Sony Slow To Reveal Mac EverQuest Code Freeze? 71
mpk writes "It seems Sony Online Entertainment has finally officially admitted (albeit only by an mail response to a user query which got posted into a web forum) that the Macintosh EverQuest server is to receive no further bug-fixing or development support, although the game is still available and playable online. The kicker is that this has actually been the case for eight months, following the Mac version's release in June 2003, yet SOE chose not to tell their customers about it. Inside Mac Games also has the story, and I've posted my thoughts as well. There's no mention of this policy on the EQ Mac home page and the game still appears to be being sold in the shops."
Cross platform compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Verant choose 3dfx Glide way back when, and then DirectX. It's not a wonder they coudn't easially make a Mac client that could play in the same worlds as the PC users. I would have bought Mac Everquest in a heartbeat for the EQ LANs my friend throws, but alas, stupidity prevailed and they released a non compatible game.
The lesson at the end of the day? Open standards makes life easier. Closed standards puts you into a tough position eventually.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe the reason they are not going to maintain has much more to do with the numbers. If there were as many people using the Mac version as the Windows one, I'm sure it would be being maintained.
I think its pretty safe to say, that if you are serious about playing games, you are better off with a PC than a Mac.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's pretty safe to say, that if you are serious about playing games, you are better off with a console than a PC or Mac.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:3, Funny)
Huh, now I know where to look if I want to play cutting edge technology, or freedom of customiztion. Usually, though, I just want to play fun games, so I'll stick with a console, thanks.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
Well, if we keep getting crappy ports of console games to PC, then we won't have to worry about upgrading our PCs.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
My TV is about 13" and my monitor is a 21" flat panel.
Your TV probably has better sound than your PC
See above.
There are a vast number of games that are not RTSes or god games, and some people do enjoy them and aren't interested in RTSes or god games.
Same thing goes for PCs as well
First person shooters are acceptable on modern consoles
Define acceptable. If you mean somewhat funky controls and having the computer auto-aim for you, then sure,
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
The graphics engine can impact the network code and server more then people think. Things like collision detection are done, and differences between how clients do this could lead to client/server mismatch issues. And while I know EverQuest doesn't use DirectX for network code, many other games do causing porting issues beyond the Direct3D use.
Minor differences in floating point calculation
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:1)
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
You are mistaken Glide and DirectX are not inherently problems(1). Diablo II supports Glide and yet it has PC and Mac versions
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:1)
Everquest LANs!?!? Is there such a thing as a everquest server emulator? Or does your friend just share his broadband connection with his friends when they come over?
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:2)
He just shares his broadband, and we all play togther in a group going into dungeons and such. It is more of a good personal social experience, since we do cookouts and such. Kinda like an RPG session, but without the GM having to run things.
Re:Cross platform compatibility (Score:1)
Verant (Score:3, Interesting)
In any case, Sony/Verant/EQ has a long history of screwing over its paying customers. So no surprises here.
Re:Verant (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad decision as far as I'm concerned. Having multiple platforms of the same software has always kept my code a bit cleaner and more modular.
SOE (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the fact is that those people could not be closer to the truth. They are entirely correct.
IANAECH (Score:2, Insightful)
All I see here is another non-Windows game selling poorly, further fueling the economic arguement not to publish titles for non-Windows OS'.
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
So they wasted their money porting a game, that only works with a mac ghetto server, and they expected to make money? I guess that's what they deserve for thinking mac users were dolts who would rush to send them money in droves to be a part of such a phenominally woeful online world.
Damn straight, I didn't buy it. I played EQOA on PS2 for free, but when the beta en
Re:IANAECH (Score:2, Interesting)
You could have at least tried to argue why you expect updates after a product is released as final. Do you have this expectation? If so, why? Do you have the unreasonable expectation that because one game is cross-platform, all should be? If so, why?
Re:IANAECH (Score:1, Insightful)
I suspect that players assumed that there would be support or maybe Sony did promise it (what does the outside of the box say?), I suppose looking through old news anouncements might shed some light on the subject not that it really matters. If Game!= profitable then Game=
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
Aspyr still provides support on its site for The Sims, and numerous expansion packs are available (all supported as well). I think it would be reasonable to expect the same level of continuing support, howev
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
that tangential rant was directly in answer to your hostile assumption that all future game development for the mac (or any non-windows platform, I guess you mean consoles too) should be canned based on the sucess, or lack thereof, of Sony with EQ Mac. Why not answer the other questions? because they would be better answered by someone who has paid to play and still pays to play than by someone like me who decided there
Re:IANAECH (Score:1)
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
Re:IANAECH (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Access to much of the higher-level content of the game is broken. The content itself exists (and it's a large portion of the game), but the scripts necessary to play it do not work.
2) Playing with sound turned on often causes such slowdown of the game as to make it unplayable.
The first issue is server-side based, and much of the EQMac population is of the belief that the fix is a minor one. The second issue seems to be client-side based.
The sound issue bothers players to different degrees (some don't care much at all about this, to be fair). The high-level content currently only affects those players who have played long enough to reach it, though everyone is a bit miffed, because the box and the advertising promised that a full version of the game was being sold.
One of the problems with the situation is that Sony has repeatedly stated that fixes for these issues were underway. Less than a month ago, even, one of the TSRs promised fixes in the next patch. It's now apparent that no patch was being worked on, or even planned.
