Will Daybreak games shut down in 2 months?

Name me a MMO that has successfully been launched by SOE/Daybreak since Everquest 2?

I guess DCUO could be, PlanetSide2 is not a mmo

Here is the current list of games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daybreak_Game_Company

look all the way to the bottom and look a defunct games, remember The Agency? it was put out there like EQNext and never saw the light of day. Think of all the cash this company has blown on stupid ideas, and then think.....EQ3 and battle royal....its par for the course for these guys.

 

Is like make a movie named like a comics, but you don't follow (or use) the comics story...

 

I'd expect it to be called something slightly different to EQ3, making it sound like a newer concept, while retaining the ability to go "From the Creators of Everquest 1 & 2, with over 20 years worth of successful MMORPG Gameplay, comes Anarchy of Norrath!"

Anybody who didn't play EQ1/EQ2 isn't going to know those games had horrific issues, they are just going to see a games company running a successful MMO with expansions for 20 years.

Anybody who did play EQ1/EQ2 is going to be drawn in purely because it's Everquest, and in general the first few years of EQ games aren't bad.

 

Yes, every game has people complaining about it but everquest complaints are some next level stuff. Not just "I don't like the art", or "xcontent is easy", or "players are mean." Things like "wasn't that game down for a month once?" Or "my gaming rig couldn't play it on max settings." I've heard over a dozen people say they thought EQ2 was shut down and were dead serious. Or even "thats the game that told WoW developers all the things NOT to do."

The EverQuest franchise has a much more public record of failure than most franchises.

What? Every news post, every forum thread is going to have more than few people telling the tale of how horrendous the franchise has gotten. Two failed games (landmark, next), years of poor maintenance, snotty developers. entire expansions that ruined the game even for the players who liked the games. Anyone who doubts it can either be shown or look up countless articles to prove it very easily. This is like saying if EA released another mass effect no one would remember Andromeda. To say they have a considerable hole to dig themselves out from is an understatement.

Some sure, but not as much as other franchises. And this is counter to your last statement. EQ players and non-players aren't going to be hermetically sealed from one another. This is the streaming and social media age, people know things about games they have zero interest in just by being interested in video games. Those games' launches were also under ENTIRELY different management. I'm fairly certain no one even works at daybreak that were responsible for those launches except maybe for some operations people who have no public presence.

The tide they have to overcome isn't much different from FF14's original launch and relaunch. Thats the 'level' they will need to be on to have anything resembling a critical success. I'm sure whatever they do release will eventually make a profit, but it will probably have a down turn so fast it will make EverQuest 2 look like a timeless classic.

They will have to make a point of saying its going to be at least 'different' if not outright better than the other EQ's and that they are fixing mistakes they have made in the past in some diplomatic way it doesn't completely throw them under the bus.

 

I have never played an EA game because if what I have heard about them in the forums of the games I do play.

Even if people buy this new eq oblivious of the history, they're gonna Google search around it, and stuff is gonna come up.

Best case scenario, we get another h1z1: People come to realize the game is junk because Daybreak produces cash grabs, not quality and it crashes a year or two after launch.

 

Is like Feldon or Errrorr and other say. The actually game situation is pretty much irrelevant. People have a very short memory, most of the people just ignore Daybreakgame actually exists.

Game with decent success have.. 50k-100k players? game with huge success have millions players. How many player have eq2?

Sure, the today eq2 player are't happy about the game, but.. many ex-player (3 or more years) lock the game still like a old lover..

But, in any case, if DGB will manage a new game with the same techniques used in eq2, h1z1, vanguard, eqn, landmark, Star Wars Galaxies, will end badly.

 

The MMO market place is getting very crowded with a number of AAA offerings and many of lesser quality catering to a niche player base. Additionally there are numerous MMO's in the works sure a lot of them are targeting a PVP audience but all these pull against players trying your new shiny game. I am not sure that DBG has the cash left that is required to even compete/out market these games let alone develop something new that is sticky.

 

I have no doubt if they make a 'decent' effort the game will make a good profit on the outset (unless resources have been mismanaged poorly by magnitudes). It just wont compare to EQ1/Eq2 in relative terms of launch/long term success and definitely wont match the early start on battle royale they had with h1z1 they subsequently pissed away. People will be much quicker to bail at the first sign of a bad trend due to history. Announcement of slower content cycles, hesitant to balance huge problems, frequent 'unexpected' downtimes will result in a collective "and so it begins" from the players as they jump ship.

