Like Fooba said, check out Pantheon guys. It's Brad McQuaid making it, the same person that made vanilla EQ. Finally after getting to see Pantheon's first stream on Twitch a few hours ago looks almost exactly like a modern version of EQ. Absolutely everything I saw was almost to the tee with vanilla EQ. I guess it's safe to call it a spiritual successor. Pre-alpha's supposed to start soon too. So what I want to know now is...why are the EQ vets here worried about EQN being shut down when a new EQ is being made? Especially when EQN seemed to be polar opposite to vanilla EQ. Who gives a crap about EQN.
I stand corrected. H1Z1 is being developed for Windows, PS4, and XBox1. If that's the case, DBG actually has licenses/permission to release a PS4 and XBox1 game, they do it, and it does well that gets SOE/DBG back on track as a multi-platform developer. Of course a project that looks like its going to be a success will affect projects that are costly and showing some issues. It's not fun (and needs to have a design revamp) is a pretty serious issue. Does that mean EQ (and a couple of other titles) are facing imminent shutdown? I don't think so. EQ is shipping product, people are buying it, and the product is mostly working (loose ends are not show stopper deadly). IMO EQ gets shut down if the company faces serious cashflow problems and must focus on a save the corporate bacon project. Until then its not even about profit. It's about preserving and creating "value". EQ has a fair amount of perceived value. When you have active titles you are a "player". When you don't you are a want to be player. DBG needs EQ. It doesn't have a whole lot else to hang its hat on/that its famous for doing.
Brad is also the guy that said that casters binding in dungeons was a mistake. He's also the guy that brought us corpse runs. he's also the guy that said alchemy was working perfectly (/sarcasm). Also remember his philosophy seems to be that contention for time-limited resources equals fun, so expect 3 day jboot camps all over again. I would never trust Pantheon to be playable nowadays. There will be way too many time sinks and punishing mechanics. Maybe some will be drawn to that, but not enough for a viable game. Don't get me wrong, I am *NOT* saying a game has to be easymode - in fact, I prefer the opposite. But what I am saying is arbitrary bottlenecks. timesinks and inconveniences are NOT the way to make a game fun. Challenging mechanics, choices that matter, player skill and yes, even having classes matter all make for a tough, but enjoyable game. Lots of that was in EQ, from both sides of the equation, however I believe over time the game has actually gotten better, I don't know until I see more than Pantheon would be enjoyable to play or just torture.
I expect Brad has learned a think or two since he was building EQ nearly 20 years ago and through his experience with Vanguard (which was a very good game but needed another year in development.)
WoW was a success because they had a huge lore and following behind it, not because they put out an expansion once every 3 years or so. Their biggest numbers came when they leveraged that lore heavily (Lich King) and used it to produce an excellent expansion.
Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away. EQ Next died and isn't here to stay... Ohh, I believe in yesterday!
Looks promising. It does seem to play like EQ somewhat. Hopefully this'll be what we were all hoping for from an EQ sequel. And I like the graphics style they went with.
Thank god for this. They have splurged so many resources for this game on EQ2, EQ players, EQ next. Ugh, Spend it on THIS GAME. I don't give a crap about the franchise, I love THIS GAME. I LOVE THIS GAME MFERZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol
Bout time, they announce something that everyone who plays Everquest knew was gonna happen when they FIRST .. announced this "project" waaaaay back what .. years ago ?
I really doubt anyone had been working on eqnext for quite awhile, perhaps I'm wrong... Both devs likely continue to try to get the next cookie cutter expansion crammed into the next re-used zones to be ready for the next $39.99 release.
