SOE takes the Massive out of MMO

[Jetfire]

Yesterday, SOE (makers of Everquest, DCUO and other MMO games), released a FAQ, outlining a deal with a German company to take over European operations of their games.

Among other things, it outlines how they are dividing the unlimited sandbox their games used to have, into two parts, a European part and a Rest of the World part; and if you play/live in one part, you will NOT be able to play in the other part.

Needless to say, the reaction has been less than favourable. In fact, of the reaction threads I've read on SOE's forums, and other forums, I have only found ONE person in favour of the changes.

Somewhat luckily, I'm not directly affected (the main game I play is Everquest 1, which is specifically exempt from that Devil's Deal), but the knock-on affects will be felt by all of the games, both from the Social Backlash that is still building, and from the loss of a huge market from the general player pool.

This was an image someone posted about it that really IMO matches the feelings of the players about this deal:

[Rapscallion]

That makes no sense. Sure, you get bigger peak demands, but having them all on one operation means you have the servers not dormant for a good chunk of your day.

Rapscallion

[lordlundar]

I think it's more about the new "anti-class action" clauses in the TOS and EULAs that prompted this. A number of countries in Europe declared such additions illegal. So the separation is so Europeans get one TOS/EULA while the rest of the world gets another.

[Jetfire]

That is a very interesting point to raise; and something I don't think anyone's thought of or considered in the initial outcry. Granted it doesn't excuse their actions, but it does make them make a little more sense. Still, my preference is that they step back from this somehow and try to salvage what they can from the mess they made.

[Teysa]

Hmm, this should get interesting. At least they're allowing Europeans who already have characters on U.S servers to continue to play. I have some European guildies in EQ2 I'd hate to lose.

I just finished reading the feedback thread. By the way, that picture you copied got deleted for "portraying the sell of children which is illegal." 63 pages of nothing but negative feedback with the only official responses being to delete posts and telling people to play nice.

All I can say now, is that whoever thought this was a good idea should get their head examined.

[Gravekeeper]

In fairness, many MMOs have server sets divided into regions to begin with and do not allow cross over play unless you buy a copy from a different region. But making that division after you've had the game running as a global sandbox for like a decade is pretty stupid.

But this is Sony we're talking about and they're CEO's are very much of the "Fuck consumer, save money" school of business. -.-

[lordlundar]

But this is Sony we're talking about and they're CEO's are very much of the "Fuck consumer, save money" school of business. -.-

Just like EA, Activision, Capcom, Ubisoft...

Oh, I'm sorry. The last two are just blatant morons.

[Jetfire]

The very last one (UbiSoft) is a blatant moron that SOE has already interacted with and gotten burned from. (UbiSoft ran the Everquest 1 European servers into the ground back in EQ1's heyday).

[Andara Bledin]

We're boycotting Ubi until they stop with the always-on DRM bullshit.

^-.-^

[Salted Grump]

They stopped with the always-on DRM immediately after The Settlers 7 tanked because of it.

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and any game made after that does have the option to 'sign in' online for added benfits, but, otherwise, no game requires you to be online to play anymore.

I've been having a blast playing Heroes of Might and Magic VI both on and offline, personally.

[Andara Bledin]

Not quite. They have a habit of being rather schizo on this matter, with some games without and many games with, and some of those with getting patched to be without. Although I see that AC Revelations was without. Hopefully they'll get it and stop with that crap entirely. However, M&M Heroes VI for the PC was rendered completely unplayable because of that during their data center move. And while they claimed that games like Anno 2070 and Driver San Francisco were supposed to have backup servers keeping the gameplay going, they couldn't hold that up.

Verdict: Still boycotting Ubi for that always on DRM bullshit.

^-.-^

[Salted Grump]

Fair enough, though you can reasonably argue that Ubi is being run by a pack 'o morons.

