EQ Next: #1 Next gen MMO

Schags said:

To be fair, I'm not sure how Daybreak handles this but working on another game that went f2p, we were often handed this same kind of directive off from publishing/money people and we had to implement it whether we agreed with it or not. I'm not saying it's the same there, maybe they do sit around all day thinking of new shit they can charge for. I'm just saying sometimes that type of shit flows down to development.

I'm not a fan of the nickle/dime people philosophy. Then again, I consider myself a gamer and tend to lean more in favor of looking at it from a players perspective.

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I personally HATE the F2P model because of exactly this.. Dev teams aren't asked to make a great game anymore.. they're asked to make a game with ways to add microtransactions and shit to sell. The focus is totally in the wrong place. I'm still a firm believer that you make a great game, and then charge a sub.. Hell, make the initial purchase price low enough to get people to try it, and if the game is really good, people WILL throw money at you. F2P just puts emphasis in the wrong places.

Elidroth said:

This exactly. Ponytail was determined to make his gaming 'legacy' with Landmark.. He had an ego that rivaled anyone I've ever worked with.. Any time anyone suggested we just make an updated EQ, we were dismissed as 'not thinking big enough'.. Well.. his 'big' thinking got us SOEmote, and EQN vapor.. He knew absolutely nothing about EQ as a franchise IMO.. the best example of that was him telling those of us on EQ that we didn't know what we were doing when we presented new feature ideas for our expansion, and in the same meeting asked what system we used to make in-game cutscenes, as if that was a thing.. like fucking ever.

EQ3, using the art style Rosie and her group initially came up with, without the voxel nonsense, using the single character multi-class ideas Rich Waters had come up with could have been fantastic. Unfortunately, the voxels camp took over, and then the MOBA nonsense happened too.. There was a lot of League of Legends and DOTA playing going on in the team, and they were convinced that was the way to make an MMO, even though they're nothing alike.. Again.. anytime someone suggested this was a bad idea, they were shut out and ignored. Literally everyone outside the EQN team was hoping for a small numbers of classes, firstly in order to make them unique and interesting, and secondly easier to balance, and instead we were told they had 'planned' 47 classes. FORTY FUCKING SEVEN.. We also learned this 47 classes stuff at SOE Live like everyone else did..

Oh.. and if you were there at the panels.. "We have it all planned out but are not ready to talk about it yet" is code for "Uh.. we have no fucking idea what we're going to do there yet."

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I will never, ever, understand how people missed the obvious opportunity to do something very special with the EQ franchise. It had to be egos, shortsightedness, or both but it somewhat sounds like my students at times. In my Games Design classes they typically only want to design what they think is cool "right now". It's as if they can't remove the blinders once they taste it. The abandon all their creativity and originality by allowing such a heavy influence because it's cool or current.

EQ honestly had everything laid out for them and it was obvious from being involved pretty heavily with the EQ2 community, Ponytail couldn't see passed himself or establishing his legacy. I will never understand how or why he was promoted. You obviously know more than any of us due to your experience but how anyone couldn't see the writing on the wall that this dude was driving the plane into the ground was incredibly ignorant.

EQ thrives on its simplicity and its ties/similarities to a Tolkien-esque and D&D world. It really doesn't need to do anything but facilitate that world. Why other games and genres would influence EQ when EQ was the influence itself is beyond me. EQ, EQ2, and WoW was the playbook of what worked, what didn't (which led to a lot of WoW's success), and then how can we make the make the next chapter now that we are years post-WoW release.

I think what's disappoints me most is, in my limited knowledge and opinion on all of this, you could probably change just a handful of things over the years and both EQ and EQ2 would be incredible games today. Don't get me wrong, I love (and still love with Agnarr) EQ through PoP. I loved my time on Naggy in those early years of EQII but both games lost their identity and released very thoughtless additions and changes to their games. To add to all of this, Pantheon "could" be the closest thing to a EQ3 we get and IF it's is released, Norrath will be left behind as we move on to another MMO of this breed. It really saddens me that we won't see a Keith Parkison influenced cover, the familiar EQ locations, sounds and music of Norrath, and a continuation of the story of the gods and dragons.

Oh well... can't change it and it was an unforgettable ride. I'm still having a blast with Agnarr and enjoying playing. It's just a shame as you hear of these stories that a few people and their egos really screwed all of this up. It's as if they didn't want success and riches.... they could have created a legacy instead of a memory.

Elidroth said:

I don't.. You can avoid ability bloat by simply not making 100 abilities. Not every class needs to be able to do every goddamn thing.. That's the whole point of having different classes.. to make different ways of doing things.. It's a conscious choice to not be stupid.

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I believe I have asked this before but have they ever discussed addressing the ability bloat? I asked Holly about this once before and she said they added some type guided ability options that supposedly consolidated the usages of the abilities but I never cared enough to try it.

Elidroth said:

Actually that was from player feedback according to my sources.. Players actually ASKED for the game to be slowed down on progression servers.. Maybe this is a case of players not knowing what they actually want, but that was from polling data..

