Ji Ham announces EverQuest 3

Sort of. Coming to your PC in 2028.

https://massivelyop.com/2023/09/20/...rquest-mmorpg-for-2028-after-years-of-rumors/

$30 million and only 3 years of development time? I can't imagine that being a PC game. It'd have to be a mobile game.

That really looks like a mobile game line-up.

Listened to the presentation portion from that slide, Ji Ham spoke about From Software spending $30 million to make Elden Ring that turned into over $1 billion, largely due to From's reputation built over 13 years. Pointed out, it's not something they're expecting but they want to imitate From Software by getting away from quality of life and easy style of games to something harder and back to its roots.

So, for those that want a harder style game EQ3 would be targeted at you.

30m budget gets you around ~100 people game Dev roles for the 3 years

It could be done

Fair point, but that would have to be a laser focused team that nails every decision and never doubles back. I sense some crunch.

In the presentation he basically suggests that thanks to From Software and their hardcore games being a success (Elden Ring being the peak and hitting 1 billion), it would be more like the old Hardcore Sandbox style of EQ and not the modern MMO theme park design, which probably could help push its budget down

Neat, but "sort of" is right. This is just a pitch to their investors, isn't it? Nothing further than that.

I did watch/skim through the 2.5 hour presentation and put up some highlights if anyone was interested in other things in this presentation (related to EQ/DBG and not the other stuff)

Interesting. I'm not entirely sure that people are clamoring for EQ3, especially with the amount of titles that have been published half- in recent years and didn't have any long term playability. I honestly have no clue what the right answer is. Remastered EQ1 seems to be out of the realms of possibility for Darkpaw and we won't see it unless it becomes a passion project for someone. The IP on mobile does not make much sense and even less sense for a console game.

He actually said they canceled DCUO Remastered and wont be giving that kind of budget to do anything similar to any of their current games, because it makes no sense spending wise

Basically extra funding will be for things required to keep the games running for the next 10 years (64 bit, dx11, etc), or if they can pull in more Revenue

3 years development time for a MMO project and a $30 million budget in San Diego . Sounds like a pipedream and its understandable why Holly Longdale left to work on classic wow when her project ideas for EQ3 kept getting declined because of a lack of capital for years.

I still say they should buy Pantheon and rename things to Norrath names.

Can you link your site please?

As already mentioned, it might not being developed by Daybreak in San Diego. It would be only possible if they can recruit about 100 more employees just for the game development and with the united assistance of the whole Darkpaw team (EQ + EQ II). My bet is still that Blizzard and Microsoft will be involved as Microsoft seems to be part of the EG7 group with Mechwarrior and might finish the deal with Blizzard. So it might be possible that we will hear from Windstalker and Prathun again.

Three years is just as long as the development of EQ had took from 1996-1999 and I don't think that they will repeat the mistake to release 72 zones. It might be just 20-30 zones for the release. If it takes longer than that the chance for a release will cease because of outdated technical standards at the release date and freeloaders. Costs are not so much a problem anymore because EG7 does swim in credits/money. 30m for possible 1000m would be a nice investment return ratio.

This is not an announcement. This is a sales pitch, as others have noted.

Though I think $30M is a small budget, maybe they can pull it off licensing UE5 and releasing content over time?

Seems to be a strategical mistake to invest into H1Z1 again with a survival mode game. They already failed with the battle royale mode and they would have to take that money from EQ and EQ II again. And they are talking about a mobile game in the cinema presentation, maybe that one will be the new EQ game ? It would explain the low budget.

h1z1 earned 200m over its lifespan (like 4 years), they always talked about returning to make a new game there to try again

Fair enough then.

I am excited about this!

30 million for Elden Ring? Thats about 1/6 of what it cost, on the conservative end. They had a team of over 225 people working on it over nearly 5 years.

That entire presentation is farcical nonsense.

much like your post about storage space, unsure if trolling or making up weird stuff that is nowhere near reality.