Kickstarter

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks, FAQs, and New Player Discussion' started by dcracknell, Jun 26, 2015.

  1. dcracknell Member

    DBG

    Get your EQ2 developers to port Everquest 2 to the Forgelight Engine; the engine Planetside 2 uses.

    Don't change anything, don't create new textures and new assets; don't adjust anything.

    Start with the main cities and their adjoining zones; Antonica, Common Lands- then corral all the quests into quest-lines in those areas, working on set pieces to leave the cities ready for the next zone. However you want to do it.
    Create the feeling within the cities of a protective wall and the unknown beyond. It's dangerous out there.
    Encourage, without any deviation, group play beyond those walls. 1-2 players, 3-4 players, 5-6 players. Whatever.
    12-24 players.
    Forgelight is waiting for Everquest 2.

    Change the Everquest 2 port to the kind of game it was originally, with a few adjustments that fit well with how everybody likes to play a game. You'll figure it out.
    The most important one by far is lighting and shadow. Developers still don't get how important these two effects are. Make sure day is day and night is night.

    Make classes unique. They cannot survive without the other. Make Healers feel like they're keeping everybody alive. Make Tanks feel like they're protecting everybody.
    Planetside 2 is doing this; only in a non-direct way. But it's doing exactly that. And it works. If you changed that class meta in any way in Planetside 2, you'd destroy the game.

    Everquest 2 is an original. Nobody is going to copy it.
    And nobody is going to copy the Forgelight Engine any time soon.
    Fibre-optic connections are going to spread like wildfire; and networks they're connecting to are going to be hitting Terabit-standard bandwidths in less than 5 years. Any of the problems inherent in networks today, will not exist.
    Planetside 2 gives and experience that has not been duplicated at the moment. Make use of that change in the games industry.

    Set a Kickstarter of 10M and then get it under way.

    Everquest 1/2 is unlike anything else anybody is doing- and a certain top tier MMO is making very, very, very, big, big, big mistakes that are affecting their gamers more than they're putting on of pretending to ignore it.

    DMG doesn't have to big; they just have to unique.

    You have all these assets with Everquest 2 and they are one of a kind.
    Make use of them outside of a critically crippling game engine you're currently using.

    Good luck.
    Amaitae likes this.
  2. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    A Kickstarter of 10 million? Seriously? :-/

    And frankly, other than improving the game engine (which I totally agree with), I see absolutely nothing wrong with the way the game is set right now: a lot of the "good old days" sucked, and I like the way things are now. Frankly, I can do without critters way too close outside the city gates that are 10 levels above what the zone level should be (and ditch the Channeler shadow critters unless one IS a Channeler, O Powers!), and I never shed one tear in mourning over the loss of subcombines in crafting (the suburbs, now...I'd like those back).

    If you wind up forcing people to group, a lot will leave. Keep that aspect, keep the decorating, keep a lot of the playing options we have right now.

    I don't think this port could be done in less than a month, with no one accessing it but the people working on it, and I doubt the player base would be willing to do so (even if it were only affecting a region at a time). Most of that 10M would probably have to go to hiring people to pump up the staff again for this project (and hopefully keeping them afterwards!).

    Yes, computer tech will improve; that's what it does. No, people's financial situations won't necessarily improve along with it. We're already having massive issues where many players can't access the game any more using WinXP boxes (Microsoft gave up on it completely only last year), and this company can't afford to lose too many more customers. Porting over won't necessarily guarantee scads of new customers coming in a timely fashion (especially if the Powers That Be don't advertise it). :-/

    Uwk
    Belenos likes this.
  3. ZUES Well-Known Member

    You guys remember a few years ago when the servers went offline for a really long time because of hackers? I believe they took the opportunity and upgraded the engine during that downtime. I'm not going to dig through the archives to find that post though.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  4. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    I thought they'd wanted to; I spoke to one of the devs who agreed that it was really needed, but I don't think they got the chance to do so. :(

    Too bad; would've been perfect, since no one could get in to play anyway, but I think they were more worried about getting the security mess straightened out asap. :-/

    Uwk
  5. Feldon Well-Known Member

    Could the EverQuest II engine use an upgrade? Absolutely! However I think you are misunderstanding what Forgelight is.

    The biggest thing Forgelight would offer to EQ2 is a graphical revamp. Realize also that it would leave behind all users of Windows XP and older graphics cards. Forgelight requires a very powerful graphics card. If you aren't going to improve the graphics, then why bother?

    So... turn EQ2 into a theme park MMO with a glowing trail leading you by the nose from area to area with no discovery or mystery to explore. In the older EQ2 zones, you have to dig up rocks, kill random enemies, root around in tree roots, examine stone monuments, etc. to find the quests. They're buried and hidden. In later zones, there's a row of quest feathers pointing the way like a Las Vegas billboard. Your suggestion is totally contradictory, on one hand asking to take the game back to its roots, and on the other asking them to change older EQ2 zones to match the "never go off the well-marked path" ideal of WoW/Rift.

