Landmark and growing success of crafting/building games

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Hilnur, Apr 11, 2021.

  1. Hilnur New Member

    I just wanted to pop up a message here about Everquest Landmark, which during a very short time was almost expected as a standalone for the never to be EQ Next.

    Landmark was, to me and many others who tried it, something which had :
    - nothing to do with the gameplay of Everquest obviously
    - BUT was one of the best building, crafting and adventuring game

    With the recent success of crafting / building / survival games, mainly Val...m (i don't quote it), I hope, and many other friends who played Landmark, that Daybreak will see what a raw gem they had, years in advance on the competition, with that game.

    Adapted for more server flexibility, Landmark as it was the day of its closing was 100 x times better than the aforementioned game, which sold for over 6 Million copies in 2 months..........

    Hope I won't be the only one here to pray for a return of a new, upgraded Landmark :)
  2. Wyndar Journeyman

    The popularity of games these days is pretty much decided by the top steamers and their droves of child followers who instead of playing games using independent thought anymore simply copy exact meta playstyles demonstrated by them and act toxic to anyone else who doesn't. Good luck.
    Wdor, Fenthen and Rolaque like this.
  3. KrakenReality Augur

    Man, someone is grumpy today. Go put on some Metallica and and rock out in your rocker. Valheim was the most recent example of a game going viral on streaming platforms and that’s a genuinely great game made by an indie studio. Today’s version of game advertising is so much better than any other time. It beats out paid for advertising in gaming magazines, shelf space, and in-store marketing promotions.

    Also, don’t forget to pickup your Prima strategy guide and grab a copy of Nintendo Power. Now, I kind of miss those days.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Viper1 like this.
  4. Warpeace Augur

    Thats the problem, it really had zero to do with Everquest. The problem is they failed to upgrade the game and keep it a top notch option. The core of the game is solid, but the fact they never bothered to modernize it and spent its profits on multiple fail adventures says a lot.

    Here we are still waiting on 64 bit.
  5. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Valheim is popular because it works.
    Landmark was dropped because it didnt.
  6. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    This is just my take on the whole EQNext/Landmark scenario:

    Landmark was originally just supposed to be the test-bed for EverQuest Next's player-content creation platform and was originally meant to usher in a new era of player & developer interaction and crowd-sourced creative design.

    Later on at the behest of the (mis)management of the day Landmark got repurposed into a game of its own - likely some of that was owing to the fact that EQ Next had been let out of the bag way too early in development and also the studio wanted or needed to make some money back on the tech investment expenditure already pumped in.

    Later still EQ next ran into some very strong technology hurdles and it couldn't overcome them with the way the game had been designed up to that point and with the sale to new owners that new ownership & management team with a different economic picture / ideological atmosphere for the company the decision was made to cease development rather than continue investing in further development.

    With EQ Next closed down the main purpose behind Landmark's creation - fuelling creative development of EQ Next's world - was no longer there so it too was shut down as keeping it running and developing it further on its own merits was not the direction the company wanted to go in any more.

    Valheim might well have some elements in common with Landmark but there are a dozen other far more successful titles than Landmark it could have taken inspiration & design cues from, the biggest being the whole survival genre but also from "builder-adventure" games like Minecraft & Terrarria that both predated & in turn likely inspired most of the stuff in Landmark.

    Landmark failed because it wasn't really built as a game from the start, it was a tool that was put into the hands of EverQuest players/fans, and them paying for that interest to be a part of a major AAA game's development, to get involved in the building of the game that was EverQuest Next then it was re-purposed into a game and while the developers arguably did a pretty good job of that it wasn't really what it was built for.
  7. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    An EverQuest-based building game could definitely work. As others here have already pointed out, Landmark was never envisioned as a standalone game. The technological underpinnings of Landmark were ahead of their time, but as a system would need to be completely re-imagined.

    I would prefer to see new EverQuest properties built from scratch. Not based on past technologies - but, rather, scored on new thinking using wisdom from prior failures to guide its direction.
  8. KrakenReality Augur

    I’d be amped for a Valheim style Everquest game. There’s a lot of great world building and exploration for it to work. Only question is how dead is the EQ Intellectual property.
  9. Svann2 The Magnificent

    We already have an EQ world.
    Id like a new world to explore.
    I_Love_My_Bandwidth likes this.
  10. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    A LOT of people (yours truly included) got burned bad on the Landmark Founder's Pack and Explorer Pack. I think it's a valid question to ask whether the EverQuest IP can stand up to the criticism and backlash still languishing from the absolute disaster known as Landmark and EQNext.