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Players asked for slower XP. Not to go from 3% per mob to 0.0005% per mob. Seems to have been left that way despite the "beta" feedback. Not a coincidence the potions are perma on sale either

Muligan said:

I believe I have asked this before but have they ever discussed addressing the ability bloat? I asked Holly about this once before and she said they added some type guided ability options that supposedly consolidated the usages of the abilities but I never cared enough to try it.

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Back when I played, years back, I remember there being a brief push for the idea of addressing the bloat (post Faydwer, I think). Just enough people bitched about "dumbing down" the game that they largely backed off of it; some buffs got consolidated, and teleport spells were merged rather than having separate spells for each location, but that was about it.

Vocal minority wins again.. The reality with most MMOs is players THINK they know what they want without grasping the consequences of those choices. The phrase I liked best in this regard was "Play more game, and less game designer" because most people couldn't think past their own personal class desire to dominate everything at the expense of everyone else.

Muligan said:

EQ honestly had everything laid out for them and it was obvious from being involved pretty heavily with the EQ2 community, Ponytail couldn't see passed himself or establishing his legacy. I will never understand how or why he was promoted.

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Easy.. He's a FANTASTIC snake oil salesman. A master of bullshit smoke and mirrors. He's perfected the ability to speak at great length, very enthusiastically, without actually saying anything meaningful. So he baffled people with bullshit and hoped the actual developers could catch up to his nonsense. They didn't.

Elidroth said:

Easy.. He's a FANTASTIC snake oil salesman. A master of bullshit smoke and mirrors. He's perfected the ability to speak at great length, very enthusiastically, without actually saying anything meaningful. So he baffled people with bullshit and hoped the actual developers could catch up to his nonsense. They didn't.

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Yeah, I remember seeing the first EQN presentation and thinking there is no way they are going to pull this off, but if he didn't actually make me almost believe there was a chance for a couple of minutes.

zero_name said:

And more power to the guys behind Ashes of Creation but come ooooonnnn. They're wildly ambitious with a Kickstarter budget. We all know how that ends.

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True, but the game is being built with more than just the kickstarter funds as a budget, the kickstarter was supposedly to fund additional features, the core game supposedly is being funded entirely by Shariff himself and/or his investors (not sure if he has any) per his claims.

Reht said:

Yeah, I remember seeing the first EQN presentation and thinking there is no way they are going to pull this off, but if he didn't actually make me almost believe there was a chance for a couple of minutes.

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I bought 3 trailblazer accounts approximately 4 minutes after they were available......if you sucker me in, you deserve the prize....

zero_name said:

Yeah, I understand that. I want to see dollar amounts though because making an MMO ain't cheap and they're promising a lot. I want them to do good. I want anyone trying to make a decent amount to succeed. But I'll believe it when I see it and I damn sure won't hand over money until there's a product. I've Kickstarted one too many failures.

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I threw $25 at them because I believe in a fair number of their team members.. They're good developers, and I want them to succeed.

Jimbolini said:

I bought 3 trailblazer accounts approximately 4 minutes after they were available......if you sucker me in, you deserve the prize....

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Oh I totally agree, was just saying the guy could talk a good game.

Muligan said:

I will never understand how or why he was promoted.

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Affability. The SOE hierarchy was built on affability-- from the top down. The CEO of the company got his big break from affability and then looked out for other affable people. Not knowing what you were talking about occasionally just meant you were probably more relatable to the people who got their breaks from affability.

Over at Activison, they aren't afraid to criticize ideas delivered from affable mouths. When the numbers came back for D3 RoS, signalling that a very large portion of people played D3 and did not purchase RoS, the Creative Director of Diablo 3 was thrown out on his ass. SOE would have given Ponytail a bonus.

Randin said:

Back when I played, years back, I remember there being a brief push for the idea of addressing the bloat (post Faydwer, I think). Just enough people bitched about "dumbing down" the game that they largely backed off of it; some buffs got consolidated, and teleport spells were merged rather than having separate spells for each location, but that was about it.

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Scott Hartsman, when in charge of the Faydwer expansion pack, said something about the bloat, while answering a question I made back on some version of the FoH boards: he said that the amount of people pleased enough by the changes to come back playing the game, was potentially less than the amount of people pissed off for changing the game they are enjoying at the moment. Not his exact words, but that was the idea.

Plus there was also the fact that it should have been done right and that's never 100% certain.

Scott wasn't one who was afraid to make big change.. He was responsible for guiding EQ2 into a reasonable game after the abysmal state it was in at launch. He's the one responsible for scrapping the 'play your way into your final class" nonsense, and just letting people pick the damn class they wanted to play from the beginning. EQ2 design at launch was a perfect example of change for change sake and how it can go horribly wrong..

Thought this was funny.... Daybreak's tweet this morning. Notice no mention of EQ whatsoever. I guess it's not much of a recruitment tool.

I wonder how much someone could buy the Everquest IP and franchise for today? If I ever win the lottery, I will send them a low-ball offer.