EQ 'Next'

[Engels]

Maybe this has been brought up, but I don't feel like slogging through past pages to find out. For me, the silver lining in any new EQ game is the preservation of the original lore. Regardless of either EQ or EQ2's merits, I think that the world and lore around the games was first class and it would be a massive pity to lose them to the sands of time.

So even if EQ Next is the next Vanguard, at least it'll put the ole defibrillators on the sagging corpse that is Norrath, which I deeply cherish as a fantastic work of the imagination.

And while I'm wallowing in nostalgia...

[Mrbloodworth]

From before the reboot, but in engine:

Your Eq1 wastelands do not inspire me.

This is from EqNext Production:

[Venkman]

The specific western style of fantasy is sort of programmed into our memetic memory. But there's no single dominant definition of sci-fi outside of the big IP. So fantasy has a lot more flexibility because at heart it's dragons, magic, swords and a whole bunch of killin', which you can easily bolt onto a castle and some rolling hills and wrap whatever narrative around it.

Sci-fi though is more fragmented and therefore open-ended, and complicated by the biggest examples not being all that much sci, and includes a bunch of pedestrian retread fi.

I'd personally love to see a game based on Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth or Iain Banks' Culture. So much you can do within both, with the former being more action-y and the latter including some more high concept. I'll never see of course. But it did just give me a good idea for a Foundry mission in NW.

I'd like to see someone not die instantly from a sword to the face.

I'd like to see a game program that in actually. Never got very much into Mount & Blade, but that sounds right up its alley.

And while I'm wallowing in nostalgia...

Man that takes me back. And the Felwithe approach music, after dying off of Kelethin.

I agree. I'd pay real money on this merit alone. I'm just skeptical. And worried it'll be locked into some stupid f2p thing. Still have yet to make an MTX purchase in anything that was free. Just don't see the point.

Odd considering I was more than happy to buy a million gold in UO back before it was all legit and shit

[Mrbloodworth]

There is a large amount of rumblings about player made content, including a partnership with Storybricks. Storybricks was started as a MMO project, but has changed to a toolset. Reminds me of dragon speak in Furcadia. Basically drag and drop story creation system/Logic based programing.

[Bzalthek]

I'd like to see someone not die instantly from a sword to the face.

Close enough? Spoilered for minor gore

[Stormwaltz]

Maybe this has been brought up, but I don't feel like slogging through past pages to find out. For me, the silver lining in any new EQ game is the preservation of the original lore. Regardless of either EQ or EQ2's merits, I think that the world and lore around the games was first class and it would be a massive pity to lose them to the sands of time.

Heh. I'm the opposite of you. EQ's lore is actually a detriment to my playing.

EQ2 is full of systems I admire in theory, but when it comes to actually playing the game, all I can think of is the (to me) juvenile and simplistic lore... and it turns my stomach. There's such a thing as too much creativity in fantasy lore (I should love Rift's, but it just confuses and alienates me), but EQ has always seemed to operate at the level of a high school Forgotten Realms campaign.

[Engels]

Really? To me it was amazing. The pantheon of gods. Cazic vs Tunare, Marr vs Innoruuk. All the little demigods, how they fleshed out the worlds, from Erollisi to Bertoxxulous.

I liked how they wove the scenery into the history of the races. How in Innothule swamp you went into Guk and saw on the walls the creation story of not only the frogloks but how they interconnected with the Iksar and the Sarnak. How there's a whole convoluted history of how the Iksar came about in Kunark, etc. It wasn't simplistic to me at all; it had a depth that no video game I know of had even attempted at the time. The only rival would have been the Oblivion line, but that story is dull as dishwater to me.

[Kageru]

I'd like to see someone not die instantly from a sword to the face.

The assumption was that HP represents dodging, parrying, blocking and glancing blows off armor until you run out of luck. Which is also why fencing matches can have quite a lot of moves before there is a victor. Of course that's hard to program so they don't.

This doesn't translate quite as neatly into assault rifles at point blank for which most of the above defenses are invalid.

[Merusk]

Really? To me it was amazing. The pantheon of gods. Cazic vs Tunare, Marr vs Innoruuk. All the little demigods, how they fleshed out the worlds, from Erollisi to Bertoxxulous.

