If SOE makes it, I would say there would have to be overwhelmingly positive feedback from the playerbase for me to even consider buying the game/playing the game.  I'm pretty open to new games and generally not one to shy away from just jumping in and playing something

But really, SOE is not known for anything of a positive variety.  They are known and generally 'hated' because of the terrible way they treat their customers and/or because of the way they change their games so often.

SOE could take nearly any MMO and turn it into a 'half-empty' perspective game over-night.

Seeing SOE's name on ANY game certainly makes people think twice before buying.  In all honesty, I would rather never purchase anything branded by SONY again in my life.   SOE is that bad, imho.

Originally posted by therain93

3.) # of languages = how smart you are? C'mon, why are you even bother...oh wait, this is the internet...

yeah........ That's the problem =(

Originally posted by Lucifrank

Originally posted by Samuraisword

Everything they touch. PoTBS is next.

Seriously, this game lost a lot of interest from many players once SOE got involved.

I'm sorry, but you couldn't have made a more asinine and baseless comment. Seven months ago, SOE SAVED V:SoH (which was arguably the biggest high-profile launch disaster the MMORPG industry has seen to date) from it's death throes and is actually putting time and support in a game that could just as easily have gone the way of G&H. I don't even play SOE games and I can see this. I'm so tired of people who see SOE as the evil empire. They're the freaking game development wing of an electronics manufacturer! Some of their games are good. Others blow. There's no big conspiracy here. Sheesh.

Just like you said, the game was high profile and to go one step further the buzz about the game was HUGE.  It was the title blockbuster most were watching.  When SOE put its name on it you can not deny that people walked away from the game.  I did and everyone I know walked away that very second and forums echoed much of the same.  Who cares what SOE did 7 months after the game launched or however long it was.  The fact remains the game tanked on subscriptions and went belly up.  Was it because the game was bad or was it because they lost a sizable portion of their playerbase when they joined forces with SOE or maybe both? 

Hard to tell, but seeing they only sold a few more copies than most games (not just AoC/Warhammer) are now getting in beta sign ups I will go with people who walked away crippled the game from the onset.  Seeing the reactions from PotBS and GnH when they announced their partnerships it looks like the backlash was worthy enough to warrent them to plea with their playerbase also.  Everything suggests there is a negative impact on the playerbase when the SOE tag is slapped on a product.  It is just one long series of bad launches after another including one brand new shiny cancelation.  (this is a factual statement regardless of who is to blame, the results are just what they are.)

As for SOE saving Vanguard, I guess time will tell.

Hehe saving Vanguard, that's a good one, just like they saved the Matrix Online. Everyone can't get enough of playing that game. It's got amazing subscription numbers. SOE saved it alright.

ever notice that SOE's own IPs seem to do very well, but all its 3rd party IPs suck?

that pretty much tells you why .... too many chiefs poking their nose into things

Yeah, SWG is doing just wonderful!   EQ2 was stellar in its first few years.  EQ didn't chase people off once SOE got it.

Damn all those other people bruising the SOE brand.... a pox on them!

your missing the concept of SOE's own IP, EQ1 was king of the MMOs for years (though i will grant that Verant (i think) was the maker, which soe bought), EQ2 had a shaky launch but its done a total 180, Planetside has a nice niche following, etc...Everquest and planet side are SOE own IP.

Matrix is the IP of Warner Brothers(i think), SWG is the IP of Lucas Arts, Vanguard is (or was) sigils IP, PotBS is Flying Labs IP.

---

Originally posted by Samuraisword
Everything they touch. PoTBS is next.
Seriously, this game lost a lot of interest from many players once SOE got involved.

---

*laugh* Ignorance is bliss!

SoE had nothing to do with Perpetual's problems just like Sigil.

EQ1 only did well because it had no competition and the market overall was still growing.  It was mismanaged once SOE formed and kicked out brad creating many of today SOE anti-fans.  Post velious the game got worse.

EQ2 was chuck full of bad game designs at launch and could be found in bargain bins half a year after launch. It might have done a 180 after dumping core concepts and emulating WoW, but who really cares if that is the best SOE can do.  Not even getting half of what the original EQ had and taking years post launch to fix is not what I would call success by any means.  Honestly is that the very best they can offer is pay to play while we fix this mess?

Planetside... pay to play first person shooter.  I'll concede it is niche and meaningless.  Not a success with all the mergers however.

SWG is a sony game, like it or not.  They made it, who cares if LA was involved.  If SWG was a huge success then people would praise SOE and not LA.  No reason to give them a pass.

MxO and Vanguard came to SOE busted which just saved them some time.    Just kidding.

All of their titles have had server mergers regardless of who created it, save SWG where the players are begging for it, and you say they do well with their IPs.  Ok.

Who cares. PoTBS will suck regardless.

Originally posted by Gemma

Who cares. PoTBS will suck regardless.

