EQ 'Next'

[Ingmar]

There is no help for you then.  

/shrug

I don't consider looking like WoW a pejorative.

[Mrbloodworth]

But you seem to consider all large shoulder pads The defining feature of a games style.

[Malakili]

I await the day where they release key features that will kill everyone's dreams.

When have feature lists KILLED dreams?   To the contrary, the feature list will be vague and leave plenty of room for people to speculate in any feature they personally want.

• A large world to explore!
• Explore dangerous dungeons with your friends!
• Craft powerful new items and armor!

will become:

• This game is confirmed to be the long awaited successor to UO!
• Required grouping to survive the best farming spots is IN!
• This game will have an ENTIRELY player run economy!

[Malakili]

But you seem to consider all large shoulder pads The defining feature of a games style.

I have interpreted all this more as "Gee, they claim to be doing all this innovative stuff, but then they go and show us this really generic, samey looking piece of fantasy art which kind of makes me think of every other game I've played in the last decade, I hope this isn't a sign of things to come"

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't think the Wallpaper has anything to do with the look of the game. I think they asked a Guest artist to do it for the Facebook contest thing. As far as Shoulder pads, the above Zbush looks like a natural progression from Eq2 to me.

[Typhon]

Congratulations.  This thread has now eclipsed every thread in the Movie section as, "most tedious".

[Bzalthek]

I think the main problem is we can't shut up when we have no actual information.  We just hurf blurf about what we want, what we suspect, and then tinfoil hat every grain of information even tangentially related to the subject at hand.

[Draegan]

You should read the teeth knashing over on Rerolled.

[Merusk]

Congratulations.  This thread has now eclipsed every thread in the Movie section as, "most tedious".

Congratulations your tolerance for "the internet" has reached (0).

[Sky]

I await the day where they release key features that will kill everyone's dreams.

When have feature lists KILLED dreams?   To the contrary, the feature list will be vague and leave plenty of room for people to speculate in any feature they personally want.

• A large world to explore!
• Explore dangerous dungeons with your friends!
• Craft powerful new items and armor!

will become:

• This game is confirmed to be the long awaited successor to UO!
• Required grouping to survive the best farming spots is IN!
• This game will have an ENTIRELY player run economy!

You forgot to add the part where everyone melts down when the inflated imaginary extensions that have sprung forth from their imaginations to fill the void fail to become the reality and the devs just deliver a fun online game and not the most amazing thing ever to happen at such a level it can eclipse both the imaginary inflation AND the nostalgic awesomeness of rosy days past when games were epic and amazing.

tl;dr people are cunts

[Furiously]

I'm fully expecting vanguard 2.0.

[Margalis]

People see color, and cleaner features, and just revert to "Looks like Wow" As if that some deep critical analysis, and not their own ignorance.

Uh....it does look like WoW, in terms of color, proportion, major design elements,  medium, etc. I find it fascinating that you posted some images showing how this is not new (I guess?), and those images were in a totally different style and done in different mediums.

In arguing that this totally doesn't look like WoW you've called multiple people ignorant and been snotty - without having made any actual argument whatsoever. The fact is WoW art follows certain guidelines and this art does as well.  If you'd like to have a detailed debate on how it does and does not look like WoW art using actual art terminology I'd be happy to school you, though I suspect that discussion would be way over your head.

It's far beyond "it uses color." A fucking Mondrian uses color.

Why are we reading so much into a drawing?  It's not like the game is going to look like that.

I assume the game is probably going to look like that. EQ1 did look like that original art to some degree, especially given the constraints of the time. You don't pay someone to come up with key art and make it your first public image if your game is in a wildly different style. Furthermore that style is now very popular, a lot of games do look like it, it's not like it's a stretch to think this game will use what is now the dominant art style.

I'd be happy to be wrong. I'm not going to say that the game will be terrible, but again to me it signals a lack of ambition. Similar to how the SWTOR guys when discussing combat and other major game systems kept name-checking WoW and lo and behold, the game played pretty much like WoW. At this point making a fantasy MMO not look like WoW is a conscious deviation from the norm, and had they decided to do that I would expect it to show.

For comparison google "elder scrolls online art". The very first images of ESO set the tone for something wildly different from WoW in terms of art and tone.

[MediumHigh]

Are we still talking about video games? Because we still haven't figured out how to make games look like the their trailers.

