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

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Flipmode

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
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EQ2 is nowhere near 250k at this point. Those servers are all ghost towns except a couple. It's in full on maintenance mode now.
 
Arden

Arden

Blackwing Lair Raider
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ChaosSlayer_sl said:
You guys are all dreamers. The amount of people that want a hardcore MMO is so small, no business oriented game company is going to consider them a viable customer base.
P99 gets about 800-1000 at peak times, with probably about 3k active and 10k total passive players.
EQ LIVE right now, has around 150k paying subs. EQ2 250k. WoW - 8-10m. You realize how tiny you are?

So forget SOE, EMU is the future.
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I thought EQ Live was f2p? How could it have paying subs?
 
V

Vanrau_sl

shitlord
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ChaosSlayer_sl said:
You guys are all dreamers. The amount of people that want a hardcore MMO is so small, no business oriented game company is going to consider them a viable customer base.
P99 gets about 800-1000 at peak times, with probably about 3k active and 10k total passive players.
EQ LIVE right now, has around 150k paying subs. EQ2 250k. WoW - 8-10m. You realize how tiny you are?

So forget SOE, EMU is the future.
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EQ1 doesn't have anywhere near that many subs, especially now with F2P.

Maybe 25000 at the most. If EQ1 had 150k paying subs, they wouldn't have such a small dev team pumping out the tiny expansions.
 
C

ChaosSlayer_sl

shitlord
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Opps, my error on "paying subs" - still attuned to the old way of thinking.
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But sheer number of people still playing (even if its only 100k per game), + trinkets cash shop, still makes number of people playing on Emu irrelevant.
 
Tolan

Tolan

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Vandyn_sl said:
In what fantasy world do you believe that SoE would license out all of their proprietary assets to a third party and then in turn split profits with said third party? Also understand in your scenario where Yeahlight provides unforeseen patches, if a user has issues with the patch guess what, they are are not going to go to yeahlight for support, they are going to go to SoE because that's who they are paying the sub to. So now you are asking SoE to provide support on patches that they themselves are not even providing. You're also making wild assumptions on numbers as well, I don't see any scenario where only 1000 players on a server is financially viable for a company. It also means the server is a ghost town because if 1000 players are subbed, that means at the most a 3rd are playing at any given time which means you only have about 300 players max during peak times.

Beyond any of this though, another thing that needs to be taken into account is competition. Do people really believe that if SoE released something close to a classic server that P1999 and any other emu are simply going to disappear or all players are going to flock from playing free to chucking 15 bucks a month to a company that they admit has destroyed EQ as it is today.
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You know... the real world where Yeahlight likely has the closest thing to a classic EQ server and SOE doesn't have jack-shit.

Fine, call it 3k subs. That's about $300,000 per year profit. If P99 can boast 1k players at peak times and Pantheon can raise half a million dollars from classic EQ fans in a couple months, I think there's a consumer base for a $15/mo subscription for a high quality product.

The only reason I can fathom for SOE not creating a classic server is because it will cannibalize, to some degree, from their cash shop servers. Which brings me back to the root cause of EQs problems: bonus-seeking execs. They know subscription numbers are on constant decline, so their target is cash flow per customer. If players switch to (the superior) EQ Classic experience, they lose people buying gingerbread man mercs and horses with flaming feet and shit like that.
 
Siddar

Siddar

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Vanrau_sl said:
EQ1 doesn't have anywhere near that many subs, especially now with F2P.

Maybe 25000 at the most. If EQ1 had 150k paying subs, they wouldn't have such a small dev team pumping out the tiny expansions.
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You are forgetting that SoE milks EQ for cash to pay for new games relentlessly. My guess is at least 60% revenue EQ generates gets siphoned off to fund other games.

I would put total subscriptions for EQ in the 50-75k range. Population has been stable for three of last four expansion (though people are quickly reaching breaking point with lack of new zones, raids, spells, and AA in CotF right now) VoA being the exception where they covered up the drop in subscribers with f2p launch.

