It's Official - End of EQNext

Hard to imagine anyone is surprised, it just was not going to ever be any good. I would do terrible things to get a good EQ3 but that wasnt it ever :/

Wow.. just.. wow. I have so many mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, having played Landmark and having seen the interface that they were using I am very glad that EQNext will not be happening, in the way they had it planned. I felt it was too console and cartoony to earn the EQ name. I am also glad that Landmark will continue.. there is a great community there and they create some truly amazing things.

I love EQ2, and I am hoping this means personnel resources like the Lovely and Talented Domino belong to us forever =D I am also glad to see Holly's role in Landmark. This, to me, is a good thing as she is so obviously passionate about her team, and making good stuff happen. She also is a realist and seems to have the kind of balance that they need in the position of Executive Producer. One cannot run a successful company on ideas and enthusiasm alone. You also need someone who is a realist and who can see opportunities for income generation, as well as see when something just isn't working, and adjust.

Best wishes to the entire DBG team as you transition and here's hoping that at some point there will be a worthy successor to EQ1 and EQ2.

Quite frankly, with the closure of Deathtoll and literally no new titles whatsoever in development for Daybreak, it's looking like the polar opposite: That Columbus Nova is choking off resources even further. I hope CN doesn't sell off the EQ franchise soon, but my internal alarm is going off. Let's hope it's wrong. I think players who can't see the forest for the trees keep trying to pretend in their heads that Daybreak/CN are Blizzard/Activision and it's really clouding their vision.

I'm sorry, but Landmark is launching this spring for $9.99 and will NOT be part of All Access or have a sub, according to MassivelyOP.com. http://massivelyop.com/2016/03/11/daybreak-has-canceled-everquest-next/

This tells me that there doesn't seem to be much more in the way of development or resources being earmarked toward Landmark. Think about it: A sub requires not only subscription perks to be developed and added to the game, but also new content on an ongoing basis as well.

Not surprised at all. They were trying to bite off more than they could chew. The artwork was terrible anyway. Looked like a Disney/Pixar movie. Fine for a movie, awful for a game.

Not surprised, but still a sour taste in the mouth...

Can EQ2 get some love now, as it deserves?

There probably will be layoffs, and any reallocation of resources will most likely go to the H1Z1 and DC Comics titles. I very highly doubt more resources will come our way unless Daybreak decides it makes financial sense to do it, and why should it? The newer titles will get the attention, not an 11-year old game with a diminishing playerbase.

If they truly want to commit to improving the Everquest titles, they'd put a small team on a graphics upgrade for EQ2 and try to generate new player interest by making it more of a flagship of the fantasy MMO genre now that there's no EQN. But I'm not holding my breath. Best-case scenario may be that they sell the EQ properties to someone with the competence and interest to work on them... but does such a company exist? When the sale to Nova happened, Smed said it was essentially the only interested buyer who didn't want to take the existing games and turn them into something terrible (i.e., microtransactions for everything).

Sadly I doubt we'll see more resource on EQ2 since EQN has been dead for a couple of months already. Sure its only official today, but I doubt they had any ressource on it for the past months, so they don't have any ressource to relocalate.

Also creating an MMO take about 6 years. So even if tomorrow they had a new plan, it wouldn,t be lunched prior 2022. Boy I,d be 38 years old so for me the everquest franchise is probably dead :-(

You'd be 38 yrs old? And....? Do you really think that your interest in gaming stops before 38 or something?

I'd be 64 then and I'd happily wait on a real successor.

EQ Done.

I'm veering off topic a little bit here so I apologize.

Companies need to take a serious look at their different types of market demands (genre, casual, general pve, raid, play mechanics, etc.) and learn how to fill them. Plenty of donuts people want to eat...so stop trying to make everyone eat one kind.

Based on what I've read from some other forums and blogs. The bulk of developers don't like making raid content because it takes away from an mmo (casual player) content. Most gaming companies don't seem to want to add the end-game/raid content; preferring to see the market go away and thereby forcing raiders to play the raid-less content casual players go for; likely for the easier money and the dilemma of raiders devouring large amounts quickly.
Even as a raider, I still empathize with that. However, there is still a consistent market probably near 10-20% of the mmo/gaming market as a whole. I base that on various comments by devs and gamers comments. I don't have a better approximation.

