EQ Next Landmark - It's Like Minecraft But Not™

[Signe]

That's sort of why I haven't logged in for ages.  I actually thought when I contributed to the game that I would also be contributing to EQN.  Then all the name changing stuff started happening and no one was talking about EQN and I sort felt disappointed.  Not that building stuff isn't fun, but I kind of wanted the game to go along with it.  I'm not even sure I would have given them any money had I understood everything.  My fault.  I blame me.  :(

[palmer_eldritch]

That's sort of why I haven't logged in for ages.  I actually thought when I contributed to the game that I would also be contributing to EQN.  Then all the name changing stuff started happening and no one was talking about EQN and I sort felt disappointed.  Not that building stuff isn't fun, but I kind of wanted the game to go along with it.  I'm not even sure I would have given them any money had I understood everything.  My fault.  I blame me.  :(

That's how they marketed Landmark and still do to an extent. This is what the official EQN site says today:



https://www.everquestnext.com/home

So not your fault!

[taolurker]

They are in fact still working on this evolving into Everquest Next, but yes after the name change to just "Landmark" it's definitely less clear what their focus actually is. Lately I've been thinking they aren't focusing on Next or even Landmark as much as N1Z1 (zombies) and are using Landmark solely as a cash grab. They barely fix anything, their communication has basically become repetitive false promises and hawking of SOE live, and in the past 3 months they've redone their "blueprint" of upcoming things more times than I can count.

The cash grab stuff has become particularly disturbing, because first they included Steam purchasable (before the sale) and changed the keyboard layout everyone was familiar with because it conflicted with the Steam Overlay. Then they focused on Player Studio and players selling in game creations so SOE could get their 60% share of sales. They've been constantly adding cash shop "content" but barely any actual free things, culminating last week with "starter packs" that allow a head start of top level tools which will allow a huge advantage over a regular "Settler/Founder/Trailblazer" because they already have a (non-upgradable) pick and axe on the first day of Open Beta and eventually release.

The new steam sale is just the icing on the cake. This has made the true diehards and purchasers extremely upset, and this is definitely impacting the community, with what I'd call more animosity for the devs than goodwill.

There still is no combat, targetting or mobs, but they managed to put caves, oceans and voxel buildable water... Other than those everything is the same except for game performance. The game has been steadily mired down in fps hell, the game doesn't actually run on more than a single core, and the bugs have gotten significanly more game breaking. The fps loss and crashes are getting WORSE. There was a spawn issue that wasn't acknowledged for two weeks, which now has necessitated daily server bounces to ensure that things actually spawn again.

They have added "Racial Workshops" which are something they've been encouraging players to design things based around their existing EQ Next style guides and art team assets. The first "workshop" was for the Dark Elves, and the second was for Kerran. They had votes before each race was selected, and both times the poll loser was Dwarves.

The Dark Elf workshop included a new "museum island competition" where people created Dark Elf structures, furnishings and decoration, that will eventually have their own server in a town like setup, that they intend to use to highlight how Landmark assets will be used in EQN (or for their art team). The images of a Dark Elf statue I was making for this competition were the images I dropped into the last page.

I seriously have numerous doubts on what this game will deliver, and the EQ Next stuff that most players are waiting for will probably all arrive after SOE Live in Las Vegas in mid-August.

[Falconeer]

Wow, this is all very depressing. Especially considering what a good job they did in the first couple of months both communication and content-wise.

[KallDrexx]

I'm confused at the animosity.

My impression from the start was that Landmark was never meant to be more of a game than it currently is, a game where you build shit in voxel land to adequately test and prove the voxel engine can work for an MMO.  I only started hearing rumors of mobs and stuff after it started blowing up with hype after it was released.  The game with mobs, targeting, objectives?  That's supposed to be Everquest Next.  The fact that there are performance issues is probably a reason we haven't heard much about it, and making a game go from single threaded to multi-threaded is no easy feat (although, SOE should know they should be making use of multiple threads after EQ2).  I wouldn't be surprised though if backend performance is being worked on much more than frontend performance, because that's really what's going to be crucial once you start adding AI, quests, combat, etc..

Also, this is SOE we are talking about.  They don't have one global team that works on everything, so N1Z1 is most certainly a different team than EQL/EQN. 