In unrelated news, I'm boycotting Bioware due to the recent leaked information for Mass Effect 3's Release-day DLC being plot-relevant to all 3 games, due to the fact that A: It's a blatant cashgrab, and B: if they have time to make, refine, and CUT a character, plus associated quests while on the final devcycle before launch with the plan to make an easy 10$ off of everyone that didn't shell out for the Collector's Edition, then, well, they don't deserve my patronage.

(If you keep tabs on TotalHalibut's webshow 'The Cynical Brit' he goes into a 25-minute long Rant about why it's poorly-thought out and generally asinine; it's the first time I've heard the guy get actually angry in nearly 1500 videos he's posted.)

[SkullKing]

That is not really true.

After the main game is done, there is a lot that need to be done, especially for distribution.

the physical copies need to be pressed and supplied to all retail sellers in the whole world for example.

There is a window of time between the game being finished and it's worldwide launch. During that time the team is free to make extra content, withou physical material, that due to logistics, cannot be included in the main game without delaying the world wide launch.

Personally I see nothing wrong with what Bioware did.

they have 3 months of free time, after the game has gone gold, and then used that time, to make a DLC.

[Andara Bledin]

they have 3 months of free time, after the game has gone gold, and then used that time, to make a DLC.

This.

Every design house that doesn't bail on a game's development the second it goes gold is going to end up with what might turn out to be relevant material that will have to be DLC just because that's the nature of the dev cycle.

In the case of ME3, they had the DLC planned, but under the auspices of a separate dev team, and it wasn't actually ready at the time the main game went gold, likely mostly due to not being scheduled to be shipped on the disk, although there are likely some assets included for unlock as space and completion allowed.

The more that dev houses embrace DLC, the more we're going to see this sort of shift. As long as the game that is included on the disk tells a complete story in and of itself, enough to be worth the price of admission, I don't give a rat's ass if they plan for additional content that's only available for an additional fee; I'm still getting my money's worth, and if I don't like the idea of shelling out more to get more, I can just not do it.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

The more that dev houses embrace DLC, the more we're going to see this sort of shift.

Its not the dev houses, its the publishers.

The more publishers can push this shit and still make a profit, the more we will see it. They're basically testing the limits of consumer rage right now. As long as they can keep pushing it and the rage doesn't tip the financial balance they'll keep pushing this envelope more and more.

Its fine if Bioware has a 3 month period from going gold to hitting the dinner table and chooses to work on DLC. However, there is no reason to work on DLC for exactly 3 months and for that DLC to be launched on release day aside from straight up cash grab from EA. New content isn't the problem, new content that was ready for release day and planned all along but made a seperate pay for DLC is a problem.

You can't make a counter argument against it because they did the *exact* same thing before ( Shale in Dragon Age ) and it *wasn't* paid DLC. It came free with the retail copy of the game. Only people that bought it used had to buy Shale and EA's reasoning was that they could then make a bit of $ off used game sales. This however is a straight cash grab. Its zero day DLC that is aimed directly at long time fans and its content is essentially designed to not be optional to anyone who is a fan of the series. Unlike previous zero day DLC such as Warden's Keep which was just a new level and some items.

EA is basically seeing if they can teabag fans now and see if they will pay for the priviledge. By making content that was ready by release day which is central to the game's universe, they can charge a premium and make an inflated profit vs resource investment. If the main game lasts 60 hours and costs $60, you're paying $1 per hour of content. But if they shave off an hour of content into a $10 DLC, boom, 10x profit for the same amount of resource investment.

You can see the shift over the last few years in each new title. They tested the waters with Mass Effect, put a blatant "INSERT CREDIT CARD HERE TO ACCEPT QUEST" in Dragon Age and made 1 party member DLC to "curb used game sales". With DA2 they made 1 party member zero day DLC but he wasn't central to the story. Now with ME3 they made 1 party member whose presence is core to the entire basis of the series into zero day DLC.

They're seeing how far they can push customers before they lose their shit and stop paying. They don't give a rat's ass what customers think as long as they pony up the money and they're doing everything in their power to make said customers pony up the money with the nature of the content. Essentially exploiting their own fandom.