EverQuest Next was announced today, and I’m anxious to share my thoughts. I’m not going to give you the information — you can read and watch all of that on your own. I’m simply going to give you my reactions to a very, very early look with almost no information at all. And that’s really the key: We have no information. We saw a tech demo if that. I can’t even begin to describe how little we know, so I’m hesitant to jump to any conclusions.
Visuals
I’m not a fan of the way Planetside 2 looks, and EQ Next uses the same engine. I feel like PS2 has this high-gamma washed out look to it. The scenery and environments are pretty, but it looks muted. I’ve tried to explain this to others, but I’m not a designer and I may be using the wrong terminology. Does anyone know what I mean?
Animations in EQ Next look gorgeous. I was amazed at the facial expressions, character movement, spell effects, etc. I actually like the art style, which SoE is calling “heroic fantasy.” I think this re-imagining of Norrath will be quite a sight to see.
Destructibility
This was absolutely mind boggling. I’ll be honest with you, a lot of it sounds like hyperbole. I think the idea of breaking everything, or falling through the world anywhere to discover a second, third, fourth, fifth layer of the world isn’t realistic. I think it’s more likely that there will be areas of the world that can be broken, and perhaps these areas will move, but they won’t be Minecraft style of breaking through the floor. Maybe I’m wrong, but it sounds like more than I can imagine possible in a MMORPG.
Combat
I am EXTREMELY bothered by the wading through mobs. EverQuest, to me, is about fighting 1 difficult mob at a time. Control is the keyword I would use. What I saw in the videos today was Diablo style mob slaughtering. That’s not EverQuest. I think nothing but AoE attacks is a sloppy way of making combat feel interesting. It’s a cheap trick that lacks finesse — it always feels loose, wonky, and uncomfortable to me. I’m not sure what I think yet about the leaping and blinking. This was, by far, the biggest turn off for me.
Changing the World
This is the coolest concept yet if it’s not more hyperbole. The one line that gave me goosebumps was when David Georgeson was pretending to be an original EQ Next player years in the future referencing the world as it was before the civil war, before the dragon invasion, before Halas existed, etc. If that’s truly how they plan to make the persistence and the change… sign me up right now. That sounds glorious. They also mentioned dynamic events and procedurally generated content. I’m not a fan of public quests. They always start out as “dynamic content” but end up being scripted events on a timer. I’ll be a skeptic until I see this persistence, but man do I want to believe.
I’m going to be skeptical of everything. I think these revelations introduced way more questions and doubt, and I’m worried it’s going to be TOO different. I like tradition, but I’m open to change — change which improves gameplay. I want the destructible environments to be more than a parlor trick. I want the massive world to truly be molded by players and not ‘played’ through. I don’t want instances. I want what they accomplish to be done in zones like EverQuest. I fear there’s too much to
I have mixed feelings, but I also carry with me the scars from many burns, and a passion for the way EverQuest has always been.
I forgot to mention the class system. I think this is what bothers most of my friends the most. We’re all pretty straight traditionalists who love the defined class roles. If SoE can pull off keeping class roles defined and avoid homogenizing the classes too much, I’m fine with it.
I was really excited for the announcement, because I’ve never played Everquest but had always heard such great things about it. I was really hoping Next would be really just an updated version of the original. Instead I was just kind of unimpressed. They made a lot of big promises and showed some interesting concepts, but I just don’t see how a lot of these things like destructible environments will work in an MMO. Also the environments they showed looked awfully small and very corridor-like. It just didn’t look like an open world like an MMO should be to me. It makes me worry that it might be heavily instanced to accomodate these things…
The combat also just looked like Diablo or Torchlight to me, or like WildStar. And I love how WildStar’s combat is looking, but I think that is mostly because WildStar is all about being over-the-top sci-fi with guns everywhere and whatnot…I just don’t see it meshing well with a fantasy setting. I feel like it should be more traditional. And speaking of WildStar that was what I first thought of when I saw the art style they were going with, still do a little. But I honestly do like that style after looking at a bit more of it and thinking it over throughout the day.
Overall I think they really made some really big promises, presented some big ideas, and if they can deliver on them it sounds like it’ll be an amazing game. I just don’t see how it’ll work.
But since it doesn’t seem like it’ll be much like the old Everquest everyone raves about, guess I’ll get around to finally downloading Project 1999.
