Hollywood remakes successful franchises all the time. Star Trek has been alive in some fashion or another since 1968 for God's sake! EQ-Gold should be a complete re-write of the original game using new tools, processes, and enthusiasm. Grandfather 1 to 3 level 105 characters per account and start them over at level 1 but allow them to keep their names and some really cool distinguishing feature. The feature should be compelling and which forever and permanently marks the character as a veteran of the original EQ. The feature could be class-based, for example a veteran cleric could always have a 50% touch of the divine capability. Use the original game as a source but allow substantial deviation to make it "feel" new again. If DBG doesn't have the vision or resources to make this happen it should sell the EQ franchise to someone that does.
They actually tried to do that with EQ2 and if failed miserably. Somewhere on an EQ2 server there's a character with the name of a long forgotten main character from EQ. Pretty sure that my main at the time of EQ2 launching was an Erudite Paladin that I eventually deleted on EQ out of the sheer frustration of trying to get equipped without getting encumbered
After playing both EQ1 and EQ2 for several years, I find EQ2 to be a completely different game all together. The only similarity are in the names. Personally I found there are too many classes in EQ2. I hope that Daybreak would just scrap EQN and plan out a proper EQ3 mmorpg.
I would like a game with features like those found in Free Realm (not kidding) One character per account. Server select at the startup screen. No races just hometown selections but character customization based on gender and hometown selection. Any career is available to any character just that most careers only have trainers in certain towns. Hybrid classes only available after you've reached a set ability in the parent(s) classes. Different gear set for different careers. If I'm fishing I look silly wearing full plate. And no changing during combat.
WIn the lotto, donate the millions to EQ Devs to re-write. Otherwise it isn't going to happen as far as I can tell.
If you want another game, go play another game. Best thing that could happen to EQ (apart from actually advertising and getting new players which we all know will never happen) would be to stop using it as a cadh cow to fund every project under the sun and reinvest 100% back into itself and get it back to being the number one game that it was.
Might as well promise that it'll also be a recreation of EQ1. Won't be any more absurd than the other promises made about it. And if it never comes out, they're not breaking any promises!
To me one of the key things to get people to migrate from everquest, is offer to migrate their character. Now I understand it will be a new game, and not all of the features in EQ will be supported there, but given many people have played this game for over 15 years, and built their characters up, it's a wrench to leave them behind. Offering them the same toon with some items and features even if from a nostalgia point of view, would get more people to jump ship.
That's the problem, everyone seems to want to make us move from the game we love and have been playing for years to something different. If we wanted a different game we would probably already be playing it. What would be nice would be to see some love given to the existing game.
They should make a high level server where all content is tuned for lvl100+ and you can /copy your current character over when you reach lvl100 and above. You can exp. in Qeynos Hills and old world Karanas again at lvl105 instead of playing on a TLP server.
then make a third server for everything lvl 200+ it will be like easy medium and hard mode on diablo !
Only if the level 100+ versions of the older zones are shared instances, allowing you to still use the normal lower level zones.
I would be very happy if they remade EQ like it was in 1999, and slowly fix the problems that where faced. Balance out the issues so no Nerf never need to ever be done. It would and should be done on another engine. Possible modding now, and custom server hosting. It would all around fit into the new age of games. It also would allow for those that love to mod come to EQ. If you look on steam it isn't even a rated game anymore. Zoning into a brand new map, is still by far the best thing Everquest did then and now. Missions, and instanced Boss fights are what made EQ good. Open zone Boss fights brought on contests between other guilds. Hard 7 day boss spawns made EQ good. Making the time sync very difficult is what made EQ good. When i returned after a break, 2-3 addons short i found out it was too easy to level up. It was refreshing but it felt not like the original days. I really love EQ, and there will never be a game like it ever. The new 16 year old will never get a chance again to feel what we did back in 98-99. It was hardcore gaming at its best. So if i where to reinvent the wheel, it would be on a new engine. It would have to support good quality graphics, and tell the story of the original EQ again. I want it to be scary and give the first EQ experience again. I want it to take you 12 months to get to 50, i want to have hell levels like we used to have. I want the days before POP to exist again but in with the new addons past pop. I want EQ to tell the story again, in a new graphical engine. Worst of all, you keep looking for the EQ game again after you retire. I want to return, but not in its current state. So remake EQ. I am sure someone wants to. Maybe kick starter, with a fresh new look on it. remove the old dev's first of all, since they have spoiled intentions now. Force the new gen devs into understanding what EQ ment to us then.
