EQ Never

Furious_sl said:

Nope, Black Desert is doing art very well. Look see and compare that to EQN Female human.

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Ignoring the model, the background art style is what I would have liked to see Everquest Next as. Imagine if EQ Landmark will give mod options similar to Minecraft. With the ability to create texture packs as well to place that over original in game textures. Would be the ultimate way to cater to everyone (graphically). They could make their initial game in the cartoonish style people are used to now to pull in a large market, even kids, then give the ability to let people change their textures. Your kid could play the cartoon version, while you played something that looked more like Black Desert, perhaps even with added blood textures, etc. Realistic lightning mod like the one in Skyrim.... It would appease everyone.

Everquest Next Nexus. I would bookmark that page so very fast.

Droigan_sl said:

Imagine if EQ Landmark will give mod options similar to Minecraft. With the ability to create texture packs as well to place that over original in game textures. Would be the ultimate way to cater to everyone (graphically). They could make their initial game in the cartoonish style people are used to now to pull in a large market, even kids, then give the ability to let people change their textures. Your kid could play the cartoon version, while you played something that looked more like Black Desert, perhaps even with added blood textures, etc. Realistic lightning mod like the one in Skyrim.... It would appease everyone.

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Fuck catering to everyone. That honestly sounds like a terrible idea for an MMO.

Teekey_sl said:

I also think they're a little further along than most people are assuming. Although there's probably a metric shit ton more to do as they've been focusing more on getting Landmark ready for release.

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Considering most people thought EQN would be in Beta this year based on Smed comments, I think you are wrong.

How do you think they have Anything built for Next? Please tell me.

I already bet 2015. That now seems early.

Looks like they scrapped the last version of Next maybe 6 months ago, brought in SB and Voxels and to this date have shit but a back flipping LC from TR. Smed told them to push some shit out soon because EQN has been in dev mode for 3 years and what do we see? EQNL which is still 6 month out of Beta and all EQNL is, is a Engine and building tools/art assets. I have a copy of Unreal (free licence) plus building tools on my pc, whoopty fucking doo. I can already make trees (and moving water which EQN seems unable to do).

Pissed off/out.

Back at 2000 posts

Teekey_sl said:

Fuck catering to everyone. That honestly sounds like a terrible idea for an MMO.

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Why? It would be client side. Let people pick how they would want the game to look, like Skyrim. Let people be able to alter the graphical looks (not alter/add to basegame structures). All it would require is the ability to alter the base textures used by the voxels as you place them down. Could not add objects "oh look at that house over there", and the person not using your texture pack could not see it. Just the base, like HD textures for Skyrim.

I agree very much with the "fuck catering to everyone". I would love for EQN to have the niche defining things like a death penalty that would increase the risk and as such, the feeling of reward. But in terms of graphical settings, when it is client side only, I would have no problems at all with catering to everyone. I do not mind that people want to play a game that looks like a Disney movie with characters that look like Aladdin. It is not my first choice though, and would mod that shit in a second if I could to make them more in line with the vibe they gave off in EQ. I would also mod the textures to make it look like the background of Black Desert.

Why would that be a horrible thing for an MMO? To give people options with no impact what so ever on other parties than themselves. Would be similar to EQ offering displaying the original or Luclin models. Only in EQN it would be original or user created. As long as the textures fit over the original skeleton of the model. Same thing for in game textures.

Furious_sl said:

Considering most people thought EQN would be in Beta this year based on Smed comments, I think you are wrong.

How do you think they have Anything built for Next? Please tell me.

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I could be wrong. It's just my opinion just based on how they've talked about certain systems. Not to mention, it's not like every designer's focus applies to Landmark (such as classes or combat). I don't think the systems are necessarily far enough for them to show yet, though. They definitely have a lot more work to do.

Even though I do think what marketing they do right now really means fuck all in the long run - I do think they could be showing us a bit more. They've talked a lot, but haven't shown enough substantial content. But I don't really get the feeling that it's solely because they don't have things to show. I just think they're sort of fumbling their marketing by not having a concise marketing timeline, with a planned message and supporting media/examples. They're just sort of planning things and preparing content as they go a long, and it seems rather obvious.

