Video presentation on Twitch here - Thread on Everquest Next landmark here - https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/everquest-next-landmark.537994/ On the topic of EQ Next I'm impressed with the scope of the project and the things they are trying to do. I would prefer no classes but perhaps multi-classing will work. But over 40 classes available seems like it may be too much. I like the way the world looks but put me in the group that doesn't like how the characters look. I like the reboot of the lore while keeping the names of the zones. Good idea to make Ogres smarter and more militaristic. Abilities based on weapons equipped is good but has been done elsewhere. The dynamic world things is ok - but if the world heals itself over time - then how dynamic is it really? If I blow a hole in a wall - unless some goblins who are enslaved come over to rebuild it - that hole should be there forever. I like the idea of how quests are tied to your personal history. But this may make grouping very difficult. SJ says that if you play an alt the odds of having the same experience is very small because of the choices made. This means the odds of my friend and I having the same experience is also small if we play at times on our own. No more having a group where everyone is on the same quest. Unless it's one of the Rally Calls. Rally Calls seem cool - kind of like when AoD was launched and we had PQs and building the ring and spires. But I wonder how fast people will get bored with them after finding out it may take months to finish one only to see what was resolved come crashing down. I like the idea of how NPC can find their own spawn points. No more knowing that a particular mob will pop when you cross over a certain point. I like how this may make life a little more difficult for those players who just alt-tab over to Zam and get the quest coords. I'm curious because they didn't mention levels. I wonder if the game will have levels.
I don't know about the new way the characters look but the other stuff looks good I am glad everything is less static..... It looks too much like a cartoon now, I don't have any problems with cartoons but that don't look much like a kerra and it looks like world of war craft now. Also no ratonga shown so......
I'm excited but the reveal raised more questions than it has answered. One of the website reported that there were no levels, which for me is a step in the right direction. There is so much detail missing it's really hard to judge the game yet, but it has some very good "bones".
It looks amazing! The dynamic world system looks incredible and I like the idea of getting the players to create content. Having big in world events to build new cities sounds fun, there have been server wide quests like that in other games, but these tend to be a linear path with a series of patches. Having a truly dynamic system for these kind of world events will be very impressive. Sadly I'm locked out of it though as I'm European and will not sign up with the rather dodgy ProSibenSat.1...
What races were shown? I crashed so I missed some of it... Very let down with the cruddy 8-limit combat system...probably won't be playing it if such simplified, out of touch PvE carebear combat goes forward. Seems obvious they have no hardcore PvPers influencing core decision making. And NO, people don't "have EQ2 for that" because EQ2 PvP was molested into NOTHING & will NEVER RETURN due to being a 9 year old game with a poor engine, poor game name, & so on & so on. A levelless system is also very off-putting & concerning for the long-term, hardcore raider loyalist niche community that often stands as the backbone of the MMOG world. Too much dust/smoke from combat. Kerras need to be redone so they don't look like Lion King lions. (LMFAO, Gabor Szikszai's rendition of Kerras would actually be better than what was shown...heh, sorry, but, that's the truth) Krazy to think they'd launch without Frogloks, Iksars, Trolls, & Ratongas. Kobolds MUST ALSO NOT GO LIVE as a playable race, because canidae/primate-themed Kobolds ARE THE ONLY KOBOLDS WHICH SHOULD EXIST, & you can't fit armor on such a species as well as core humanoid species. If Orcs & other species are limited from creating super-cities, that's extremely off-putting. Destructibility, tunnels, constructible towns/cities sounds promising. Guild halls NEED TO NOT BE INSTANCED, AT ALL, EVER. Strongly against Kerras having super-fast leap movements, >VERY DETRIMENTAL< for PvP. If they don't make sure movement is realistically slow, PvP will suffer, especially if some races get movement bonuses others don't. Very sad EQ3 is being brand-limited from introduction to the mainstream with EQN being >WRONGLY< chosen as the game name over Norrath. Seems like >ZERO< focus on portraying a professional narrative of Norrath's culture & the masters from it. They clearly didn't even run consumer polls & just said "Let's just run with it guys!" Run the polls. IT NEEDS TO BE RENAMED BEFORE IT LAUNCHES. Totally #@&@ING AGGRAVATING. Sorry, but nobody cares about fringe stories of uber-hermit nerdgasms, either. That is NOT HOW YOU APPEAL TO NEW MINDS. Damn, DO NOT flatter your marketing department over that NO MATTER HOW "KOOL" & "FUN" YOU THINK IT IS. THERE IS NO LEGACY IN "EVERQUEST", YOU CRAP ON THE BLOCKBUSTER POTENTIAL OF "NORRATH" IF YOU WRONGLY FOCUS ON THE FRINGE FOOLISHNESS OF "EVERQUEST". FACT~ Julian Soule's theme was excellent & a minor ray of sunshine. Will still update the LOFPENSAB & finish some of the live action series/commercial song mock-ups & will clean up & add to public quest concepts I've been working on because I'm OCD & a bad procrastinator... ~_o''...