Raiders want to raid. they want to keep raiding-it's that simple. It's one version of the gaming world's softball or bowling league. There is that devotion that likely makes a steady percentage of the market, where the only fluctuations are typically disliked or dried-up content. It is stupid to dismiss that.

A simple idea (in that it is just a foundation to build on), could be separating the raid development and content; making it a separate addition to a game and it's expansions. It would be just like purchasing a deluxe or collectors package/edition; an amenity that you pay to unlock.
All players purchasing the game get the traditional content; only the raiding is added on. I hope that makes sense.

My hope in this is that the mmo developers commit to a game with improved quality and increased content in the general content by a dev team involved in raid/end-game development; and also increase quality and quantity of the raid/end-game content. The additional cost of raid content (in theory) would be commensurate with the additional devs and resources needed to create it.
In short, a win, win, win for casual/general pve players, raiders, and the company making the game, That is...if none of the parties involved do something stupid or unintended that torpedoes the simplicity of it.
I say "stupid", because it's not friggin' hard to make this work; beyond marketable price vs. cost. At one time or another, we've seen stupid by all parties in this gaming genre since it's inception.

This all means developers having little or no divided of attention; sloppy mistakes; less rush; less band-aid fixes/patches; and hopefully a player base that remains loyal and steady.

I'm guessing the sticky parts are a raid package's price raiders are willing to pay vs. the time and cost to develop.
What people maybe weary about is a company that slides over one department to help with the other; resulting in players being chinced out of their respective content (not getting what they paid for). This, initially, is out of the players' hands.
Obviously this marketing idea should be researched heavily to see if it's possible.

It's a spitball, but I can't see how the theory hurts anyone; and as I alluded to, raiders have to get what they pay extra for-that's the whole point.

So yeah. Until then...it's EQ Done.

if I remember correctly the eqn staff was downsize a lot shortly after the db bought out. so there really isn't a lot of able bodies now to work on this game that many of you want to believe.

the original eqn concept of an ever changing world is a great idea. but I think the implementation and development of a game engine for such was just too aggressive in todays mmo's market. in other words they had problems making it work.

I think the thing companies see is a market they want money from, but aren't willing to invest in. The downsize reflects that-they inflated their stock market value (to what end we don't know). The thing players are naive and dismissive about, is that they/we dictate the market; control it. We shouldn't be manipulated by it. Daybreak isn't going through hard times...their developers are-which means blame goes up. The idea here is to up channel disgust at corporate/executives to let them know it won't stand. We can't continue to be submissive to it because we're afraid they will take it away from us-that's stupid. We are the market. If DBG doesn't want to make the game we want to buy, someone else will. We have to gut up and show them we're serious about it and not fools willing to pay for crap.

LOL I am 65 and my husband is 68. We plan to keep on gaming forever.

And they'll continue to do things like add 2 Gnolls to Antonica and sell it to us as an "adventure pack" until the horse is beaten dead.

Shmud and Smokeblower deserve most of the blame for this, CN was just the vulture that landed on the corpse first.

they lied to get fund for something they had no intention of making in the first place. that the only reason i paid 100 bucks for landmark, nothing more.

I do too. If it's in the faces of the backers AND Devs that the game ain't fun why the heck sink more money into the Jaguar (auto) of Norrath. Let's put more money BACK into the games that made us strong they should be saying.

I still think this is the best game out there. Now if CN would develop an effective marketing campaign and work on the EQ2 engine/graphics a bit and allocate a bit more resources, I think EQ2 would draw and hold a decent player base.

Just had a few new people join the guild and one played WOW since the beginning and had never heard of EQ2. He is now having a blast with everything EQ2 offers-by far the most of any MMO.

Advertise this game. Devote some more resources. A lot of people are bored and looking for something worthwhile to play-EQ2 is in a good position to fill that void if done correctly.

This kinda sums up how I felt about it.

Reminds me of the same path Ultima Online went down.

• Cancelled UO2.
• Less and less support for UO,
• No new expansions in years.
• Bought and sold to different companies over the years.
• Running on autopilot with minor updates and bug fixes.
• Dev team down to 3 people working out of garage.

Please cite your sources and provide URLs.