Originally posted by safwd

Well apparently 50K people are still enjoying SWG, so let them enjoy it. This is my point.

It is understood that you, and many others hate SOE. So dont play there games. We who dont hate SOE understand that you do. Thats ok with us, we arent going to try to force you to play SOE games.

Unfortunetly many who hate SOE start to throw out random crap that is in no way accurate to further spread the hate of SOE.

Some examples:

SOE ruined EQ after they took it from Verant- False, Sony always owned Verant, from day 1.

SOE ruined EQ when they added Luclin and beyond- False, SOE changed EQ when they added that stuff. Some didnt like it but some did.

SOE did a horrible job with the release of EQ2- Ok, that was in true. But they also fixed it and it is a very popular game now.

SOE ruined Vanguard- False, hard to do when they didnt create Vanguard, they are trying to save it though

SOE ruined Gods and Heroes- The newest one, again hard for them to ruin a game that they had no hand in developing. Maybe that are evil enough to do it anyway though.

And the greatest to all SOE haters hearts: SOE ruined SWG with NGE. Perhaps this one is true, i never played the game. But i can pretty much guarentee that that was not there objective when they did it. I really doubt they wanted to lose money. If you want to blame someone for NGE blame WoW, that game is what caused some of the games that we loved to lower to the least common denominator with the hope of bringing in the millions of new MMO players.

So again, hate SOE if you want, its cool. But try to use facts when you do so. Reading SOE is the devil gets a little weak after the 1 billionth time.

And a game losing subs after 4 years (SWG) and 9+ years (EQ) isnt a sign that SOE sucks, it is a sign that the game is old.

On your SWG comments. If you haven't played the game then you should talk about why we, the vets, hate SOE. You just end up sounding like a SOE Fanboi. The vets are upset with SOE  for 3 simple reasons.

1) SOE launched EQ2 and began to see a little bit of a drop in SWG subs and a slight rise in EQ2 subs so they then push a stupid feature into SWG changing the keyboard layout to EQ2's config(This is where I became weary of them). The players hated it and demanded it be changed back. After a bit of bitching SOE gave us back our original config but they left the EQ config in. A bit fishy but, ok.

2) EQ2 was doing better then SWG in sales and subs so SOE decides to push the Combat Upgrade live giving players about 2-3weeks notice with no previous discussion with it's playerbase other then they were working on a publish called combat upgrade. The Combat Upgrade was thier way of bringing over some elements of EQ2 over to SWG and hoping it would revitalize the game. Again, the playerbase complained and began asking for the old version back. This time SOE put in some earplugs and said to themselves, "they'll get over it". Instead, they found out how much we loved the old game and hated the EQ2 make-over. SWG lost about 100,000 subs because of this. Some came back and some didn't.

3) WoW is released and SOE begins to see a drop in SWG subs as WoW's subs break records. Once again, SOE implements the NGE to make the game "easy to play without a steep learning curve". This time SOE gave warning before they went live but they insisted the majority of the community wanted these changes based on focus groups. Focus groups of SOE employees maybe. SOE went live with the NGE and quickly found out that the majority of the community DID NOT want these changes when the majority of the playerbase cancelled thier subs leaving them with the shell of a community it once had.

Now that's why alot of us SWG vets hate on SOE. Next time you make an arguement about why SWG players hate SOE try and be a little informed or avoid bringing it up.

As for Vanguard and G&H, SOE is forever tainted by SWG. Even other companies view them as such. This is why PE went public saying SOE will not have any decision making in thier games. I doubt that very much. If a publisher like SOE throws the devs some money to help out then it's only obvious they're going to have some sort of input. Vanguard was a mixture of a bug riddled game with a SOE tag. Most who played beta quit within a week or two because of the bugs and shadey gameplay. Word of mouth about the game and players past experiences with SOE played a role in Vanguard's death out of the box.

Rofl is it just me or are 90% of the mmo players delusionally paranoid, and super nit-picky, last i knew mmo's were not drugs and publishers and creators were not drug dealers....or are they, For some reason i picure the guy from the comic book store on the simpson in multiple housholds talking to one another on the forumns.

Originally posted by safwd

Well apparently 50K people are still enjoying SWG, so let them enjoy it. This is my point.

It is understood that you, and many others hate SOE. So dont play there games. We who dont hate SOE understand that you do. Thats ok with us, we arent going to try to force you to play SOE games.

Unfortunetly many who hate SOE start to throw out random crap that is in no way accurate to further spread the hate of SOE.

Some examples:

SOE ruined EQ after they took it from Verant- False, Sony always owned Verant, from day 1.

Sony bought out brad mcquad shortly before velious launched and there was a very noticable change to the game after that expansion for those who played.  Verant/Studio989 were absorbed into SOE.  Yes it was always owned by SOE, but there was a very fundamental change in manangement and players reacted.

