EQ 'Next'

[Hawkbit]

If they put EQ3 on Station access, it's a non-issue.  The hardcore EQers are playing them both all the time.  I think the majority of EQers would welcome another iteration.

[Numtini]

It's not enough to drag a few people over to Station Players. They need to take their existing community, move it to the new game, to provide a base for more building. There's no point in EQ3 unless they shut down the first two.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm with the earlier poster who complained about the plastic look of the original EQ2 models.  The game is like a near-photorealistic implementation of plastic action figures.  With playdough hair.  The races added later look a bit better but still.   I'd guess that their graphics engine doesn't support transparency in textures, except that they've got marvelous looking water and glass. 

Transparencies en-mass are expensive to render, i do believe that they use, or lack of on certain objects was a conscious decision, one that is not uncommon.  Mostly I have always been impressed with the world graphics, not necessarily there player models, however those are well done too even if highly stylized. Mostly its the texture use and very nice fidelity that allays impressed me.

I would not be surprised at all that SOE has been using one single engine for its in house titles, with variations of course. The differences mostly come from art assets and use, not necessarily engine level rendering features. I do know that free Relms uses scaleform. Its hotness in a GUI middleware.

[Jayce]

 I'd guess that their graphics engine doesn't support transparency in textures, except that they've got marvelous looking water and glass. 

This is anecdotal but struck me as weird:  When I got a new machine I downloaded the EQ2 trial to see how nice it looked. When I cranked the graphics slider to the top, I got a message to the effect of: "Don't use this setting, it will turn your video card into glass".

Why put something in that's not recommended?  At least hide it away in some config file.

[Mrbloodworth]

 I'd guess that their graphics engine doesn't support transparency in textures, except that they've got marvelous looking water and glass. 

This is anecdotal but struck me as weird:  When I got a new machine I downloaded the EQ2 trial to see how nice it looked. When I cranked the graphics slider to the top, I got a message to the effect of: "Don't use this setting, it will turn your video card into glass".

Why put something in that's not recommended?  At least hide it away in some config file.

They built it (Engine) using combination's of features that would be used 5 years out. Its just an old warning from a few years ago. YMMV.

[Numtini]

The EQ2 engine also was designed around the theory that single core processors would be running at extremely high speeds and the GPUs would not advance a great deal. That means most graphics are brute forced by the CPU. They've moved some things to the video card and other things they haven't. The result can be some very bizarre results where since the video card isn't doing much you can turn some effects they've moved to the GPU up to max without any effect on performance, but changing other effects that would be very mild in effect on other engines will bring the game to its knees.

I custom built a machine for EQ2 and one core on my E8600 is at 100% virtually all the time I play with middle settings. And that probably averages only 30fps.

[Hawkbit]

There's no point in EQ3 unless they shut down the first two.

I respectfully disagree.  There's room for all three, especially if EQ3 gameplay evolves into something new (which it needs to).

[DLRiley]

Evolving and EQ? EQ is the reason why the mmo industry isn't evolving.

[Sky]

WoW is the reason why the mmo industry isn't evolving.

[Lantyssa]

MMO devs and suits are the reason MMOs are not evolving.

[Sky]

MMO devs and suits are the reason MMOs are not evolving.

I didn't feel it was worth a serious reply. But you forgot 'mmo players'.

[Lantyssa]

Yeah, them, too.  Plenty of blame to go around.

[Pennilenko]

I blame the blamers!

[schild]

I blame everyone that is buying Aion.

I like to keep my battles small and controllable.

[Dtrain]

I blame human nature.

I like to keep my battles quixotic and unwinable.

[Kageru]

It's not enough to drag a few people over to Station Players. They need to take their existing community, move it to the new game, to provide a base for more building. There's no point in EQ3 unless they shut down the first two.

Unless it's a PS3 game.

[Grimwell]

I'm going to stay away from this for the most part, but would like to chime in on the merit of doing this:

Consider what you know about the average span of time between announcement and delivery of a game to the market. Add that span to now, whatever span you think is the average. Looking at the EQ  franchise from that point in the future, is it cannibalization, or high time for a 'modern' rendition of the game?