I think that’s the biggest negative right now: People are struggling to understand the vision, and/or they have trouble believing it can happen. If I understood what they were shooting for I might be a little more persuaded.
I wish I had a perfectly clear picture of the type of game EverQuest is trying to be.
This just doesn’t feel anything like EQ, albiet it’s such a limited view currently. They had been letting on that there was far more work already done, and what we saw is really just an engine tech-demo.
This ‘new hobby’ won’t be out for another year at least, and it is SoE, so don’t get your hopes up that Smed won’t find some way to completely ruin the gameplay in favor of selling more station cash. User created content can be great, but it can also be total ass, as Keen has experienced first hand in other titles. I still can’t break the feeling we’re looking at some Disney art studio design, it just looks wrong.
I don’t expect to see this until at least 2015. Like you said, it seem more like a tech demo/proof of concept. Maybe by the next SOE Live they’ll have something proper to show.
I noticed those complaining the most are the (ex) EQ1 players who thought this would be EQ1.5, aka EQ1 with modern graphics, something the SoE official said it would NOT be ages ago already.
This is the most innovating and promising thing I’ve seen in years concerning MMORPGs. When I heard there would be no levels, I almost jumped of joy. And what I saw the “minecraft-style” destruction on their amazing voxel-based engine, I was just amazed.
I can’t wait to see more of that bad boy.
some more info here from today; http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/08/03/everquest-next-interview/
[…] really not sure what I feel about some of this. Another action-heavy “wading through mobs” (Quote from Keen) game when there are already several of those. Smashing through weak spots […]
I also have trouble imaging this whole “completely destructible world” with permanent changes, etc. The first thing that came to mind is griefers. If they actually allow this feature it will be abused to death and the world will look like Swiss cheese or worse within a month.
My expectation is that to prevent that from happening the feature will be so scaled back that it will lose all significance.
I think the idea is EQ Next will be like EQ in that its used as a template for mmorpgs for the next 15 years. The are trying to make something that pulls the whole genre in a different direction from the one set by EQ all those years ago.
The thing I’m most excited to see in action is the enemy ai. Enemies that aren’t just static loot/exp pinatas is something I always wanted to see. I like the idea that they will move and act based on player action and the actions of other mob groups. If it works the world will actually change based on our actions. Build a town near a goblin area they may move somewhere else displacing another monster group which then spills out at a different town causing a crisis.
I liked almost everything I heard/saw but I’m skeptical they can pull it off. Not because the technology isn’t there but because people online suck. If the world is truly as deformable think of the griefing opportunities. If people can build anything then how long until we see penis castles everywhere? Without heavy moderation or massive restriction the world would degenerate to a nightmare online representation of 4chan fairly quickly.
Did they talk about difficulty ie being able to solo or forced group, did they talk about death penalty.
These 2 things will let me know if i am playing wow or eq and will sway my decision.
I went into yesterday hyped but fully expecting to be let down.
I came out of yesterday extremely excited. They really went in directions I hadn’t thought were important to me, but will be amazing.
The absolute biggest deal was the AI. Everything with its own behavior, learning all the time. No static camps, mobs will seek out what they want, I’m just so excited about this. Someone finally remembered mob is short for mobile!
I loved the graphics. I can understand people not liking them, but usually my favorite games are heavily stylized. And anyone who says the original EQ models weren’t is fooling themself. Someone who didn’t watch it was asking me questions yesterday, and mentioned the “cat people.” I said yeah, but you can remove the people – they’re simply biped lions now. The more I thought about that, the more I like it.
I’m excited at the prospect of exploring again. With AI behavior and the constantly changing world, I’m hoping these things will defeat the allakhazam/thottbot/wowhead culture of mmos.
I’m excited about the tiny bit he teased about crafting.
I don’t know what to think about EQN Landmark.
And I’m not pleased with the multi class system. I’m leaving them plenty of room to impress me, but at first thought it sounds counter to what I want in the game.
Overall, I went into yesterday hoping for some very specific things – no soloing, no fast travel, class interdependence. They gave me a completely different set of things, and I’m quite thrilled about that. Even if it doesn’t have the foundation for the community of EQ1, it might have an even stronger world than EQ1, and that’s saying something. I can’t wait to try it.
