Daybreak continues to trim its asset portfolio, as the former SOE studio has cut loose artificial intelligence software company Storybricks from the EverQuest Next project.
“We are not working with Storybricks any more,” Senior Producer Terry Michaels said on a livestream chat yesterday. “We made the decision that it was in the best interest of the game to take that work in-house. They did a lot of work for us and we’ll be utilizing that. It’s not like that work is lost.”
The team said that it is “still committed” to making strong AI happen in the game.
[Source: Livestream chat. Thanks to Ranging Berserker for the tip!]
The emergent AI was literally the only reason I was even considering EQ Next.
WildarX The idea is you hire a team to develop the tools and then pass on the tools to a game development team. Â Developing tools and using tools are typically two different skill sets.
TLOGuild paragonlostinspace Greaterdivinity Sadly, I’ve never seen a project that was brought in and actually completed.  Typically, they attempt to get the code to work, give up and restart from scratch.
Greaterdivinity From my experience, bring a project like this in house will last a few months before the code is abandoned and the team restarts from scratch.
wolfyseyes I lol’d +1 internets
So, is this the first promised feature to be axed? Â is ANYTHING we were promised in the EQN reveal going to happen that isn’t already built in Landmark? Â This was a pivotal feature to the evolution of the game once it was up and running.
Esoteric Coyote ManastuUtakata Vexia Whelp…there goes my appetite
Darkdrakke Except I don’t think anyone let go was part of their engineering teams. I know a lot of project leads/community managers and some of the art folks lost jobs, but I don’t recall many engineers being cut.
Greaterdivinity They fired half the staff..i don’t think they have engineering staff capable of doing the Job anymore.
So we are only quoting part of the livestream?