Important Information Regarding EverQuest Next

Today Russell Shanks, President of Daybreak Games Company, made an important statement regarding EverQuest Next which you can read below. We understand many of you will have thoughts surrounding this and encourage you to post them in this thread.

To Our Daybreak Community,

I’m writing today to let you know that, after much review and consideration, Daybreak is discontinuing development of EverQuest Next.

For the past 20 years EverQuest has been a labor of love. What started as a deep passion of ours, as game creators, grew into a much larger passion shared by you, millions of players and Daybreakers alike. Watching EverQuest’s ability to entertain and bring people together has inspired and humbled us. It’s shaped our culture and has emboldened us to take aggressive risks with our game ideas and products. When we decided to create the next chapter in the EverQuest journey, we didn’t aim low. We set out to make something revolutionary.

For those familiar with the internals of game development, you know that cancellations are a reality we must face from time to time. Inherent to the creative process are dreaming big, pushing hard and being brutally honest with where you land. In the case of EverQuest Next, we accomplished incredible feats that astonished industry insiders. Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn’t fun. We know you have high standards when it comes to Norrath and we do too. In final review, we had to face the fact that EverQuest Next would not meet the expectations we – and all of you – have for the worlds of Norrath.

The future of the EverQuest franchise as a whole is important to us here at Daybreak. EverQuest in all its forms is near and dear to our hearts. EverQuest and EverQuest II are going strong. Rest assured that our passion to grow the world of EverQuest remains undiminished.

Yours truly,

Russell Shanks

President, Daybreak Games Company

Sad Sad day. So basically another company has the open door to take the next gen gaming.

Better hope you have the money to refund people who ordered the game all the way back to the beginning. Otherwise I see legal issues in your future. No Smed to bail you guys out this time.

I sincerely hope you guys sell the EQ Franchise, or at least the rights to make a new Everquest to another company who can deliver. This is devastating, albeit not surprising. I honestly feel like you guys owe it to all of the Everquest fans to let this franchise find new life with a company who can deliver and build upon it properly.

They haven't sold EQnext. They sold access to EQLandmark which they announced some time ago was going to be a separate game though using the same graphics as EQnext and would be a place where ideas for EQnext came from.

As far as I know EQLandmark is still slated to launch.

People will not love you for this.

a very sad dwarf

Starbuck, it was EQLandmark Founders Pack. And Landmark will be released this spring.
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/landmark/index.php?threads/landmark-launching-spring-2016.56141/

Well...damn. What a waste.

[Question]
Will Landmark get a real team now?

It'd also be great if they got all the assets from EQN. From textures to combat armor and moves. Landmark has so little content right now that it's just not even fun.

Nothing will come out of this that's of any consolation to anybody they're actually addressing in this letter. They've completely, totally, and utterly failed the EQ fan-base. This franchise and it's fans deserve better, this company is incapable of properly growing the EQ IP, and really needs to hand it off to people who can, and will.

Well, crud. Guess that's that. Time to look for greener pastures. Thanks for the painful roller coaster.

This was a terrible terrible decision. If you couldn't do it yourselves, you should have pulled in others who could. This is terrible for fans and the industry alike. There are few franchises that have as much love and history for me and others as Everquest, but I will not be spending any more money on this company. I wish everyone who was working on this project the best, but in some ways I want the company to tank and the IP to be sold off to new stewards. There might be a little bit of anger there, but only a little.


RIP EQN.

Well dang .. not a total surprise though.

What will happen with Landmark is what I am more concerned about , any words on that?

So, if Daybreak isn't going to go forward with EQN, what are they intending to do to advance the EverQuest franchise thriving and prosperous? Are there any plans to upgrade the EQII graphics engine to bring it more in line with current game engine technologies, or somehow level up Everquest to enable it to grow over the next decade?

Suggestions for Daybreak to consider if they aren't already doing so:

Consider the elements of EQ and EQII which people like most and implement those elements into an updated version of EQ, EQII Worlds .

With the VR hardware market have great potential in the gaming industry, enable its use within Everquest I and Everquest 2, or base a new version of Norrath upon the VR world development.

This is indeed sad news, but it doesn't really come as a surprise, but I reckon that lot of the people who "helped" build EQN in Landmark will feel cheated and let down.

I'm kind of glad. The voxelfarm engine was more trouble than it's worth at the stage you started working on it. If you started the game today it'd be a much better product with the Voxelfarm engine. You jumped the gun there. Also, I really hope forgelight 2 is made in mind with large procedural worlds...it's the next standard of MMO maps...from Planetside to the eventual Everquest III...or whatever you guys try and make next.

Yes, squeeze the Everquest Franchise into a gimmicky shell. That's what the whole thing was about anyway right? It's dated mechanics and nostalgia trips. The marketing team will have a ball while players will get bored year one and it will fail.

I only purchased Landmark after they promised a few times we were getting a playable demo of EQN, which for all intents and purposes, that's what Landmark is/was. I only purchased out of my love for the franchise and was blindly hopeful the game would actually be made.

I don't see the point in crying about the loss of money, as it was a couple years ago now. But it is the last penny SOE/Sony will get from me. DBG is just trying to make money, using similar tactics as SOE.

I don't forsee anything positive coming from DBG, especially since MMOs are a dying genre and their flagship is a failing MMO that was sold off.

I wonder how long Landmark will get support once it has a miserable launch.

So long EQNext, hello more EQ TLP Servers! Sorry to see it never come out, but lets build out better EQ TLP servers. I'll hang out until Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen comes out. Well, if it comes out. I'll hang out until Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen at least fails to release. So I guess it's EQ TLP for life, or until the lights go out!

I hope all works out in the end for all who have put so much of themselves into this project.

With that being said count me among many who hope this means some actual dev attention on Landmark, which I abandoned when the devs did despite so much potential!

If not please get with the people making no man's sky... a cross between these two games would be beyond epic! (pipe dream I know)

Is anyone actually surprised? The writing was on the wall when Dave left.

What? Are you guys crazy??? this was your last hope to pull us back to your company. Man, ever since Daybreak took over it's been one poor decision after another... There are a lot of us that have been waiting for this game for years, we played EQ and EQ2 and many people are done with those games, how many max level characters can you level and not be bored.

This was my last hope for a well done MMO that wasn't easy mode the entire game. Really, really sad and stupid decision.