What EQNEXT should have looked like

The animations/ how it is rendered ? it just feels weird .....

like, WoW is an awful game, but he god dam animations are so smooth, the rendering is great as in your getting a crystal clear view.

I'd pay 3000sc for each piece of weapon/armor that meet the Elderscroll: Skyrim Community taste.

Skyrim was a good mix of chaulkyness and realism. I loved how it looked. However, I concur that EQN is too cartoonyish.

Agreed. If they would just dial back the 'fantasy' a tad...

Case-in-point: EverQuest Elves do NOT need 10-inch long ears. Those bother me more than the Kerra and only serve to hearken EQNext to WoW.

Indeed.. those are ears, not WINGS! =P

I like the extra long ears on the Soga Dark Elves. All of my dark elves (male & female) have them. Never played WoW, so can't really comment there. Its just a matter of personal taste.

My pet peeve resides in the area of oversized weapons and pauldrons. But again, it all boils down to what each player likes.

Long ears, big eyes and huge swords need to stay in Japanese anime.

Rid us of the Elf ailerons and the XXXXXL armor and I can live with everything else. It's just too gaudy.

I have tried every SOGA model in EQ2. Some aren't bad, just not my cup of tea - nor are they in line with the general feel of Norrath. Sorry, but the anime influence doesn't wear well in EQN.

In your opinion only. I hate the original models...except for the ogres. The rest of them...no thanks.

I'm also put off by the childish cartoon characters. I had hoped for better quality art in the more realistic style similar to EQ and EQ2. I'm really intrigued by some of the game features I hear about and the terrain artwork. I just don't know that I can come round to playing a Disney princess or Bratz doll type character. It's really confusing to me - the features point to a more mature and design-wise audience, the character design seems to be for a children's game audience.

I have to agree. I don't even like the original Ogre models myself all the original models look like they was put together using silly putty and painted with water colors . I only ever use Soga models .

This is just SOE doing the best WoW impression, They say the cartoony and big armor graphics are for SOEmote I can count on 1 hand the number of players on my server that use the emote now so I'm not buying into that line of crap. When they first showed the pic way back at Fan Fair a couple of years ago it wasn't cartoony so what happened? I was excited to play it but now not so much.

What happened is money. WoW fans get bored, need something familiar enough to pick up, but new enough to retain. Along comes EQN to snap up all the dollars. This game needs to be a huge win in terms of sustained population for the company to keep it afloat. So we settle for WoWish graphics and adult mechanics. I think I can come to live with that.

I don't think SOE should focus on being ultra realism in graphics. All you do is end up limiting the audience of players that can play the game. Now don't get me wrong I don't mean all the halo kids, but people who aren't doing well finically and can't go spending $2,000 to play the most realistic looking game out there. I think if they keep it in line with EQ2 or go the way they are it till be fine.

They need to worry about the experience of the game, and the immserion of the world over how real it looks. If you want real looking then go out into the real world.

LOL adult mechanics? L hardly call the limited choice of combat skills presented adult. The choice is built around gamepad controls and is way less complicated than even eq1 was with it's single 8 bar option.

Sorry but there is no way anyone can call the mechanics in this game anything more than 12 to 17 year old facerolling gamepad play.

Oh and the graphics suck. Also todays machines don't need to cost 2k to run realistic stylized graphics that is a false choice. As I said before these graphics are built around SOEmote (which is a dumb reason to start with) and appeal to "teeni boppers."

The 8 "skills" is going to kill it for me. At the very least give players 24 Abilities (two hotbars) they can customize with 8 Weapon Skills, 12 Class Skills and 4 dedicated item slots or something.

No you don't but when you start pushing the bar as the NEXT GEN game and then toss realistic graphics onto it, you do need an expensive computer. I am sorry but you CAN NOT get a gaming rig that can play skyrim at high, not ULTRA but high, graphics for under $1,000. If you are a person who is in debt and have kids but still like to play games forcing players to have to buy something better then what they have will turn players away.

I have a $2,000 water cooled, with raided hard drives and dual graphics card computer that can play any game on the market and for years to come. However I lost my job because my company went out of business and can't afford to make another computer at $900 just so my girlfriend could play.

I am happy that I can play EQ2 with my girlfriend on her current computer and we spend a lot of time enjoying the game. However don't be foolish to think that making a more realistic game doesn't force people to have to get a better computer. When EQ2 came out I instantly got it and was excited to play, however I wasn't able to because of the direction they went with the graphics forced me to HAVE to buy a new computer.

Look at Minecraft, people went ape **** over that game. Not because of the graphics, but because it was innovative. It has nothing to do about graphics, it has the whole world to do with gameplay. You are already judging the game because you don't like how it looks. I am more worried about the fact it seems they got rid of the holy trinity, that levels seemed to have been removed, that I only get 8 skills to and how the "parkour" traveling looks stupid and out of place. A game isn't made or broken by it's graphics, end of story. No matter how much of a graphic ***** people want to be, if the game does a great job with bringing immersion and exploration that EQ offered back to the market it will do well.

I am glad you have the money to buy a $1,000 PC to play Skyrim on ultra settings, not everyone does. Making a game that is more graphically advanced then Skyrim which wasn't that advanced due to the fact it was limited by them making it for consoles, means it will require more power.