About the monetizing, what company isn't going to go "oh shit we should really monetize this" with how much early access money is driving into other places. 

Anyways, not to be an SOE defender but it's only been a year since EQN was released and yet everyone who was paying attention could clearly tell that the game had only at most 6 months of actual development (non-prototyping) work done on it so the chances of it being alpha in 2014, or even mid-2015 are slim to none. 

Also, SOE live is august 14th, so I'm sure they'll give some kind of progress update then.

[Merusk]

the game doesn't actually run on more than a single core,

Y'know, the rest of it was exactly what I expected from day one so I'm not surprised in the least.  This, however.  Wtf? Why do so many programs continue to be developed for single core/ processing threads but then bloat the shit out of them. Agh.

[Falconeer]

For what it's worth, H1Z1 looks like total garbage so far. Not sure who and how many are working on it, or why.

[taolurker]

I'm confused at the animosity.

My impression from the start was that Landmark was never meant to be more of a game than it currently is, a game where you build shit in voxel land to adequately test and prove the voxel engine can work for an MMO.  I only started hearing rumors of mobs and stuff after it started blowing up with hype after it was released.  The game with mobs, targeting, objectives?  That's supposed to be Everquest Next.  The fact that there are performance issues is probably a reason we haven't heard much about it, and making a game go from single threaded to multi-threaded is no easy feat (although, SOE should know they should be making use of multiple threads after EQ2).  I wouldn't be surprised though if backend performance is being worked on much more than frontend performance, because that's really what's going to be crucial once you start adding AI, quests, combat, etc..

Also, this is SOE we are talking about.  They don't have one global team that works on everything, so N1Z1 is most certainly a different team than EQL/EQN.  

About the monetizing, what company isn't going to go "oh shit we should really monetize this" with how much early access money is driving into other places.  

Anyways, not to be an SOE defender but it's only been a year since EQN was released and yet everyone who was paying attention could clearly tell that the game had only at most 6 months of actual development (non-prototyping) work done on it so the chances of it being alpha in 2014, or even mid-2015 are slim to none.  

Also, SOE live is august 14th, so I'm sure they'll give some kind of progress update then.

Actually when Landmark first began it was "Everquest Next Landmark". Their original intention was for the building game and EQ Next development to work together as a single game and it was only after the name change and separation of the two that the EQN things became nearly non-existant. EQN is now what I consider a bait and switch for Landmark now, and even if they have tons of work for that game done already, if it's engine is based around Landmark, then it will be in serious trouble.

I submit bug reports, and am trying to get improvements for the good of the game, but things bug reported the first week of Closed Beta start (by me and others, even on forums) are still in game. Their known issues list is a joke, not listing any of the actual issues, and they aren't even coming close to eliminating things, they just get progressively worse. They keep promising "action" elements for the people who wanted EQ Next, or are trying Landmark because of it, and instead keep focusing on cash grab or superfluous additions instead of the much needed bug squashing, optimizations and additional gameplay that the players are clamoring for.

I once compared the devs to amatuer hour, and was railed for it, but honestly YES It's amatuer hour. Them not fixing things in a timely manner, and then the decisions all leaning toward cash grabs, culminating in this insult to early adopters is not the kind of marketing or beta that will do either game any good in the long run.

The main issue with the sale is they sold Founder and Trailblazer packs to people in Alpha expecting EQ Next, and not just Landmark. These also were supposed to be offering exclusive perks like the head start (extra 3 days before open beta), the titles, and even names in the "credits". All of this was sold at extremely high prices, and exclusivity as a selling point, and now they are still selling these to people and even reduced them to 66% off. Some people just bought these packs last week.. Some people bought in "early" and had the benefit of being in game longer, but the "exclusives" they were sold on are now trivialized and available at a fraction of the cost.

Since I got a key for access here on F13, these costs aren't what are impacting me and adding to my animosity, it's how badly the actual beta is going that is. I was playing at the same FPS on my old video card as I have now on a new one with double the RAM. Their tech forums are a joke, and I've been helping more people on the forum with game issues than the actual SOE staff. They have no sticky threads with suggested fixes, technical walkthroughs or advice, and don't even require people to post specs when asking for tech help (which should be standard operating procedure for ANY beta). The communication becoming less and their overall attitude towards testers is where I've started to build animosity, and I totally understand why people paying for the privilege of being dupes are upset.

