Pirates of the Burning Sea to be published by SOE
From the FAQ:
I hate SOE and I will never play your game.
That’s okay. I’m sure there will be people who play our game and then hate it anyway.
Yarr, Elves Off The Starboard Bow
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{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
What a shame. I enjoyed the beta too. I’ll never give SOE another nickel. /shrug
Vangyarrrrd jokes in 3…2…1…
The only thing more tired than hating on SOE is making fun of Emos.
Nobody shivers my timbers but me! Hey, keep yer hands off! Yar!
After Vanguard, and Matrix Online before that, association with SOE lends itself to questioning what they have under the hood.
Seeing a few Vanguard references here. Is there really anyone who believes SOE killed Vanguard?
No, but we’re not sticklers for fact if it gets in the way of a wonderfully snarky comment.
I BELIEVE!!!!!!!!
Is PotBS being developed by the outfit that ruined the Sea Dogs series? I hope not. I could go for a little multiplayer broadsiding.
At least in this case they are starting with SOE just as a publisher and not because the game needs saving.
It looked interesting, and I don’t really care who does the marketing and retail distribution, but there’s no way I’m letting a Sony-written launcher install itself on one of my systems.
Meh, sure makes it tough for someone like me who swore off ever giving another dime to SOE. I am debating whether to play or not. Flying Lab has done a great job up to this point, and I would hate to miss out on what is shaping up to be a great game. If I do play, I will have a good reason to quit if need be
Nope. We contracted with Akella for some ship art and they are distributing the game in Russia, but we’re developing the game right here in Sunny Seattle (at least the sun is out today.)
I’ve always thought a good bit of the rancor directed at SOE was unwarranted. Yes, SWG was/has been a cockup of massive proportions… but generally, with a few bumps along the way, they’ve done all right by their other products.
I always got the sense that the NGE and stuff with SWG was always desperate, flailing attempts to get sub numbers where they and LucasArts thought they would be. If I had control/paid for the Star Wars license and revenued what they did, I might do the same, heh. Or I might evacuate the back of my skull with a Colt, considering what they probably paid for the license.
SOE /= EA.
-Sutro
Sony should have sufficient “blackmail” control through the launcher. Oops, login server is down, must be your game’s lack of elves.
Also, Mr. Ludwig, I thought you were getting your ship art done for free by the community?
Heh. Yeah I’m not too worried about “We won’t let you make us any more money until you put elves into your game. ”
I think about half the ships in the game were built by users at this point, and Akella built the other half. The user ships are far better because they don’t have to worry about schedules. They can spend as much time as they like on each ship and boy do they.
I think you underestimate SOE. Elves was just an exaggeration. They will probably try to get you on something more in line with their own vision of a successful MMO, like more sex appeal and more grind. They already support a number of games, so they can afford to half-ass their end of the deal to try and nudge you to do a few things, and only you have anything to lose.
Also, I think it’s a bad idea to let users make such core content. I don’t suppose you ever read one of Lum’s most legendary rants ever? Origin used to have a volunteer program, some which were so unappy with Origin that they took legal action to get back at them, and won. If someone decides they aren’t happy with your game and made some critical end-game ships for you, you better have your legal asses very well covered.
If SOE thought they needed more control over the game, they’d have put it in the contract. If there’s something about the direction/design of the game they didn’t like, they’d have either stipulated it in the contract or not signed. As Joe implied, SOE wants to make money. They have made some pretty stupid mistakes, but I can’t think of a single example of where SOE deliberately sabotaged a product.
I don’t pretend to understand the legalities, but I do know that the more you let players become part of the creative process, the closer they feel to the game. With the proper legalities observed, that can only be a good thing.
It sounds like SOE is trying to become more like NCsoft as a mmog publisher.
There were some points that SOE stuck to their guns on, and those are in the contract. They don’t have designs on creative control of PotBS, and that was clear from the negotiations. They aren’t looking for a bunch of me-too games. Just look at what they have coming up: Free Realms (free to play, shallow, easy to get into, admittedly fantasy), The Agency (A console spy shooter), DC Universe (Super Heroes). They want diversity of setting and play styles, and that’s what drew them to Pirates in the first place. I have absolutely no fear of SOE trying to take over game design.
