EQ Never

Borzak_sl said:

Almost need to split this thread into 2 different ones. One for stuff that is actually in game and discussion about it, and another for all the stuff people want or don't want in the game.

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This happens in every game's thread.

And when you do split them there's crossposting and cross conversation and it just becomes a bloated incomprehensible mess instead of too moving fast.

Borzak_sl said:

Almost need to split this thread into 2 different ones. One for stuff that is actually in game and discussion about it, and another for all the stuff people want or don't want in the game.

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The thread about what is actually in game would be terribly short. Is there even a single known confirmed working element in the game? Other than the visuals of the characters?

Seems to me that nearly every normal mmo mechanic is tied to Storybrick AI. Class building (npc rewards), combat (aggro), factions (there are no factions only AI...), mob placement, mob movement, and so on. Until they release information about that, everything we actually know can be boiled down to
- We know some lore
- EQ:N features destructable environment (but details are minimal at best on how it will work overall)
- EQ:N Landmark is a very fancy minecraft.
- We know the graphic style, that at least some character animations are in game along with some special abilities.

Any element based on how the world will work beyond that is pretty images (personal graphical preference) and fluff words.
Will there be trains as they have said no leashing of mobs? Unknown, based on Storybricks.
How will the world be populated with mobs? Unknown, based on Storybricks.
How will NPC interaction work? Unknown, based on storybricks.
How will quests work? Unknwon, based on Storybricks....

I see it as in one of two ways. To avoid the backlash from showing nothing at SOE Live last year, to promising a playable version of EQ:N and not delivering, they had to talk about something good. Enter Storybricks. If it works and is as intricate like they say, itwillrevolutionize the mmo/gaming industry. EQ:N Landmark is not a revolution, neither is a destroyable world. A deliver on the promise of a world that comes alive through fancy AI is. "We do not place mobs in the world, we set them free to go where they will". That is a very bold statement.

1) Either they are not talking about the details of storybricks because it is not functional beyond theory on paper. They release EQ:N Landmark, their design tool, to let people simmer while they try to work it out. Along with them getting people to create content for them. In this scenario, they are holding back information, because currently there is no more to talk about. They have design documents. They have given us the idea they have, which sounds great, but it is now left to them to develop.

--- SOE Live 2014 will then be them telling us of their slightly less exciting game with normal static mob placement, non wandering mobs and a "dynamic world" as seen in GW2. Might not be bad, but the "revolution" part they will focus on is the "success off EQ:N Landmark and our fantastic fans who made it a success! A world help built by the players. Community like no other! No other mmo has ever had our level of dev / player interaction. This is OUR game! Now soon going into beta! Check your e-mail".

2) They are holding back because they have scrapped this game a few times, and are so far behind in the actual development of the game, that they do not want to release the details of the implementation of Storybricks to give competitors a chance to do it first. If it truly is a revolution in AI, other companies will jump on it. In this scenario, they are holding back because they have something great backing up a currently unfinished product.

--- SOE Live 2014 will then be..... epic. Because even the most jaded of us would have to agree that what they have created is a massive leap in terms of making MMOs into worlds again. Even if they dislike the current direction of where EQ:N is compared to the original (be that design or combat). Gaming itself will take a leap forwards then, as developers would rush for the technology. A working storybricks AI in games would become the expected norm quickly, because it would be so radically noticable compared to what we have grown used to.

Either way, I doubt we will see EQ:N released any time within the first year, year and a half.

Thanks Droigan! Finally the last few hundred pages are resumed in one clear single post. +1

tad10_sl said:

New continent is Amaril or some bs. They went far astray on the lore -_-

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Yep, Tunaria / Antonica is now called Amaril. The new lore they're crafting for the game is quite a bit more different than I expected, but very interesting. I think a re-envisioning of the EverQuest story is probably a good idea for SOE, as it frees them up to get a lot more creative, without having to worry about breaking canon.

I recently wrote a pretty extensive article about the rename of the continent, as well as the new pantheon of gods, if anyone is interested:Amaril and The Gods of EverQuest Next @ EQNext Fans

The thing I'm most surprised about is the fact that some of the most popular gods (Tunare, Innoruuk, Rallos Zek) are simply gone. The direction they appear to be taking is no inherently evil gods, which I'm honestly not so sure about.

