EQNext Discussion

[TheSurgeon]

My feelings to a lot of the announcements are mixed. Like everyone else who loves classic EQ it's hard to hear so many developers talk about how it will go back to that type of hardcore gaming style that many people love. Of course not everyone loves it, and that is what makes it great because it doesn't even pretend to impress children looking for instant gratification and instead shows itself to be a magnificent game for a specific niche.

Voxel idea:

I actually like this technology in theory. Some of what they showed simply demonstrates gameplay where people destroy the environment around them with a few swings of that god awful hammer and the entire world crumbles. I feel that the destruction is too fast, or rather too easy, and significant adjustments to the system need to be made. Traveling further down into the world is interesting, but on a whole it feels just gimmicky. I sincerely hope you can't just skip mobs and tunnel to a rare spawn, so that the entire dungeon is surrounded by one hundred different assholes making mole tunnels. Finding rare areas and artifacts throughout history is an excellent idea, but it really needs to have somewhat of a controlling factor around it.

Graphics/Art style:

On a whole I think that the world graphics are excellent, and I really enjoy the lighting, but the Kerran rubs me fucking wrong. I'm not sure if it's his Alliance style armor, or the fact that it's a Worgen in lion disguise, but I just don't like it. I actually really like the human. Her facial proportions are offset because of RP emotes which I think are somewhat silly, but it doesn't bother me in the least that it is in the game. I liked the art design behind the clothes and how the hair and cloth flowed in the wind. It sort of feels cartoony, but not overly cartoony. In some ways I find that this is an issue in allowing a lot of systems to play on the game, but at the same time the graphics of the world are phenomenal and a destructible environment just means that this is a piss-poor reason behind cartoonish graphics. I played WoW for many years so I don't really mind a very light cartoonish feel, but I will wait and see how the other models turn out before I take the torch to SOE's headquarters. But I think that everyone can agree that the Ogre with the absurd shoulder to arm armor is un-fucking-acceptable.

Emergent AI/Rallying Call:

This is a really cool idea all together, but I will believe it when I see it. The rallying call allowing servers to be unique is a great idea, and that the world will change around you depending on how the players interact with the NPC's sounds too good to be true. Depending on how they present this, and if they can do all that they have promised will get my approval on this.

Multi-class/Combat/No Levels:

... Fuck you... I'm not sure where to start. I really like complex combat that was seen in the early times of WoW where skill came from really active combat. It is especially necessary for PvP, and somewhat in PvE if you are developing complex raid encounters. That said, all of the combat was over the top and I pray that it was just to demonstrate the tech and not something that will show how the actual game will play out. It is far too exaggerated with flashes and arcing swings that glow brightly. If you obtained an amazing weapon with particle effects, then yes let it glow while you swing, but not they way it looks to be now.

Multi-class... It is just a bad idea all around. Your character is nothing but a mesh of skills that are tied to your weapon that you can swap out to do whatever whenever, and your character has absolutely no identity besides vanity items. Furthermore you cannot balance PvE encounters around 100's of skills and make them all viable. Diablo 3 had a trillion builds... any-fucking-ways. It needs to be changed not only for purposes of character identity but for content development.

No leveling tells me that this is going to be a drop in anytime FPS style MMO where anyone can just log on and go anywhere with their cashshop gear and "explore". As far as I'm concerned they just made a Lewis and Clark simulator. If there is no way to really progress in power then there is essentially no endgame. "Well that makes it all endgame". Not really. It makes it farmville where nothing matters outside of rallying calls. I hope I am completely wrong about this.

The only benefit to any of these is PvP. Anyone who PvP's legitimately loves pure competition, and nothing screams competition outside of everyone being the same level and gear meaning little to nothing, and skill combinations allowing for unique team play. But not many people see EQ as solely being an open world PvPfest with barely any RPG elements to it. There needs to be a strong sense of PvE in the game and with no real classes and no levels, then the only PvE elements are going anywhere in the world and fighting monsters with a different skin but of the same difficulty. That is boring.

