EQ 'Next'

[HaemishM]

Shadowbane did SO many things right. Too bad client and server architecture wasn't one of them.

[Segoris]

Copious amounts of weed ritalin/adderal, free time and night shifts make for good mmo players.

FTFY, since if talking about what makes for good MMO players today, then there are new drugs that are much easier and cheaper to get  

For me, I still liked what EQ did with rogues. They were phenominal in combat while in the hands of those that knew what to do with them and remained useful outside of combat with lockpicking and corpse recovery. While CRs would not make it in today's MMOs, lockpicking doors still could. Pickpocketing was always a weird one though, Sky gives a good example but outside of that (except for aholes like me who would PP in crap groups in EQ) it was tough to make it a valuable and useful skill in a game where you can't PP other players. GW2 kind of did a good job on adapting this into a "steal" command that steals abilities though, and that was interesting and gave rogues/thieves some variance.

I'm still sad I missed the SB.exe days

[kaid]

Shadowbane did SO many things right. Too bad client and server architecture wasn't one of them.

I would agree I actually really enjoyed shadowbane until I had the whole SB.exe problem. The really ironic thing on my server was shadowbane a all out pvp game was one of the most polite online enviornments I have ever seen. Since you could not only just kill other players but potentially totally prevent them from ever being able to train/advance their character when people came up to your city to shop they asked nicely and were super polite because they knew the alternative could get ugly REALLY fast.

When people would come to our city a lot of them would yell knock knock and ask permission for entry even though the doors were open most of the time. I found a lot of the systems pretty interesting and the player run cities and how they worked to make niches for themselves was interesting. We had a couple neighboring towns and so we just got together with them and figured what vendors people wanted to see so each town had a certain set of them so nobody had to try to build and maintain all the different class type vendors.

[HaemishM]

Oh dear. There's a Shadowbane Emulator.

EDIT: I should say Emulator Project. There's nothing to play yet.

[Nebu]

Oh dear. There's a Shadowbane Emulator.

EDIT: I should say Emulator Project. There's nothing to play yet.

Does it accurately emulate sb.exe too?

[HaemishM]

Considering you can't play anything on it right now, it's almost an exact replica of the original Shadowbane experience, only without the crushing disappointment and heartburn.

[Nebu]

Considering you can't play anything on it right now, it's almost an exact replica of the original Shadowbane experience, only without the crushing disappointment and heartburn.

 

[Mrbloodworth]

EverQuest Next Landmark Timelapse Video 1

EverQuest Next Landmark Timelapse Video #2

EverQuest Next Landmark Timelapse Video #3

[Yegolev]

Is this supposed to be Minecraft or Horizons?

Why do I keep seeing a Char in there?

[Mrbloodworth]

There were new details on Landmark, however (check out this great post from MJ to see what we knew before). You can choose between male and female heroes and will begin as an Adventurer class at one of the world's great landmarks. From there, you can adventure freely into the world, find a spot you like, and claim it as your own. Once your spot is claimed, you can build on it however you see fit or move on to claim other areas and link them all together.

Landmark will feature many common MMO functions. You'll be able to start guilds and make friends, along with creating temporary build projects with others. You can also gather resources, craft items (including better gathering tools), and man an in-game booth to sell stuff to other Landmark adventurers. You can even sell your real estate on the global marketplace or make a career out of crafting environmental items for other players to use.

One area of Landmark will be reserved for art in the Norrathian style. Players can use the game's tagging system to "like" content, and the most-liked content (that fits the art style) will show up in EverQuest Next proper on day one of its launch. If you play Landmark, you'll also have access to the Adventurer class when you boot up EQ Next, allowing you to start multi-classing from your first moments in-game (or you can just transfer your Adventurer directly into Next).

Link To article.

[Venkman]

Is this supposed to be Minecraft or Horizons?

Feels like an MMO-ized version of the former. Smart of them to set up a Norrathian-style section. Get as many bored MC/MC-knockoff/ex-SL players as they can gathering resources to start trading (and presumably monetizing) resource trades, but ghetto-ize the e-peen structures away from the contestant structures SOE wants.