Our legal agreement with our shipbuilders is pretty clear. We get unrestricted non-exclusive worldwide license to their work. It’s been a fantastic program for us because of the astonishingly high quality of the work, and because of the positive effect it has had on our community. I’m looking forward to expanding this program to other areas of the game in the future. It has been 100% positive for us.
Also from the post:
Here’s exactly what SOE brings to this that we want:
1) Strong distribution: We want Pirates of the Burning Sea to be in every retail store that carries games. SOE has that down cold.
You mean having your game for sale from that best buy isle that is between marked down slayer CD’s and the rows and rows of console stuff is that important to you? Because that’s where PC games are now. I have to hunt to find them in EB and most other stores.
Game publishers better wake up and start pushing online purchase fast. Steam would have been a much better option for these guys. I still had to rummage through the racks to find one copy of LOTRO because I couldn’t buy that online, and it was nearly a deal breaker till I hadda hit the mall for other reasons…
SOE takes this arrangement to the bank, laughing.
SLAYER!
I hated EQ. Never played it for more than a few days, so the SOE hate for what they did to it is pretty lost on me.
My wife and I play EQ2 and enjoy it. The service is good, the game is solid, for our purposes, and that’s pretty much all I care about. SOE being responsible for publishing this game won’t have a single affect on me. I doubt seriously it will affect anyone wanting to play a pirate.
Being an ex UO patriot with a love for that game bordering on unhealthy, and watching what EA did to it, almost stopped me from being interested in Warhammer. But then, it didn’t. I hope it succeeds and hope Mythic does well with it.
I guess I tend to save my hardcore righteous indignations for things that tend to matter a little more than what game companies nerfed my 7x haly mage.
The hate on the SOE launcher amuses me, because afaik that’s one they do, and well. Drop the EXE file in a directory, and it’ll get the game. for you. Launch up, it checks the games files and can get small updates.
It’s amazing to me how many MMO’s can only be updated via “get patch. apply patch. now start game” processes. And the SOE updater means that annoying as heck single corrupted texture file gets fixed now, not in two months when the next patch hits.
Wait a minute .. there’s a DC Universe coming out?
I was just saying I wish a Marvel or DC MMO would come out. CoX is fun but just …. I don’t know missing something that the explorer and socializer in me wants.
Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of dumb.
I never did get the SOE hate. I played EQ for 6 years; sure, it had its problems, and was a terrible grind, but it had fun too — it was the best game in town for a few years. And I blame Brad McQuaid for many of the really bad parts — I had no interest in Vanguard because of him, not Sony. I still play EQ2 and I actually think it has evolved into a better game then WoW, it has considerably more depth and complexity (not to mention content!), but for those same reasons it won’t ever have the mass appeal of WoW. You can’t blame them for the mess of Matrix, they bought it after-the-fact, so the only fair cop to me is SWG. And I still wonder how much of the original problems stem from Raph’s wanting a virtual world combined with Lucas wanting ‘realistic’/few Jedi, and whether the NGE was pushed in any way by Lucas wanting to see it become less niche.
Well you’ll get both your wishes. SOE is working on DC Universe down in Austin, and Cryptic is doing Marvel with Microsoft. I assume Marvel will be on Xbox… not sure if DC is a playstation or PC game. I’m pretty sure neither of these is a secret.
The level of hatred directed towards SOE baffles me. Granted, I never played SWG but having a great deal of experience in EQ2 (and EQl before it) I have always been pretty happy with them. I must have low standards. The one thing that I thought that most people agreed with though, is that SOE’s launcher/patching is done well. I know that I much prefer it to the mess that WoW has.
I may be wrong, but I think the comments about the launchers were less directed at SOE’s EQ / EQ 2 patchers, and more at the semi-recent controvesy where Sony-BMG’s launcher was instaling a rootkit without warning on the systems of users who purchased their music, to run some fairly intrusive anti-piracy programs.
I thought all of the EQ people you loved to hate left SOE to go to Sigil/Vanguard & got served?
Where is Abashi now?
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