SOE ruined EQ when they added Luclin and beyond- False, SOE changed EQ when they added that stuff. Some didnt like it but some did.

See above.  There was evan a boycott once because the expansions were ruining the game.  SOE had to fly in 50 guild leaders and press to prove they would "listen to the players" and promise how much they would change.  Seeing the way the spring NGE, combat upgrades, station exchange on their playerbase says otherwise.

SOE did a horrible job with the release of EQ2- Ok, that was in true. But they also fixed it and it is a very popular game now.

Saying EQ2 is very popular after is lost over half of its subscribers is being a tad misleading.

SOE ruined Vanguard- False, hard to do when they didnt create Vanguard, they are trying to save it though

True, but SOE was deep involved in the game and now they keep slashing dev staff.  Who really cares, all that matters is a portion of people left when SOE partnered with Sigil.  That is part of "
the curse"

SOE ruined Gods and Heroes- The newest one, again hard for them to ruin a game that they had no hand in developing. Maybe that are evil enough to do it anyway though.

Correct SOE didn't make the game, but I'm sure they lost potential subscribers when SOE partnered with them.  That is why they went into damage control and later made a revised press release in an attempt to remove SOE's brand from their game even though nothing in the deal changed.  That says something.

And the greatest to all SOE haters hearts: SOE ruined SWG with NGE. Perhaps this one is true, i never played the game. But i can pretty much guarentee that that was not there objective when they did it. I really doubt they wanted to lose money. If you want to blame someone for NGE blame WoW, that game is what caused some of the games that we loved to lower to the least common denominator with the hope of bringing in the millions of new MMO players.

HAHAHA ok, so it is blizzards fault for the NGE, but don't blame SOE for vanguard or gods -n- heroes.  Make sure to wipe your chin when you finish.

SOE purposefully made the NGE in an attempt to attract NEW players to the game, not to enhance people already playing.  They KNEW that the people 'currently paying the bills' as smed says, wouldn't like it so they didn't ask for input.  Instead they hid and DENIED the very existance of the NGE until the day after an expansion released.  Every press release takled about getting new players into the game (sometimes admitting that on its current pace there wouldn't be much of a game left).  SOE absolutley abandonded their subscribers in the hopes that they would get more new people than they lost.

So again, hate SOE if you want, its cool. But try to use facts when you do so. Reading SOE is the devil gets a little weak after the 1 billionth time.

Not as weak as people saying SOE did no wrong.

And a game losing subs after 4 years (SWG) and 9+ years (EQ) isnt a sign that SOE sucks, it is a sign that the game is old.

SWG was losing subs before christmas which spurred on the hologrind emengency to occupy players.  The game was in sharp decline within a year and continued more after the combat upgrade and the NGE.  Why you say 4 years is false.  It was hemmoraging within a year. 

 

For a guy who talks about facts you sure don't seem to know much.  I just hate revisionists.  Everything that SOE has touched has flopped, very under performed or just failed outright.  Regardless of if they make it or not.   Save EQ when they had someone passionate about making a game (and it would seem not in control of the money  LOL sorry brad)

In many ways, it really doesn't matter what was true, and what was false.  What really matters is the public's perception of SOE.  To put it simply, SOE is trusted about as much as Richard Nixon was in the late 1970's.

SOE destroyed Star Wars Galaxies.  It doesn't really matter if it was their idea, if it was forced by Lucas Arts, if it was a reaction to market pressures, or if blue space monkeys came down and sucked their brains until the NGE was out the door.  The fact remains, SWG was gutted, hung from the rafters until the blood drained, and then stuffed with cotton candy as a pinata for the new kids.

SOE gradually degraded Everquest in the same way, just not as suddenly or violently.

EQ2 was a disaster at launch, but I will give them credit for turning that one into a pretty good quality game.  I played under the "Vanguard apology" free time period, and was quite impressed -- even with the negative bias I had from playing at launch.

Vanguard.  Well, that was not SOE's fault at all.  That disaster came from Brad not managing his resources and then falling back on his SOE contacts to salvage something.  SOE's only fault is in their recent cuts which removes any real hope of future content, the lifeblood of any MMO.

The fact is, the SOE name has been associated with so many failures, and so many BAD decisions (from mistakes to blatant lies and misdirection), that Gods and Heroes will have a lackluster launch simply because a LARGE number of former SWG, EQ, EQ2, and Vanguard players won't go anywhere near anything touched by the SOE name.  Pirates of the Burning Seas is suffering the same fate, as many of their fans and beta testers fled the scene as soon as SOE was chosen for distribution rights.

Personally, I don't think SOE should advertise their ownership or association with anything until they manage to (silently) back a winning horse.  If they work like Beatrice did, they could very well have their hooks in a dozen upcoming games without anyone knowing about it (and thus without hurting those games with their bad rep).  If they get lucky and have a WoW-killer, they can trumpet how they were involved with that one.