I'm sure players will be able to "like" anything they want, and inevitably the top voted buildings will be ones SOE doesn't want. But by compartmentalizing between general architecture and Norrathian architecture, they can ignore all the non-Norrathian likes probably.

[Falconeer]

Massive layoffs at SOE.

Strategic decision...

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that it is laying off an unknown number of employees at its Austin and San Diego studios. The veteran MMO publisher best known for the EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, and PlanetSide franchises is currently ramping up on EverQuest Next, and describes the reduction in staff as meant to “strategically align resources” toward current projects.

The official announcement states: “As part of a strategic decision to reduce costs and streamline its workforce, SOE announced today that it will eliminate positions in both its San Diego and Austin studios. This strategic alignment of resources better positions SOE to remain a global leader in online games, as well as to align development resources towards our current portfolio of MMOs and the highly-anticipated future installments of the EverQuest franchise, EverQuest Next Landmark and EverQuest Next.”

We’ve asked SOE for comment on which specific teams and MMOs are affected, and will update this article if we learn more.

Update: We earlier reported on an out-of-date statement regarding the closure of three of Sony’s former studios. We apologize for the confusion, as the current round of layoffs only affect Austin and San Diego. It’s hard to lay people off from something that no longer exists.

Update 2: We have been told by a trusted source that as many as 200 people may have been laid off, though this figure includes temporary workers. Allegedly, about 100 of these layoffs were from SOE’s quality assurance and customer support areas.

[Nebu]

Just when you thought that SOE's customer service couldn't get worse...

Sorry to anyone that lost their job because of this.

[WayAbvPar]

Must be the end of the quarter or something? We had layoffs all over our org today too. Hurray for capitalism.

[Simond]

PAX stuff: http://imgur.com/a/WwrYG

[Mrbloodworth]

I see a dwarf lady with a beard.

[Margalis]

I hope these pictures are meant to illustrate what EQ Next will look the opposite of.

[Simond]

I hope these pictures are meant to illustrate what EQ Next will look the opposite of.

And why is that?

[Bzalthek]

It doesn't.  You can feel free to cut yourself now.

[Merusk]

I hope these pictures are meant to illustrate what EQ Next will look the opposite of.

And why is that?

Just review his history of bitching about wow and you'll understand.

[Margalis]

It doesn't.  You can feel free to cut yourself now.

Is there really a need to get personal over this?

Please fuck right off with that.

[Bzalthek]

You consider that personal?  That's a snarky response to hyperbolic nerd angst. 

Let me rephrase then; your post reminds me of the late 90s pseudo-aggressive emo nihilism bullshit.

[Margalis]

There was nothing hyperbolic about what I said, what was hyperbolic was your reply.

your post reminds me of the late 90s pseudo-aggressive emo nihilism bullshit.

I'm sorry, who is being hyperbolic again? Yes, it's "emo nihilism" to comment on the poor quality of EQ Next concept art.

Edit: As far as my objections to the art, I don't think it looks particularly like WoW. Maybe like WoW fed through Facebook. But more importantly it doesn't really match what they've shown of the game so far, and the 3D models don't seem to match the concept art in tone or style. There doesn't appear to be much art direction going on, whereas WoW has a coherent look. Not one I like, but it's coherent. This is kind of all over the place.

Art direction was a huge weakness of EQ2, so I think it makes sense to be wary of similar problems here. Looking at the blue faced dude (elf?) and the Dwarves nothing says they should exist in the same game.

[HaemishM]

Meh, the dwarves look decent, the Elf looks like he walked off the set of Avatar 2: The Avataring.

[Sjofn]

I see a dwarf lady with a beard.

One is also sporting sideburns, which pleases me, that was about the only thing about EQ2 visually I really liked when I first tried it, EQ2 Sjofn was rocking some bitchin' sideburns. So good on 'em for keeping that, even though I'm sure it doesn't get used much. Or maybe it does! I don't really know. 