Droigan_sl said:

Why would that be a horrible thing for an MMO? To give people options with no impact what so ever on other parties than themselves. Would be similar to EQ offering displaying the original or Luclin models. Only in EQN it would be original or user created. As long as the textures fit over the original skeleton of the model. Same thing for in game textures.

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How the fuck does this work when they're trying to have player-made objects and environments that you can buy? Becomes a bit complicated when everyone is using their own textures.

When it comes to an MMO, I think there just needs to be some control and more certainties. Because it worked well in [Insert Single Player Game] really means fuck all.

Edit: And honestly, are you complaining about EQNext's environments? Of all the things to complain about...

Teekey_sl said:

How the fuck does this work when they're trying to have player-made objects that you can buy? Becomes a bit complicated when everyone is using their own textures.

When it comes to an MMO, I think there just needs to be more control and more certainties. Because it worked well in [Insert Single Player Game] really means fuck all.

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Add the ability to create textures or import from 3d studio (only original ones) to the game. Let people create those too in game, for royalties and further in game revenue for Sony. Win/Win. Only limit that would place on the player made items is that they would be able to create the models/base structures only. Could then add "this is how it looks with this texture pack/with this one/with this one". Texture packs would then offer royalties to everyone associated with the different base textures.

Adding textures to the things people could create in game would severely increase the revenue of people and Sony (as they get some off the top from every purchase).

However.... You are still right, as adding this would probably negate any sort of "this is a unique" item feeling. I for instance do not like how a bronze BP could be dyed purple to look like a cleric BP from hate, killed the "oh, he has been there" identifier you got from the loot looks.

...

So yeah. You right. I still like the idea in my head though, before all the sense was made. Reality and consequences is why we can't have nice things

Droigan_sl said:

To me it honestly sounds like they have scrapped the game one too many times, are left with the dev tool (which they are happy with), and are using that to get some revenue in while they are making the actual game (along with us).

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Georgeson said they had been working on this iteration of EQNext for a year and a half. He also said that during that time they had to develop the tools in order to build it, along with getting voxels and destructibility working in their Forgelight engine. So what we saw at SOELive is them saying, "Milestone Achieved!". They got [most] of their tech working in their engine.

We've seen concept art, we've seen some in-game models, and we've seen some very early combat systems. All of this stuff is still very early in development, based on the stuff they've shown us. That means that when Georgeson said they had lots of stuff to show us, I'm guessing he's bullshitting us; they showed us everything that they could get their marketing department to allow, and the rest of the stuff is still not finalized which is why they developed Landmark.

Landmark is exactly the same fucking thing Maxis did with SPORE Creature Creator. They put out a toolset for building assets for their game SPORE about a year before SPORE was launched. That gave folks a year to build out some crazy muppet-looking assets to populate their game when it went live a year later. SOE is doing the same thing here.
Landmark is a toolset to allow players to build stuff which can be imported into EQNext once it goes live. Sure, they're going to have competitions and whatnot to make Landmark "game-like", but in actuality, Landmark looks to be nothing more than Minecraft 2.0. I could be totally off-base here, and Landmark might be Minecraft+Farmville3D (which would make it a "game"), but so far we've seen nothing but tech demos. Oh, I can change the landscape of Ashfang. Oh, I can change the landscape of Lavastorm. Oh, I can build a ruined structure that looks like it's old. Neato! Now show me the GAME that Landmark is supposed to be.

Landmark is supposed to be out this winter. Winter begins in about 3 months. It ends in March. That gives them 3 months to get the Beta going, 3 months for "testing" and then they gotta take it live. For a "game" that is coming out in ~6 months, they've shown us very little to get excited about. Will Landmark have NPCs to hunt for resources? They haven't said. Will Landmark have water we can swim in and underwater areas we can build in? They haven't said. They say it's comprised of an unlimited number of procedurally generated worlds to "explore", but what are we exploring? "Other people's imaginations", which is marketing speak for, "You can see other people's shit", which amounts to virtual tourism. That's not a game.

