SOE – Page 3 – MMO Fallout

SOE Promises Refunds For Unsatisfied Alpha Testers.

Sony Online Entertainment is set to launch the alpha for Everquest Next Landmark later today. Given the increasing reliance on early access purchases and your average gamer’s habit of buying an alpha stage game and then being stricken with buyer’s remorse because it isn’t a finished product, SOE is offering a full refund for anyone not satisfied with the alpha. As John Smedley stated on Twitter:

We will offer a full refund to anyone not satisfied with the Alpha. It’s not confidence. It’s being honest about the fact that Alpha’s aren’t for everyone. Plus we don’t know the kind of problems we expect to see. Things like running it out of North America now. I don’t want any EU players feeling like they got screwed if the streaming has hiccups at first. We just don’t know what we don’t know yet.

It’s actually nice to see a company respond to early buyers with something other than “you should have known what you’re getting into.” Hopefully this quality guarantee will be adopted by other companies, but that is unlikely.

(Source: Twitter)

John Smedley Reddit Highlights

Following the announcement that four of Sony Online Entertainment’s MMOs would be shutting down, John Smedley went on Reddit to take part in an Ask Me Anything with the community. While this is nowhere near all of the answers, I’ve put together some significant comments for your easy viewing. First of all, the shuttering of Free Realms and Clone Wars is SOE quitting the field of kids games.

No. No more kids games. Kids don’t spend well and it’s very difficult to run a kids game. Turns out Kids do mean stuff to each other a lot.

Did Sony learn anything from the poor performance of Wizardry Online? Somewhat.

The main thing we learned was that this particular game didn’t work in the US. I wouldn’t draw any conclusions other than that.

Next, Smedley offers a glimpse at their next game. Something to please Galaxies players.

SWG PLAYERS – OUR NEXT GAME (not announced yet) IS DEDICATED TO YOU. Once we launch it… you can come home now.

As for what this game is..

It’s called “go figure it out for yourself” 🙂

As usual, Smedley once again apologized for Star Wars Galaxies, talked about how Vanguard cannot be sold due to business reasons, and more. Check out the entire AMA at the link below.

(Source: Reddit)

SOE Shutting Down Four MMOs

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that four of their MMOs will be shut down later this year: Wizardry Online, Free Realms, Vanguard, and Clone Wars Adventures. Free Realms and Clone Wars are set to shut down March 31st with Wizardry and Vanguard following on July 31st. Sony attributes the sunsetting of Free Realms and Clone Wars as being due to its user base growing up and finding new games, while Wizardry Online was due to a mutual agreement with the publisher. In the case of Vanguard, SOE was unable to get past technical issues with the game’s outdated engine.

player population numbers have decreased making it difficult to justify the resources needed to support and update this game. This is an older game and we’re experiencing more and more technical challenges to continue running and updating it in a way you deserve. Simply put, these are issues that cannot be fixed in the long term and as a player, we would be doing you a disservice and going against our company commitment to provide the best gameplay experiences. So given this information, sunsetting the game later this year is the inevitable conclusion.

Vanguard is the oldest title to shut down, having launched in 2007, with Free Realms and Clone Wars going live in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Wizardry Online launched last January. Vanguard being shut down is especially saddening when you consider that (prior to being stopped by technical issues) the company seemed rather excited to start working on it. Still, the good news is that workers affected by the shutdowns were apparently absorbed into the SOE hive mind to work on other projects.

(Source: Vanguard Announcement, Clone Wars Announcement, Wizardry Announcement, Free Realms Announcement)

Planetside 2 Will Feature Weekly Updates

Matt Higby from Sony Online Entertainment posted a thread on the Planetside 2 forums detailing that the company plans on expediting updates to better service the MMO shooter. Starting January 15th, Planetside 2 will enjoy weekly updates to address bugs, balancing, and more. There will still be large updates to the game, that will be included with the weekly updates as they become ready for release, but the overall goal is to allow SOE to work on bug fixing and balancing at a faster pace.

One final note, the first couple of these weekly updates are going to be a bit smaller than what you can expect to see later on, as we’re still shaking off the holiday cobwebs and getting used to the new development processes.

You can read the entire notice at the link below.