A few points. 1. EQN cancelled. Good. It was a train wreck. From the early stages (I never bought the hype...) it was clearly a wreck. They never focused on core game play. They focused on gizmo features. Anyone who lived thru Warhammer Online saw that coming. What should have a been a solid, good game, was ruined by lack of focus and and a complete lack scope control. 2. Landmark. I detest that name. I detest it. Over the years, as I checked in on EQN "progress" I would become so annoyed at every web search returning the intensively boring "stare at voxles" Landmark BS. The confusion that Landmark created, the lack of focus on core game play, the diversion of resources, the $100 cash grab...all of it just crated the goodwill of the majority of players. Did you like Landmark? Ok great. Did you notice the 99% of the market knew nothing and cared nothing about Landmark? There were reasons for that. 3. Lack of Leadership. Smedley vacillated between F2P game concepts (that were just disguised cash transaction micro-grabs that ruined game design, I am looking at you Planetside 2) and at one point he went down the EQN-as-a-facebook-based-MMO. W.T.F? There was never a central--and ENDURING--leadership stance on what EQN was going to be. God bless that guy for being part of the team that brought us EVERQUEST but he became too fixated on the Asian Micro Transaction model (he has since learned from that, awesome!). 4. Lack of organizational control. It doesn't take much to learn about the culture at the former SOE. Good ole boys network. People who didn't do much work but sat as corks on a champage bottle...preventing the flow. Letting bad people remain, and moving them into mgmt positions is the best path to, first, mediocrity, then to failure. In that way, SOE's sale was a blessing. 5. Lack of Project Mgmt. I am a project manager. I could see clearly that there was little to none of that on EQN. No real progress for years.YEARS! A few canned demos that fell flat (i.e. missed the original project intent). It's as if they never had a schedule. With no schedule you don't have to focus on core mechanics and can instead, nance about the office giving power point presentations and talking about how your project is "Agile". They seemed to nance about from one 'wow paaaazaaz!' feature to another without ever finishing one. Emergent AI? A life of consequences? Guys...that stuff never made it off a power point presentation. Meanwhile, after 3+ years no one knew what the core game was about. Because the core game never existed. 6. Insulting your customers. I am talking about moving most game and company info to Reddit and Twitter. BAD. MOVE. SOE/DBG. If I have to explain why, it's of no use.I am talking about not reinvesting in what actually makes you money. Yes. Everquest and whatever other games are actually being paid for by customers. I am talking about a dwindling team who are doing the yeoman's work of keeping the cash flowing while the nancing team is off gawking at the latest Six Sigma inspired power point of Belle and the Beast doing the crouching tiger-flying kerran combat animations. I am talking about dwindling focus, bad expansions, boring expansions and most dev time devoted to sticking a fork into the eyes of paying customers (I am looking at you DBG guy who decided it was a good idea to nerf experience post 100 if you adventured somewhere other than the latest expansion). Nice way to dictate game play guys. Great thinking. I am talking about stifling customers who, like me, have paid you money for 17 years. 17 YEARS GUYS. And why? because EQ was GOOD. And what did you decide to do? IGNORE THE GOOD AND FOCUS ON POWER POINTS! <head explodes a little> So...for all of us still here. Consider this. When was the last time the .. I don't know what her title is....Producer maybe? When was the last time she gave factual information on the future of Everquest? Now compare what has been said of EQ in the past to what has actually occurred. I hope EQ continues on, but i want the people who think that nerfing = development and growth to be set aside. If you can't devote resources to game improvements...then...DO NOTHING. And for the record, none of the recent nerfs in EQ affects me..I actually don't mind them, but at this time, and for the last 8 months, my view of the EQ/DBG company is that they resent their paying customers. Lastly, as an aside, I stopped playing Planetside 2 about four months ago. That game has been left out to dry. I see the same for EQ on the horizon.
How did this happen???? I will tell you the same reason D3 is a POS is why EQNeXT failed..... Look people all we wanted was Everquest re-drawn / updated... Classic - pop should have been where eqnnext started from... Take all the gear / raids / zones update them.... Instance the raiding.... Make servers with different rules... I mean was it so hard to do you had every zone Thought of all ready!!! You could steal the quests from eq2 as well....you have zone names / NPC names / raid zones raid targets everything!!! Hell new shiny graphics private dungeons / open for camps it was all there!!! Hell even makin / updating spells wouldn't have been that hard!!! We have everything in place and yet I have no idea wtf eqnnext was even trying to do.... Actual tier raiding Nagy/Vox planes - then you farm up to Kunark bossses and so 4th!!
Sucks for the people that pre bought those advantages over a year ahead of time for $20-$100. Hopefully they get their money back.
You and I have different definitions of life support. Life support is not putting out new expansions every year and patches every month. It's doing as little as possible to keep the game running. That's clearly not happening.
It's a poor analogy too. The operating system had to evolve to take advantage of the computer power. And drop the 640K restriction and things like that. Bad analogies are bad. People aren't still trying to boot up Dos or Windows 3.1 computers, but they sure as heck are booting up EQ.
