Why all the Emulated EQ servers if EQ is free to play?

kudos_sl said:

You can monetize an old school server though with a monthly subscription requirement.

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No sane company is going to do a billing process for one server in one game when every other game (including the other servers in EQ) they have uses a different billing process (F2P + cash shop).

Yeah, I really wish SOE would get a little creative and figure out some sort of way to involve the hobbyist/EMU crowd so we could both profit from a classic server. They just aren't that kind of company though.

Of course it's mostly their loss when the EMU guys are making steady progress without SOE's help. I really miss a few important things like mob push though.

Elidroth_sl said:

I may regret posting this, but in a nutshell, this is the reality of why the EQMac server had to go away.

There was no way to support it easily. Todd Schmidt (Hobart) spent crazy amounts of his own time trying to make things work. Some did, a lot more didn't. The branched code base for EQMac was COMPLETELY different than EQ PC in so many ways.

There was also no way to monetize it reasonably. Whether you like it or not, SOE is a business, not a gaming charity, and that business needs to make money to survive. As soon as you start asking people to pay you money for the game, you MUST support it. Problem is, there were No GM tools, No Customer Support Tools, No DB access, and really no pipeline to patch it even. Hell, there wasn't even really a game client to speak of. It was a hack from an old EQ PC bundle that people fabricated together (which was AWESOME BTW, but nuts!

)

I can't tell you why all that wasn't in place, because I have no idea. The entirety of that server was before my time at SOE. I just know to put it in place would have taken a huge amount of coder support, billing support, customer service staff, etc. You can't just stand up a server and tell people on it they're shit out of luck if they have a problem.

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Like others have said, a lot of this response is a result of SOE looking for excuses to shut the server down. Whoever is in charge of decisions never put forth any effort or resources that could have seen EQMac succeed.

Hobart was a hero of the server. He put in tons of work, in his spare time, in his basement. That said, his "fix" to close the PC hack was a joke of a stopgap (why, I have no clue); he was approached by Rogean and Secrets to implement a proper fix and close loopholes, but he declined and the newest client was hacked within what, 12 hours? Shame. I don't want, nor mean, to point the finger at Hobart - his work saved the server and kept us up for longer than it likely would have, and I appreciate everything he did. Unfortunately, this mistake came right before the end.

EQMac had been monetized for almost a decade. Perhaps it was deemed too costly and unprofitable to run subs for us when every other game had gone F2P, I don't know. Is it that different than the progression servers requiring gold? I imagine this might have been a coding challenge (read: time = $$$), but if the suits wanted to keep things running it could have brought in money. GMs and CSR were able to help us, albeit they did often struggle; how much extra work and tedium was going on behind the magic curtain I don't know, but things were able to be done. We had guide events (one run not long before the server sunset), flags fixed, items reimbursed, and quests working - SOE was able to provide support.

SOE had taken our money for almost a decade with basically no fixes of any kind, and we were happy to play and pay under that model. We didn't ask for fixes, until the last six months of the server (hello, F2P) brought all sorts of CSR issues that must have ate up into too much of SOE resources because of a long history given a total lack of foresight.

When you meet a challege, you can either find a solution or look for excuses. SOE has a history of the latter, and that's why I have no faith in an official SOE classic or progression server.

Elidroth_sl said:

Heh, I actually brought that up a couple days ago. Not because I want to go down that road, but as a reminder that people were trying to resolve the mudflation issue even back that far, and it was still difficult to tackle, even now.

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[cool bro story]
There was a point pretty early after the Pantheon KS started when someone was collecting questions for a Q&A video, and I was thinking about maybe making a $250 pledge for the lifetime subscription. Mudflation was the single issue that made me realize that Brad & Co were in over their heads. My one question for the Q&A vid would have been "What are your plans for adding new content (i.e. encounters, skills, items, etc) to the game five years from now?" If the response was anything similar to EQ's system of planned obsolescence and endless treadmill grinding to regain the relative power players had just finished grinding for a few months previous, then I knew Pantheon wasn't a game I wanted to play. But it was pretty obvious Brad wasn't in any kind of condition to make any kind of plans that far in advance anyway, so I didn't even bother asking.
[/cool bro story]

WoW introduced millions of people to a traditionally niche market of MMORPGs. Now millions of these once casual players are now hardcore players. They dont want a game like WoW anymore, a game that holds their hands, or a game that has mechanics in place that allow for quick burst of satisfaction. They want a game that is hardcore, simple, a game that takes long peroids of time to complete goals. They want a game similar to Classic Everquest, or Classic Everquest itself. SOE even has the ability to give them this experience, but for some reason they won't...

What really baffles me is how multiple people on here talk about how from a business perspective SoE can't afford to give the players a Classic EQ experience, because it would cost way to much to reproduce and they wouldn't make a decent return on their investment. I'm not trying to bash them, because they do bring a valid point.

