EQN:Landmark Beta Starts March 26th!

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Jarnin_sl

shitlord
351
0
I finally got around to upgrading my decrepit computer, so I figured I'd get a founders pack to play on the new computer. I spent my first evening in the game just running around and mining and shit. I finally got around to laying my claim on a nasty piece of desert last night. Built a pretty cool house, though I'm still dicking around with getting the roof on. This game is pretty fun, and it's not even close to the game it's going to be. I've been reading up on all the stuff that is to be added before beta and it's pretty crazy.

As for recreating Everquest, that's a tough order. Even a small zone would be a huge effort requiring a large number of people working together. Compact dungeons that wouldn't require a lot of claims would be the best choices. Stuff like Befallen, Tower of Frozen Shadows, Kurn's Tower, City of Mist. And of course a lot of the races home cities could be remade.

EDIT: A back of the envelope calculation says that Sebilis would require about 80-100 claims to recreate.
 

kaid

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,647
1,187
My friend already is working on a really nice small scale kelethin style tree house setup and it both works really well and also looks really good. Honestly given enough space to do it people could recreate racial cities without to much problems at all even with the current limited props.
 

InterSlayer_sl

shitlord
441
0
Unique Templates
Gonna be cool if someone has pre-patch templates of cool smoothing effects that might not be possible anymore post-patch. If they dont wipe templates for release, thats gonna be some unique, one-of-a-kind $$ templates. Not that SOE is intending this, but its conceivable they patch tools and they dont quite work the same anymore.

Monetization
Hated the idea of SOE selling resources for $$. Then I thought of GW2, and how I'm okay with their system of $ -> Gems -> Gold -> In-Game Items. Both are effectively the same, spending $$ to save time. I think in the GW2 case, it feels better because players have a direct say in determining the valuation of "How much are we going to make this person pay to take a shortcut".
 

moontayle

Golden Squire
4,302
165
I think it depends on exactly how much the conversion of $ -> resources ends up being. Say in the space of an hour you can get 100k stone. How much is an hour of harvesting stone worth? $5? $10? Will different materials cost differing amounts?

To me Landmark seems harder to monetize without the ability to buy the resources. Without that it pretty much comes down to fluff, like pets, mounts, outfits, etc.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
Hey guys, I see there is talk about recreating old school EQ dungeons. I figured someone could use the old eqzoneviewer for that, an old program where you could simply load any zone (up to GoD) and then walk/fly through it. Off line, no monsters off course but with objects.

Thing is, you need the old tutorial.exe program for this which *only* comes with the Original EQ-disc files. They also removed some dll file from later Everquest discs that you need also so a modern EQ installation will not allow you to load a zone into eqzoneviewer anymore.

So I uploaded 2 directories to my ISP: one called EverQuest with the complete installation of the Original Everquest disc, including the tutorial.exe file and all other files and one called eqzoneviewer with all the eqzoneviewer files (already unpacked and installed).
First directory is about 450mb second is a few mb. My Isp should deliver fast, so if you have a fast connection you should be able to download both pretty quickly.

Put both directories on your comp, go into eqviewer dir, run eqzoneviewer.exe and then click file --> open world. Here you may have to find the right dir which is off course the EverQuest dir you just downloaded. This dir only contains the Original world zones but you can put newer zone-files from a modern eq installation in that Everquest dir and then load those too. Each zone needs three files I think, so like befallen.s3d, befallen_chr.s3d and befallen_obj.s3d. But all the old world files are there already.

Best way to view zones is in ghostmode (can fly and go through walls) and put runspeed at x12 or x24. You can also click off objects so get a cleaner view.

Excellent way to see what and where to build.

Here is a nice video I made long ago, to show off how great eqzone design was and how crapp it had become when GoD arrived. The zones you will see are: Highpass Keep, East Freeport, Najena, Qeynos Aquaducts and some crappy, flat GoD zone. Note how I fly under the GoD zone so you can see how the entire zone is on a single level.http://treesong.home.xs4all.nl/eqzonedesign.wmv

Here is my public dir where you can download the two directories:Index of /
 

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
Monetization
Hated the idea of SOE selling resources for $$. Then I thought of GW2, and how I'm okay with their system of $ -> Gems -> Gold -> In-Game Items. Both are effectively the same, spending $$ to save time. I think in the GW2 case, it feels better because players have a direct say in determining the valuation of "How much are we going to make this person pay to take a shortcut".
Right now I think it would be a bad idea but once they get their final progression system in then resources won't matter nearly as much as they do now. Eventually we're all going to have to find recipes instead of just having them all available to us. The other thing to consider is they may not sell crafting only resources like the Elemental Ores so being able to buy a crap ton of Burled Logs will only go so far because you may still need to go out mining for Elemental Gold for your tool recipes.
 

