart his plans by taking control of it ourselves after he has corrupted Ayonae Ro.

The Serpents Spine - We find a lost Valley deep in the mountains of Antonica. This area is home to the Drakkin who are a halfbreed of dragons and humans or elves (i don't remember). This area is home to very powerful giants including ones that are undead. It is also home to Ashengate which holds a giant scale of veeshan which is protected by a fierce army. We must keep both forces in check to prevent them from expanding their influence, especially the inhabitants of Ashengate who have been using the power of the scale.

The Burried Sea - we find another reminant of the combine empire deep within the sea. While discovering and exploring this new area we learn that Mayong is at it again. This time he's not trying to take a lesser god's Plane but he's going after one of the big guys himself in Solusek Ro. He tricks Solusek Ro into working with him while he takes over the plane of Solteris. We must defeat both Solusek ro and Mayong if we wish to maintain the balance.

Secrets of Faydwer - again more uncharted areas are found this time deep within faydwer. Meldrath the Malignant has been a long time inhabitant of steamfont mountains. Him and his brother were polar opposites, the lore is that while Meldrath is the embodyment of all that is evil his brother was so good that he ascended due to his pure goodness. Meldrath has been busy though, being a gnome he's of course a great engineer and tinkers with things. He creates multiple flying fortresses raising giants islands out of the ground. He also designs a giant robot so large that we fight within it. We must stop him before he spreads his creations to the rest of norrath, of course him being a necromancer he doesn't make it easy, reanimating his own men to fight for him until he can't anymore.
That's not all though, in this land we also find the new home of the great prismatic dragon Kerafyrm. While during the velious era we lacked the power to face him this time we are prepared. After taking out his guardians we face off with the help of some other Dragons in order to put him to rest again.

Seeds of Discord - We thought we had defeated the Discordians but they were actually interdementional beings, not just from another planet. With that they find a way to control time. Zuberux who had previously shown the mortals the power of the gods is the only survivor. We must go back in time with his help in order to defeat Brekt and his followers. We see veeshan dead in the distance as we talk to Zuberux. In this we must go back to when the Ring of Scale and Sebilisian empire were fighting in kunark and aid the Ring of Scale in defeating the Sebilisian empire to maintain the true timeline. We must also go back to the time before the ogres and Giants were made dumb and prevent them from defeating the Rathe Council. Also we must help make sure that Qeynos is created. Then we find the portal the Korafax the home of the Discordians and we go and defeat them.

House of Thule - Someone is messing with the House of Thule where Cazic Thule the god of fear and his children Morrel thulle (god of dreams) and Terris THule( god of nightmares) reside. This something influences Morrel and Terris to take out their father. As this is the true home of cazic and the gods are the one slaying him it's actually for real. While we have faught cazic before it had always been on an alternative plane and only been an avatar of cazic. So now cazic is gone and quickly morrel turns on his sister taking the power for himself. We beat him but the entire order is out of balance. There is no more god of Fear.

Veil of Alaris - we are prompted by Tunare and Brell to create a flying ship and search norrath. We find the island of alaris which has been shrouded by a powerful barrier to prevent the dragons from finding it as they had initially had trouble witht he dragons. The alarans are refugees from another planet run out of their homes by the discordian army. Their Gods are unlike ours, they are actually mortals who through the devotion of their followers ascended Godhood. Many of the gods were gone or in stasis due to the transition from their planet to norrath and having to put up the barrier to protect themselves from the dragons. We find out that they were the ones who initiated the downfall of cazic in order to gain his power and use that to stop the discordians. They are unaware that we have already put an end to them. They beleived we woudln't be powerful enough but... we were... alarans are weak. But... now they have the power of cazic on top of what they already had. They use that power to unify the 3 great leaders of the City of bronze and out comes the Triunity. We team with the norrathian gods as well as some of the alarian gods to stop the triunity and take back the power.

Edit: Ok, I'll admit that I really enjoyed the lore up until the Gates of Discord and the void stuff started. I mean the Shissar surrounding themselves in an airless vacuum to ensure the Green Mist never reached them again? That shit wasinspired. Unfortunately they went all in with the void storyline, and that's pretty much a shit show.
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
I think there's a lot that can be done with the EQ IP. I just don't think destructible environments nor some unproven (and eventually failed) dynamic AI quest base were the right direction. Even if this gets picked up by a company that might do it up right, we're looking at 3+ years before we might get our hands on anything.
If I had my way, I'd take the pre-voxel EQN engine, and build original Norrath in it, and then do a TERA style active combat system. Ship it.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
3,531
Yeah, a -lot- of the retarded stuff could be trimmed. Namely anything involving the moon or the Discordians. The time warp stuff with Zebuxoruk wasn't horrific, but it wasn't great either. Especially with Druzzil Ro (represent!) showing up to just make it all a wash.

Problem is, the "bad" lore has existed for a much longer timeframe than the "good" lore existed. I just hadn't realized how bad the disparity was hah.
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
Oh.. and we HATED the "Oh look.. a continent we didn't notice before" nonsense.. But every time we wanted to put new content in existing zones, the "numbers" people would say, "How do you sell people things they already have?", meaning the zones and areas that already exist.
 

Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,932
891
Don't get me wrong, I loved EQ1 as much as anyone, but even from a fan's perspective the EQ IP isn't really worth saving. Take a look below at the lore cliff notes as of Rain of Fear (found after 15 seconds of googling on the DBG forums). It's a mess, and honestly not interesting in the least. There's a reason they were rebooting the entire franchise and using only loose connections with names and locations.
I feel obliged to ask, was I the only one that actually kinda liked the EQN lore? It had enough callbacks to the original lore that it still felt like Norrath to me, but it felt like it all actually hung together in a better way than the original EQ (especially with where the lore is at now). If Daybreak ever pulls themselves together enough to make another go at an EQ3, I honestly wouldn't mind if they pulled the EQN lore back out of the trash and used it again.
 

Elidroth_sl

shitlord
350
0
Everything loses money with the exception of DCUO. Planetside never recovered its budget. Once you account marketing costs etc nothing made sense. Did you get the monthly sales update email from the marketing team?
The marketing team repeatedly pissed me off.. spending money in the DUMBEST ways imaginable.. I think the worst idea, though not the most expensive, was the promotion where they hired a Prince impersonator to go around to various game websites to try and spin playing EQ as "Party like it's 1999", or some shit. Those guys literally lit money on fire, and had absolutely nothing to show for it.. Every time they'd come into meetings with their "this is how much we spent on X", I'd always ask what the actual return was on that money, and they ALWAYS said, "Oh we don't have those numbers yet...", and they never did. It got so bad, they just stopped coming. It was infuriating.
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
5,918
4,504
Your career change is making more and more sense with every post. One can only tolerate that level of company-wide incompetence for so long.
 

Rezz

Mr. Poopybutthole
4,486
3,531
EQ:N fired shots across the bow (namely, Kerrans and no Innoruuk) early in the media process, and it just soured a lot of people's perceptions. Then they had dark elves with horns (TERA already has Castantic hedonists, copycats =/) and the ogres were Mongolian looking and after that it was Hopes vs. Realities commentary.

I could probably spend a weekend with EQ lore and come up with a much better storyline post velious, as well as having reasons for certain game mechanics to be changed in-game. Pretty sure most people could with little trouble. Which is why it is always so baffling when companies come up with such retarded SpellJammer-esque reasoning to add into their clearly Fantasy settings.