If they were down to 25k total subscription players they may as well just go full f2p. Because current f2p restriction are entirely based upon keeping subscribers subscribed and pushing f2p players into a subscription. 25k is not enough revenue for current f2p model to make sense.
 
V

Vanrau_sl

shitlord
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Siddar_sl said:
You are forgetting that SoE milks EQ for cash to pay for new games relentlessly. My guess is at least 60% revenue EQ generates gets siphoned off to fund other games.

I would put total subscriptions for EQ in the 50-75k range. Population has been stable for three of last four expansion (though people are quickly reaching breaking point with lack of new zones, raids, spells, and AA in CotF right now) VoA being the exception where they covered up the drop in subscribers with f2p launch.

If they were down to 25k total subscription players they may as well just go full f2p. Because current f2p restriction are entirely based upon keeping subscribers subscribed and pushing f2p players into a subscription. 25k is not enough revenue for current f2p model to make sense.
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EQ makes quite a bit of money off the marketplace. I would say it probably makes near or maybe more than what it gets from subs. Now with the heroic characters I would say they have had an increase in subs with the popularity of boxing. I know I reactivated a 3rd account just because of the free heroic character advertised.
 
A

Aleatha

Silver Knight of the Realm
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Vandyn_sl said:
In what fantasy world do you believe that SoE would license out all of their proprietary assets to a third party and then in turn split profits with said third party? Also understand in your scenario where Yeahlight provides unforeseen patches, if a user has issues with the patch guess what, they are are not going to go to yeahlight for support, they are going to go to SoE because that's who they are paying the sub to. So now you are asking SoE to provide support on patches that they themselves are not even providing. You're also making wild assumptions on numbers as well, I don't see any scenario where only 1000 players on a server is financially viable for a company. It also means the server is a ghost town because if 1000 players are subbed, that means at the most a 3rd are playing at any given time which means you only have about 300 players max during peak times.

Beyond any of this though, another thing that needs to be taken into account is competition. Do people really believe that if SoE released something close to a classic server that P1999 and any other emu are simply going to disappear or all players are going to flock from playing free to chucking 15 bucks a month to a company that they admit has destroyed EQ as it is today.
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If SOE ever decides to pursue any kind of classic server you can bet on P1999 and the emu community in general getting some C&D letters. Not saying a SOE sponsored classic server would necessarily work but P1999s player base really shouldn't be a concern since they are easily shut down.
 
Siddar

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Vanrau_sl said:
EQ makes quite a bit of money off the marketplace. I would say it probably makes near or maybe more than what it gets from subs. Now with the heroic characters I would say they have had an increase in subs with the popularity of boxing. I know I reactivated a 3rd account just because of the free heroic character advertised.
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Yea I think there making mad cash off heroic characters right now.
 
S

Secrets

ResetEra Staff Member
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Siddar_sl said:
Yea I think there making mad cash off heroic characters right now.
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If they are making 'mad cash' off of their playerbase right now then why is a lead designer coming in to a fansite asking what people want?

Regarding the emu and if SOE were to make their own classic server / emu-like tools... wouldn't the best idea be to make a better product than Project 1999 and EQEmulator than to pursue it legally? Realistically speaking EQEmulator isn't making any profit nor is Project 1999. They'd have everything to gain and nothing to lose by opening up the game to what their company calls 'junior designers'.

Personally? I'd be interested in seeing what they do with Landmark's combat and content creation tools. You could potentially recreate classic EQ crowdsourced in that sandbox with near the same graphics, if not better. I mean let's be real here, if they give us a scripting engine, the ability to create loot/NPC spawns (and models out of voxels), and gameplay mechanics in Landmark... that's essentially everything that EQ1 needs to be replicated in a new game engine.

I'd love to see SOE allow for animated NPCs to be made out of voxels. Do each frame of the animation crowdsourced in their sandbox. Make that into an NPC model.
 
Siddar

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Secrets_sl said:
If they are making 'mad cash' off of their playerbase right now then why is a lead designer coming in to a fansite asking what people want?