Well it was nice (what was shown) BUT… were are the weather patterns? the “time of the year” effects… and that huge “africa” continent in the middle of the ocean has me worried that there won’t be proper underwater environs and places to adventure. And here i was thinking that with gw2 doing the first step, things could only get better… were’s the “proof” that what they’re building is a world?
atm i’m feeling cautiously optimistic but that’s about it. love the characters though, at least we avoided the overly realistic look that grows old in just under 6 months of playtime.
I watched the presentations and had a feeling like the presenters just wanted to hear cheers even if the audience did not want to do so. It reminded me a pep rally if you ask me.
I am an explorer type gamer. I like to walk the landscape looking for things, NPC’s to talk to etc… I did not see anything that indicated that this will be a wide open world. It looked like I had to follow the path they were forcing me down. That scares me.
I love the idea of no levels and gaining your skills from NPC’s I meet. However by having this type of system, isn’t it kind of forcing you to interact with every NPC you meet in order to learn skills. If I don’t interact I do not learn skills. So they are forcing me in a way to follow a path. That scares me.
When they talked about the AI having a brain and reacting to what the players do, I thought it was interesting. But how far can you push the AI around? Once you push them out of an area are they out for good? Of course not! They will be back like before. So does the UI really have a brain to react to what players are doing. I doubt it.
Like others have said, having the ability to destroy the landscape will cause the game to look like an A-bomb just went off. I can see players with high level skills going to low skill level areas and just wiping out the landscape.
I think they were so into making something new, they have failed to hold onto the basics that made EQ great.
Having had time to digest everything, the only thing that I really don’t like is the whole 8 ability loadout bit. Each class only having 4 specific class spells is kinda scary, unless they are *really* fun and can be combined in creative ways. However, that’s all the negative speculation I can muster. It’s simply too early to comment on the core game mechanics. I feel like many complaints are stemming from the short combat example video, but we simply don’t know how it will actually work in-game. I’m sure it was just a very early and simple demo of some abilities in action, I doubt the game will be all about chopping down crowds of creatures who hardly fight back.
It is definitely much faster paced than a traditional MMO though, so I understand people’s lament over that, I am kinda iffy on action-combat in MMOs too. BUT I think we all knew this wouldn’t be a “back to basics” game and they would instead be pushing the MMO model forward, so I feel we shouldn’t get too hung up on how “this isnt like EQ1 at all” and try to view it with a clean slate.
All that being said, I’m actually more excited for Landmark.
Thomas says:
August 3, 2013 at 6:45 am
“Like others have said, having the ability to destroy the landscape will cause the game to look like an A-bomb just went off. I can see players with high level skills going to low skill level areas and just wiping out the landscape.”
They said it in their presentation that the world heals up the destruction, it’s not permanent. The feature is there to make the experience better at the time it happens. After that it heals up. It’s in the presentation they gave: http://www.twitch.tv/everquestnext/c/2681152
It at least doesn’t sound like the same MMO crap the industry has been feeding to us for the last decade. It “might” end up being cool. There is a really long way to go.
As a former PS2 player, the first thing I thought of when I saw the zone fly through was how much it looked exactly like PS2. And that whole day/night cycle is a complete rip off from PS2. Which I guess is fine. I always thought PS2 looked pretty good. It also potentially gives them the ability to put a large number of player characters on the same screen without suffering performance problems. This would be really important for PvP but did they even mention PvP? I’m fine with EQ being all about PvE really.
I won’t go into a lot of other specifics because I don’t feel like I know enough yet. Except, the dynamically changing servers sounded to me like “Progression” servers. Not necessarily that dynamic, just some servers are farther along the progression than others.
can anyone confirm for me the four weapon tied skills and four abilities total thing? cause that’s a big negative for me… what’s the point of 40 classes if all you can ever use are 8 abilities, four of ’em tied to your weapon. kinda destroys the make your own class idea they advertised in their presentation
I can confirm that the “8 abilities” thing seems to be repeated all over the web so is likely true. Original EQ only had 8 abilities too.
“I can confirm that the “8 abilities†thing seems to be repeated all over the web so is likely true. Original EQ only had 8 abilities too.”
8? that’s less than what even guild wars 2 has 🙁
most of us have 10 fingers, give us at least one for each… please? we can handle it i promise, we’re smart like that (i HATE this new trend, give me buttons to press, makes me feel important!)