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
My understanding of Landmark is that it's SOE version of Minecraft with a lot more bells and whistles. My son enjoys Minecraft but I have zero interest in the game.

How exactly will Landmark tie into EQ Next? If I have zero interest in Landmark, how will that affect my gameplay in EQ Next?
 

Randin

Trakanon Raider
1,932
891
Well, as I understand it, player housing in EQN will be based off of templates created in Landmark, so if you want to do the player housing thing but don't want to play Landmark, you'll have to make due with the things other people make.

That's more or less it.
 

Soygen

The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
<Nazi Janitors>
28,523
45,033
My understanding of Landmark is that it's SOE version of Minecraft with a lot more bells and whistles. My son enjoys Minecraft but I have zero interest in the game.

How exactly will Landmark tie into EQ Next? If I have zero interest in Landmark, how will that affect my gameplay in EQ Next?
Have you ever played on a multiplayer Minecraft server? I had no interest in it either, until I really sat down and tried it.

That being said, even if you've played it and didn't like it, I would suggest giving EQN Landmark a try once it's out and free to play. Calling it Minecraft with more bells and whistles is really selling it short, assuming they get the features in that they are saying they want to.
 

Jackdaddio_sl

shitlord
727
0
So far I must say, this is not what I expected from an alpha because over the years I've gotten jaded. Usually devs just shake their heads and go 'Uh huh' while you're submitting suggestions, and then proceed to continue to bollocks up a game. It's equally weird to see that this isSOElistening, something I'd expect from a Trion or even an indie company but not them. Dunno what they fed these guys for lunch last year but they should keep them on that shit.

My son plays Minecraft at his school (apparently it's one of those advanced class things, dunno) and as an 11 year old, he's fully into it but then he saw me in this alpha and wanted to try it. I have trouble peeling him away now and all he does is tell his friends about this and they have no idea what goes on about. I guess they'll find out soon enough.

Looked at the proposed monetary plan and nothing that makes me run, but I have to see what they actually put in place before I worry. Since they give you a pickaxe it's not like you can't ever make anything unless you buy one, just build your dick tower out of stones and planks instead of gold. If you feel like mining that stuff later on down the line, you can just paint over the outer bricks with the Paint tool anyways after you made it.

Impressed so far with the alpha, the changes they've made and the openness. I'm really looking forward to seeing how they tie this into Next though... I can't really build worth shit and want to tunnel under the world and kill mole people anyways.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
Awesome! Is there any way you can make them into a single zip for easy download? Or am I missing something to download the folders themselves?
I was hoping that you could copy the dir with contents from my isp but maybe that is not possible.
So for now you have to go into the EverQuest directory and then copy all of the files(there are no subdirectories luckily) there to your computer where you can create a map called EverQuest and put them there. I will try to zip the installation later this day.

As for the eqzoneviewer directory: I also have the original eqzoneviewer file on that treesong directory: it is called eqzoneviewer-install.exe

Just download that and then run the exe, it should install the program no problem.

EDIT/UPDATE: I have put up a zip-file of the EverQuest directory so hopefully that works better. So just download EverQuest.zip and eqzoneviewer-install.exe, unzip EverQuest file, run eqzoneviewer-install.exe so that it installs and then you should be good to go.
 

Zuuljin

Bronze Knight of the Realm
143
0
Thanks! +1 to you.

Going to try to pick something and template it in sections.... that way when the size of the plot goes up I can just slot them together. Now I just need to pick something...
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
10,409
10,877
Get the Settlers Pack for 20 bucks and wait for closed beta? or Get the Explorers pack and play in Alpha? I havent followed the progress of Landmark much, on their website or this thread.
 

Skanda

I'm Amod too!
6,662
4,506
Do you like Minecraft? Get Alpha.
Don't know Minecraft? Probably wait for Beta.
Don't like Minecraft? Wait for release so you can FtP it.