And im not trying to be a prick here but even people who seem to not like DBG are underestimating just how much other MMO's have their **** together over the long term. 99% of problems get fixed with 7 days if discovery. Serious balance issues addressed between not just expansions but even content updates. Uptime taken very seriously and most reasonable player suggestions not only listened to but almost always enacted sooner or later. This "we'll look into it" "Thats not what we have in mind" and "That problem is being addressed in the next content update" nonsense doesn't fly any more.

This is also why I quit playing daybreaks games. Not because of the quality at the time, but the attitude that promises both the maintaining of current low quality and declining quality down the line. Not that its staying this way or that its not going to get better, but the guarantee its going to get worse.

When it comes to diminishing returns at a high rate, DBG delivers.

 

I suppose my skepticism rests on four observations:

1. A significant overconfidence in their understanding of consumer behavior and a irrational resistance to embracing a professional marketing infrastructure. This has existed for years, and is a good reason why they ended up in the portfolio of a bottem feeding in investor.

2. A tendency to confuse short cutting for efficiency.

3. Under DBG, insufficient funding to produce a quality product. The result: selling tactics that are deceptive and overly manipulative.

4. In economics lingo, a dominating focus on the utility customers bring to the company as opposed to striving to maximize utility for the customer (for example, discord behavior or the cash shop inentivizing mechanics they like to employ ).

I do believe that there are many talented worker bees doing the best they can and coming from the right place.

I also believe this game has been terribly managed for years, and the market has put it exactly where it deserves to be. Without a dramatic change in company culture, I am not optimistic it will survive much longer.

 

100% agree that if EQ3 is treated like EQ2 or EQ1 were, it will sink. As Neiloch alluded to, it'll basically be FFXIV 1.0 all over again, where the developers hadn't even bothered to play modern MMOs to see what they were doing (literally, this is one of the things the producer Naoki Yoshida says in his presentations about FFXIV 1.0). That said, think what you will about Holly, but I know matter-of-factly she definitely looks at other companies' games to see what they're doing and is pretty smart about what they do well. I'd say not to judge her based on the state of EQ2 -- that's like being upset with someone for not being able to salvage the Titanic after it had its collision with the iceberg. EQ2 has a lot of limitations and issues and the opportunity cost to improve them just isn't worth it. Of course, games are developed by large teams so who knows how things will turn out. On the flipside, EQ2 is currently being maintained by a very small team so what voices are there dictating the direction of things are very loud with no one to really challenge them.

Cynicism is expected (I am too!), and I'm not trying to say I expect it to be an amazing game or that it will even get finished, but I still approach it with an open-mind.

 

I admit, I'm not an insider to the industry. I also remember and appreciate observations you've communicated about how Holly approached project management while managing eq1.

Something has changed from that. Either she has been given marching orders on game design, or she has changed how she wants things done. And one thing I can't give her a pass on his how customers have been treated by some of the staff. That is unacceptable

I do like to give Smed credit for some pretty good things. Under his watch, the games were pretty good, and, he was believer in taking good care of the customer.

Where I think he missed is he empowered his producer's with too much confidence and authority to make marketing decisions - i.e. they were bad ones. I believe he had a good feel for markets, but, marketing is a different skill set from product development (even though pd is a part of the marketing process).

This bias seems to remain, and I just find it difficult to see how in addition to that, the company can compete under new constraints imposed by DBG.

 

I have no idea how Holly was on EQ1, I worked with her on EQ2. I also don't really think she had the kind of influence that people assume she did, especially re: design. IMO, the game would've been better if she did, though (and the resources were there to support it).

 

Thanks for clarfying. Could have sworn it was eq. In any case, I'm grateful for the corrections

 

You might be confusing with Eldiroth, especially if you read Fires of Heaven a lot. I'm much younger and far more handsome. XD Though amusingly, we're both named Douglas.

 

Some may find this interesting although it just repeats a lot we already know care of massively.

Daybreak and All Their Sins Remembered

 

Wonder if DBG management is getting nervous now

 

Since the quantitative of money in game (2 bilion already frozen), if they use DGB in anyway ouside the normal business, the possibility that they give the order to destroy everything (including game database), is pretty high. Since they already started to eliminate any paper connection...

dgb is nothing for them.