So far I've seen nothing that really gets me to want to play this game. So far I've only seen SOE's take on Minecraft 2.0, and while I've played Minecraft (once, for 26 hours straight), I really can't see myself logging into that and playing day after day, week after week for a year+ until EQNext THE GAME comes out.

SOE needs to stop doing these "EQNext+Landmark" presentations and focus solely on Landmark since that's what we're all going to be getting our hands on first. Show us why Landmark can be called a "game". Show us what the goals and rules of Landmark the game are. Show us what sorts of things we'll be doing besides building shit. Otherwise I'm going to write Landmark off as a crafting simulator, which is nifty, but it's not a game.

Jarnin_sl said:

Sure, they're going to have competitions and whatnot to make Landmark "game-like", but in actuality, Landmark looks to be nothing more than Minecraft 2.0. I could be totally off-base here, and Landmark might be Minecraft+Farmville3D (which would make it a "game"), but so far we've seen nothing but tech demos. Oh, I can change the landscape of Ashfang. Oh, I can change the landscape of Lavastorm. Oh, I can build a ruined structure that looks like it's old. Neato! Now show me the GAME that Landmark is supposed to be.

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You say this like it's a bad thing - but I think that's exactly what they're intending - and I think people will lap it up. People spend countless hours making the most intricate shit in MinceCraft for absolutely nothing except to say they did it and maybe post a few videos or images online. SoE plans on creating tools to let players be recognized for their creations within the community - inside the game. Imagine your creation becomes a 'tourist' destination because it's so awesome. Not to mention, the possibility to have your creation immortalized in EverQuest Next, or have blueprints created and sold to other players. The 'creative' players are going to go insane over it.

I say this as someone with absolutely no interest in MineCraft-style games: I think it's going to be huge. Landmark will be a game just as much as MineCraft is, I don't know why you're trying so hard to claim that it's not.

Teekey_sl said:

Edit: And honestly, are you complaining about EQNext's environments? Of all the things to complain about...

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Not complaining. Just saying that in an overall world look, I prefer the style of Black Desert over the more cartoony look the textures of the environment need to have to support the models of EQ Next. The EQ Next character models fit perfectly within the environment shown so far of EQ Next, they would look completely out of place placed in the background of the Black Desert image. All I am saying that from a graphical perspective I would like to see Norrath rebuilt in the environment style of Black Desert, which would then also require character models to fit that environment.

The next step up graphically in the art direction Vanguard went, rather than a step up from the direction World of Warcraft went.

Droigan_sl said:

Not complaining. Just saying that in an overall world look, I prefer the style of Black Desert over the more cartoony look the textures of the environment need to have to support the models of EQ Next. The EQ Next character models fit perfectly within the environment shown so far of EQ Next, they would look completely out of place placed in the background of the Black Desert image. All I am saying that from a graphical perspective I would like to see Norrath rebuilt in the environment style of Black Desert, which would then also require character models to fit that environment.

The next step up graphically in the art direction Vanguard went, rather than a step up from the direction World of Warcraft went.

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Meh, Korean MMOs seem to be 75% style and 25% substance. I'll take 75% substance and 25% style any day.

They've given their justification for their artistic style: They think it works better for expressive characters, and a voxel-based world. I don't blame anyone for not liking the style, it's all personal preference. However, I think it's entirely secondary to actual gameplay.

Am I the only one that thinks the movement system looks amazingly fun?

Mind you... I was always that guy on raids running around in circles and jumping during buff/downtime... So ya

gogojira_sl said:

Hereandhere.

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I see Lara Croft running around doing DCUO moves on a upgraded Planetside 2 map while traveling about three times the rate of PS2 infantry.

I have my doubts as to if PS2 engine can handle the amount of stress EQN will cause.

Seamless world will require a huge increase in map size over PS2.

More Cluttered terrain will require more work for engine PS2 terrain is quite barren and simply has to be filled out more for EGN.

