EQN:Landmark Beta Starts March 26th!

InterSlayer_sl

shitlord
441
0
Servers up. Played for a few hours for the first time since Feb 14.

The initial quests to get you started work really well. Claimed a spot, used a default template to build a basic stone house.

Combat has the potential to be really fun. Equip weapon, which also enables mouse look. You get 2 abilities via Left click or Right click.
You have an armor bar, health bar, then stamina bar on the right.

Things gotinterestingunderground in Tier 3. First mob is pretty much right out of H1Z1.

Found some sort ofunderground temple. Was pretty well guarded, got rekt. Died toward the end and sent to a nearby graveyard.

Graphic settings were on Ultra.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Some of the better weapons have a third ability as well. The combat stuff is simple but its actually pretty fun and you will wind up usually having a melee weapon and a range weapon to flip between so flexibility during fights is actually better than you would expect for as simple combat implementation it has currently.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
14,572
10,068
Servers up. Played for a few hours for the first time since Feb 14.

The initial quests to get you started work really well. Claimed a spot, used a default template to build a basic stone house.

Combat has the potential to be really fun. Equip weapon, which also enables mouse look. You get 2 abilities via Left click or Right click.
You have an armor bar, health bar, then stamina bar on the right.

Things gotinterestingunderground in Tier 3. First mob is pretty much right out of H1Z1.

Found some sort ofunderground temple. Was pretty well guarded, got rekt. Died toward the end and sent to a nearby graveyard.

Graphic settings were on Ultra.
yeah, most of this updates changes were progression changes. Actual new content is only like the volcanic biome.


I jumped in. Yeah, reordering of progression is nice.
Plots only require logging in now once a month. no copper/week. AND you can have a ton of them. New accounts are limited to how many you can lay down, but as you log in, your account is flagged for more.
Right now I can have 2 BASE claims, and 8 attached. MAX is 8 base claims, and 24 attached. (imagine the city you can make with 24 attached claims..

the achievements give a bit better idea on how to proceed. they step you through a bit.
Weapons and armor are easier to build. ether into elements, etc. And teired. As noted, first round of crafted weapons have 2 skills, upgrades have 3.

You get a ground sounder and pulverizer with the basic achievements. you won't even be out of copper mining when you get them. and crafting the ore, and gem locators also only need copper.

Consumables are greatly expanding from the past.


They seem to have added a number of base templates. but not a ton, and the tools themselves are still clunky.
 

Pharazon

Silver Knight of the Realm
413
46
Right now I can have 2 BASE claims, and 8 attached. MAX is 8 base claims, and 24 attached. (imagine the city you can make with 24 attached claims..
Except there's a 3x3 max right now in the horizontal plane. You can go as high as you want so you can still put them all together, but you can't make a sprawling city by yourself.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Whelp had a chance to get in I have to say the new player experience is way nicer. Reasonable amounts of focus to teach you how to do stuff and gives you the basic tools. The new starter homes are a really excellent way to give brand new people a nice looking little home right off the start so they can better see what is possible. All in all way better all around experience. Still some bugs though mobs are kinda sparse in some areas and then infinate spawn elsewhere.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
14,572
10,068
Except there's a 3x3 max right now in the horizontal plane. You can go as high as you want so you can still put them all together, but you can't make a sprawling city by yourself.
yeah, this is true. Even some jackass, planted his claim too close to mine, and I can even only do 2x2 on my "main" claim right now.
East got cockblocked. I don't know how this is a thing? North, I blocked myself in a similar way. But that is at least my own.


New progression is super quick.. too quick honestly.

They gutted everything.

No more refineries, etc. No teirs.

You just build a sifter at t1, and a "replicator" at t2. t3-6 has nothing but armors.
Weapon and armor crafting is bizarre as well. First higher tier weapons are gifted on getting the skill ups. so crafting higher tier weapons has no point. you get them free.
Then all the essences are crafted directly from the raw spirit essence. Making them kindof pointless.
The replicator replaces ALL the refineries in 1 item, and its way more effective.


Monsters are sparse. Surface is fairly barren due to no monsters. and worse, unlimited/free portals. exploration/foot travel is even less a thing now. Its kindof a problem I think with the design as it stands. Islands, biomes, and the way claims are set.. the world despite being online and multiplayer.... is totally separated. theres no reason to visit other players, or explore.


Draw distance etc is still a problem it seems. Two giant flames on my wall spires. can't even see the flames 2 acres away.
 

Lenas

Trump's Staff
7,483
2,229
The animations are actually very good. The character movements within the world can seem a little floaty, but every animation is pretty much top notch.

I logged in yesterday for the first time since the update and had a pretty enjoyable time. The new directed experience makes Landmark feel much more like an actual game and less like a tech demo. Having unlimited base materials and being able to fly in your claim from the start are pretty much requests going back to alpha day 1. You will have every building tool and be ready to make shit within 10 minutes.
 

Caliane

Avatar of War Slayer
14,572
10,068
The animations are actually very good. The character movements within the world can seem a little floaty, but every animation is pretty much top notch.

