EQ Never

If the game really is still a year or more away then they have plenty of time to ask questions like that.

When you die you become transparent and invincible for 3 minutes.

supertouch_sl said:

Those pauldrons. I don't understand this trend of making everything disproportionately large.

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3rd person perspective: When your character is being viewed from behind, all you see is their back and shoulders. The art devs emphasize that, and you end up with ornate shoulders and cloaks with high detail. WoW made the big pauldrons as a stylistic choice, and it caught on in other games.

My big issue with 3rd person perspective is that it changes how I view the character I'm playing. Instead of you, the player, driving a character that you're roleplaying, it's more like you, the player, pushing your character around like a virtual action figure in a Hasbro playset. I really hope they allow 1st person perspective in EQN, it's much more immersive.

Uh... when you consider that even EQ1 and EQ2 have, for the most part, copied WoW at this point... do you even really need to ask?

Quaid_sl said:

Oh, the Kerran. Ya it was a bit gaudy, but not as bad as some stuff in other mmos.

I just don't understand the decision to show the Kerran in THAT armour at SOE live. If you exist in the MMO community at all you would KNOW there would be backlash about that crap. Some of the choices they are making have me very concerned about how in touch they are with the community at large...

A poll about ninjas? Are they really trying to excite us with a meme from 2-3 years ago? Come on... It's like my lame uncle trying to be cool.

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Welcome to SOE. Sometimes they do shit thats so amazing, and the other half of the time they leave you going WTF is wrong with this picture!?

I personally don't mind big shoulder pads reminds me of my warriors when I first got molten core shoulders I think they look sick. His just blocky and stale looking are lame. I just think the lion looks stupid as fuck he's too nice and disney looking. If he had like scars and stuff all over his face and looked like a savage it would be a different story. But just looks too kid like and disney nice like he would come up to you and go "ohhhhhhh boy! im sure feeling grrrrrrrrrrrreat!"

It's his face/snout. The rest is ok but change the head or at least the snout.

Speaking of art, I submitted the "Dave Georgeson in the Black Box" version of Homer designing a car I posted earlier today to the official Evercast Art Contest. If we win something, I'll cut it into enough pieces for everyone to share.

Rod-138_sl said:

There was something eerie and cool about a fight with a god/demi-god. We live in a world full of PC shit and restrictions - Holiday parties instead of Christmas parties, death by stoning if you get a DWI, frowned upon to play video games at 30 - among other things.

This is a fantasy game - let me live some fantasies god damnit - let me kill some Gods, drop the PC Disneycapade

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Depending on how, I have always enjoyed the slaying of the physical Entities from GOD forms. Maybe its harken back to old ideas!

dgrabs_sl said:

Jesus have some fucking realistic expectations. What do you want? Do you want them to perfectly simulate the shattering of a tree when an gigantic iron golem walks into it? What does that even look like? It's a fucking VIDEO GAME for crying out loud. It's never ever ever going to look like real life. I don't want my character to look like Mufasa any more than you do, but let's try and maintain at least a little bit of perspective when we're critiquing how a fucking tree shatters.

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I suppose they had to severely sacrifice graphic quality in order to incorporate the cool things in Landmark and the destructibility element. Both of those things excite me.
But some other guys on the board are making good points, such as this:

1. I'm not so sure they were going for a "stylized" look in the original Everquest. There were considerable graphical limitations at the time so that was about as realistic as graphics could get. Your frame of reference changes with the times so of course the game looks like shit now. However, the graphics were cutting edge in 1999.

2. I have no problem with stylized graphics, but the EQN models look like they were made by Dreamworks rejects and the armor is tacky.

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And this:

I was backing up my point that it looks like a cartoon. WTF, I like cartoons, I don't give a shit but lets call it as it is.

Someone was saying it doesn't look cartoony, so hence the cartoon video. Hell even my 4 year old called it a cartoon (she did get excited to try it, just like her old dad)

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And this:

3rd person perspective: When your character is being viewed from behind, all you see is their back and shoulders. The art devs emphasize that, and you end up with ornate shoulders and cloaks with high detail. WoW made the big pauldrons as a stylistic choice, and it caught on in other games.

My big issue with 3rd person perspective is that it changes how I view the character I'm playing. Instead of you, the player, driving a character that you're roleplaying, it's more like you, the player, pushing your character around like a virtual action figure in a Hasbro playset. I really hope they allow 1st person perspective in EQN, it's much more immersive.