I liked how they wove the scenery into the history of the races. How in Innothule swamp you went into Guk and saw on the walls the creation story of not only the frogloks but how they interconnected with the Iksar and the Sarnak. How there's a whole convoluted history of how the Iksar came about in Kunark, etc. It wasn't simplistic to me at all; it had a depth that no video game I know of had even attempted at the time. The only rival would have been the Oblivion line, but that story is dull as dishwater to me.

The problem with EQ lore was you REALLY had to hunt it down.  They didn't have a Metzen shoving his lore-junk in your face at every turn.  I had this same discussion with some friends where I was in Stormwaltz shoes, but they had done the legwork running things down.  After my run from Freeport to N. Karana (when this was taking place) I was impressed with the depth of the world and saddened that it was all so hidden.

As for EQ-Next I have no hopes for this game and expect only suck. I know some of you hear sandbox and still pull out your little hope chests after all these years, but you're letting that blind you.
1) Subscription games are about done.  We're left with WoW and Eve as the only real contenders, I don't expect this to last as one.
2) What good model of F2P has SOE pushed?  None.  They've pretty much all been terrible.
3) All we have is Smedley's word and a few websites.  No idea of the depth.
4) EQ1 was "a sandbox."  We wasted tons of time in it but was it fun?
5) Sandbox games require a lot of time investment.  You don't have the time you did when you were young, let UO die already.  You'll find yourself overly frustrated if anything approaching that model comes around today.
6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

There's my cynical post to counter some of the hopes.

[Malakili]

Really? To me it was amazing. The pantheon of gods. Cazic vs Tunare, Marr vs Innoruuk. All the little demigods, how they fleshed out the worlds, from Erollisi to Bertoxxulous.

I liked how they wove the scenery into the history of the races. How in Innothule swamp you went into Guk and saw on the walls the creation story of not only the frogloks but how they interconnected with the Iksar and the Sarnak. How there's a whole convoluted history of how the Iksar came about in Kunark, etc. It wasn't simplistic to me at all; it had a depth that no video game I know of had even attempted at the time. The only rival would have been the Oblivion line, but that story is dull as dishwater to me.

The problem with EQ lore was you REALLY had to hunt it down.  They didn't have a Metzen shoving his lore-junk in your face at every turn.  I had this same discussion with some friends where I was in Stormwaltz shoes, but they had done the legwork running things down.  After my run from Freeport to N. Karana (when this was taking place) I was impressed with the depth of the world and saddened that it was all so hidden.

As for EQ-Next I have no hopes for this game and expect only suck. I know some of you hear sandbox and still pull out your little hope chests after all these years, but you're letting that blind you.
1) Subscription games are about done.  We're left with WoW and Eve as the only real contenders, I don't expect this to last as one.
2) What good model of F2P has SOE pushed?  None.  They've pretty much all been terrible.
3) All we have is Smedley's word and a few websites.  No idea of the depth.
4) EQ1 was "a sandbox."  We wasted tons of time in it but was it fun?
5) Sandbox games require a lot of time investment.  You don't have the time you did when you were young, let UO die already.  You'll find yourself overly frustrated if anything approaching that model comes around today.
6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

There's my cynical post to counter some of the hopes.

This pretty much sums up why the game is probably going to be bad.  But it doesn't change the fact that a lot of us still like the idea of a virtual fantasy world to explore and play in.  I think the biggest problem at this point is simply that the MMO genre isn't going to be genre that provides that anymore.  Hell, playing Cube World multiplayer looks like it is going to offer a better Sandbox experience than any MMO on the horizon will.

[Threash]

Really? To me it was amazing. The pantheon of gods. Cazic vs Tunare, Marr vs Innoruuk. All the little demigods, how they fleshed out the worlds, from Erollisi to Bertoxxulous.

I liked how they wove the scenery into the history of the races. How in Innothule swamp you went into Guk and saw on the walls the creation story of not only the frogloks but how they interconnected with the Iksar and the Sarnak. How there's a whole convoluted history of how the Iksar came about in Kunark, etc. It wasn't simplistic to me at all; it had a depth that no video game I know of had even attempted at the time. The only rival would have been the Oblivion line, but that story is dull as dishwater to me.

I loved the EQ dragon lore.  We used to joke about Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen being in closed lairs ("lol how did they get in"), then later you find out they were imprisoned to keep them from fucking.  Everything had a reason, there was a story behind everything, and usually they were very interesting.