Landmark:

If you love minecraft then this is your new game. I think this feature is amazing and hands down will cause me to lose many hours just building really amazing things. The fact that it is linked to a cashshop is sort of disgusting, but I am beyond happy that it is separate from the actual world. That was something that I feared would be tied together making the immersion just a mesh of amateur hour.



Overall I see some beautiful graphics and a truly impressive editor, but a shallow world with absolutely no RPG feel to it outside of exploration. It is almost too clear that this was made with console aspirations in mind when you see the automatic jump and 8 skill limits. A sad fucking day for EQ.

I'm ready for Winter.

[Breeziyo]

You're assuming a lot about things that have had nearly no information released about them except for "This will be in the game."

[fastboy21]

To me, rallying call is a very advanced system like waking the sleeper in eq. It's a story line that you play through, but there were some servers that woke the sleeper and others that did not...the community affected the world. It sounds very cool to me that a whole world would crawling with these types of story lines, both grand and mundane.

[fastboy21]

The Kerran thing is a gimme to EQ2 fans...it just looks silly to old eq players.

It's weird, but the art director in eqn was responsible for much of the art in eq1...she did talk about her choice to go with stylistic or "heroic" art rather than more realistic approaches.

[liveitup1216]

In my defense your post was pretty lackluster. You lamented over their combat system, of which we saw extremely little of other than like 4 animations and that weapons will affect abilities.

You doom it to failure for trying something new, the likes of which they're doing are more likely to succeed than fail. Yes, we want EQ1 again with punishing mechanics and heavy numbers and not action bars so we can socialize. It just isn't going to happen from a major developer because they want money. I'm glad they're trying to steer away from the grind to level cap and then plug away at dungeons forever.

You all call their designs dogshit but offer nothing better other than "we want EQ1", which realistically was never going to happen (from Sony or any other major developer) and you all knew that from the start.

So, yeah... you calling Furor and Tigole wise was the only good part about your post.

[Rhuma7]

The dumbing down of combat can be blamed for pushing for the console market which is stupid if you're marketing your game to your playerbase consisting of nothing but COMPUTER GAMERS!

Was the only mention of the combat system, you sure you're reading the right post? lol

[t0lkien]

I think EQN will be what some people like - same as EQ2 (which I thought was horrid), and GW2 (ditto with some nice art, though not my style). But it's not going to fill the hole EQ classic left, and that's the point people are just now realizing. Mind you, it was never going to do that. That's what it started off trying to do and they scrapped it after 18 months. It was always going to be a marketing circus of showy "features" once they took that direction. Most of it is going to fall short in the same way Black and White and other games before it have, and for the same reasons. But fanbois and fangirls are going to suck it up regardless and argue passionately for it. The rest of us just quietly move on, again.

Apples and oranges, and horses for courses.

[RahlaeRuffian]

Any link to the video with the ogre in it? I too do not like the art from what I've seen and I really don't understand how an MMO will be successful as a sandbox. Also not sure how its going to work without levels.

[Nuggie]

I can adapt myself to the graphics. I like the idea of things constantly changing. It will play hell on the wiki crowd.

I like the idea of creating cities. Esp with the detail they are offering. Its totally going to suck when they send that giant to smash it to bits after you spent all that time working on it though. I see the destruction thing leading to exploits.

Going to be awfully hard to balance multiclasses. although, as was previously mentioned people flock to the better classes in EQ.

The face emote thing is a fun aspect. not make or break either way.

rallying cry intrigues me.

Like Tass said, 0/10 for sticking to the eq1 sandbox expectations. although that's not what they were going for. After the initial hype has died down I'd give this game a 6/10 for trying a new thing or two to try to advance the genre.

Also excited for winter coming.

[Barn]

So new and innovative, oh wait.
In 2001 I played DAOC. I was a Cleric who multiclassed with Reaver. I called myself a Cleaver.
Then the call came, the orcs were attacking, er some city. We all went and mined stone to build this massive wall around the keep...
Then we all got bored and quit.