[Goreschach]

 If you'd like to have a detailed debate on how it does and does not look like WoW art using actual art terminology I'd be happy to school you, though I suspect that discussion would be way over your head.

I'd like to hear that.

[Margalis]

I'd like to hear that.

Here's an image of a FFXIV Monk:



It has colors and it has shoulder pads, which according to Bloodworth should make me think it looks like WoW art. But it doesn't.

It has color but that color is desaturated to some degree, whereas in the EQ picture the colors are much more saturated. It also appears to be done in a traditional pencil and ink style, and a lot of the shading comes not from color but from fine line work. By comparison in the EQ image the shading comes from color, there is no visible inking of any kind, and the medium appears to be paint. (Or digital paint.) The shading in the EQ picture makes most materials look like plastic, rubber or patent leather, with a shiny smooth style similar to 90s comic book covers, whereas the shading in the FF picture is more akin to pre-90s comic book covers, starker differences between distinct tones.

The FF image is full of fine details in the line work, the shapes and the patterns, whereas the WoW/EQ Next style is large blocks of fairly uniform color, simple identifiable shapes, etc. Look at her kneepads compared to the kneepads of the purple chick in the EQ picture, or her shoulder pads compared to anyone's in the EQ picture.

Looking at specific design elements, the shoulder/knee pads in the EQ pic have very thick contrasting color borders on them, which is very common in WoW art, and not present at all in the FF art. Not just on pads either, it's a common across-the-board thing to have rather thick bands of contrasting color on the borders of surfaces. You can even see it in that screenshot of the 3D EQ Next model. Almost every surface on that model has a raised border that will presumably have a different material on it.

I don't think there's any way you can look at the image above and think it looks like WoW in either how it is rendered or the design. Despite the fact that it has colors and pads. "Has shoulder pads" is not in itself indicative of anything - women's jackets in the 90s had shoulder pads. Big chunky solid color shoulder pads with light detailing and thick contrasting borders, rendered in a more modern CG style rather than a traditional fine art medium? The combination of those things is a distinctive element.

[eldaec]

I await the day where they release key features that will kill everyone's dreams.

Whose dreams?

This thread has a lot of posts telling everyone else that they are going to be disappointed and zero posts describing any expectations that might in fact be thwarted.

Also that concept art on the last page looks terrible. It also looks like wow, which is extra dumb when you are the franchise that wow was cloned from, but the main thing is that it looks terrible.

[Simond]

You should read the teeth knashing over on Rerolled.

It's pretty funny how Tad et. al. have gone from arguing "We don't want it to be 1999 again, we just want a game with features X,Y, & Z" to "WAAAAAAHHH it's not exactly the same as it was in 1999" with zero self-consciousness, and just from the sodding box-art, to boot.

August 2nd is going to be amazing.

[tmp]

Here's an image of a FFXIV Monk:

It has colors and it has shoulder pads, which according to Bloodworth should make me think it looks like WoW art. But it doesn't.

It has color but that color is desaturated to some degree, whereas in the EQ picture the colors are much more saturated. It also appears to be done in a traditional pencil and ink style, and a lot of the shading comes not from color but from fine line work. By comparison in the EQ image the shading comes from color, there is no visible inking of any kind, and the medium appears to be paint. (Or digital paint.) The shading in the EQ picture makes most materials look like plastic, rubber or patent leather, with a shiny smooth style similar to 90s comic book covers, whereas the shading in the FF picture is more akin to pre-90s comic book covers, starker differences between distinct tones.

The FF image is full of fine details in the line work, the shapes and the patterns, whereas the WoW/EQ Next style is large blocks of fairly uniform color, simple identifiable shapes, etc. Look at her kneepads compared to the kneepads of the purple chick in the EQ picture, or her shoulder pads compared to anyone's in the EQ picture.

Looking at specific design elements, the shoulder/knee pads in the EQ pic have very thick contrasting color borders on them, which is very common in WoW art, and not present at all in the FF art. Not just on pads either, it's a common across-the-board thing to have rather thick bands of contrasting color on the borders of surfaces. You can even see it in that screenshot of the 3D EQ Next model. Almost every surface on that model has a raised border that will presumably have a different material on it.

I don't think there's any way you can look at the image above and think it looks like WoW in either how it is rendered or the design. Despite the fact that it has colors and pads. "Has shoulder pads" is not in itself indicative of anything - women's jackets in the 90s had shoulder pads. Big chunky solid color shoulder pads with light detailing and thick contrasting borders, rendered in a more modern CG style rather than a traditional fine art medium? The combination of those things is a distinctive element.

