[Megathread] Everquest Next

[Al Gorefiend]

I want to buy trailblazer but hate investing in something that may or may not flop or buckle under player expectations. EQ2 never disappointed me though.. hmm..

[zito]

I want to buy trailblazer but hate investing in something that may or may not flop or buckle under player expectations. EQ2 never disappointed me though.. hmm..

I feel bad for people who spent $200 on the NWO founders pack.

I don't think I'm going to risk it even if it is everquest :l

[igniter]

Going to grab Alpha pack, but no way I'll drop 100 on it.

[Bigtimmy]

For those of you who are interested and may have missed last night's live stream with the devs, you can watch it in its entirety right here. Skip to 4:55 to get right to the part where they begin talking. It is roughly 40 minutes in length, but features a lot of previously unseen insights about EQN Landmark, including a lot of real-time building and the actual UI.

If you just want a quick summary of what took place, then this article on EQ Hammer does an excellent job.

[stellvia]

I wonder about the longevity of this. I mean, it's cool to have what amounts to the complete design tool package they're using for the engine, but a lot of people will either get bored quickly, or play it in spurts. Then factoring in having to share the land with a lot of other people. A lot of the appeal of Minecraft is you can run a local server and do absolutely anything you want with the entire thing. Run what mods you want, build wherever, etc.

And I think they invited much of this confusion upon themselves for calling it EQN: Landmark, when it really has nothing to do with EQN specifically. It's just a voxel-based design tool packaged with some rudimentary leveling mechanics.

Question I think a number of people will have is: Will they eventually license these tools for private servers and/or 3rd party game development? Because with the design tools, AI/quest functionality they claim to be adding, etc. You can basically make an entire game with it.

[Ighox]

And I think they invited much of this confusion upon themselves for calling it EQN: Landmark, when it really has nothing to do with EQN specifically. It's just a voxel-based design tool packaged with some rudimentary leveling mechanics.

It's basically just a game to help design EQ:N, and stuff from Landmark will be in EQN, so it has a lot to do with EQN.

Question I think a number of people will have is: Will they eventually license these tools for private servers and/or 3rd party game development? Because with the design tools, AI/quest functionality they claim to be adding, etc. You can basically make an entire game with it.

I really doubt they are going to allow 3rd party game development or anything like that, I'd be willing to bet it will be more like the EQ2 dungeon creator or Neverwinter's foundry, just with a lot more freedom

[Fencers]

It doesn't seem very confusing to me. One is a building game set in the EQN engine and world themes. The other is a full blown action MMO set in a new iteration of the Everquest license.

Pretty straightforward all in all.

I think confusion is likely to stem from player imagination. As in players probably are concocting a lot of cross play and game mechanics in their mind between the two games.

"What if I make a gyrocopter out of papercups in EQNL and fly it into a volcano. Will I appear on the other side in EQN?"

[stellvia]

But they're going to let you build whatever you want. Scifi stuff. Modern stuff. Etc.

And I doubt they're going to use Landmark specifically to design EQN. They'll have a separate developer version of the tool that doesn't have limits on materials, skills, etc. And of course a godmode terraforming toolset for designing the map in general.

[Edge-]

And I doubt they're going to use Landmark specifically to design EQN. They'll have a separate developer version of the tool that doesn't have limits on materials, skills, etc. And of course a godmode terraforming toolset for designing the map in general.

You're correct. EQN:L is nothing more than a standalone Minecraft-esque game that will have certain minimal interaction with EQN. That's about it.

[Faroth]

You're correct. EQN:L is nothing more than a standalone Minecraft-esque game that will have certain minimal interaction with EQN. That's about it.

Actually they HAVE said that things created in Landmark COULD be purchased by SOE and used in Next and the creator would get a commission for each time's use. You can also sell things you create to other players for use in Next (I'm assuming things for housing primarily).

The main point to remember isI'm a self-absorbed pretentious asshat who thinks he is entitled to everything, and should be able to fly across the whole world to my farming, raids etc without having to engage with it in any way.

So some things from Landmark will be used to design EQN to some extent. It's just going to have to A) Be highly rated by the community and B)Interest the developers themselves.

[Edge-]

Actually they HAVE said that things created in Landmark COULD be purchased by SOE and used in Next and the creator would get a commission for each time's use. You can also sell things you create to other players for use in Next (I'm assuming things for housing primarily).

That was the extremely minimal interaction I mentioned.

[Height]

I'm swinging back and forth from the $60 vs $100.

[jearle]

I don't think I'm creative enough or enjoy building stuff enough to buy into the Landmark Beta. My wife might be into that though.

I hope they do this for the actual game though, Im an old school EQ fan and would pickup the top package. Pretty brilliant idea in my opinion for a F2P game.

[igniter]

I'm swinging back and forth from the $60 vs $100.

If you can hawk the beta keys for around $5 a pop it'd be decent. I'm debating the 60 vs 100 as well. Need to see how unreal the void vault is really. It's still unclear if I can even play the game, since I can't connect to sony's Planetside 2 still (on western servers)

[Edge-]

http://kotaku.com/soe-boss-cant-wait...ps4-1466653157

Well, fuck.

[RoninaThorstone]

http://kotaku.com/soe-boss-cant-wait...ps4-1466653157

Well, fuck.

Unless they have are going to have an easier way to patch to PS4 than previous gen consoles I don't know why anyone would do this.

[zito]

http://kotaku.com/soe-boss-cant-wait...ps4-1466653157

Well, fuck.

I can't see this ending well

[RoninaThorstone]

Like, I get the appeal of selling to the console market.

You can pretty much guarantee that they have the hardware to run your game, there's more of them, and you'll be able to livetweet your raid (huehuehue).

But these are pretty different gaming cultures. When I talk to my console friends it feels like we are speaking different languages with a similar root language that has been lost in time. We have different values and opinions on what makes a good game in ways that are diametrically opposed. Once, I tried to explain to them the allure of FTL. It quickly devolved into something resembling middle east politics. I just don't see this going well for SOE.

[jearle]

I definitely do not like the mixing of PC and console players in an MMO. FF14 has showed me that this isn't a great thing. Simpler controls might make it easier gameplay wise but the communication aspect is usually a hurdle for the console players.

Maybe if they separated the console players onto their own servers it would be better.

[zito]

but the communication aspect is usually a hurdle for the console players.

This is my biggest issue, If I have to get a keyboard to communicate on my ps4 I might as well go PC