Holly gone from EQ2?

Has Holly parted ways with EQ2 now? Is she purely EQ?

 

I wondering the same thing.

 

Well, here is my wildly non-credible conjecture:

She introduced that youngish assistant producer last year, whom I assume (?) Is the person who wrote the producer's letter this year.

My guess is she is merely distancing herself from day to day management of the game (and interaction with the playres) so she can focus on more executive level management activities.

I wouldn't be surprised if, given the current state of the game, she'd prefer to let the newbie cut her teeth on a dying game while she worked on other projects. I'm sure from dbg's perspective, the salary for a person like this is more desirable than an experienced game dev, and let's be honest, what kind of experienced game dev pro is gonna want to assume project manager responsibilities for a dying game, on an old engine that has almost no budget?

Just speculation if course.

 

Rumours are she is working on a new unnamed project, while still Senior Producer of EQ/EQ2.

Lauren (Mooncast) is our 'Producer' now for EQ/EQ2 but lets face it, Kander is running the show.

What this unnamed project is appears to be a mystery, but I'd take a guess and say it's the next part of the Everquest franchise.

 

Maybe they have the most kick-ass version if Norrath in the works, or maybe some other game.

Personally, I'm not sure I would buy another game with Daybreak's producer's label on it.

I'll never say never, but.. experience.

In any case, however eq2 is now structured, I think all we've seen sends credible signals about what the DBG's expectations for the game are.

The culture at eq2 has always relied heavily on crude and amateurish marketing tactics, and everything I've seen in the last year has green pea written all over it.

"Here Newbie, see what you can do with this. If it fails, well, we didn't expect much anyway...."

 

No game franchise, or dev team, or company gets a free pass to my wallet, but given the track record of DBG over the past few years, they have to work a bit harder upfront to earn it.

With how they've handled every single aspect of the Norrath franchise: EQN, Landmark and the two EQ titles, I wouldn't bank on the new project being Norrath at all. It's been my observation that EQ players, more accurately EQ2 players, exist in this bubble where EQ2 is the best thing going. Outside that bubble a lot of folks don't have much good to say about it, or SoE and especially not DBG, many are even surprised it's still open. Not to mention pretty much everyone that created Norrath and made it what it is has been fired or moved on.

Can Norrath be condensed down into an app or web game? Would you want it to?

Daybreak doesn't appear to be all that interested in, or competent at, developing an MMO.

 

According to LinkedIn, Holly's title is Executive Producer, EQ Franchise (Oct. 2015-Present).

 

Plausible Hypothetical:

Columbus Nova -> Daybreak CEO: "This is your profit goal. Figure it out"

Daybreak CEO -> Holly: "We need more from your group. Continue to transition more DBC revenue into your game design. Watch your expenses. Figure it out."

Holly -> Kander: "We need more cash shop revenue. Build more pressure into the game design. Figure it out."
Holly -> Lauren: "We need more micro transaction, we need to sell more stuff. Figure it out."

Kander -> Customers: "Not interested in hearing your complaints. It is what it is. If you don't like it, play something else."
Lauren -->Customers: "Not interested in hearing your criticisms. We still need to sucker, er..... sell people on giving us money, and I don't want them seeing hearing anything negative about us.

Kander and Lauren -> Feldon: "We don't need your site. Go F*** yourself, Feldon."


Feldon -> "LOL"

 

This made me feel queasy.

 

[Unless uncle Daybreak busts it the credit card for paid or sponsored expansion articles, it's going to be a quiet November.[/QUOTE]

That's gonna happen.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

If you're going to rely on free social media hype and fan site sponsors to promote your game and make you money, you shouldn't be surprised when the tide turns after you start giving these channels the middle finger, all because you dont want the public to know you are trying convince them to buy a product that stinks.

To me, this is just more evidence that the team is ready for this game to die so they can move on to something else.

I mean, you don't have to be Nate Silver to predict whats gonna happen when you behave this way.

On the other hand, maybe they are absolutely clueless. Most companies segregate role clusters for a reason. Different wiring, temperaments, and skill sets.

Writing game algorithms, I'm sure, is hard.

So is remaining objective in the face of criticism or praise.

Of course, the culture within the eq2 franchise has always looked down it's nose at marketing skill.

Their product is so good it can sell itself ...