*sad panda*
@Merovingian – This is hardly the most innovating and promising new game play. This is character classes of Rift + GW2 taken a step further. In terms of the Voxl world, it is Minecraft refined. The fact of the matter is, for most gamers this is NOT what I want. When Dave Georgeson said, “Enough with the same game already, it’s time to get some new ideas into this genre.” I knew it was going to be bad. That is what EVERY new MMO developer has said. The fact for me is I don’t want new ideas, I want them to expand on their older ideas like they should have and move in that direction instead of the completely dumbed down MMO’s we have today.
Second, he stated “That we have been playing DnD for 35yrs and they didn’t just want to reboot the lore of killing a monster and unlocking a tree of abilities”. For me, that is EVERYTHING about why I play DnD and why I like to play MMO’s. I want to be a specific class. It would be fun if I could do more to specialize myself in my class but I want to be said class. Now they are going to move to an even RIFT type game where you have an initial 8 classes and then unlock 40 other classes which you can mix and match between the two.
I thought the saddest thing about the video was for the first 10-15 minutes it was the montage of “What does EQ mean to you”. Pretty much everybodies response was some form of community that they were in or had developed because of EQ. EQNext presentation had absolutely NOTHING about community or how what they would do to develop it. That to me says it all right there. Your player base is all about COMMUNITY and your presentation does nothing to show how your new game is going to provide a new community for them.
I can look at these presentation videos totally excited or completely critical and jaded…these days I tend to lean towards the latter haha
Grail 1: Picking up 40 different classes and mix and matching abilities “could be fun.” My guess is – it won’t be. For this to be fun I’d envision that find a different class would be extremely difficult…so that the end effect is that you just won’t be able to get all 40 classes…or 30…or 20…if every class you find would be something to be extremely proud of then I could get on board. If finding like 5-6 classes would be a major accomplishment – that might be fun. In all reality, if finding classes will be a matter of looking at some website and jumping through steps 1-5 then that sounds rather tedious and lame. For this to be real fun, I would envision that finding classes might be character specific or random maybe…for sure “not predictable.” I also question how many abilities these classes have…my guess is “a few” which would be lame but we will see.
Different weapons have different abilities…sounds like GW2…sounds like limited skills per weapon…sounds like maybe there will be just a limited amount of abilities accessible depending on the weapon? Well, if it is true that you only have 8 abilities available at a time…this sounds like…bad…
Grail 2: He didn’t just say “scenarios” did he? I hope he doesn’t mean what I think it means…anyway, my guess is that this is temporary destruction he is talking about which lasts x amount of time and then reverts back to the original…I dont see it work any other way or else…well…we’d end up with a flat disc of land in 2 years and a bunch of rubble…
Grail 3: He tells a big story here but I wouldnt be surprised if this will end up a lot more simple than he makes it sound. I learned that if a Dev announces that their game will have all kinds of weather effects like snowstorms, rain, and sandstorms…that means the game will have exactly that…snowstorms, rain, and sandstorms…not more…same here…I can see that the example he gives will end up in the game but whatever we imagine as “the possibilities” will not be in it for the most part…however…this could be fairly cool if it is implemented well…
There are definitely fun elements and it could turn out to be a blast but it can also be a bust…I guess I am more interested in design philosophies at this point and seeing some of the stuff they mentioned in the past as part of the game…I don’t want to see more possibilities (as much fun as it is) but rather…how the game play will be tough again…unforgiving…and how it recaptures the spirit of EQ.
I am extremely skeptical about the changing world. Everyone from UO, to darkfall, to even AOC tried something similar to this and could not get it working right and dropped it.
Overall it seems to be a nice addition to the overcrowded genre. But am I missing something or was it just overlooked. Where is the ui/interface. You can’t tell me you play with a blank ui as the devs were. Was it hidden as it was still a work in progress? Possibly, but the lack of interface and lack of really anything going on in the environments to me shows they have a long, long way to go. 2015 as others have mentioned, looks more reasonable at this stage maybe later. Way to tease us SOE lol.
Oh and landmark is cool, but one could argue that SOE doesn’t want to input more funds than they are so they are releasing creator tools for the community to help create certain assets for them. Thus helping them finish their game where need be. Just something I thought of as the announcement was finishing up.
@Damage Inc:
I’m not sure your answer is the result of reading comprehension problems or just the will to bash someone of a different opinion, but here are two fact:
1) Neither GW2 nor Rift have “No Levels”. Both are level based games.
