SOE now Daybreak, bought by Columbus Nova, going.... "indie?"

[taolurker]

And it begins.. ABANDON SHIP!!!

Steve "Moorgard" Danuser former Daybreak Games/SOE (Landmark/Everquest Next) to join Blizzard on World of Warcast as Senior Designer

edit because he was one of the "laid off", so correcting my link

[Draegan]

So I guess he didn't abandon ship?

[Signe]

No, he was pushed.

[Hawkbit]

I looked up P99 earlier to see what has been going on there - apparently Daybreak is working with P99 to coexist. That's actually pretty awesome, and P99 is launching Velious in August.

Pretty cool on Daybreak's part.

[Falconeer]

What's P99? Google says it's a pistol.

[Gimfain]

What's P99? Google says it's a pistol.

Project 1999

[shiznitz]

I know some old EQ1 friends playing this and loving it. Grind is there in all its old glory but nostalgia seems to be shielding that. Also, no asshats.

[Chimpy]

I know some old EQ1 friends playing this and loving it. Grind is there in all its old glory but nostalgia seems to be shielding that. Also, no asshats.

Other than the asshat that runs the whole thing?

[Rasix]

When everyone is an asshat, no one is an asshat. 

[sam, an eggplant]

Other than the asshat that runs the whole thing?

Got to hand it to those P99 guys, they take that oldschool EQ thing seriously. Appointing a smarmy dickmunch as the public face of the game shows their extreme commitment to verisimilitude at all costs. Extra points if he's a cokehead. Next step, bring in an overtly hostile introvert as the community manager. Then P99 will be essentially indistinguishable from playing EQ back in 1999.

See y'all in najena! Who's got drelzna camp? /wrists

[Pennilenko]

When everyone is an asshat, no one is an asshat. 

Life has taught me that if I am standing around amazed that there are no assholes, it means I am the asshole.

[Surlyboi]

Who asses the asshats?

[Pennilenko]

Who asses the asshats?

The catasses.

[Engels]

Got to hand it to those P99 guys, they take that oldschool EQ thing seriously. Appointing a smarmy dickmunch as the public face of the game shows their extreme commitment to verisimilitude at all costs. Extra points if he's a cokehead. Next step, bring in an overtly hostile introvert as the community manager. Then P99 will be essentially indistinguishable from playing EQ back in 1999.

See y'all in najena! Who's got drelzna camp? /wrists

That was a thing of poetry.

I too remember the nostalgia, and then I remember the anxiety of a 3 hour Plane of Fear corpse run at 4 in the morning.

[Trippy]

Yeah those were ugly but at least you could zerg those.* Hate was a pain cause you needed a Wizard to port you up.

* Assuming you didn't die so many times that you de-leveled and couldn't get back in

[Rasix]

I too remember the nostalgia, and then I remember the anxiety of a 3 hour Plane of Fear corpse run at 4 in the morning.

EQ made us do some really stupid shit.  I remember nearly being in tears because a Plane of Life corpse run was getting dangerously close to an 8am final I had to take.  I had also died enough times to basically wipe out 8-10 hours worth of leveling even with the rezzes.  Stupid roaming billy goat man.

None of it was worth it in the slightest, other than perhaps forcibly expunging that sort of future behavior from my system in the future. 

[Engels]

I think you mean Plane of Growth? My memory may be failing me however.

In any event, I don't regret my EQ years; I made some good friends, had some good experiences. Heck, I wouldn't be here in F13 without having known Numtini in EQ a while back. Pity this place has gotten so hostile of late that folks are being driven off.

[Rasix]

Yep.  It was Growth.  Long, long time ago.  I have trouble remembering the name of a lot of the zones/bosses. Man, that was probably the tipping point for me playing seriously.

My EQ buddies are scattered to the wind. Only game groups I'd say that I still have contact with come from this board. Although, I'm pretty sure I could reconnect with my GW2 guild (which f13ers introduced me to). 

[shiznitz]

I never had a one of those horrible EQ experiences. Sure I got frustrated trying to farm for rare drops like everyone else, but overall I loved the difficulty of the game and the forced social aspect.  My first EQ guild still hangs out on a private forum to this day even if we don't actively play games together any more.

[Margalis]

Imagine joining WoW now.

That would really suck.

[WayAbvPar]

Imagine joining WoW now.

That would really suck.

Even if you have played before!

[Margalis]

I don't know if I was clear or not but I meant as a developer. You're coming onto something 10 years old that's basically just treading water now, seems like it would be tremendously boring.

[Tebonas]

Was the disappearing Lore Item bug fixed by 1999? You can't go more oldschool than destroying an item 40 people worked for days to get by letting the wrong person see what dropped. I would give them props if they have the balls to keep that in. 