[Falconeer]

The main issue with the sale is they sold Founder and Trailblazer packs to people in Alpha expecting EQ Next, and not just Landmark.

Wait, *please be aware that* I agree with everything else you said, but for fairness this is just not true. I am not saying their marketing campaign wasn't confusing if you just skimmed over it. Hell, even Signe got confused. But they never said when EQN was going to be developed/released, and never lied about what you were paying for with the Landmark founders packs.

Which is why it is a terrible shitty move to sell those underpriced now. I would assume they are desperate for cash and most importantly players (because dead towns kill games) if they decided to go such an unpopular route.

[Numtini]

No, it was definitely clear we were only getting Landmark. I expected a bit more EQ to be in it, but it was never about the real game, which I'm sort of guessing has been abandoned.

[Khaldun]

I'm finding it interesting now that I'm actually fiddling around with it, but really it's only interesting for itself and of itself if it's moving forward in several key respects. And it sounds as if it's not moving forward. I remember feeling skeptical that SOE would follow through both financially and conceptually. The conceptual part is actually harder I suspect because it really takes abandoning some development precepts that are practically written into the DNA of big corporate-led game design. Whether they just add mobs to Landmark and make it "Reskinned Minecraft" or they're serious about making this the test bed for a full-blown MMO that has a totally user-alterable environment, they will have to accept a radically different understanding of the relationship between players and live development. I just don't believe they can until I see otherwise.

It's running well on my new machine but on my daughter's a-bit-above-minimal-spec, it's unusable.

[Numtini]

It's impossible to imagine it working on any current hardware if you added a bunch of mobs and various spell effects.

[Tmon]

I still log in and play around with it and don't consider the $20 I spent on it a bad bargain but I can see how someone who wanted more than what this game seems to be turning into can be feel like they are victims of a bait and switch.  This used to be one of the rare games where I eagerly awaited every weekly update, but that has faded away as the content of the updates has become more or less meaningless to me.

[Scold]

Hell, I'll pay 6 bucks on the hope that one day I can script my own NPCs and quests with it.

[Bhazrak]

While it's its own game, I've also looked at Landmark as a really, really, really early alpha of Next, specifically in the content department.

[kaid]

It probably does not help that they are holding a lot of things for SOE live for the last month so progress seems to have slowed a bit. I am guessing we will at very least see pvp combat at soe live and probably some basic NPC's as well to fight. I am not upset by the sales I paid my money and I have had months to mess around with it already. They billed it as alpha and thats what we got. I fully expected as beta progressed them letting waves of people in to really hammer away at it.

[taolurker]

Yeah lets have lots of people hammer away at an un-optimized game and alienate our long term testers at the same time...

Their forums are a complete disaster atm, and this type of stress testing is something that shouldn't happen until well after the first optimization pass. There are hundreds of people posting about Fps issues, and even more issues on the Steam forums that aren't being addressed at all.

Also, TSR LOLs

[Miasma]

20,000 keys available for landmark at mmorpg.  That link is only one shade away from NSFW at this point with the very sad background advertisment for some lingerie based mmo running at the moment.

Edit: I mean come on:

[Khaldun]

So, as a latecomer who has been reading about but not using it...here's the #1 surprise for me: they've built a very high-end graphics capability and used to make environments that are oddly homogenous and dull. The player stuff is amazing, but the variation in landscapes from one island to the next is strikingly little. Unless I'm missing the one gosh-wow that's amazing island. I haven't seen a single thing that has taken my breath away or even the equivalent of a "Ok, that's weird" that you can get with procedural generation.

The whole thing feels...stillborn somehow. A worthy idea, it's neat that a big player tried to get on board, but...it feels like they didn't really get it.

[Pennilenko]

They aren't even close to done. They haven't even implemented a fraction of their plans for island layering yet. Once they get all of that stuff in, if the islands are still homogenous, I will raise hell. Until then, I am waiting to formulate an opinion.

[Count Nerfedalot]

It's also somewhat true that they don't get it (yet?).  Plus they are handcuffed by the constraints of their business model in a lot of ways.  And as far as terrain, they can't just let the algorithms go unchecked because the results are basically permanent (at launch), not disposable like minecraft.

