| Issar |
10-21-2015 07:10 PM |
From my point of view, it appears that Daybreak has the same communication issues that SOE had. In a time where community management (through site forums, social media, and whatever other outlet) really matters to the gaming community as a whole, they have stifled their managers. This has resulted into a fair amount of backlash from would be fans. Every six months, SOE/DB throws a shout out to say "hi guys, we're working on it." This also includes SOE Live, where they reveal some grandiose plans and a few screen shots. We keep expecting to hear more, but never do. This seems to infuriate some of the fan base, and others just forget about it and become indifferent.
I don't know if it was an attempt to save money on staffing, prevent leaks or what, but instead of being even remotely open to communication about Next, SOE banked on Landmark to satiate the fans. This works, but only for a small percentage of fans. I think there are a lot of people who have little to no interest in making buildings. The majority of EQ fans are RPG/MMORPG players, who are way more into building characters than walls. The builders were playing Sim City when the RPG fans were playing EQ. So, the would be Next fans are left with nothing. Dave Georgeson stated that by playing Landmark, we were essentially playing Next. Though, Landmark has virtually two percent of the features promised for Next. Landmark's vast choice of races includes humans, /end list. Landmark's gear comes in a whopping 4 sets, three of which do not fit in high fantasy in any way. Half of the player designed buildings in Next are far from lore appropriate. Simply put, there's no EQ in Landmark.
The reality is that little or no Next gameplay information is ever provided through the Landmark channels. There is no Next channel for communication. The official EQN site is dominated by Landmark. And Daybreak has canceled SOE Live, so what information was provided from the event has been cut off. In the eyes of the MMORPG community, Next has essentially ceased to exist. Regardless of reality, that is the perception. As the saying goes, "perception is reality." You can look no farther than the earlier posts in this forum and see the truth in that saying.
I don't know if Day Break is just trying to be secretive and hope to deliver a huge reveal at some point, expecting to bring in all the fans or not. If that's the case, it's the wrong approach. Gone are the days for such a tactic. It's nearly 2016, twitter, fansites, Facebook, and more social media tools are visited by the billions. They are quite simply the best form of advertising for this market, period. By withholding information, they lessen their momentum and quite possibly lessen their fan base. If they utilized their tools in social media and delivered cookie crumbs on a regular basis, they would pick up new fans rather than dropping old ones. It only takes a trickle to start a torrent in social media.
If you contrast Day Break's methods with the likes of City State and Mark Jacobs, it's easy to see the variance. City State, by constantly communicating through various channels, keeps their fans interested, draws in new fans, and constantly sports a positive vibe throughout their community. Long time EQ fans believe that EQN has ceased production. It's hard to bring in new fans when the old ones believe the game is dead.
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