    It really sounds like you read a blurb on a website saying that Forgelight is awesome, but haven't really digested what Forgelight actually is, and now you're demanding that EQ2 be migrated to it immediately. Forgelight is a 3D graphics engine. It has NOTHING to do with game design, quest design, how zones are populated, etc. Were millions of dollars available to do so, migrating EQ2 to Forgelight would be a graphical revamp.
    I thought you didn't want to change the graphics? Also again Forgelight has nothing to do with game/NPC difficulty or design.
    Class balance has nothing to do with Forgelight.
    I would suggest reading up on the Forgelight (now Forgelight 2) engine. It's a set of technologies. It's not game design in a can.
    What in the world does a faster internet connection have to do with anything?
    Planetside 2 is a First Person Shooter (FPS) with no missions system and limited gameplay beyond deathmatch and capture the flag PvP. It is a testament to the Planetside 2 community that they've come up with things to do and ways to keep themselves occupied given how little the game actually gives you to work with. Players have had to fill in all the gaps and add context.

    P.S. that's the plan for EverQuest Next. Give the building blocks to players and then it's up to us to design the cities, dungeons, quests, missions, etc. Game design without the designer. *shudder*
    *shaking my head*
    Tahuti, Alenna, Belenos and 6 others like this.
  6. flameweaver Well-Known Member

    /smiles at OP and ponders "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" ;)
  7. dcracknell Member

    Feldon and flameweaver are of the type that died out 10 years ago and haven't been told where the world has moved on to.

    They're a reflection of the game they play at the moment.

    Feldon- reading someone's post should also go alongside remembering what you have read, and that it's the same thing you remember.
    flameweaver- you're agreeing with somebody purely out of a context that they must be correct.
  8. Breta Well-Known Member

    I initially thought your post was a joke, but it looks like you're dam serious. Get real EQ2 is 11 years old game in today's world it's a relic of a past with all the pros and cons. I'd suggest to accept that and enjoy the ride while it lasts.
  9. dcracknell Member

    Breta.

    There's more than EQ2 that is from the era of 2004.
    One of those "relics" makes $1B world-wide per year; a $100M per month; $3M a day.

    And they're the same thing. Which is really, really bizarre when you think about it.
    "They're The Same Thing".

    EQ2 devs are so tied to what they're doing - they don't know what they're doing.
    It can feed off of micro-transactions all it likes. It's been made reliant on micro-transactions because only a small part of it is viable without it.

    That's like confirming bad news, but leaving an area of safety based on a poor sense of direction.

    I can't enjoy any ride, if there's too much of a problem prohibiting me from getting on it.
  10. flameweaver Well-Known Member

    Tell me, why should DBG port EQ2 to a third party engine when :
    they have already developed a new 64bit engine for their next gen games - Landmark, EQ Next
    waste effort and money for a high risk port that will most likely create nothing but pain for the players and devs alike.
    Unlike you I know where the future is, it's looking forward, not trying to fix the past.

    No I'm not and yes they are.
    Belenos likes this.
  11. Liou_Unrest Active Member

    Let's make a kickstarter of 100 billion dollars, make the greatest game ever made and attain world domination , with enough money left over to get a big enough mirror to look through and relish over how smart we are for thinking of such a great idea.
    Belenos and Uwkete-of-Crushbone like this.
  12. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    I pushed the export_all button. Done!
    Tahuti, Belenos, Katz and 9 others like this.
  13. Eles Well-Known Member

    can you make a uber draw with the new graphics, i miss those draws that you used to make for us :p
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  14. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    Don't worry, we'll tighten up the graphics on level 7!
  15. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Great, Tobe, but don't tighten it so much to the point that you lose a lot of your customer base, please. :-/

    Uwk
    ttobey likes this.
  16. Neiloch Well-Known Member

    lol you can't just do that.


    You have to open forgelight2.exe and 'import' as well.

    Honestly it would probably be more efficient (and realistic) if they just took some specific aspects and optimized them. Either a couple of big things or a lot of smaller ones.
  17. Arieste Well-Known Member

    oh and after you're done that, can you please make another version using the Black Desert engine? thanks!
  18. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    It's probably just another button click. Hang on a sec....
    Belenos, Prissetta, Feldon and 3 others like this.
  19. ttobey Makes the Monsters Move

    Whoops! Somehow I deleted Soga models! And control-z isn't working!
    Mermut, Belenos, Rhvaurek and 10 others like this.
  20. ZUES Well-Known Member

    Alt F4 still works tho. Puts me in "productive mode".
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.