[Mrbloodworth]

"EverQuest II (EQ2), based upon the popular EverQuest, is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) and shipped on 8 November 2004."

Anyway, here it is 09, so I guess in 5 years we will see EQ 3 Next.

[Sky]

Of course you have a point, Grim, but will SOE honestly run 3 iterations of EQ? I can't see them turning away paying customers on what have to be pretty low-cost EQ1 maintenance, especially since there have to be tons of people with piles of accounts, toward the end of playing most people I knew had at least four accounts running.

EQ2 still has a lot of life in it and a solid graphics engine. Not sure what has released since EQ2 that brings much new to the table beyond WAR's public quest system and scenarios?

I would hope they would keep the RMT-heavy stuff on Free Realms and keep the monthly sub style for EQ3, though there's already been movement in that direction in EQ2, not that I care too much about it as implemented thus far when I was playing this spring.

[Numtini]

EQ2 still has a lot of life in it and a solid graphics engine. Not sure what has released since EQ2 that brings much new to the table beyond WAR's public quest system and scenarios?

I love EQ2, but I have to disagree on the graphics engine. They need to replace the entire graphics engine and they needed to do it years ago. The graphics are sub-par for a modern game, but the requirements are beyond most current PCs. They've made some strides in moving different aspects from the CPU to the GPU, but it's just patching what is a fundamentally flawed design.

[Mrbloodworth]

looks good to me. I'm also not sure how many other MMO's have cloth physics.



You sure your not confusing art style, with rendering capability?

[Sky]

Yeah, you can argue style but EQ2's technical engine is great with the mapping and the shadowing and whatnot.

[Engels]

I love EQ2's graphics and the engine, although cluggy at the time, has held up well and does very well with new hardware. That said, that ain't the problem. EQ had a very real immersive world, while for me at least, EQ2's zones feel like theme parks connected via zoning doorways. The snap-to combat mechanics also broke immersion.

For me, and I bet a great many others, all SOE would have to do is take the current EQ's content -and- mechanics and redo the graphics engine and update the art to current standards. I know, its no small amount of work. But if you sold it as 'reliving the dream all over again' with exactly the same zones with the same exact layout, the exact same skill trees and a rejigging of loot tables to adjust for mudflation, and then just new art and animation, you'd probably have upwards of half a million instant customers at launch. By no means WOW numbers, so it might not get by the money people, but it would probably garner enough internets chatter to tack on a bunch more folks as well.

[Ozzu]

I love EQ2's graphics and the engine, although cluggy at the time, has held up well and does very well with new hardware. That said, that ain't the problem. EQ had a very real immersive world, while for me at least, EQ2's zones feel like theme parks connected via zoning doorways. The snap-to combat mechanics also broke immersion.

For me, and I bet a great many others, all SOE would have to do is take the current EQ's content -and- mechanics and redo the graphics engine and update the art to current standards. I know, its no small amount of work. But if you sold it as 'reliving the dream all over again' with exactly the same zones with the same exact layout, the exact same skill trees and a rejigging of loot tables to adjust for mudflation, and then just new art and animation, you'd probably have upwards of half a million instant customers at launch. By no means WOW numbers, so it might not get by the money people, but it would probably garner enough internets chatter to tack on a bunch more folks as well.

I'd go for EQ1's content with updated graphics. The feel of combat in EQ was really nice. It felt really solid. I didn't care for the downtime or the punishment of death. I also didn't care for game mechanics which encouraged camping. The loot would definitely need to be updated. I'd also want an updated questing system which didn't require me to type "What helmet?" "Which helmet?" "I want to make a helmet." "Helmet" and various combinations of crap just to get the NPC to realize you just wanted to make a damn helmet. If they fixed those things and just gave me EQ1 over again, I'd play.

Oh and I'd want them to leave out the vast majority of the crappy later zones.  