Jarnin_sl said:

Yeah, no doubt T1 will be tutorial/intro type content, and T2 will start to push players into the deep end of the pool. I figure by the time folks reach T3 they'll have a good handle on what there is to do and see in the game.

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Or, it'll end up like every other MMO, where as soon as people hit T2 then hit T3, they'll all complain about how the game is too hard, and it'll get nerfed, and become a boring "button mash to win / there's pretty much no way you could die" like every other MMO that tries to have ramping difficulty.

Not that I'm bitter, or anything.

From a tech point of view, anyone shed some light on the viability of complex storybricks considering the traditional limit imposed on number of active quests per player? As far as I'm aware the reason quest journals have a maximum number of quests is because tracking a large number of quests per player quickly eats through resources. Am I way off here? If not how are storybricks going to work considering the amount of data that has to be tracked per player will be vastly multiplied, by the order of several magnitudes I imagine..

No Rallos Zek, wtf? All i want to be is a bloodthirsty troll that worships Lord Rallos Zek the god of war! Hopefully they fix this, no real warrior worships marr only those panzy paladins.

Rogosh_sl said:

No Rallos Zek, wtf? All i want to be is a bloodthirsty troll that worships Lord Rallos Zek the god of war! Hopefully they fix this, no real warrior worships marr only those panzy paladins.

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Yeah... Mithaniel Marr is the God War, Justice, and something else. I have a feeling this is a setup for an expansion and/or a rise of another faction. I think you'll see the Zek's in their own expansion and possible the Tribunal to follow.

This is a bit of a stretch, but my personal hypothesis is that a storyline will be unveiled in which these evil deities return in some fashion.

Big Flex_sl said:

This is a bit of a stretch, but my personal hypothesis is that a storyline will be unveiled in which these evil deities return in some fashion.

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I hope you both are right, I just cant fathom playing an evil race and following marr. Agnostic here I come until we find Lord Rallos.


o

Cerzi_sl said:

From a tech point of view, anyone shed some light on the viability of complex storybricks considering the traditional limit imposed on number of active quests per player? As far as I'm aware the reason quest journals have a maximum number of quests is because tracking a large number of quests per player quickly eats through resources. Am I way off here? If not how are storybricks going to work considering the amount of data that has to be tracked per player will be vastly multiplied, by the order of several magnitudes I imagine..

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I think its more like flags. An npc will have a list of things he likes/dislikes and would check those against every pc that interacts with him.
However, that brings up a question of how long do things you did actually stick with you, forever?
I could see possibly getting around certain limits for example, say an npc likes leather but doesnt like you because you did something in the past, do you just bring a stack of leather to 'overcome' his dislike depending on where in his list of checks he values leather (to make items to sell) over whatever he disliked you for, because he's a tanner.

Rogosh_sl said:

I hope you both are right, I just cant fathom playing an evil race and following marr. Agnostic here I come until we find Lord Rallos.o

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Well, if factions are going to be as important as devs keep saying they are, emerging cults of Zek, Cazic, etc would be badass. I could see this being interwoven will the idea another poster had about rally calls "pulling" players from a centralized starting zone to found individual racial cities, rediscovering elements of their pre-"Cataclysm" heritage. So pulling this out of my ass, Trolls, a subserviant race of the now dragon-controlled Tier'Dal, push into the western swamps, and find a giant hand statue, and theres just something about it that they like, even though it strikes fear into them... etc etc

Big Flex_sl said:

Well, if factions are going to be as important as devs keep saying they are, emerging cults of Zek, Cazic, etc would be badass. I could see this being interwoven will the idea another poster had about rally calls "pulling" players from a centralized starting zone to found individual racial cities, rediscovering elements of their pre-"Cataclysm" heritage. So pulling this out of my ass, Trolls, a subserviant race of the now dragon-controlled Tier'Dal, push into the western swamps, and find a giant hand statue, and theres just something about it that they like, even though it strikes fear into them... etc etc

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I like your enthusiasm and would like to sign up for your delusion.