[Khaldun]

Right, but that seems part of not getting it, really. Building a world that allows for high degrees of variance in terms of what people build and then building environments that are as dull-looking and samey even early on as these are seems kind of weird. But even deeper, trying to imitate Minecraft even a bit and not baking some kind of procedural generation into what you're doing right down at the core of it all, from the earliest builds, is also missing the point somewhat.

I would say that if they don't get the lead out and get past implementing a fraction of their plans, this isn't going to be anything but a footnote.

[Tmon]

But probably a footnote that makes a fair amount of money while they use it to test features for other games.

[taolurker]

Really meaty patch coming right now. Glass as a building material.. Guilds finally.. Bunch of new props including foods and spotlights.. Couple of extra textures.. Upkeep now max at 15 days.. Really wish was more optimization and the promised multi-threading, but obviously they can't seem to make that shiite work.

Full patch notes:

[Morat20]

What IS voxel vision?

[taolurker]

It's something they needed for their player studio crap, where you can sell templates of things created in game. The issue was that with sharing, and group builds that some people might not have ownership of the creation. The Voxel vision allows to see who is actually the builder and therefore owner of the voxels. It's also a requirement that things listed have ownership, but also have tax documentation.

So, basically it's stuff for their moneyhats approach, to show who built what, that is bad for community building.

[Bhazrak]

SOE Live's starting tonight, but all the EQNext and Landmark panels are tommorrow and Saturday.

Here's the Schedule.

[taolurker]

Guilds have been in game now a week too, and similarly to Pirates of the Burning Sea I threw my friends list in game into a guild.. If anyone wants to join send me a /friend add Laozee if not already. Currently total in guild=37..  Number of f13 people=2 (hopefully more soon).

The new spotlights and ice/glass textures have allowed for a bunch of cool lighting effects and the new sign for my casino looks magnificent.

[Tmon]

Is there any guild functionality beyond a glorified friends list?  For instance, I see messages in game saying to ask officers if you have questions or need to get someone invited, but I haven't figured out how to actually identify officers. 

[taolurker]

The guild panel is on the N key, Tmon, and from the list on the page there can see who is officer by the crown next to their names.

The twitch stream of the Landmark panel from SOE live is starting in a minute or two, on http://twitch.tv/soe.

[Tmon]

During the Landmark keynote at SOE live they announced that the August 27th patch will add PVP and weapons.   I don't think they've given any details beyond that.

[palmer_eldritch]

The work of building EQN is taking place within Landmark, according to the presentation at SOE Live. A lot of the systems being introduced and tested in Landmark will be used in EQN, and some of the best player creations will be imported to EQN.

As an example, they highlighted a competition in Landmark to build dark elf structures. Players were given a style guide and concept art setting out SOE's vision of what dark elf architecture should look like, and asked to get build things. The best creations were picked as winners.

The presentation showed a number of those winning creations bought together by SOE to create a dark elf town. For example, one player in landmark created a tower, while another created a sort of glowy crystal statue thing. Both those structures featured in the dark elf town created by SOE. I don't think this was necessarily a specific town that will be included in EQN when it goes live, but it was an illustration of the approach they are using.

Then, the presentation showed some dark elf NPCs placed in the town. The idea is that the dark elf character models, weapons and armour designed by SOE fit in with the architecture created by Landmark players, because Landmark players have been following the design docs.

The link to the presentation (which includes a lot of other stuff too) is here, although I think the link might change when SOE edit the footage: http://www.twitch.tv/soe/b/558411156

[Maven]

Did they compensate the creators with anything besides 'promotion'? It sounds like SOE's getting the best end of the deal.

[Falconeer]

Combat, PvP, battlefields and landmines coming in two weeks? Wow I am curious and worried at the same time. Also, I'm under the impression they are adding PvP but not PvE yet.

[Tmon]

I didn't watch the panel but according to the email they sent out the following will be coming in the near future.  I assume pvp will be in battlefields and not open world.

Player vs Player Combat + Battlefields!
Damage and Death!
Landmines, Monsters and Loot!
Teleporters, Flingers and Moving Platforms!


You can watch the replay here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE1KffI-n1RVN4iOTNEMMaA