2) Minecraft isn’t a MMORPG, and the engine of Minecraft isn’t looking even remotely as good as the smoothed voxels of EQN.
So you’re just telling me I’m wrong because apples = oranges in your view. Well, guess who is wrong at the end.
Yea, the presenter really was fishing for applause and explosive cheering quite a few times. Unfortunately for him he has no idea what explosive cheering would actually occur. He thought saying “we are going to do it different than that!” was the cheering point. No, the crowd was waiting for you to tell us HOW it’ll be different. THEN you might get some applause.
All told, it seems like it could be fun. It does not seem like what EQ was in any way however. Most of this is simply talk at present though. Literally all they have made of this game so far is… wait, hmmm Forgelight was already made for PS2 so I guess nothing. They put together two character models and a few animations (not even fully complete ones at that, the characters were stuttering over rocks/etc). So yea, I’m taking this with a huge grain of salt at present.
A big red flag for me was the BIG RED MARKERS on the ground when a “Boss” was using an aoe ability. “Hey stupid, don’t stand here in a few seconds!” That is not something I ever want to see in my MMOs. Does not bode well for the combat aspects at present 🙁
After sleeping on it, I think the best way I can sum it up is: It’s different.
It’s not EQ. Some of the things i saw I hate (plowing through tons of mobs) and some of the things I’m intrigued by (changing world).
I’m confused about whether or not they want this to be difficult, or mainstream. I don’t know if I see a true MMO or a hybrid.
I don’t know if 40 classes is unparalleled variety, or massive homogenization.
I don’t know enough yet.
I had to sleep on it too. I was thinking about it as I fell asleep and still thinking about it when I woke up, and off and on all day at work. Long time since any unplayed MMO stayed in my mind like that.
Almost all the things they claim are new I have seen before in MMOs, apart from the voxel destructability thing. The emergent AI was in the original UO beta although I’m not sure it made it to live. Ryzom used it to a degree, too. Huge community projects that change the world were one of David Allen’s big ideas from Horizons that never really got off the ground. EQ2 has used them quite often too – that’s how we built the spires to get to Kingdom of Sky and the repaired the Druid Rings.
Dynamic Events/Public Quests we’re all familiar with. The weapons-for-class thing is a mashup of FFXI/XIV and GW2. Collecting the classes is like collecting skills from GW1 or collecting pets in you-name-it. Landmark is MInecraft the EQ Edition crossed with Second Life.
You don’t need to invent new notes to write a classic melody, however, and I got the strong impression that this thing is going to be much more than just the sum of its borrowed parts.
As for combat, WE DIDN’T SEE ANY !!! The multiple mobs you so disliked were just static objects. They didn’t move, fight or respond at all other than to fly in the air when hit. The “fights” with single mobs were just light shows. I’d forget about the combat for now – clearly it’s nowhere near ready to show us.
One thing is certain – this is not a game intended to pull in existing EQ or EQ2 players. Go read the forums there – it’s nothing most of those players want anything to do with . SOE have worked out that these are separate audiences. They’re going to go on servicing them individually. EQNext is aimed very squarely at people who don’t play any other Everquest games and by far the most positive reactions I’ve seen in the blogosphere so far are from people who either actively disliked EQ/EQ2 or had no interest in them.
Personally, I’m addicted to Norrath. It’s the setting I want, and the lore. Press my buttons on that and the rest scarcely matters and I was sold the moment I saw that Combine spire in the background. The rest is just details.
what i have seen is another WoW clone with a different skin….
with a few differences:
– multiclassing (*cough* Rift *cough) AKA unbalanced game forever, specially in pvp
– world can be destroyed. it has been tried to implemente in past games but what is the problem? what happens when you destroy everything , every building, every ruins…? it needs to be “autorebuilt”. are they going to autorebuild the world every night at 3am…? or only they first players that have bought the game will be able to see the world built because the next players only will see everything destroyed.
in wow you could destroy the building from wintergrasp but why it wasnt any sense? because it was rebuilt 1 hour later.
– players can build anything: how long until anyone find the way of exploiting the game using what he has built? how long until a few players build a few “dicks” buildings?
in UO you cant built your custom house and people found the way to trap monsters into his house so they could macroing skills in a safe place. imagine what people will do in a huge 3D environment.