I'm pretty excited to see how things will develop. I think I'll like to play it when it comes out for most of the positive reasons you mentioned. I can't wait to see what races we wind up with... I hope there are fae (and 'tongas too.. ) I kind of like the cartoon-y-ness in a way.. but I can see why people are compare it to WoW. Oh, and my thoughts on the destuction that rebuilds itself. It would have to. You know gamers.. some would take it on themselves to destroy the whole planet if it didn't rebuild.
I'm excited for the game and its content. What really excites me the most is Landmark. I've spent a fair amount of time playing around in Minecraft and EQ2 building various things. They've been fun to build with, but each has its drawbacks. I can't wait to get my hands on those design tools. Getting back to the game world, the crafter in me will be excited to say I helped put that city up or I made the siege tower that took that other place down.
I think it is crazy that they even have to have a vote to put ratonga in the game and that us what they are doing right now here. All the other animal races need to be in the game too. https://www.everquestnext.com/round-table?poll=ratonga-in-eqn
I also wonder how deformable the world is. If I smash up a hillside or a temple will it stay that way, or respawn after a while. In a perfect world any damage you do to the world (for good or bad) would remain, but I can't see that happening, otherwise a few "vandals" could clear cut every tree and smash every structure until Norrath was a desolate waste. I can't see them allowing that. So the deforming of the world is just another effect during combat. I wonder also about how mobs will work. Once a group of orcs is killed they will need to be replaced so I expect they spawn somewhere else semi-random, and begin to wander. If this respawn point is static then that could be camped, which would allow me to monopolise a mob. Also I wonder how quests will work and how frustrating they will be. In EQ2 mst of the time I end up going to Zam figure out what I am supposed to be doing. Many quests I wouldn't ever have a hope of completing if the items or mobs I needed weren't in static locations. So quest design will need to be a lot better than EQ2, I can't imagine doing an epic questline with 50 subquests when nothing is static!
BTW sucks that I am a "new member" since I've been active in the forums since a few days after the launch of EQ2!
SJ said the world will heal itself over time. I think for the most part quests will be tied to a zone or area. You enter the area and the quest appears. GW2 uses this type of system. EQ2 had it with Public Quests. I'm thinking that for more specific quests tasks - like getting a book from a library somewhere - the quest helper on the map will be your friend.
it could be done by a major cloud compute network besides the normals servers and everybody is just thrown into the same place and it all goes on dynamic.
I think if you carved out a hillside and put some kind of temple in there or something, it would probably stay. Otherwise, the world would probably heal up from inactivity. By the sound of it, mobs will spawn were there are no people and they'll find a place to call home. Sites like ZAM will only be good for more static things like recipes. The whole idea is that you find things out for yourself and have your own story to tell about what happened.
I'm hoping that all the NPCs do have real lives (e.g. sleep at night, have homes to go to. So if I have to find a NPC to talk to them I have the option of going to their shop during the day, or tracking them down at home (at night). Possibly waking them up and disturbing their family. That would have consequences for me, but if it was a matter of life and death they would understand. If I was just being a dick then their opinion of me might go down so they wouldn't both asking me to do anything else for them. I could also slaughter them and their family (Skyrim style) which wold bring very bad consequences indeed.
Can't say how i feel just yet i want to see the UI and real combat stopped watching it after they showed off the wiz combat .. all i got to say about that was So this is what my diablo 3 would look like if i had free mouse look