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
Not having access to higher level content should piss anyone off and they should quit. From time to time people have left EverQuest en masse, and though it takes a while, they eventually solve the problems.
Re:IANAECH (Score:2)
Open Source MMO (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, EOL titles like this should have the source released, at least for the executables (ala Quake, Quake II...) so that players who are inclined and capable can fix them. It's not like they don't make most of their money off of the subscriptions, and they don't necessarially need to open source that part of the program. They'll still make money off of the addicts.
For that matter, why not make all MMOs this way? Would there be a cheating issue? I've never coded a decent sized project, much less a game or network code, so I'd have no idea if open source would help or not.
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem then becomes on of bandwidth and server resources. The ultimate "do not trust the client" is then serving up each rendered frame across the network in order to avoid client-side rendering cheats like semi-transparent walls. Practically speaking, a certain amount of trust is required. The trick then becomes how to balance the game so that the advantages of misplaced trust are mitigated.
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
If you wanted to make things more complex and use up more bandwidth you could also send players only the geometry they can see, but the value of such a tactic is low unless all of your terrain is dynamic. As one generally uses canned terrain, it's not much of a tactic. The player could set up
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
But in an open source project, the whole idea is to trust the client. The whole ideology of an open source project is that everyone contributes (large and little) for the greater good. The problem with this is, as the "project team" grows the chance of assholes and jerks getting in increases. Do you really think Linux will remain virus free if MILLIONS of Windows users suddenly switched to Linux?
Same thing in an open source MMO game. Do you rea
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
You might as well claim that the open nature of HTTP means that any kid can write over any web page on the internet. They can't. All they can do is download a page and write their own version and maybe show that to friends. It does not affect people looking at the original page. Same thing here.
There is no problem with a completely open-source server. I do agree that an open-source client is a problem. I don't see any r
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
The original poster seemed to be under some impression that an open-source game server somehow compelled the people running the server to put any patch submitted to them into it and thus it was easy to compromise. This is absolutely bogus.
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:2)
The weak point is that it's possible to extract the private key out of a blessed client and use it
Re:Open Source MMO (Score:5, Informative)
Eternal-Lands is also looking good and should be farily playable http://www.eternal-lands.com [eternal-lands.com]
I don't really know about the current userbase but I'm about to try it again
Also there is Arkanae https://arkanae.dev.java.net/ [java.net]- I don't really know anything about that one though.
Then you have WorldForge which I really haven't had any luck with, and I don't really think it is in a playable state anyway (http://www.worldforge.org [worldforge.org]).
In addition to those you have http://www.genecys.org/ [genecys.org] - don't really know much about that one either.
So theres a few going on
Now that it's OverQuest (Score:5, Funny)
for all you Mac players, well it's scary but you'll need this [coppertone.com] now. Best wishes.
Re:Now that it's OverQuest (Score:2)
separate but not equal (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:separate but not equal (Score:2)
because that's what sony decided would be best for us (and their pocketbook).
I don't get it.
yeah most mac users put 2 and 2 together and decided not to, either...
Overreaction? I think so (Score:4, Insightful)
Did it ever occur to this bleeding-heart Mac user that maybe the fact that the boxes are still available is a *good* thing? Chances are the Mac server was put in code freeze due to lack of users/revenue. If more Mac users buy the box and play the game that decision could easily be reversed.
Sony made a financially based business decision. That decision didn't affect the current status of the game---the game that people bought. Unless there was something in the EULA that specifically held SOE to telling Mac users about *every* business decision surrounding MacEQ then they were under no obligation to disclose their business direction.
This is such a non-story it's not funny....
Re:Overreaction? I think so (Score:3, Insightful)
i wouldn't either. and how exactly is someone that feels burned "bleeding-heart?"
the bad decision sony made was to have serparate mac servers. here are the reasons:
money spent hiring a mac server staff
money spent developing a mac server
money spent trying to keep
Re:Overreaction? I think so (Score:5, Informative)
In particular, the final everquest expansion that was included in the game ("Planes of Power"), has only 5 of the 14 or so areas usable, although 2 of the 5 are non-fighting "travel" zones, and about 90% of the time working through the expansion is spent in the 9 areas we don't have access to -- so we payed for an expansion that is largely unusable.
We're not talking "active development" meaning new expansions. We're talking being able to play context that exists (GM's have taken people there, so it does exist, you just cannot zone into it) that was advertised on the package.
I don't think that's an overreaction to expect to be able to use the entire purchased product.
In addition, up until the mentioned email was received from the Executive Director of CS, the Service Reps who were responding to questions on Sony's forum were stating that a patch was under development -- which is clearly not the case.
Re:Overreaction? I think so (Score:3, Insightful)
More on SOE's attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a bad enough state of affairs to get a code-freeze like this, but the entire customer support situation has just compounded the problem and annoyed even more paying customers.
Mac users paid the same cover price and the same subscription as PC users but have never receieved the same level of service. Unfortunately SOE's failure to deal with this properly (I don't think they even contracted any programmers to keep up to date with patches, the original porters certainly were'nt involved) has killed EQ Mac. The failure will no doubt be seen by many within SOE and other companies as an example of the un-viability of the Mac platform (or even non Win32 platforms in general) for gaming and in particular MMO games. Thankfully companies like Blizzard and Wolfpack are proving that this is not the case.
Re:More on SOE's attitude (Score:1)
Hmm sounds similar to the PS2 version... (Score:2)