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Role Playing (Games)

Inside The Studios of Sony Online Entertainment 27

Posted by Zonk from the chaining-dorks-to-their-desks dept.
Chris writes "FileFront has taken a very informative look at the world of Sony Online Entertainment inclusive of the developers, their offices, and equipment. Video interviews, screenshots, and photos are included. They also take a "World Exclusive" first look at the upcoming EverQuest II Adventure Pack, The Bloodline Chronicles."
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Inside The Studios of Sony Online Entertainment More

Inside The Studios of Sony Online Entertainment

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  • You're really in their world, now!

    Bruce
  • I once read that if i player gets within 2 days distance of the edge of the game area, they begin work extending the area the way that player is going

    is this true?, if so it must put extreme stress on the developers who already must be stressed continually producing original content and areas
    • That's true. I know this because I'm an Everquest developer (or "Everquester," as I like to be called) and it is clearly spelled out in our employment agreement.

      However, when I usually get the call to implement some "extra content" for such a player, I usually conjure up some level-150 Warjords. That will teach the players to leave the box I've built for them.

      Sincerely,
      Seth Finklestein
      Everquester Level 54
      • Wow, that's definately impressive. I have a lot of respect for anyone developing a MMOG; and this shows that at least Everquest (being years old) is still being supported by SOE. But I would probably take the same approach as you and stick those nice level 150s there to force-teach people to stop me from working ;).
    • I have some dotcom stock I would love to sell you.
    • Lemme guess, you read this on teh Intarweb, right?

  • I'll have to read the article, but I hope it provides insight into the location and specs of the Suck located at Sony Online Entertainment.
    It's long been speculated that the Suck resides close to management, although others have argued that is was transferred to the support department. It may in fact be on a office routing list hitting each department in turn.
    I myself would venture a guess that is near or even attached to the Machine of EverGrind which could possibly be causing the Suck to increase in size.
  • The photos were rather dull. Where are the shots of the server rooms? I think that would be more interesting to the average /. viewer than somebody's rather boring cubicle.

    Maybe it was in the videos? I don't do WMV.

  • I guess this got edited out ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by inkless1 ( 1269 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @03:57PM (#11935697) Homepage
    "We were surprised to peek inside SOE's customer service department, only to find a hoarde of wraiths feeding on human flesh and screaming to shut the door..."

    Seriously, their customer support sucks. At least it did a little bit ago, and ... well I'm still bitter.
    • I don't have mod points today but if anyone decides to mod this it should NOT be Funny because it painfully true
      • It is painfully true, and I've indicated this to SOE by cancelling any active subscriptions I had with them. That being said, that post was a riot mostly because I visualize things like that. And I could easily picture SOE's CS dept. being exactly that.
        • As a long time Sony customer I have to ask, what did they do to you to make you cancel? I always here about SOE's horribly customer service but I never get a good example.
          • I personally have no stories, but I have friends and friends of friends with tales that would put a shiver down your spine.

            Plus just lookit the msg boards. The SWG one (I read it with hope that there will some day be a post saying THIS GAME ROCKS! COME PLAY AGAIN!) is full of "Can I get an answer to my ticket??" type posts. One poor soul paid to have his character moved from one server to another and 3 weeks later it still hasn't happened with no acknowledgement whatsoever from SOE.

          • It was less their customer service and more their ability to create games that interest me for the long term. I preordered EQ2 and started playing it from day #1, buying into their policy of having a meaninful purpose for every character class. So I took a scout, and when I hit my mid 20's I found it was so completely horrible for soloing that the game was unplayable. That is, unless I was grouping with a full, balanced group of people. In other words, playing the game precisely as SOE dictates it shoul
          • PlanetSide didn't work. I don't know how to make it more plain than that - it just didn't work. It would lock up. It would crash. I would spawn as a wall. Let me repeat that last one, because it's not a euphemism - I entered the game as a wall. I could watch people passing by my wall, and I could do nothing else.

            SOE's Customer Support staff wasn't just useless, they were completely casual about how useless they were. If you asked them a question - ANY question, they wouldn't respond directly. They

  • Press release (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Monday March 14, 2005 @04:11PM (#11935864) Homepage
    This is nothing more than a glorified press release from Sony. They are partners with Filefront, and the entire purpose of this is to make Sony look cool, make it look like they care about their players, and to push their new expansion.

    Nothing to see here, move along.

    • It really isn't even a look at SOE - it only talks about EQ2, with casual mention of the three buildings in San Diego that house much of their business. They do have other games, but only EQ2 is considered to be in serious contention with World of Warcraft.

  • Here is an interesting look from a 3rd party perspective [archive.org] on the inside of SOE taken from Mobhunter.com [mobhunter.com] and was written by a (now) SOE EQ2 employee known as "Moorgard".

    Snippet from the article, "Editor's Note: Please check out part one [archive.org] of this story if you want to read the background of why I was at the SOE offices and to see what I learned about EQOA. Also feel free to check out the non-VAK version [archive.org] to save yourself the time of composing your own anti-SOE rant."

    The non-VAK version is pretty funny (eve
  • Did anyone notice that they don't use Sony PCs? I saw a few Dell PCs, Samsung monitors, some dude using what is either an ancient AT keyboard or one of those daft Honeywell lookalikes, a Mitsubishi monitor, a JVC stereo system, Microsoft mice, an Apple cinema display monitor (which may or may not have been connected to a PC), and a little TV and video which weren't clear what brand they were, but didn't look like they had Sony badges.

    Why don't they use anything by Sony?

    I ask this question as a person who
    • "I ask this question as a person who is a very loyal Sony fan. [...] I work at NEC."

      Dear Spiroharvey:
      Clean out your cubicle. You're fired.

      Sincerely,
      Your Boss

    • Because the company employees themselves are the only ones who realize that their computer systems are shit. Normally the people who build the stuff (or work for the company) know exactly what goes into it; when you buy from another comapany, you have a general idea, but you don't work there so you can pull the sheet over your eyes.
  • Not to say most "site visit" articles on my MMORPG of choice (WoW) don't wind up similarily slanted, but this "news" basically accepted Sony's party line whole cloth and reprinted it. I don't think that any such articles can actually be trusted since, at the end of the day, the "journalist" in question probably wants to be invited back someday.
  • is a bunch of nimrods wetting their pants because a 5 month game , WoW has more players then all of their games combined.

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