EQ Never

This seems like the only game that would get me back into an MMO since WoW. I wish there was more info though, or really just gameplay videos.

Landmark is, for all intents and purposes, the tech behind what will become the new Norrath. And while I'm sure they have a team dedicated to Next, it wouldn't surprise me if the next time you saw anything resembling a gameplay video is at SOE Live this summer. I also have to believe that's an internal date for Open Beta/Soft Launch of Landmark, even if they hit every note in the Landmark Blueprint before then.

Pretty much my thinking - I'm looking forward to this but right now there is simply nothing to discuss except things that are more appropriate for the Landmark thread. I hope we'll get solid info in Q3/4 but wouldnt expect anything before that.

Dandai_sl said:

What's crazy to me is that they have supposedly been working on EQN since 2008 and all we've seen are a couple character models andfanauthored, amateur novels outlining their lore. Yes, they've rebooted the concepts a couple times, but who really believes that they wouldn't show more if they had more at the time of SOE Live last year?

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They way I see it they were really only been kicking around the idea of a new Everquest until the past year, year and a half or so. I dunno though, maybe they trashed more than I would expect with the reboot.

I imagine a lot of it is getting the technology up to speed so that when it is fully shown off, it looks great. If the first full look that includes a lot of content variety also looks like shit, or most of what they're talking about doesn't work, then people will just assume it's the same shit we know of SOE and write it off pretty fast.

Once Landmark is much closer to feature complete, with water and smoother edges and everything else that comes with it, they'll probably start showing off EQN more, since that will mean the technology side of it is also close to feature complete.

Dandai_sl said:

You would think that at the very least the lore and character models wouldn't have changed with the various reboots. Smed said that what they were working on was another WoW clone, but you don't need to scrap the art and lore just because you're changing the mechanics and gameplay.

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Character models, at the very least, were changed with the reboots (take a look at the old human screenshot, or compare the old dark elf concept to the art and early model they've shown for the current version of EQN). If I'm recalling correctly, the reason was at least partially because they felt like the more stylized character style worked better with a voxel-based world than more realistic-looking models would.

Dandai_sl said:

You would think that at the very least the lore and character models wouldn't have changed with the various reboots. Smed said that what they were working on was another WoW clone, but you don't need to scrap the art and lore just because you're changing the mechanics and gameplay.

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The art style has completely changed each time, so none of the assets created were useful for the current iteration. It also does no good to hype up something so far from release. Landmark is the focus right now, but you can be sure, when EQN is in full swing, the info coming will be fast and heavy.

Elidroth_sl said:

The art style has completely changed each time, so none of the assets created were useful for the current iteration. It also does no good to hype up something so far from release. Landmark is the focus right now, but you can be sure, when EQN is in full swing, the info coming will be fast and heavy.

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Eli, linked on the EQ Next front page "Lore in a minute" which is usually pretty accurate claims that in the Lost Age the first races combined to destroy Bertoxx. This lore hasn't been mentioned yet (read all the e-books), did they just mess up or were they getting some inside infoz we aren't privy to yet?

Just curious because it's an awfully strange leap to make considering how accurate the other 59 seconds are.

Latest Roundtable video, on claim ownership in EQN:



The bullet points:
-there will be claim ownership in the open world, but only in designated areas
-buildings will be required to be in-theme for EQN (I know, shocking)
-people who win building contests in Ladmark will be given the unique chance to own plots in the middle of the major cities in EQN (everyone else, I imagine, would be restricted to owning claims on the outskirts of the cities, or in designated areas in the countryside)

The first two points are what I figured the situation would be, but that last one is interesting. Any of you who are in the big-boy leagues when it comes to building in Landmark have an interesting prize to aim for.

Man, that video of sweaty Jeff in his Beegees shirt talking about open world building restrictions reminded me once more of denial of service Butler.

Some reading, fromMoorgard:

That's not actually how we're doing things. EQN's history of Norrath--from the world's creation to the point at which the game will take place--is completely distinct from previous entries in the franchise. There is no point in the EQOA/EQ/EQ2 timeline that you could plug in EQN, nor could you put previous games entirely into EQN's history.

The point of EQN's storyline is not simply to rebuild Norrath to the state it was in at EQ's launch. While we've already talked about building Qeynos from a settlement into a bustling city via a series of rallying calls, we're not going to give you a checklist of lost cities to restore. Some of the cities you remember from EQ don't even exist in our world, and those that do have very different origins.

Likewise with the characters mentioned in this poll, those that appear in EQN will not be carbon copies of their namesakes. There will be echoes, certainly; we wouldn't use the name of a character unless it had some relevance to its previous incarnation. But just become some elements of their personalities or back-stories line up, don't expect all of them to.

I'll use Miragul as an example. In EQ, he was an Erudite heretic who delved into necromancy, became a lich, built up a menagerie in Everfrost, etc. In EQN we have Miragul Tah'Re, an elf who becomes emperor of the Takish Empire and sets in motion a series of events that lead to the Dragon War. These are very different storylines, but there are definite parallels between the characters. Both are magical prodigies. Both follow some very dark roads to gain power. Both take actions that have significant repercussions for their respective peoples. Yet their backgrounds are completely different.

Not all characters we pull in from previous EQ games and stories will be changed as drastically, while others may be changed more so. I realize this may make fans of those original characters a bit uneasy, but rest assured that we're going to make plenty of nods to memorable people, places, and events. I'm a huge fan of this franchise, as are the rest of the folks on the story team. Our intent is to honor the best of what went before while continuing to take EQN in a new direction.

It's an enviable position. We get to draw on a wealth of great stories while not being constrained by the details of previous continuity. I'm confident that once we open up the details of history a bit more, you'll have a better idea of the potential of where EQN is headed.

I already didn't like the whole reboot thing. That being said, does anyone else thing it seem weird about how they're approaching it by changing the characters completely? Why not create a whole set of lore since none of it seems like it has anything to do with EverQuest other than in name only? I guess what I'm saying is, it just seems like they're out to confuse and agitate people who knew anything about the previous games in the series and those are the people you'd think they are trying to lure back using the EQ brand.

It's not like this is Final Fantasy.

I don't mind the remix thing. It lets the devs and writers give homage to EQ's past without getting stuck in it. Lets be honest here, there is a lot of dumb shit that could stand to be trimmed off, but there's a lot worth keeping as well.

arallu_sl said:

Some reading, fromMoorgard:

That's not actually how we're doing things. EQN's history of Norrath--from the world's creation to the point at which the game will take place--is completely distinct from previous entries in the franchise. There is no point in the EQOA/EQ/EQ2 timeline that you could plug in EQN, nor could you put previous games entirely into EQN's history..

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its not even everquest, we got that a long time ago.

If you want a rehash of every EQ zone just play EQ2. A few expansions in they just started redoing EQ1 shit.

Honestly I don't want a rehash anyway... just some familiarity. I just want to look around and see things and/or hear things I once did but experience it in another way. I always felt that EQ1 was really their trial run and now it is time to take what they learned and use that universe for something better. I appreciate EQ1 and even EQ2 quite a bit, I loved them both, but with the technology they have access to and the level of learning they've experienced in the industry, let's take what we love and do something good with it.