    Almost none (any?) of the major players involved in Landmark and EQN are still working at Darkpaw or Daybreak. It's possible Darkpaw could pull off a new EQ IP. Maybe...
    Wdor and Skuz like this.
  11. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    Can't....resist....any longer

    LANDMARK & NEXT
    Facts:
    -Landmark, Next, and EQ2 are not their only attempts at redoing/leveraging the EQ IP.
    -Next was never a playable game. Internally they found their own attempt at another EQ too boring to even present to the public. Scrapped because it wasn't "Fun enough to play."
    -Landmark was a playable game, with a marketplace selling DBG made items.
    -Landmark players could register for taxes, create items, put them in the marketplace and sell them to other players, just like Player Studio (but for everyone that lived in a supported country).
    -Landmark was never EQ3, it was set in a 'multi-verse' world, with Sci-fi, western, steam-punk, and EQ style fantasy elements.
    -Landmark had nearly every element of Fortnite. They were literally sitting on a gold mine, that was structured all wrong, but had all the tech and elements of wildly popular modern games.

    Opinions:
    -They have never been able, and are still currently not capable of doing a new EQ. And I wouldn't want them to try.
    -I don't think they are capable of envisioning mechanics and game-play for a game with building as a large part of the focus.

    Tinfoil:
    -They tried 4 times, internally, to rebuild EQ between EQ2 and Landmark.
    -Landmark was nothing but a pump and dump for the sale. Dave G. knew during that time frame they were trying to push through the sale.
    -They know nothing, no game, certainly no 22+ year old code, survives forever. So they keep casting about to create a new game, using EQs money. They have the nerve, they have the money, they (used to, at least) have some infrastructure to build on. They lack the vision to create something new that would catch on.

    Takeaway:
    I wouldn't want to see them try another Landmark. And from what they last said on the topic, they don't want to try that either.
  12. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    Landmark could have been something if they had kept going with it and abandoned the idea of using it for EQ Next. The OP is correct about Valheim and how it is in relation to Landmark. Valheim is not a long or complicated game, but it is getting a lot of attention. The building system is very similar to Landmark, and less fleshed out at this point. My friend who is huge into it right now was also huge into Landmark and the first thing he said when he mentioned Valheim was Landmark.

    If you weren't playing it back then, you missed out on the community aspect. People were building crazy things, recreations of real life things. Word would get out about something cool and where to find it, then others would go look at that thing. It was viral, and it had a lot of potential.

    I've said before that there is no way the devs or management could have realized at that time what they were sitting on. We have the benefit of hindsight now. What did Minecraft have that Landmark didn't? Not much to be honest. That's not a dig on Minecraft, just recognizing that sometimes an engine can be 80% of a game if the other 20% facilitates what the players need to use the engine the way they want.

    The same goes for Fortnite, they launched something similar to Landmark initially, and found it needed more to get people interested, so they added the battle royale mechanic and took over that genre. I'm not a fan of the game myself, but I get the appeal. That last little bit they added became the game, but the engine for building had to be there for that to work. Landmark had similar potential.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  13. Deux Corpse Connoisseur

    If this is truly defunct I would encourage whoever holds the IP to release the source code and let the EQ community crowd-dev it as an opensource game. If it becomes viable DB could easily find ways to monetize aspects of the game in some manner.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    There's still plenty of scope for them to create something with the engine & assets they built, which they still have, EQ Next was way too far ahead of its time the Voxel engine tech needs a bunch of developments in other technology to happen / be invented before its true potential will ever get close to being realised.

    I think for now that open-sourcing Landmark would actually be a really bad idea for them as a business and would cut them off from a possible future title that could be really profitable.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  15. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    All really good points just wanted to respond to...
    "What did Minecraft have that Landmark didn't?"
    -Modding: oh the texturing fun we will have.
    -Multi-platform:

    In regards to Landmark being any sort of an 'ip'. I'm not sure Daybreak even owns the assets any longer.

    The game 'concept' is nothing really unique enough to be considered an IP that had distinguishing properties, IMO.

    *edit*
    In regards to the engine (ForgeLight). They can and did build other games in it, of course. But it was mentioned in the context of Planetside2, that they could not open source if they wanted. There is too much middleware integral to the workings.
  16. Gherig Addicted since Aug 1st, 1998

    I am a adult, I have 3 grand-kids ... and I watch Streamers play games because I am tired of being ripped off by the gaming industry for games that say they do one thing, and by the time they go "Gold", they dropped half the features they claim they had in the box. Frankly, I wont buy a game today unless I watch a streamer play it long enough to convince me its not $59.99 worth of Vapor-Ware.

    Honestly, you don't understand the value of Streamers today. They have saved me hundreds if not a few thousand in game purchases for garbage games.
    Elyssanda likes this.
  17. Accipiter Old Timer


    Tell me you didn't put money in Pantheon. ;)
  18. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    No. Did you?
  19. Accipiter Old Timer


    I'll admit when I first heard about it I thought it could go somewhere. A couple of years later it was obvious that it would never ship. No, I didn't give them any money.
  20. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Customers.
    Wdor and Skuz like this.