Personally I do not mind the multi-classing. I played FFXI for an incredibly long time and loved every minute. I believe horizontal progression systems NEED to be the future of the MMO genre. It does present issues with PvP balance but honestly, PvP needs to go back to being the background of an MMO and its balance needs to be done outside of the realm of the PvE. So while it may be a problem in the current paradigm, but it does not need to be in the new generation of MMO PvP.
With the information revealed in the panels, my biggest concern is the one that has made me as sad today as I was happy yesterday. Having another game follow Guild Wars 2’s combat and class style is not something I ever wanted to see again. We all praised Arena.Net for their courage and putting themselves out on a ledge when they decided to lose the Trinity. Almost a year after the launch of Guild Wars 2, it is clear to me that while brave, the experiment has failed. We as fans of the MMORPG genre want a game that we can dedicate our lives to for years. We are tired of the flash in the pan games that give us something new and different but fail to do so for the long term.
I desperately want the Trinity. I actually desperately want the Quadrity. I want a return to the Tank, Damage, Heal and Support paradigm that we had in FFXI, EQ and even early WoW (before they made everyone the same). I want the return of the Tab Target. I want a subscription and a company I can trust to make that subscription worth it.
I do not want another F2P/B2P MMO that is “actiony” because its easier to sell a casual experience when it is more active. I do not want a F2P/B2P MMO that blows a lot of smoke about content, but then makes the progression system 98% based on earning gold and converting it to Real Money in order to progress via the Cash Shop.
I want the past. And maybe its just time for me to hang it up on the genre.
wizard101 for adults…. adult children.
@Keen
About “plowing through tons of mobs”, they said that the mobs in the demonstration for most didn’t even have an AI turned on. It’s very likely that in the final game, you’re going to need a healer to your side if you want to do such stunts. What we saw wasn’t real gameplay, just a demo.
After sleeping on it again, I realize that Bhagpuss is right. They basically showed us nothing. They stole the PS2 engine and added some background art assets? And gave us a combat, AoE light show without showing us the UI. I think Camelot Unchained might actually be further ahead at this point. What have they been doing for 2 years?
I find the graphics to be particularly interesting. It seems like they settled for polished cell-shaded graphics. I’m not entirely sure if it fits into the EverQuest franchise, because all the previous editions looks a little different. I am however interested in how this will pan out. It does look interesting as does the rest of the game. The game and character mechanics look quite polished thought. I’m looking forward to the beta testing phase 🙂
@Sanz: So far I see “something different yet the same…I have the feeling that what we see is progression along the same path of what we had before but I am not certain that this is a change in direction. I see a lot of dev control still (quests, public quests, scenarios were mentioned, limited abilities useable at one time) which has been the theme of the past years…sandbox to me means more player control and while that certainly could be part of EQNext I dont see it yet…CU at least talks a good game and the design philosophy is in the right direction. Whether or not they can deliver is another question. However, I had heard similar talk about EQN that seemed to point to a similar direction as CU and old school games but what we saw so far doesn’t represent that in my opinion.
Interesting interview here:
http://www.gamebreaker.tv/mmorpg/everquest-next-interview-dave-georgeson/
Crafting is apparently the core of the game philosophically.
Regarding all the class gripes, pre cu SWG is one of the most lauded games here and in that game you had no set roles or class. It was mix and match up till you run out of points. And it was trivial to respec into a whole other mix and matched “class” if you wanted to. Now it’s an issue?
I have my doubt this will all work out but I’m excited that they are at least trying to do something new. Some ideas were used in other MMOs but then cast off in favor of going more wow-like. It’s easy to pick other MMOs that did this or that to some small extent but the fact they are focusing on ideas that are rarely used instead of “refining” ideas that are always used is incredibly appealing to this jaded gamer.
Everyone is excited for ffxiv and wild star yet those games are both basically a slight variation on the same tired formula we’ve had since, well EQ. Everything they hyped may all turn to smoke and we may end up with another in a long line of slight variations on the same mmo formula but I’m at least hopeful they pull it off.
SWG wasn’t truly mix and match, though. In SWG you had to commit down a path to make any difference.
No one knows enough yet about EQ Next’s class system. But if I can swap to my druid spec, Sow myself, swap to my wizard, port myself, then swap to my bard to get a group — that’s an issue.
Someone should have to commit to a role. There should be choices, but those choices should be long-lasting and not choices in the sense of being able to do anything you want whenever you want.