Regarding the emu and if SOE were to make their own classic server / emu-like tools... wouldn't the best idea be to make a better product than Project 1999 and EQEmulator than to pursue it legally? Realistically speaking EQEmulator isn't making any profit nor is Project 1999. They'd have everything to gain and nothing to lose by opening up the game to what their company calls 'junior designers'.

Personally? I'd be interested in seeing what they do with Landmark's combat and content creation tools. You could potentially recreate classic EQ crowdsourced in that sandbox with near the same graphics, if not better. I mean let's be real here, if they give us a scripting engine, the ability to create loot/NPC spawns (and models out of voxels), and gameplay mechanics in Landmark... that's essentially everything that EQ1 needs to be replicated in a new game engine.

I'd love to see SOE allow for animated NPCs to be made out of voxels. Do each frame of the animation crowdsourced in their sandbox. Make that into an NPC model.
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To make even more money of course.

Its closing in on time to launch new progression servers again and they may well make that a classic server instead. EQ in fact gets a wave of classic players every time they launch progression and they may well simply change focus of new servers to classic instead of progression.
 
Gask

Gask

Silver Baron of the Realm
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Elidroth_sl said:
I'm curious why this is?
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You've heard everything that we've had to say and they are by and large things that have been said many times over the years in various places and are nothing new. That said I am really curious to know whatyou, Elidroth think about the current state of the game and why a sizable portion of players play on emulated servers. Aside from that I would also be very interested to know what you think could be done to improve things and along that line to what extent you have the authority to make changes to the game and its systems.

However interesting and nostalgic it was to recall old facts and disappointments related to the handling of EQ all of the debate is kind of meaningless without sharing the answers to the questions above.
 
Punko

Punko

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Tolan_sl said:
The only reason I can fathom for SOE not creating a classic server is because it will cannibalize, to some degree, from their cash shop servers. Which brings me back to the root cause of EQs problems: bonus-seeking execs. They know subscription numbers are on constant decline, so their target is cash flow per customer. If players switch to (the superior) EQ Classic experience, they loose people buying gingerbread man mercs and horses with flaming feet and shit like that.
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Stormhammer charged 40$ for a sub, and the server was plenty populated. This is about 10 years ago, probably more?

I'd have no problem with a 40$ sub for a "classic server with premium service", even if that premium service only included 1 BoTB every 6 months and a random dragon summoned in a zone once a month or so.
 
C

ChaosSlayer_sl

shitlord
7
0
Gask_sl said:
You've heard everything that we've had to say and they are by and large things that have been said many times over the years in various places and are nothing new. That said I am really curious to know whatyou, Elidroth think about the current state of the game and why a sizable portion of players play on emulated servers. Aside from that I would also be very interested to know what you think could be done to improve things and along that line to what extent you have the authority to make changes to the game and its systems.
.
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There is NOTHING that can be improved in EQ Live today - its a bloated monster with 700 zones that have no practical purpose. Its only realistic usage to keep adding high end content for hard core raiders.
No new player in their right mind would join a game where 95% of population sitting at lev cap grinding top raids that require 3,000 AA to be even allowed into.

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yamikazo

yamikazo

Trakanon Raider
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pointyboot_sl said:
the grandaddy emu server, PEQ, is GoD. seems to only attract crazy boxers though.
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PEQ's server stability is poor. It's been optimized for boxers. Also, the community is nice, but won't ever drop one of their automated boxers for a (new) player. It's heaven for people who want to play armies or use MQ2, but the server doesn't do a good job handling multiple styles of play - you either box a group (or two), or an entire raidforce (18+).

It's the dev server, not a timelock. GoD is "close" to being finished - at the rate they've been going, they might have Omens open before 2016.
 
bixxby

bixxby

Molten Core Raider
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You can make EQ better easily. Make MOLOing actually work at level 100. I personally quit my last EQ run because once I hit level cap I was fucking stuck. No one groups and my mercenary is worthless. Welp time to stop giving sony money again.
 
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