I'll just go out on a limb here and point out that when you are talking about "WoW art does this" and "WoW art does that" ... there's actually piles of WoW artwork that not only don't really share these "WoW art" characteristics, but easily come closer to what you provide as examples of "why this art isn't like WoW art".


Colours, but subdued. Pretty high level of detail. Shoulderpads, but little to none of the contrasting borders. And so on. With it on mind, this discussion feels rather silly, as it paints with very broad brush both what the "WoW style" is supposed to be, and what this new EQ game art style is going to be. Especially when it comes to the latter, i don't feel it's very productive to extrapolate single third-party drawing and a screenshot into anything more general.

[eldaec]

That art looks to me like Warcraft, but not wow.

If anyone seriously thinks that EQN terrible picture was not meant to signal 'you'll be comfortable if you liked wow don't worry we aren't doing anything new', then something is broken, its either you or SOE's marketing shills.

[Simond]

That art looks to me like Warcraft, but not wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvYXoyxLv64
 

[Draegan]

You should read the teeth knashing over on Rerolled.

It's pretty funny how Tad et. al. have gone from arguing "We don't want it to be 1999 again, we just want a game with features X,Y, & Z" to "WAAAAAAHHH it's not exactly the same as it was in 1999" with zero self-consciousness, and just from the sodding box-art, to boot.

August 2nd is going to be amazing.

That thread is going to be so amazing during the live stream. I might have to take off of work just to keep an eye on the thread live.

[Draegan]

I await the day where they release key features that will kill everyone's dreams.

Whose dreams?

This thread has a lot of posts telling everyone else that they are going to be disappointed and zero posts describing any expectations that might in fact be thwarted.

Also that concept art on the last page looks terrible. It also looks like wow, which is extra dumb when you are the franchise that wow was cloned from, but the main thing is that it looks terrible.

The dreams of people that don't come here. F13 is a pretty casual MMO crowd for the most part, or at the very least not masochistic. The people who will be shedding tears are the neckbeards that have been hoping for an EQ revamp for 15 years. They want harsh death penalties (the big risk vs reward crowd) because the think being screwed out of all your gear is motivation worthy. They want long long long level curves because you need to WORK for your levels. It's all about the journey who also get pissed if people level faster than you.

They also don't want any websites to spoil the game, because back then there was no such thing as Alakahzam (or whatever it was). They want a raid game where you have to compete for spawns. They want corpse retrieval. They want group mechanics so tied together that you can't solo past level 5. They don't want a group finding tool, no instant teleports. That builds community. FUCKING COMMUNITY GOD DAMNIT IT DOESN"T EXIST ANYMORE AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

They want combat to be slow, and based off autoattack because they don't want to spam buttons anymore. People don't talk in dungeons these days because people are hitting hotbars. They want more chat. Use Skype/vent? NO! Chat is better because everything and I hate talking to people.

I don't want to talk to people because I want to play the MMORPG while talking on the phone, watching TV and listening to music at the same time.

I also want down time. Not 10 seconds to get my health back, but 10 minutes between pulls because I want to make new friends. Who alt-tabs these days? My computer can't even do that, I only have one 14" monitor anyway.

One class should be able to solo, but they have to suck a lot overall. YOU CAN'T HAVE DAMAGE METERS! Because fuck WOW ADHD kiddies! I want to be a unique snowflake, and my build is just fine. What? my dps is 1/10 of yours? FUCK YOU I'M WATCHING A PERFECT STRANGERS MARATHON.

WOW sucks btw. It's like McDonalds. I know this because I bought Cata and it sucked. I know this because I bought D3 and it sucked. I know this because I bought MOP and it was fucking shit! DIDN"T YOU KNOW BLIZZARD KILLED THE GENRE? WHY DO YOU EVEN PLAY???


---

I can't wait for Aug 2nd.

[Miasma]

They got all that shit when Vanguard launched.  They got their precious catass game made by their hero and it was a miserable failure.  People that delusional and retarded can't see reality though, they probably blamed Vanguard's failure on it not being catassy enough.

[Merusk]

No, it's the same excuse lots of other MMO fanatics have used.

Vanguard failed because it didn't have enough resources to finish development, or was developed by people who couldn't find their ass with both hands. Not because there wasn't a big enough audience for the underlying design principles.