[p0rkbelly]

Really? To me it was amazing. The pantheon of gods. Cazic vs Tunare, Marr vs Innoruuk. All the little demigods, how they fleshed out the worlds, from Erollisi to Bertoxxulous.

I liked how they wove the scenery into the history of the races. How in Innothule swamp you went into Guk and saw on the walls the creation story of not only the frogloks but how they interconnected with the Iksar and the Sarnak. How there's a whole convoluted history of how the Iksar came about in Kunark, etc. It wasn't simplistic to me at all; it had a depth that no video game I know of had even attempted at the time. The only rival would have been the Oblivion line, but that story is dull as dishwater to me.

I loved the EQ dragon lore.  We used to joke about Lady Vox and Lord Nagafen being in closed lairs ("lol how did they get in"), then later you find out they were imprisoned to keep them from fucking.  Everything had a reason, there was a story behind everything, and usually they were very interesting.

It's not like that was pre-planned, more along the lines of that it was made up as time went on to fit the game world.

[Engels]

Not quite true, if I recall correctly. My understanding is that the core of the EQ original developers brought the story in from a table top game they'd designed, and much of the foundation and geography was already in place. Later developments such as Kunark and Velius was probably designed 'along the way', but more engaged people than I should comment on it.

[HaemishM]

That's my understanding as well. The original continents were all from a D&D campaign McQuaid ran.

[Kageru]

I thought that came through fairly strongly in game. The Lore was pretty corny and amateur but it did give them a lot of motivation to craft a strong identity to many of the zones. They weren't quite so good with actually having content to fill it out or progression. So you had things like the main city sewers which seemed to be there because in D&D there more or less had to be sewers full of rats and slimes. That faded a lot as they started pumping out expansions and raid progression.

I get the same feeling from GW2, a lot of it has been built because the designers really wanted to build it. I can't think of any other reason for the huge and mostly pointless cities. Though at least there the levelling mechanics have the possibility of not obsoleting content.

[Venkman]

As for EQ-Next I have no hopes for this game and expect only suck. I know some of you hear sandbox and still pull out your little hope chests after all these years, but you're letting that blind you.
1) Subscription games are about done.  We're left with WoW and Eve as the only real contenders, I don't expect this to last as one.
2) What good model of F2P has SOE pushed?  None.  They've pretty much all been terrible.
3) All we have is Smedley's word and a few websites.  No idea of the depth.
4) EQ1 was "a sandbox."  We wasted tons of time in it but was it fun?
5) Sandbox games require a lot of time investment.  You don't have the time you did when you were young, let UO die already.  You'll find yourself overly frustrated if anything approaching that model comes around today.
6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

There's my cynical post to counter some of the hopes.

#1-3 are true. F2P is the perfect model for sandboxes, but SOE hasn't shown much expertise on that. FR wasn't completely terrible, it just lacked any cohesion. They haven't been all that active though, which I took to mean they were ending as a concern, but could really mean they've been focused on the big EQ Next reveal. Not hope as much as "hey, they're still around?" curiousity.

#4 I'm not so sure about. The gulf between WoW and EQ1 isn't nearly as wide as it is between EQ1 and then-UO or SWG, wherein you could invest as much in roles that had nothing to do with combat as those that do nothing but a linear romp through a sequence of directed actions of which most of it was combat.

#5 By precedent, sure. We've been more burned by underdelivered sandboxes than over contrived dungeon romps. But what are sandboxes but just a wide (and sometimes deep) array of sometimes solo/sometimes multiplayer minigame activities with a web that holds it together? Kinda like a collection of apps or social media "games".

#6 I'm of a mind that sandboxes are perfect for this generation. A lightly strung together collection of experiences that can flex in depth with an ongoing analysis of what the players actually do, using modern reasonable business practices that provide a strong feedback loop between analytics, business decisions and development and content publishing best practices. I don't know if SOE specifically could pull it off of course. But the premise is there. Think of it less as a piece of software developed by a cult of personality and more as running a web-destination style business.

I also recommend we don't use our own pasts as a guide. We put up with quite a lot of shit for a good decade or so. But we were a small percentage of the overall gamer base even then, much as D&D players were a small percentage of non-digital games. It requires a special kind of dedication that is uncommon in every generation of tech

[Stormwaltz]

6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

I expect this varies by interests and temperament. My oldest is eight, and we have to pry him away from sessions of Minecraft and a Super Mario Brothers editor he likes.