[Furiously]

Meh, the dwarves look decent, the Elf looks like he walked off the set of Avatar 2: The Avataring.

I totally though you could be a Navi in EQ next for a minute.

[Tannhauser]

The halflings concept looked good.  Also like the homage to the old classic Keith Parkinson art.

[Threash]

The dwarves perfectly match what they've shown so far, the what I assume is a dark elf is just a headshot so ill ignore it.

[tmp]

I totally though you could be a Navi in EQ next for a minute.

Same, my first thought was somewhere out there a 20th Century Fox lawyer must've woken up with a massive boner and he doesn't yet know why.

[Surlyboi]

If that's an inky why does he have horns?

[Merusk]

They gave them horns now.  It was mentioned in the reveal stream that they gave blueberries horns.  The reasoning escapes me because it was kind of pointless other than, "oh look we have blue guys with horns too!"

 

[Mrbloodworth]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/09/01/new-everquest-next-landmark-details-mounts-crafting-and-more/

What was already exciting about Landmark is a building system that looks like painting in 3D, with scalable brushes and smoothing tools to create spherical surfaces. Today, Director of Development David Georgeson shared more about Landmark’s scope, picking up where the debut announcement left off. Here’s what we learned (some of which applies to EverQuest Next proper, too—like the beards):

  

• Players will spawn near landmarks, protected areas which can be teleported to. They’ll act as social hubs and player marketplaces—Georgeson hinted several times at a deep simulated economy during our meeting.
• Players will then explore to gather resources, and stake a land claim (almost) anywhere on the procedurally-generated continents.
• Most building resources will need to be purchased from other players or gathered, though there are “super commons,” such as dirt, of which we’ll always have an unlimited supply.
•  Can players stake claims in subterranean areas? “Probably,” says Georgeson.
•  Land claims can be shared with friends for co-op builds.
• Mounts are in, and they’ll move like the player characters—sliding down steep hills, for instance. We won’t see horses doing parkour though. Boo.

EverQuest Next gameplay - PAX 2013 Movement Demo

Above: A new video showing off more advanced movement tricks.

    

• Players will be able to move between servers at any time.
• Friends lists, text chat, voice chat, and SOEmote are all in.
• A timelapse tool will allow players to record high-speed versions of their builds and publish them directly to YouTube.
• There will be a guild system, as well as a “co-op buildout” system for temporarily grouping up to work together on large projects without a full guild structure.
• Landmark characters will be transferable to EverQuest Next when it releases, and playing Landmark will unlock the Adventurer class.

EverQuest Next Landmark gameplay - Lavastorm timelapse

Above: A timelapse video of a player quickly building out an environment.

We also found out some new things about the Player Studio integration. At the announcement, we learned that Landmark builders will be able to package and sell copies of their voxel creations on SOE’s Player Studio, but Georgeson says that players will also be able sell their actual plot of land—its location and all its content—and suggests one could play Landmark like a real estate market. For real money. That’s a slightly scary proposition, but in a good way.

[Sky]

I'm (fooliishly) optimistic, or at least hopeful it doesn't suck too much.

THAT SAID

Wow does landmark sound like a trainwreck ala UO housing market. This said as someone who made a living for several months just selling property in UO. Horrible idea unless the landmass is unlimited, and even then I can't imagine it being too awesome to be stuck trudging out to BFE to build.

BFE, through tons of other player's territory aka penises.

[Mrbloodworth]

I imagine landmark is rather casual. So travel will likely be instant to your plot and your friends.

[kaid]

I imagine landmark is rather casual. So travel will likely be instant to your plot and your friends.

Yup landmark is not a very traditional MMO it is pretty much a social version of minecraft which for those who just want pure social building type things is probably pretty awesome. I think some version of the palace of penis is probably likely in landmark although that is one reason all the landmark worlds have a norrath continent that has the similiar building restrictions you will see in eqnext if you want to avoid the real silly stuff.

But on the non norrath landmark continents they pretty much said anything you can imagine and the CS department allows. They talked about ways of reporting content as inappropriate so I imagine it will be somewhat self policing.