[Bzalthek]

What? my dps is 1/10 of yours? FUCK YOU I'M WATCHING A PERFECT STRANGERS MARATHON.

Great.  Now I have milk and fruity pebbles in my sinuses.

[Paelos]

I await the day where they release key features that will kill everyone's dreams.

Whose dreams?

People who actively think there will be something other than WoW that they can play with their friends for 5 years.

[Threash]

They've been teasing everyone with the sand box stuff like the picture of a theme park with an X through it so any similarity to WoW is not going to be well received.

[shiznitz]

The dreams of people that don't come here. F13 is a pretty casual MMO crowd for the most part, or at the very least not masochistic. The people who will be shedding tears are the neckbeards that have been hoping for an EQ revamp for 15 years. They want harsh death penalties (the big risk vs reward crowd) because the think being screwed out of all your gear is motivation worthy. They want long long long level curves because you need to WORK for your levels. It's all about the journey who also get pissed if people level faster than you.

They want combat to be slow, and based off autoattack because they don't want to spam buttons anymore. People don't talk in dungeons these days because people are hitting hotbars. They want more chat. Use Skype/vent? NO! Chat is better because everything and I hate talking to people.

I really don't think these gamers exist in any large number any more.  Can you point me to a forum where there are more than 20?  These people are all over 35 years old and have lives these days.  The WoW generation is not looking for this.  And if they say they are it is only because they don't really know what they are asking for.  

[Mithas]

They come out in large numbers on mmo-champion. I know the forums there are god awful, but they are very vocal there.

[trias_e]

All I really want is a less cockpunchy EQ.  Get rid of 8 hour camps and massive XP loss and I'm down.  I like travel times, no WoW quests, group oriented play, vastly different classes, and no automatic group finder.  I'm one of them.  Shit.

[Merusk]

They come out in large numbers on mmo-champion. I know the forums there are god awful, but they are very vocal there.

Yep, and go take a look at Draegan's own forum on Rerolled since that's who he's parodying.  No idea on population in terms of numbers there, though.

Shiz you are correct that several of these are young kids who have heard stories and *think* it sounds great.  Modern culture is that it's cool is to rebel against the popular paradigm, after all.  

You're *incorrect* that all the over-35 crowd have lives/ responsibilities.  There will always be that segment of the population who have more time than anything else.*  Coincidentally they're also the ones visiting forums and loudly proselytizing for multi-hour grinds to return.

*The AOL chatroom hags who were always on bitching about their husbands not doing anything while they were online 12-16 hours at a time. (personal experience there) The guy on a MMO pre-release board with 10k posts in the first 5 months.  The group who hits 'cap' in any MMO within 24-72 hours of release and didn't have to take a vacation day to do it.  The people waiting in line 2-3 days for a movie/ the latest gee-gaw.

[Merusk]

All I really want is a less cockpunchy EQ.  Get rid of 8 hour camps and massive XP loss and I'm down.  I like travel times, no WoW quests, group oriented play, vastly different classes, and no automatic group finder.  I'm one of them.  Shit.

Only if you expect that you can get AAA game with a multi-million sub with those features. If you expect a niche game with lower production values out of that feature list you're still sane.

[Paelos]

You're *incorrect* that all the over-35 crowd have lives/ responsibilities.  There will always be that segment of the population who have more time than anything else.*  Coincidentally they're also the ones visiting forums and loudly proselytizing for multi-hour grinds to return.

It's not really an age thing though, it's a lack of talent/effort thing as well. The people calling for the return of hardcore stuff are usually on the WoW forums the feaux-hardcore. They cleared regular content, never even attempted heroic content, and then declared themselves proplayers and want more challenge to the regular stuff. It's too "easy" now. Well, there's your challenge. It's called heroic. But they don't want that. They want to go regular and lord it over people. They want time to be the determining factor because that is the only asset they have in the arsenal. They are not quick, they are not self-aware, they do not study fights, they do not learn from mistakes, and in many cases they've never led a thing in their lives.

[Nebu]

MMO's are filled with people that have more time than skill.  People with plenty of time prefer grinds as the time = power paradigm works best for them.  I think this is why I prefer pvp games.  Even though time = power still exists, skill can decrease the time to power significantly.

[shiznitz]

It is highly likely that I am extrapolating how my life has changed too broadly to others as well.  If I had never married and had kids, I might still be one of them.  The only reason I quit the original EQ was loss of free time.  I still loved the game in 2003.