[Sky]

I thought that came through fairly strongly in game. The Lore was pretty corny and amateur but it did give them a lot of motivation to craft a strong identity to many of the zones. They weren't quite so good with actually having content to fill it out or progression. So you had things like the main city sewers which seemed to be there because in D&D there more or less had to be sewers full of rats and slimes. That faded a lot as they started pumping out expansions and raid progression.

I get the same feeling from GW2, a lot of it has been built because the designers really wanted to build it. I can't think of any other reason for the huge and mostly pointless cities. Though at least there the levelling mechanics have the possibility of not obsoleting content.

On the other hand, I find that filling out zones with things like sewers and secret rooms to be awesome and the thing that needs to be integrated more, whereas raid progression is pointless and stupid.

The not-amusement-park is the best thing I've seen about an mmo in a while. We have that, need more different stuff.

I agree on the time investment thing with sandboxes. But I'd rather have one and be time-limited than see another shitty raid progression by the number + one unique feature YET AGAIN.

[HaemishM]

Based on the trend we've seen since the release of WoW, yet another raid progression MMO is doomed to be F2P no matter what the dev does. Think about it - the only MMO that started out as a subscription service since the release of WoW that hasn't turned F2P is Warhammer (are there any others?). And I'm betting the only reason it isn't F2P is the GW license not allowing it either through the expense of the license or GW's expressly forbidding it. Everything else has gone F2P within the last two years.

If EQ Next is a linear progression raid-focused MMO, it's going to flop hard whether it's F2P or not. Sandbox MIGHT have a chance to not flop if it at least can direct the masses into the interesting areas/activities. Of course, I don't think "the masses" give a shit about MMO-style gaming much anymore.

[Malakili]

6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

I expect this varies by interests and temperament. My oldest is eight, and we have to pry him away from sessions of Minecraft and a Super Mario Brothers editor he likes.

True, but 20 years ago there was a pretty big overlap between people who were into computers on a tech level and people who were into these sorts of games.  I think the result is that a lot of people were willing to put more effort into learning systems and working through fiddly mechanics.  If you are just looking to play a game, then the time it takes to learn many of the more arcane systems which have been traditionally associated with sandbox games is going to be a much more substantial barrier than it was to the people who were also learning to program in their spare time.

[Paelos]

Does the game allow players to actually change the landscape of the world?

If the answer is no, and the endgame is dungeons/raids? It's going to run into all the problems any WoW contender runs into, including WoW itself.

[Sky]

Does the game allow players to actually change the landscape of the world?

I don't get the obsession with this.

I agree with the dungeon/raid thing obviously. Forced grouping sucks. Developers trying to dictate player behavior sucks. Hiding all the phat lewtz behind the people who can do the best square dance sucks.

[Merusk]

6) Modern kids who might have the time don't have the interest.  I've watched my daughter, her friends and my nephews.  They flit around from game to game as the mood strikes and demand nearly instant gratification.  "Maybe" a 15-24 hour grind is acceptable, 40 is pushing it but ok if the game is awesome.

I expect this varies by interests and temperament. My oldest is eight, and we have to pry him away from sessions of Minecraft and a Super Mario Brothers editor he likes.

Mine 9 year old is the same way, but he's not interested in MMOs at all.  My 15 year old is, and she and her friends are the ones I had in mind since I see/ hear them regularly.  (Skype is always running when they play together.)

Further detail: The 17 and 13 year old nephews are xbox bros who'll pick up a steam game but only CS, TF2 and the like.  The 15 year old nephew's dad is a game dev and he acts like my daughter.  One game or another, flitting about.  The most hours he has on Steam are TF2 then Skyrim.   94.4 hours in the last week, split between Bioshock, TF2, DOTA2, Torchlight and Xcom.

If EQ Next is a linear progression raid-focused MMO, it's going to flop hard whether it's F2P or not. Sandbox MIGHT have a chance to not flop if it at least can direct the masses into the interesting areas/activities. Of course, I don't think "the masses" give a shit about MMO-style gaming much anymore.

Absolutely agree here.  I wasn't advocating a progression MMO, just explaining why I expect a sandbox will flop, despite some of us in the "not the target demographic" still being keen on them.

Does the game allow players to actually change the landscape of the world?

If the answer is no, and the endgame is dungeons/raids? It's going to run into all the problems any WoW contender runs into, including WoW itself.