Thousands of NPC will put more pressure on both players and server computers.

Voxel terrain destruction will add even more pressure to both players and server computers.

The high movement speeds shown in that clip with all the above added as well is simply not achievable with current state of Forgelight engine your upping performance requirements for EQN over PS2 by a huge amount.

My guess is first to go will be that movement speed, then zoning will be added even if its just a loading screen and not a actual zone line, and terrain destruction will not be apparent for people just entering a new area they will only see destruction if they were in a area when it happened.

Considering you just pulled that 100% out of your asshole and smeared it all over the forum... I think I'll wait for a second opinion

Teekey_sl said:

Meh, Korean MMOs seem to be 75% style and 25% substance. I'll take 75% substance and 25% style any day.

They've given their justification for their artistic style: They think it works better for expressive characters, and a voxel-based world. I don't blame anyone for not liking the style, it's all personal preference. However, I think it's entirely secondary to actual gameplay.

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I agree gameplay is important. However, I also think that often gameplay seems to be attached to the graphical looks of the game. With Black Desert, you can easily see that they can create dark and scary encounters more in line with a mature game. Think Kichitor forest remade in that style. Ability to have a dark environment and a mature setting will undoubtedly lead to an impact on the gameplay as well. In a happy go lucky looking game, game mechanics might reflect that. Kids will flip tables at a death that has severe impact on them. "Life sucks and is hard" is not something they have learned yet.

I am not saying they should create a different game gameplay style to fall in line with asian mmos. I am saying EQ in a world that looks graphically more like Black Desert, rather than the next step up from WoW. Them doing that I think would also push the game further towards gameplay that might fit a more mature audience. Like having to group early on, complex group mechanics having to be learned at lower levels, actual risk upon death and "scary" encounters/models. The last part is nearly impossible to achieve with a graphical style going towards Disney. With a disney look, you almost have to have EQ like death penalties to feel any sense of being afraid in the world. Kitchitor was scary in EQ because the zone could change and kill you, and death sucked. However, with the graphical increase of the later years, a Black Desert type of realism, Duskwood in WoW might still be creepy and scary to explore even with the trivial death penalty you have at the level you are exploring that.

Gameplay is more important than graphics, but graphics can have an impact on the gameplay as the gameplay is often catered to the audience the game is trying to pull in with its looks. I doubt we will ever see Dark Souls 3 where they switch the art direction towards Disney while maintaining the same gameplay.

high movement speeds won't be supported by an engine that has to support vehicular warfare already? dafuq you smoking?

Droigan_sl said:

"scary" encounters/models. The last part is nearly impossible to achieve with a graphical style going towards Disney.

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i don't know, the void goliath was pretty "scary" looking. i hope we see a lot more creatures like that.

Droigan_sl said:

Think Kichitor forest remade in that style.

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Kithicor. Named after the legendary human ranger Kithicor, who once single-handedly defended the woods from an army of dark elves.



Yes, I am a lore nerd.

Quaid_sl said:

Considering you just pulled that 100% out of your asshole and smeared it all over the forum... I think I'll wait for a second opinion

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Go play planetside 2 for awhile then come back and talk. EQN and PS2 have the same engine Forgelight and put simply Forgelight is not ready for what they want it to do in EQN at this time. If you think what I'm saying is wrong then how about a argument as to why to back up what you are saying instead of nothing but insults.

So is PS2 built with voxels? I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier. I mean, what all does this "engine" cover? It seems like if PS2 is built with a bunch of hollow polygon structures like everything else out there, wouldn't EQN be as well?

Agraza_sl said:

So is PS2 built with voxels? I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier. I mean, what all does this "engine" cover? It seems like if PS2 is built with a bunch of hollow polygon structures like everything else out there, wouldn't EQN be as well?

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If PS2 is using voxels then you cant destroy them in that game. I wonder how much bandwidth voxel destruction will use to tell 3k+ players on a server that a building in one area is knocked over. PS2 is very client side oriented it does almost everything on your computer.