[WayAbvPar]

I don't know if I was clear or not but I meant as a developer. You're coming onto something 10 years old that's basically just treading water now, seems like it would be tremendously boring.

Oh yeah...basically a janitor/caretaker at this point.

[sam, an eggplant]

WoW still has over 7 million players. It's not in maintenance mode. If your argument is that the developers are forced to stick to very tight constraints, offering up teats filled with the same sickly-sweet dikuclone pap to pacify their gargantuan milling herds of liquid-eyed cattle players-- from the changes in recent expansion packs, that really isn't true. Sure, they haven't turned WoW into a completely different genre, it's not a first-person shooter now, but they committed to massive new features not directly aligned to diku gameplay, like pokemon in the previous expansion and facebook-style garrison missions in this one. They are willing to make and solidly commit to wildly unpopular changes too, like removing flying mounts.

Now you might argue that all that stuff makes baby Jesus cry. And I would agree, I hate all that crap. Losing flying turned me off WoW permanently. But the devs aren't constrained in the manner you describe. They have some degree of freedom.

[Mandella]

WoW still has over 7 million players. It's not in maintenance mode. If your argument is that the developers are forced to stick to very tight constraints, offering up teats filled with the same sickly-sweet dikuclone pap to pacify their gargantuan milling herds of liquid-eyed cattle players-- from the changes in recent expansion packs, that really isn't true. Sure, they haven't turned WoW into a completely different genre, it's not a first-person shooter now, but they committed to massive new features not directly aligned to diku gameplay, like pokemon in the previous expansion and facebook-style garrison missions in this one. They are willing to make and solidly commit to wildly unpopular changes too, like removing flying mounts.

Now you might argue that all that stuff makes baby Jesus cry. And I would agree, I hate all that crap. Losing flying turned me off WoW permanently. But the devs aren't constrained in the manner you describe. They have some degree of freedom.

WoW turned off flying mounts? Didn't some folks pay real money for some of those?

I'd be pretty pissed too.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yes, it was a pretty contentious decision. Since many players strongly disagreed with that change, the point is they aren't on cruise control. They're trying to innovate/extend the game and making difficult, even unpopular, choices.

[Surlyboi]

WoW innovates? Do tell.

[sam, an eggplant]

You make the mistake of conflating your lack of personal appreciation for a feature with it not being innovative. I don't enjoy them either, but pokemon and facebook-style timed companion missions are innovative additions/extensions to the game.

[Slyfeind]

Man, all these horror stories about EQ and I'm glad I waited until now to actually play it. I had gotten a druid up to 40 or so, like 6 or 7 years ago, but I don't think that really counts because I just wandered around solo. Now I'm in a progression raiding guild and having a grand old time at 70. No corpse runs, no major xp loss, I don't even notice the devs if they're being asshats or not. Just playing.

[HaemishM]

To be fair, dickhead dev drama and guild loot squabbles were two of the main sources of fun* in the original EQ.

* The definition of fun espoused in this sentence may not bear any relation to the actual definition of the word fun.

[Hutch]

WoW still has over 7 million players. It's not in maintenance mode. If your argument is that the developers are forced to stick to very tight constraints, offering up teats filled with the same sickly-sweet dikuclone pap to pacify their gargantuan milling herds of liquid-eyed cattle players-- from the changes in recent expansion packs, that really isn't true. Sure, they haven't turned WoW into a completely different genre, it's not a first-person shooter now, but they committed to massive new features not directly aligned to diku gameplay, like pokemon in the previous expansion and facebook-style garrison missions in this one. They are willing to make and solidly commit to wildly unpopular changes too, like removing flying mounts.

Now you might argue that all that stuff makes baby Jesus cry. And I would agree, I hate all that crap. Losing flying turned me off WoW permanently. But the devs aren't constrained in the manner you describe. They have some degree of freedom.

WoW turned off flying mounts? Didn't some folks pay real money for some of those?

I'd be pretty pissed too.

To trot out the "counter argument", you can still fly in WoW, as long as you stay out of the current expansion.

And yes, they are still selling flying mounts for real money.

[Merusk]

Yeah, the argument was it both trivialized content and limited the options for endgame player interaction with the world because they'd do the "run, drop in, run off" thing unless all activities happened in a cave.

It was successful enough in Timeless Isle they felt it wasn't a problem for the whole expansion, I guess.

[sam, an eggplant]

Yep. Players are deeply divided over it, and feel very strongly. Personally, like I said earlier, it was enough to disconnect me from WoW forever.

[Draegan]

I jumped back into WOW for 2 months back in Feb/March and I liked the change. I honestly don't care either way, but not having a flying mount in the new content felt better imo.