Yes and yes.  You say "sandbox" these days and you've got to compete with (at the least) Minecraft.  Nobody's doing anything nearly that level of creative and interactive, despite the label.  Hell *I'D* be on-board if I thought it had a chance in hell of happening and I've been one of the most anti-sandbox people for the last 15 years.

The 'endgame' will still be exploration/ gear accumulation and *someone* will have the bright idea of throwing-in a raid/ boss to try and get the achiever demographic. And that will fuck everything.

[Nebu]

Trying to be all things to all people is where games lose me.  Pick something and do it well.  That's the key to success.  I fear that this project will fail in trying to attract too many crowds when appealing to a few focal groups might better serve it.

[Sky]

Yes and yes.  You say "sandbox" these days and you've got to compete with (at the least) Minecraft.  Nobody's doing anything nearly that level of creative and interactive, despite the label.  Hell *I'D* be on-board if I thought it had a chance in hell of happening and I've been one of the most anti-sandbox people for the last 15 years.

TUG

And though I think the mmo server version will be a trainwreck, the fact that it also allows for private servers and solo play ala minecraft is compelling. Alpha sometime this month.

[Paelos]

Does the game allow players to actually change the landscape of the world?

I don't get the obsession with this.

You play Minecraft and doesn't understand the obsession with this?

[Sky]

I don't get the obsession of it in mmo BECAUSE I play minecraft.

Like I said, the main reason I'm interested in TUG is they are also developing minecraft-like options for play. Even on the f13 server, X and I start a nice little village and cheaty mcflyingaround shows up to make a giant monster-infested pit (and I like cheaty mcflyingaround other than the penchant for that shit in minecraft). Or the time he walled off the entire area around spawn with massive mostly-impenetrable walls filled with unlit chambers? You seriously don't see how griefingly horribad that would be with TEH INTARDNETS involved?

[Goreschach]

Does the game allow players to actually change the landscape of the world?

I don't get the obsession with this.

You play Minecraft and doesn't understand the obsession with this?

Landscape manipulation in an mmo would be as pointless as mmo legos. The entire point is to just do your own thing. At best, all the multiplay that would be desired would be a way to show off what you did. Anything beyond that would be nothing more than tremendous bloat.

[Mithas]

Landscape manipulation in an mmo would mean manipulation of all landscape into one shape: penis.

[Paelos]

Those are all old and tired arguments against something that exists in the natural order of our lives. We have an effect on our surroundings. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that in a game. I'm not saying we should be able to move heaven and earth with a shovel, but you can still make things happen to change the world through community interaction. It's what's always been promised and never delivered.

[Lantyssa]

SWG had cities and open world housing which had a pretty dramatic impact on the landscape, for good and bad.  (UO, too, though I never played to see the extent.)

[Sky]

UO and SWG became ghettos of player housing. Good idea, but not when your game world turns into a 3rd world shanty town. Especially SWG with it's atrocious pop-in graphics loading.

There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that in a game.

There are reasons, you're just brushing them aside as old and tired arguments. They're old because we've learned those lessons.

Like I've said, sign up for TUG. Sandbox pvp minecraft on public servers. Everyone seemed to dismiss it when I mentioned it in the KS thread, and yet here we go.

[HaemishM]

Landscape manipulation in an mmo would mean manipulation of all landscape into one shape: penis.

Second Life has proven without a shadow of a doubt that multiplayer terrain manipulation has only one true purpose - making squidgy things to piss people off.

Multiplayer sandboxes without tight controls on how those things can affect other players will only end in tears and server shutdowns. EQ Next, despite any protestations of sandboxiness will not be that game. I do not think SOE has the creative talent to think up a true sandbox game that doesn't suck.

[eldaec]

Regarding 'no competition for a sandbox' I feel the urge to point out that there is an f13 guild that has been playing a sand box mmo for close to a decade, and that mmo has been increasing subs the whole damn time.

But yeah, everyone arranges their star bases in the shape of a penis.

[Paelos]

And if they do, so what? I'm not just suggesting blight on the landscape. You can have defined plots that still create the housing. You can have zoning. We have those things around here in society as well.

The bigger issue for me is addressing the 10 rats question. Dude just asked me for 10 rats. I gave him 10 rats, he'll ask the next guy for 10 and the next guy and the next guy. He'll never get enough rats. Nothing will ever change when I play a different character because he'll want those rats.