What ever happened to good customer service though? Why can't they be thankful for 15 years of support from their customer base and say, you know what, since you guys have been so good to us we're going to give you what you want, a Classic EQ server up to Velious/Luclin. Their customers have been keeping the game/SoE alive for 15 fucking years. That isn't a feat to go unrecognized! Instead though its like, fuck you, thanks for the money asshats. We can't afford to use just a tiny tiny fraction of the money that you guys gave us from playing Everquest, that allowed us to build the company that is known as SoE today. Just play EQNext, its gonna be the shit. Then they complain and wonder why people aren't swarming to the abomination of a game called modern day Everquest.

What I think is happening right now in the MMORPG sphere is that we're seeing sub genres of MMOs form. You got your MMOFPS (Planetside, Defiance), you got your MMORPGS like WoW, SWTOR, Wildstar, RIft, that are catered to a casual player expereince. Then you got your MMORPGS that are more simplistic like Darkfall, or Everquest Classic, etc, etc. That cater to a crowd that doesn't like all the bells and whistles of the WoW (casual type) type of MMOs. Of course I'm not even coming close to categorizing these differnet genres of mmorpgs correctly, but hopefully you get my point.

So point of the matter is people want a game similar to Everquest Classic up to Velious/Luclin. Call it Everquest Classic, make a new game, whatever. Or the players just wait till a game studio gives them what they what. Or SoE could just ressurect a version of EQ that caters to this market, if not defined this type of market, but they're not. And its very stupid for them not to.

Amenra_sl said:

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What ever happened to good customer service though? Why can't they be thankful for 15 years of support from their customer base and say, you know what, since you guys have been so good to us we're going to give you what you want, a Classic EQ server up to Velious/Luclin. Their customers have been keeping the game/SoE alive for 15 fucking years. That isn't a feat to go unrecognized! Instead though its like, fuck you, thanks for the money asshats. We can't afford to use just a tiny tiny fraction of the money that you guys gave us from playing Everquest, that allowed us to build the company that is known as SoE today. Just play EQNext, its gonna be the shit. Then they complain and wonder why people aren't swarming to the abomination of a game called modern day Everquest.

.

So point of the matter is people want a game similar to Everquest Classic up to Velious/Luclin. Call it Everquest Classic, make a new game, whatever. Or the players just wait till a game studio gives them what they what. Or SoE could just ressurect a version of EQ that caters to this market, if not defined this type of market, but they're not. And its very stupid for them not to.

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Wanted to highlight a couple poignant paragraphs.

Elidroth - the gamers, by and large, love the work the devs have done. We love EQ (or at least some iteration of it) that you all have made for us. With that said, the people in charge of business decisions at SOE have done no favors to their loyal gamers (customers) and refuse to cash in on the rabid fanbase and goldmine of the IP you keep locked in the vault. The suits of SOE burn their gamers - there is no trust, hope, or optimism because everything we hold dear about your creations is disposable to them.

Want to know why people play EQEmus? Because EQ is a great fucking game, but SOE is a stiff corporate entity who doesn't realize they work in a creative field - all they see is dollar signs but cannot possibly comprehend what they have on their hands and what more could be done.

/rant off

The uniqueness of Classic Everquest is so obvious its painful. There's a fucking ancient room in Timorious Deep that has firepots you can click that teleport you to random parts of Norrath for fuck sakes. There's classes that can teleport you around the world. There's powerful non no drop items that you can equip that can multiple the power of your character, etc, etc. These type of things are flat out cool! I could go on for days.

Ever since WoW these types of elements stopped showing up in MMOs and its sucks...

Sorry if I'm derailing this thread. This stuff has just been on my mind for a while now, and I feel like I have the right to express it considering I've played pretty much every MMO on the market starting with EQ in 2001.

Despite happily paying to play on EQmac for years and seeing the horrible series of decisions leading to its abrupt demise (and absolutely no effort to make things right... could've at least provided EQmac users an "of al'Kabor" title on eqlive or a free gold membership or something), I was willing to give EQlive another shot... Classic mistake. It's not the same game, has none of the same feeling, and I'm not investing time on another server with the expectation that one day SoE is going to pull the plug with no heads up. Even if EQLive was good or offered a "classic experience", I'd still be hesitant to give any more time or money to SoE... I'd rather roll the dice on p99 or another EMU that at least makes an honest, consistent attempt at giving the community what it wants.

You had the chance to properly monetize EQmac and you didn't. You had the chance to make some sort of amends to its population who'd paid to play for about a decade and you didn't. People have been asking for that experience for about 10 years and you have offered them what? Progression servers? If you're seriously wondering why people prefer EMUs to the cash shop solitaire that EQ has become, you are either in denial or are as deaf to the cries of the community as your predecessors were.

