Would you be able to sell a 90 year old classic motorcycle to an 18 year old who wants the performance of a modern motorbike? Nope, but you can sell it to a guy who used to ride one in his youth & appreciates the nostalgia of that old classic in a way the younger rider never could. EQ1 & an EQ3 would be for completely different audiences. That EQ1 is still profitable is completely irrelevant to the conversation about EQ3.
Doesn't mean they want to join ANY kind of EQ, but an audience for an EQ 3 probably does exist if it offers something different to the other MMO on the market. The audience for EQ1 is already here.
No, but it makes it far more likely. I would never be able to convince my friend to play a 20-year-old game. But a new game with good graphics, sure, that wouldn't be too hard.
Last I checked the audience for EQ1 is pretty small compared to the audience for other MMO's even at the peak of EQ. They might go that way but using the EQ name doesn't mean it will draw in lots of players.
It would be a waste of 20 years of content to start a new EQ title from scratch. With only $30M (theoretically) allocated for development, I think EQ3 would need to be based almost 100% on EQ1 (items, quests, dialog, etc.) and focus on implementing all of that stuff in a new engine. They would save massive amounts of development cost and set up EQ3 for another 20 year run within the franchise.
A lot of EQ development is also outsourced to India, so costs are lower. Outside of indie developers, I actually see less and less game development being done in the US. Wages are just way too high to remain competitive, and game development is very easy to outsource because it's all digital. These outsourcing companies were first used to create assets. But they're increasingly doing code too.
Forgelight. It was used on several other daybreak games including PS2 and it accomplished something many engines cannot figure out which is having hundreds/thousands of players on one map without massive lag. Something most MMOs suffer greatly from because they're using game engines adapted from single player games like hero and cryengine even unreal has issues with it.
Fixed that for you. ForgeLight is a great accomplishment for its time but I think you give its creators a little too much credit. Developing a new game engine is widely regarded as one of the most expensive, most ambitious ventures for a game studio. There's no evidence of [then] SOE having any distinct advantage over its competitors when looking at cost. The costs for ForgeLight were likely justified as it was designed to be a universal game engine to support many of the new titles SOE and $med had green-lit, starting in 2009 with FreeRealms. Apparently ForgeLight has made its way as far as the disastrous 2019 release of PlanetSide Arena - which shut down a scant four months after launch. This isn't necessarily the fault of the engine. However ForgeLight was a likely contributor due to lack of suitable development tooling for a modern title. If there's a yet-to-be announced, modern-era successor to ForgeLight known only to you, please, tell me more about it. But something tells me there isn't and you won't. On the other hand, UE5 is a well-documented, widely-used, well-supported, modern, customizable game engine with a massive toolset and PGC capability baked-in. EverQuest's artwork, zones, architecture, can all be imported to UE5 directly. It's already been done by solo game developers. UE5 is a natural choice given the budget and job listings shown so far.
It's strange how the future seems so far off, but how 2018 felt like yesterday. I refuse to believe that it's been 5 years, since TBL was announced.
honestly its the game nobody wants or asked for if you guys have money to burn why not spend it giving us actual full expansions more engaging missions and unique loot that keeps its value over multiple expansions? or invest in removing the botters that have plagued the economy? update seasonal events that have not changed in decades perhaps? epic 3.0? its kind of sad watch og eq just get copy and pasted every expansion because your wasting time and resources on eq3
You can't be that naive. Darkpaw doesn't exist to ensure no one moves your cheese. They exist to profit. In case you haven't noticed, EverQuest is nowhere near as popular as it used to be. Which means they aren't profiting as much. Further, they are now a wholly-owned subsidiary of a major, publicly-traded gaming conglomerate whom seek to maximize profits. Darkpaw is in a position to leverage an existing, well-known IP. Why wouldn't they?
True. but why waste time on current issues? ForumQuest requires that there be at least two running topics at all times. If not, things would just be, well, wrong. And intense speculation over a game that may never actually come to be is a sort of catharsis. It allows folks to work through their own issues and project them on a team of developers who may not have even been hired yet. It is, in truth, a great sort of pressure relief valve for frustrated gamers who dream of importance in the larger world. As such, threads like this that will likely be completely forgotten in a year or so, can assume a position of pseudo importance. Much like many message boards around the world.
Can you name all the great MMOs using UE 4 or 5 ? Can you even name an MMORPG using it ? There is a very good reason these companies are not developing MMORPGs on UE its the same reason developing one using hero or cry is a bad idea they're not built for MMOs with hundreds/thousands of people in one area. UE is great until you get 500 + players in one area once that happens the backend slows to a crawl and you get serious lag it happens in Hero and Cry Engine also. You ever play rift and do one of the open world events ? When hundreds of players have the same boss targeted the lag was insane or in SWTOR the large scale PVP battles they had early on the lag was crazy.
Fair point. Still doesn't make ForgeLight a good choice nor UE5 a bad one. Also, there seem to be a few MMORPG using UE5 according to obscure gaming news outlets.