Still it just didn’t seem like an MMO I want to play. I am looking for something that pulls from the old MMO’s like UO, EQ and AC and they stated that this isn’t going to do that. So they are making another EQ2 which in my opinion is another fail. No thanks.
The ability to change your class basically at will(?) and not having defined group roles, such as tanks and clerics is really so very disappointing. And yes, no one expected this was going to be exactly like EQ1. However, it is supposed to be a sequel and it bears the Everquest name. What is so wrong about finally updating EQ1 which is really showing its age and giving us a similar feel with some new concepts to add even more depth to the game.
Such a shame.
I’ve been looking forward to this game for a while now. I don’t think the presentation was very well done. They were presenting it all as if it was the most amazing thing ever but I honestly didn’t feel that amazed. If anything, it left me feeling a little worried. The game play reminded me of something that was meant to be played with a controller instead of a keyboard and it definitely seemed like they had to stay on a certain path as they traveled. The things they emphasized weren’t the sorts of things that make me want to play but I’m hoping the problem is just the presentation and not the actual game.
I was able to find a large list of compiled information. This answers a lot of the questions people have had in the comments. It also dispels some of the myths I’ve seen too.
http://www.eqnexus.com/forums/forums/official-everquest-next-information.32/
For all of you doubting the ‘destroy anything’ capabilities… yeah, that’s because we’ve heard that from games before (red faction, anyone?)
The reason for that before, mostly, was the fact that those games use polygons and inherent destructibility is REALLY hard to handle because the more you break things up, the more you have to render.
The big difference here is the voxels. If you can render the screen already full of voxels then more of them doesn’t increase the graphics processing at all.. It’s sort of hard to explain without knowing programming/graphics programming.
Here is an example of a voxel based engine which is quite old now and developed by one guy, Ken Silverman, a graphics genius whose only rival in history, really, has been Carmack.
http://advsys.net/ken/voxlap/voxlap05.htm
and a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaUt31ooCXs
That’s low res. That’s 2005. Just imagine. If you get it you’ll soon find that, no joke, you can destroy every aspect of every.. er.. aspect.
I believe the developer said that the world repairs itself, so maybe 20 minutes later, it is as if nothing had been ‘destroyed’. The whole destroy thing seems to just be a gimmick.
Will we ever get a new launch of an MMO that is similar to the original Everquest? Obviously Everquest Next is not going to be anything like Everquest. For me, that is a big problem and a big disappointment.
I never fail to be amazed at how people keep looking for a game called EverQuest everywhere but inside a game called – guess what – EverQuest
+ or in Damage’s case, Project 1999.9999999999999
The problem is, you cannot play a game like Everquest anymore. The game that is using that name now is nothing like Everquest. The game has devolved into running through theme park quest lines. Do people even form experience groups and fight their way through dungeons anymore? I don’t think so. Does faction have any type of meaning in the game anymore? I don’t think so. You could create a huge list of in-game mechanics that they have either abandoned or dumbed down.
[…] Keen and Graev […]
Given everything I’ve seen, it all points at the same thing.
They want something accessible. They want something with maximum flexibility that can be played casually and easily understood. Something “pick up and play”.
In other words, maximum market share.
The MMO’s that a lot of us grew up on appear to be dying out. Think about Counter Strike, with it’s “single life per round” mechanic. How many shooters since have used such a punishing mechanic?
The hardcore, difficult to access content is being stripped away. “Game as hobby” appears to be going to way of the dodo.
You may need to find yourselves a new hobby, because while the costs of MMO’s continue to skyrocket, you’re not going to see a mainstream MMO with the kinds of mechanics games like EQ used to have. We’ve come to expect a level of polish and develop that can only be achieved by huge budgets.. and those budgets aren’t being directed at the niche markets.
There’s some cool tech there, but that’s all this is right now: a tech demo. They still need to make it fun.
Remember all the pre-release hype for both Rift and GW2? Yeah, neither turned out to be nearly as amazing as they were made out to be. I’m afraid that EQ Next will be just the same when it releases: some neat ideas but ultimately just another 3-monther.
@xenovore
You may think what you want about GW2, but in like 3 weeks, it’ll have been one year for me playing that game, and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon. New content patched in the game every two weeks, and not just another dungeon/raid to farm, that didn’t happen since Asheron’s Call.
The lore is looking not so great, no mention of most deities, including Tunare.