(Source: Planetside 2)

Sony Online All Access Changing In February

Sony Online Entertainment has announced upcoming changes to gold membership in Everquest, and not all players will be happy. Instead of the monthly stipend of 500 station cash, members will be able to purchase one item up to two thousand station cash, sans bundles, studio items, etc.

The week of February 3rd, 2014 we will be making a very important change to the Gold Membership level in EverQuest The current benefit of receiving 500 Station Cash (SC) monthly will be replaced with a new program that allows you to select one single item valued up to 2000 SC each month. Nearly all items within the games’ Marketplace will be available for this selection. Players Studio, bundles and additional exclusions may apply. This new benefit must be claimed each month that you are a member as it will not carry over to subsequent months.

The new plan benefits those who save up their station cash for large single purchases, while those who use their stipend to buy multiple cheap items may feel the value of their subscription lessen.

(Source: Eqwire)

Planetside 2 Pledges 10% Of Sales To Veterans

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that a portion of all proceeds made this weekend in Planetside 2 will be donated to the Travis Manion Foundation to support veterans and their families. The Travis Manion Foundation honors the fallen by challenging the living and empowering veterans and survivors. You can read more about the Travis Manion Foundation at http://www.travismanion.org/

This Veteran’s Day weekend, N?ovember 9th – 1?1th, 10% of all in-game marketplace item sales in Planetside 2 will be donated to the Travis Manion foundation to support the nation’s veterans and families of Fallen Heroes.

(Source: Planetside 2 Email)

Planetside 2 Infographic

The Planetside 2 infographic is corny and probably inaccurate. I wouldn’t know, I’m too busy going through my formal attire.

DC Universe Remastered Is Coming

Sony Online Entertainment has posted the latest Producer Letter detailing the upcoming Update 31 and gearing up for launch on the PlayStation 4. What does Update 31 entail?

On a high level, that means a sweeping, game-wide graphical upgrade, a massive design effort to polish and remaster the core leveling game, and a host of technical work that prepares DCUO’s underlying technology not only for launch on a next generation gaming console, but for a long future on it as well. This is without a doubt the biggest technical update we have ever done.

Aside from a massive amount of under the hood fixes, tweaks, and optimizations, DC Universe will also undergo a graphical upgrade (not pictured above), a redesign of several major areas including Centennial Park and Robinson Park in Metropolis and Gotham respectively. The letter also notes that the 1-30 leveling process will be made much more fluid, alongside updates to textures and geometry to make the world feel more seamless, and updates to the way that NPCs act to make them more consistent in combat.

These updates will go live on all platforms, including PlayStation 3, and can be previewed on the test server this week. The update is expected to go live in November.

(Source: DC Universe)

Everquest Mac Shutting Down For Real This Time

Some of you may remember that Sony Online Entertainment originally slated Everquest Mac to shut down in 2012, but decided against it due to passionate feedback from the community. Well passion can only get you so far, and in a letter posted to the community, John Smedley has announced that Everquest’s Mac iteration will be shutting down effective November 18th.

We said this before and now we really have to do it – we’re sunsetting EQ Mac. As a passionate Mac player, I’m disappointed to have to share this news. We decided to keep the game running after receiving your feedback when we originally announced the sunset plans early last year, but with all of our development aligned towards our upcoming slate of games, we simply cannot justify the resources required to continue to support this version of the game.

Everquest on the PC will not be affected by any of these changes, and it is unlikely that players will be able to move their characters over due to the massive difference in versions. EQMac was never updated past Planes of Power, the fourth expansion released in 2002.

(Source: Announcement)

MMOrning Shots: Here Sheepy

I’m in the middle of taking a look at Dragon’s Prophet, and I want to impart a lesson upon Runewaker: First impressions are everything, and that means making sure your opening quests actually work. There is a particularly annoying quest at level five where you have to let this woman spray you with a vanilla mist in order to entice the sheep into following you back to the pen. Problem: Only one of the sheep actually works. The others just ignore you no matter how much you run around them, there is no button to press that will force them to follow you, and you only have 60 seconds until the spray runs out and you have to go back and get another. So what should have been an easy quest turned into fifteen minutes of finding the one sheep that would respond, bringing it back to the pen, waiting for it to respawn, getting sprayed, and repeating.

On the plus side, I won’t need sleeping pills when I go to bed tonight, since I’ve been counting sheep.

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