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Sony Slow To Reveal Mac EverQuest Code Freeze?
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."
This type of thing is not a major issue for companies like Wolfpack and Blizzard, makers of Shadowbane and Worlds of Warcraft. Both chose to go with more open standards, and have cross compatibility with no issues.
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.
Now I know that some people are going to jump to the conclusion that SOE deliberately forgot to tell anyone for eight months that they had pulled the plug. Presumably, such people will speculate that this was a cynical move to maximise profits and squeeze every last penny out of loyal and hopeful customers.
Well, the fact is that those people could not be closer to the truth. They are entirely correct.
This makes me wonder if there is a Open Source, cross platform MMO, preferably with a decent userbase. I'm sure I've heard of one existing, but when I looked at it, there didn't appear to be enough users to sustain it.
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.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
for all you Mac players, well it's scary but you'll need this now. Best wishes.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
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....
Well they are universal. Besides endian issues the only reason for not making the Mac version compatible with the PC is they likely didn't want to update the Mac client software as often as the windows software. My best guess is they wanted a mac version but with the intention of not keeping it as up-to-date as the pc version all along, thereby cutting the costs for the Mac side of things.
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.
There are two main issues with the game (although there are a number of other, minor issues):
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.
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.