[Marsman]

With regard to marketing and the general attention to PS, it was painfully obvious that SOE made PS take a back seat to other projects at the time. I know we at PSU were aware, the community certainly sensed it, and although it was never officially stated, I personally felt the dev team was frustrated and felt their hands were tied. When the revolving door syndrome hit the dev team, especially after smokejumper started his exodus, no doubt was left that there was trouble in paradise. Being a little on the inside at PSU, we got a sense of this before it was common knowledge but I always felt that the dev team wished much more from PS and felt it could be much greater than it was allowed to be.

Now 6 years down the line, longevity has proven PS's initial concept was solid and has even managed to hang on to a customer base, subdued as it has been. What's truly amazing is the communities fond memories of early PS and it's expectations have continued for a game now SIX years old! Perhaps SOE's finally "woken up and smelled the coffee" and has realized they let something, that could have been truly great, wilt and almost die on the vine.

It remains to be seen if they have to fortitude to devote to PS Next the resources that should have been given to PS and the insight to instill into PS Next everything that made early PS what it was and create the love and loyalty for a product that has the potential PS once did and still does. A half-assed attempt isn't going to cut it this time. If they have any hope of making this a success, they need to pull out all the stops and put the same or better effort into this that they did for all those other SOE projects at the time. (most of which now have less community attention than PS still does) And I mean from marketing & promotion all the way down to the dev team's resources. PS Next could be amazing - we'll just have to wait and see how well SOE executes. Time will tell...