Just noticed on the everquestnext.com page Terry had replied to my tweet.... I'm famous.. Seriously though, they are posting 10 tweets at a time to each dev on their site so what you say is being displayed to the gaming world. Here's hope there are people actually taking some of this stuff to heart and it's not some hollow marketing angle.

Dumar_sl said:

I like your enthusiasm and would like to sign up for your delusion.

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It's 100% delusion. The rational side of my brain completely agrees with scenario #1 in Droigan's post about 2014.

With tad's hype circling the drain, someone else must carry the banner forward for a few yards, plus I'm all fucked up on preworkout, more than 2 scoops bros.

Cerzi_sl said:

From a tech point of view, anyone shed some light on the viability of complex storybricks considering the traditional limit imposed on number of active quests per player? As far as I'm aware the reason quest journals have a maximum number of quests is because tracking a large number of quests per player quickly eats through resources. Am I way off here? If not how are storybricks going to work considering the amount of data that has to be tracked per player will be vastly multiplied, by the order of several magnitudes I imagine..

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Here's an older article about storybricks, but it does shed light on their Vision (tm)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12...ng-npcs-to-li/

Imagine if you could share what you need or want -- and not just through canned emotes or quest dialogue -- and have NPCs react appropriately depending on their own emotional and mental states. The relationships your character has with NPCs would act as keys to new content: A trusting noble might ask you to help him topple a corrupt prince; a jealous husband might not like your friendship with his herbalist wife.

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it's easy to imagine new kinds of player organizations that would develop organically like religious orders, trading networks, armies, tribes, political parties, crime syndicates, local communities, and so on. Each group would be defined by what brings its members together: their common values and goals. Since the goals of these organizations would sometimes conflict, player competition would naturally emerge from the existence of such groups. This competition would not necessarily be PvP combat but could take on other forms: Religions may compete to convert characters, merchant guilds might arrange trade routes, or indeed, law-oriented factions may hunt down criminals.

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Using this model, developers can plug characters into story frameworks, and those characters will remember and adapt to the players' choices. Conversely, a storytelling system that can look at players' goals, accomplishments, and skills to generate stories -- and the NPCs who populate those stories -- will deliver gameplay challenges that are highly appealing to a wide variety of players because the content quickly becomes personalized

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Still fairly certain certain individuals will rise to god-hood. Just gotta get a little of the ol' high-magic from Takish and you're set.

If some awesome general who saves everyone's ass against the Shissar/Dragons doesn't become Rallos Zek I'll eat my hat.

storybricks is like the central feature of their MMO, I really can't see them just cutting it. Besides I am not sure that the behavior system is gonna be that hard to do, even some skyrim mods use behavior systems tho obviously far less complex ones. If i was them I would set it up similar to how an RTS does, its been how many years since Civilization came out? On alot of levels I don't think what they suggested is that different than just making orcs behave like a faction from a civ gave.

The faction system is gonna end up being some hybrid of the EQ faction system married with the SWTOR dark/light thing I bet. Maybe they will go as far as using DND good/evil/lawful/chaotic in a square shape type alignment system instead of just TORs vertical bar one. Then you just tag every npc with a faction and alignment and the closer you are to their prefered alignment the bigger modifier your old EQ faction gets. I kinda doubt they get any more complex than that.

arallu_sl said:

Here's an older article about storybricks, but it does shed light on their Vision (tm)
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12...ng-npcs-to-li/

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For instance, you could declare your character to be a champion of Justice, and once you've proven yourself in a storyline designed for this purpose, you'd be put in contact with other Justice-minded characters. Maybe you'll form a new group or faction, adhering to rules and oaths that help strengthen your drive. The game itself would enforce these rules and test you and your faction-fellows with situations. This means that being a paladin is more than having shiny armor and a holy sword. What if actually being just, pious, honest and honorable -- acting in the game world in ways that demonstrate those particular virtues -- gave you in-game advantages and let you meet players who have chosen the same path?

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There you go, form your Cazic cult just like that! lol