I guess at this point it's not really EQ1 anymore and more like a totally different game with EQ1's content.

[Sky]

I wouldn't. Would be nice if they went for something new rather than rehashing the same old content. Those old zones would feel so cramped and small compared to something like Kunark, though.

Also, real worlds have large areas of completely unused and boring landscape, which is why they don't design that way anymore.

[Tale]

Also, real worlds have large areas of completely unused and boring landscape, which is why they don't design that way anymore.

Open wilderness can make for memorable player interactions. In Kunark I found a level 7 newbie human paladin swimming upstream in that long empty run-in to Lake of Ill Omen from Firiona Vie.

He was a genuine newbie who had started in Freeport, caught the boat to Butcherblock, caught the boat to Firiona Vie, fell off and died, retraced his entire journey and got to LoIO. He was running to Cabilis to meet a fellow newbie who started an Iksar. He thought the monsters might not see him if he stayed in the water (not roleplaying - he didn't know anything about the game - to him it felt like a safer thing to do).

He was having the time of his life. An adrenaline-fuelled adventure. I escorted him to the end of the river, explained KOS to him and warned him about Cabilis (he still wanted to go meet his friend), and petitioned for him to be awarded some kind of medal. Got a response from a guide who made sure he was OK.

[Engels]

Also, real worlds have large areas of completely unused and boring landscape, which is why they don't design that way anymore.

Gah!  :headdesk:

Ok, buddy, this one's really annoying. The 'unused' 'boring' landscape is necessary to create a sense of depth, large space and vistas. The fact that you could, indeed, find one large patch of entirely unoccupied patch of turf in West Karana was very important to the sense of immersion EQ garnered.

Nowadays, its nearly as if there's a phobia against unused space. Even the 'vast' vistas of Conan's mountain zones are nearly completely occupied by folks. You can't walk for 20 seconds without running into someone else, entirely ruining the sense of being 'lost in the wastes'. Its FUCKING PATHETIC and it makes me STABBY.

[Hawkbit]

Also, real worlds have large areas of completely unused and boring landscape, which is why they don't design that way anymore.

Gah!  :headdesk:

Ok, buddy, this one's really annoying. The 'unused' 'boring' landscape is necessary to create a sense of depth, large space and vistas. The fact that you could, indeed, find one large patch of entirely unoccupied patch of turf in West Karana was very important to the sense of immersion EQ garnered.

Nowadays, its nearly as if there's a phobia against unused space. Even the 'vast' vistas of Conan's mountain zones are nearly completely occupied by folks. You can't walk for 20 seconds without running into someone else, entirely ruining the sense of being 'lost in the wastes'. Its FUCKING PATHETIC and it makes me STABBY.

I completely agree with this post.  It's ok if there's space with nothing in it, especially if you give players a quick way to pass through it.  Such as mounts at lvl 1.  In fact, the whole travel system in MMOs needs to evolve. 

[Ozzu]

I completely agree with this post.  It's ok if there's space with nothing in it, especially if you give players a quick way to pass through it.  Such as mounts at lvl 1.  In fact, the whole travel system in MMOs needs to evolve.

That's one thing I've never understood. Just give me a damn horse to ride around on at lvl 1. I don't want that used as a carrot in games anymore. I'm tired of being slow as fuck to begin with and if I'm "special" enough, I might earn the privelage of spending a fuckton of money on a mount. Blarg!

[Fordel]

That screenshot still looks like a 90's Ray Trace art project.

[UnSub]

The 'unused' 'boring' landscape is necessary to create a sense of depth, large space and vistas.

Fallen Earth might just be the game for you.

[raydeen]

That screenshot still looks like a 90's Ray Trace art project.

It's POV-Ray-Tastic!! 

[Slyfeind]

While I freaking love the Karanas just for the awesome open spaceyness, I can understand the need to skip over it all in order to get to where the players really want to be.

[Bzalthek]

Some people see open wasted space, I see kiting room.

[Hoax]

I blame everyone that is buying Aion.

I like to keep my battles small and controllable.