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There's definitely some other considerations besides the authentic look that all together gave EQ the ability to wrap you up and not let go. The notorious death penalty, 1st person view, etc. But I think a lot of people underestimate just what kind of impact an authentic look has vs a cartooney look.

Nobody argues that an authentic look isn't better than a cartooney look. They chose to sacrifice graphic quality and hopefully make up for it with a world immersion quality in its destructibility and player input.

I just look at that game and picture myself "pushing around" (as Jarnin says) a character from lion king and can't fathom that I become as emotionally invested into the character as I did in EQ. Ultimately I feel like I'll get burned out quickly as I realize that without an attachment to my character, I'm really playing the game for no reason. Two distinct memories stand out that make me feel this way. One, running between the Ogre city and Oasis and killing in Oasis and being really aware of my environment, timid and fearful of it. Second, stopping in awe as a newer player as I ran into Furor in Freeport in his awesome looking gold armor.

I just can't imagine experiencing either of those two things in a cartooney environment that doesn't feel real to me.

Art is whatever. Voxel trees are fine. You won't notice either if the game is any good.


The lore is the abomination. There are no ninjas in eq. Dark elves are not the warrior caste of the elves. Prexus is not god of elemental plane of water.

Im ever so slowly (actually fast) losing interest in the game. Hopefully EQNL sparks my interest again but these guys are just too silent about the game.

I'm already calling shotgun on being one of the hipsters of EQN hate. Hated it when I first saw SOE Live details, the rest of you are simply bandwagoners.

Too silent, lol.. they're super active considering the game is still in alpha. They're commenting on Reddit all the time, have updated the round table questions faster than I expected them to, and they have two more information drops scheduled: Gamescom and PAX.

Malakriss_sl said:

I'm already calling shotgun on being one of the hipsters of EQN hate. Hated it when I first saw SOE Live details, the rest of you are simply bandwagoners.

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I don't hate the mechanics. Some interesting stuff. Its the misuse of the ip that's the problem.

also qwerty should have pulled his punches and waited for more info, might not have gotten banned

Lenas_sl said:

Too silent, lol.. they're super active considering the game is still in alpha. They're commenting on Reddit all the time, have updated the round table questions faster than I expected them to, and they have two more information drops scheduled: Gamescom and PAX.

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The roundtable topics were pre-written before the website ever went up, there is 20 in total. Omeedd and Georgeson are doing damage control on reddit, which isn't quite the same as genuine interaction. Being locked in a black box, in a self contained ecosystem free of scrutiny, I honestly believe they had no idea people would question the combat or compare it to other titles, if there wasn't a negitive backlash of the magnitude that occurred people like Rosie and George wouldn't be saying shit and would be sticking to their release plan by the letter.

If /r/eqnext is dog shit because it's just SoE nutlicking, then this thread is (at times) just as annoying for the exact opposite reason.

And yes, the art style was heavily designed around the voxel world (they were originally going for a more 'realistic' look):

Thick and heavy is one of our overall style tenets. The main purpose is to keep characters consistent with the voxel world. Voxels are about the size of a player's foot- so not tiny. Highly detailed little characters wouldn't look good in that environment.

We also need to emphasize that this is a physical, visceral world- to take advantage of the voxel tech. You're no longer running around on an onion skin, and we need to take advantage of that. Large feet and hands emphasize the character's physical connection to the world.

Less detail in the faces accommodates greater facial expressions and enhanced communication. What fidelity you lose in the skin you makeup for in facial mobility.

In deciding the art style goals we worked closely with the design and tech goals, and tried to craft everything into a consistent and engaging look and feel that will age well. It might not be exactly what you expected, but keep an open mind, and let's see what the future brings!

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I can understand people not liking the aesthetics. But the graphics look good.

tad10_sl said:

Prexus is not god of elemental plane of water.

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he may not be but i was pretty bummed when i found out Coirnav was heading up that shit. My first roll was an Erudite Paladin solely because I thought Prexus was especially badass.

Lenas_sl said:

Too silent, lol.. they're super active considering the game is still in alpha. They're commenting on Reddit all the time, have updated the round table questions faster than I expected them to, and they have two more information drops scheduled: Gamescom and PAX.

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we'll see what drops but the information released has been piss poor imo not enough concrete facts and hearing them talk about revolutionary AI and game mechanics but sounding like a pipe dream is becoming a bore. Also either there is going to be guns and ninja's which is fucken stupid or these are fluff questions to make people feel like their making choices for the game when in reality they know people are going to say "Ninjas and guns no way!!!!" and SOE will be like "We have listened to the people and there wont be guns and ninjas" Dont you love making the game with us?