I think that they were actually going to re-make EQ with excellent/detailed graphics, that were to be as realistic as possible. EQ and EQ2 are completely different Games that share some Lore. I think they started to develop exactly that, a remake of EQ, then the direction was changed shorty before they came out and announced Everquest Next/Everquest Landmark. They decided to make a world that used voxels and all that comes with that. You can not have a voxel world and Uber Realistic Graphics. So they changed to the Cartoonish looking Characters now present in Landmark. They changed direction and helped finance that change with selling the Founder Type Packs for Alpha and Beta access. This is a very brief and simplistic explanation of what occured, IMO, and does not include all that happened, etc. I think they changed Direction again, a bit, when they completely separated Everquest Next from Landmark. Now, we have had no press for quite sometime. The last we have officially heard, was that they were focusing resources on Everquest Next and not Landmark. I would not be surprised if a change in direction (small or big) was made when this occurred last year about this time. I think the lack of News supports this theory. They have changed direction before. We will soon find out what they have been up to IMO. No news is not always bad news!
As much as I like EQ, and I do, it was and is a near miss. It's high water mark was around 500K while WoW showed that the potential market was on the order of 10M. And the market is changing. Console gaming, highly mobile gaming, and casual gaming are doing better than desktop gaming. IF I had a huge pile of money to invest I'd want to re-define the genre/try to catch the wave of what people want even if they don't yet know that they want it. IF EQ Next is a major success we might see a stripped down, small world, more shooter-like EQ (a 1999 killer) appear too - in order to appeal to intense action fans (and there are a lot of them). But I wouldn't hold my breath. You can only put so many bets on the table at one time and with the EQ franchise DBG is betting on EQ Next (and TLP).
Really, the only hope I see to get any modern version of something that captures the spirit of classic EQ would be from a smaller independent outfit looking to serve that niche, because anything made by a major company aiming for mass-market appeal is not going to be like EQ. To make something like that you'd really have to know EXACTLY what you want - what actually made the original great, and how to translate that into a modern form without losing it. Aside from all the other stuff you'd normally need (great team, budget etc), you'd also need an extreme amount of focus, vision, and freedom to do what you need to do without getting pressure from higher-ups. Without all of that, the temptation to veer off and get distracted with trying "other stuff" is too great (as evidenced by EQNext/Landmark/EQuake3Arena/Whatever). The whole company has to be on board from top-to-bottom, otherwise we just end up with EQ-Shaped-Typical-Modern-MMO-Thing or a million ideas that go nowhere in a million different directions.
I won't pretend to be an expert about these things but - Using voxels does not automatically result in a block world that looks Minecrafty. (Minecraft doesn't use voxels btw. It uses polygon blocks. There's a difference.) . There are smoothing algorithms and other techniques that can produce eye-pleasing results - especially for terrain and static objects. (The little EQ Next terrain I've seen looks pretty good to me). IF it were up to me (and it very isn't) I'd use voxels for terrain and static objects, use Landmark for players who want to create buildings/static structures, and do characters and their gear with standard 3D. IMO Player Studio has proven some players are interested and capable of creating standard 3D objects. And the use of voxels does not necessarily dictate cartoonish characters. There's a difference between the amount of detail and style. Besides (<- armchair designer who knows nothing about what is happening inside EQ Next) a hybrid product, voxels for terrain and structures/standard 3D for characters is/was a possibility. Gotta be patient. DBG could use pulling a genre redefining EQ out of it's hat (motivation) and IMO they may even have the technical chops to do it.