I logged in yesterday for the first time since the update and had a pretty enjoyable time. The new directed experience makes Landmark feel much more like an actual game and less like a tech demo. Having unlimited base materials and being able to fly in your claim from the start are pretty much requests going back to alpha day 1. You will have every building tool and be ready to make shit within 10 minutes.
wood needs to be added to that though.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
I think one of the things causing the sparse mob population in caves is the bugged infinite spawns. Basically when stuff dies elsewhere it seems to get concentrated in a couple rooms so a bit annoying. The system still has a lot of room for improvement but overall the new achievement system seems to work well for giving some play focus for people not just putzing around building stuff. To improve your weapons after you make the initial ones you basically need to use the weapons. I have to say I am pretty impressed by the amount of wardrobe options now all of them are pretty well done.

Performance wise I was running smooth on high again even in caves and last time I had played I would get pretty bogged down walking near/in caves. I also like they added the surface leyline sub node I managed to plant my claim off in the boony but really close to one of the sub nodes so telling its nice once people teleport to me to meet up they can get back to my claim area in the future super easy.

It is actually starting to feel like a game now.
 

Laerazi_sl

shitlord
293
2
I'm really enjoying this update as well.

The combination of procedural content, player-crafted ruins, fast-swap gameplay-changing weapons, procedural mob spawning, and heroic movement & items are really working well together.

In most MMOs I get bored with the combat almost instantly.. you do the same thing over and over with very little variance. In Landmark, the terrain you're fighting on changes constantly and it really makes a difference.

In one ruin, there were wisps floating high above that were out of reach of melee attacks. I didn't have a bow at the time, but they still were shooting down at me. I managed to grapple hook up a pillar, ledge grab the top of the pillar and hop off and use my levitation boots to glide to a higher up pillar and reach the wisp.

In another ruin, I was able to grapple up to the roof and shoot arrows down at a golum-esque creature that kept running around trying to get me. Once he got low health he started to run and forced me to chase him. I didn't notice there was an exploding mushroom and ended up losing a good amount of health on landing (which also blew up part of the terrain) and so I had to retreat until my health came back. The creature I was originally attacking was now by a plant monster with a powerful ranged attack so I had to hide behind a pillar and shoot at in-between it's acid volleys.

These aren't game-changing scenarios, but to me it feels more like the original EverQuest where you were given a set of tools and let loose in the world. There's no path you have to take, you are free to do whatever you want and since both the landscape and enemies are changing you get plenty of different situations to play around in.

While the systems are still pretty young and this version is by no means spectacular, I'm really excited for what they're building. Add more monsters, more ruins, procedural dungeons, more items, rare spawns, etc.. if that's what EQNext is, I'm on board.
 

Vitality

HUSTLE
5,808
30
Can you elaborate on the procedural spawning thing in your post?

Is it like minecraft where it's biome dependent within a certain radius of player activity?
 

Laerazi_sl

shitlord
293
2
Not really sure how it works honestly but enemies definitely spawn more frequently by ruins. Wisps seem to appear in places with vertical ruins, exploding mushrooms tend to be scattered everywhere along floors, but I've even seen them on top of ruins. Slaugs (gollum creatures) tend to be running through cave tunnels but also concentrate near the center of ruins. Abominations (sludge creatures) are pretty much everywhere, though tend to be on the floor. Plant monsters seem to be hidden in nooks a lot of the time, or on ledges. Usually there is something to hide behind, but I doubt that's intentional.

The spawning system seems to be a little broken right now; they'll be hotfixing it shortly, since no mobs are spawning in many layers of caves, but there are some areas with really high concentrations of mobs, and some with none at all. Still a mystery how it's all working, but I'm sure with enough observation it wouldn't be hard to figure out.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Can you elaborate on the procedural spawning thing in your post?

Is it like minecraft where it's biome dependent within a certain radius of player activity?

The cave systems are automatically procedurally generated although they have some rooms that will have a "ruin" which were mostly made by players and submitted for it. So you run through the procedurally generated caves/cave rooms but sometimes you come across the player made ruins in the caves and of the 4 I saw this weekend they were all really well done. one was very steam punk and just looking at it I can only imagine how long it took somebody to make that thing very impressive. Also when you get really close to the ruin you see a chat message flash up with the makers name and when it was submitted. It would be pretty amazing crawling to a cave to wind up seeing your own creation in the game.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
Not really sure how it works honestly but enemies definitely spawn more frequently by ruins. Wisps seem to appear in places with vertical ruins, exploding mushrooms tend to be scattered everywhere along floors, but I've even seen them on top of ruins. Slaugs (gollum creatures) tend to be running through cave tunnels but also concentrate near the center of ruins. Abominations (sludge creatures) are pretty much everywhere, though tend to be on the floor. Plant monsters seem to be hidden in nooks a lot of the time, or on ledges. Usually there is something to hide behind, but I doubt that's intentional.

The spawning system seems to be a little broken right now; they'll be hotfixing it shortly, since no mobs are spawning in many layers of caves, but there are some areas with really high concentrations of mobs, and some with none at all. Still a mystery how it's all working, but I'm sure with enough observation it wouldn't be hard to figure out.
Yup spawning is a bit busted atm the tunnels are to sparse and the ruin rooms tend to be infinite spawns where things respond the second you kill one. Its still beta and there are still some sizable bugs to knock down but its actually starting to play more like a game.
 

Vitality

HUSTLE
5,808
30
Is there character progession from mob kills or is it just for materials and all that? Like can you gain xp to put into weapon enhancements etc etc.