Elidroth_sl said:

Oh, and I get the EQMac, old-school vibe. I do. I wish we could snap our fingers and make it happen.

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I love how half the posts in this thread are still about how they need to make a classic/EQMac style server.

Kithani_sl said:

I love how half the posts in this thread are still about how they need to make a classic/EQMac style server.

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To be fair, it's the answer. May not be the one he's looking for. But it's the answer.


Side note on how feasible it is: EQEmu doesn't even need anything but the client code to EQMac in a compilable form at this point, and maybe the network/collision/formula code from the SOE servers to make a replica of the server code with full protocol implementation. Everything else could be filled in to EQEmulator's codebase if EQMac's code were made available to the general public. Even then, it's still open source - I don't know why SOE is hellbent on using their own server code in this case when we have our own implementation of the protocol/server that functions almost identically, and probably a lot better in some cases.

To say that it's impossible/not going to happen when a group of volunteers has done it in their free time... I just don't get it. I really do not.

PS; The EQMac emulator is available here for reference:
Commits · cavedude00/Server · GitHub

Secrets_sl said:

To be fair, it's the answer. May not be the one he's looking for. But it's the answer.

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The problem is not how many folk would play on a new classic server because many would - but how they would monetize it. No housing, Merc tokens etc etc

And, as numerous people are saying, that's why people don't feel any loyalty to SoE. It's the biggest FU there could possibly be to the crowd (us) who made EQ and SoE a success.


So Eldiroth I'm sure you know as well as we do the answer to your question. SoE cut loose all the people who play EMUs and classic servers when they changed their monetization model. And it's why many don't and won't show loyalty to SoE with their $$$$ in both EQ1 and other products past, present and future.

kudos_sl said:

What was Legends server tho?

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Wasn't Legends just a more expensive server to play on but still sub based? At the time all of EQ was still sub based so it wasn't like they were changing their billing structure for one server. This would be completely different, isolating one server to not use their cash shop. If they add a classic server it'll have to be under the umbrella of everything else. They would also have to completely modify the client to not access the cash shop which means they would have to maintain two clients. It's never going to happen.

Flight_sl said:

The problem is not how many folk would play on a new classic server because many would - but how they would monetize it. No housing, Merc tokens etc etc

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This right here. It has nothing to do with how many are interested. They are just not going to do it without the cash shop and really at that point they are probably better off not doing it then.

Flight_sl said:

The problem is not how many folk would play on a new classic server because many would - but how they would monetize it. No housing, Merc tokens etc etc

And, as numerous people are saying, that's why people don't feel any loyalty to SoE. It's the biggest FU there could possibly be to the crowd (us) who made EQ and SoE a success.


So Eldiroth I'm sure you know as well as we do the answer to your question. SoE cut loose all the people who play EMUs and classic servers when they changed their monetization model. And it's why many don't and won't show loyalty to SoE with their $$$$ in both EQ1 and other products past, present and future.

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Um you just say here is a classic server with housing zone added and non power items from SC store (just knock stat buff parts of illusions and mounts off). So you end up with a classic server with housing. exp pots, mounts, illusions, and 36 slot bags. There you monetized the classic server and because of uniqueness of items you are offering through store compared to blander classic items sales will likely be very high.

If you think that ruins the classic feel then don't play.

My understanding is half the EQ EMU servers monetize by using GM commands to create items and then selling them to players on the downlow. Why shouldn't so do the same with its market place full of fluff items.

I am failing to see how the monetization is an issue. When Fippy / Vulak opened, they restricted the cash shop items. I remember a rollback because xp pots or backpacks or something had been sold after a patch on accident. Point is, they CAN and HAVE restricted the cash shop on a Progression Server. Make the use of the server a mandatory Gold Sub and there's your monetization answer.

Still doesn't fix the SoE head-up-ass stance on devoting real Dev time on creating a true classic server.

Siddar_sl said:

Um you just say here is a classic server with housing zone added and non power items from SC store (just knock stat buff parts of illusions and mounts off). So you end up with a classic server with housing. exp pots, mounts, illusions, and 36 slot bags. There you monetized the classic server and because of uniqueness of items you are offering through store compared to blander classic items sales will likely be very high.

If you think that ruins the classic feel then don't play.

My understanding is half the EQ EMU servers monetize by using GM commands to create items and then selling them to players on the downlow. Why shouldn't so do the same with its market place full of fluff items.

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Because that's not a classic server then. Even adding fluff items and exp pots means that it's not a true p1999 server replacement. At some point you're going to water down the experience, just like the progression servers. I also love the assumption that everyone who plays on P99 would automatically move to a SoE server, with an SoE subscription, SoE oversight, etc. I think that's a pretty huge assumption.