EQNext" will be the world's largest sandbox-style MMO ever made"

I wonder how crafting is going to be. If it sucks... then just fuck it.

But then I've never played an EQ game so,..... I wouldn't be disappointed much in it, just the fact that it's another game I won't want to play because it doesn't interest me.
 
I guess this is why SOE is rushing PS2 out the door. Take any money made from PS2, put it on life support after launch and develop EQ Next with that.
 
I definitely am excited to hear the words Everquest and Sandbox used together! They have an opportunity to carve out an awesome niche if they get this right. If they make another pathetic, trivial themepark title like SWTOR and GW2 then it will go into the trash heap just like those two.
 
" Something you've never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn't want more kill 10 rats quests. We didn't want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they're delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game."


at the very least, they 'get it'...they realize why mmo's suck...the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one
 
I just hope they don't go down the path GW2 did. Do something just because its different, not because its better and it ends up to be a horrible mechanic.
 
I still play EQ2. Honestly, EQNext is going to be player driven content with a huge emphasis on player designed dungeons (which they put in eq2, and it is absolutely awful. You don't design a dungeon, you decorate it), player designed appearance stuff, etc. I'd like to say I have faith in it, but I don't. Georgeson is a terrible Producer (or whatever they are calling him now). With him at the helm they've made a string of completely terrible decisions, decisions they've spent the past 6 months trying to back away from. He is all about putting in the next gimmick to put on his resume, not actually supporting a game. He's put a ton of half assed features in eq2, which are clearly half assed and then they get no further support and end up completely unused.

That said, I do think they care about Planetside 2. However I know for quite a few years now EQ2 has been their most profitable game and has been paying for all their other stuff.

Just my 2c.
 
CryingGod said:
I almost cared, then I realized it's made by SOE. Fuck SOE.
Click to expand...

It seems like SOE is the only big MMO dev that is actually really impressing me. I know most hate them for SWG, but I think they've learned from what happened 7 years ago.
 
EQNext" will be the world's largest sandbox-style MMO ever made"
Click to expand...

Bigger sandbox world than the single shard world of EVE Online? That'll be tough... :D
 
Bangorang said:
" Something you've never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn't want more kill 10 rats quests. We didn't want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they're delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game."

at the very least, they 'get it'...they realize why mmo's suck...the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one
Click to expand...

Anet said the same thing regarding GW2, and in the end, it's still just "kill 10 rats" over and over again. No matter how gorgeous the world or action-oriented the mechanics, it's still just the same grind, no different.

Vega said:
I just hope they don't go down the path GW2 did. Do something just because its different, not because its better and it ends up to be a horrible mechanic.
Click to expand...

Agreed. GW2 is a beautiful world, great effects, crafting etc., but it's nowhere near the "holy grail" that everyone was hoping for in the end.

Different in some ways, extremely frustrating, linear and the same old shit in too many others.
 
I think people are being a bit hard on GW2. I really enjoy how polished it is and it really provides a great variety of gameplay options and styles and are generally above most modern MMOs in this regard. I consider WoW, RIFT, and GW2 the best AAA fantasy MMORPGs currently on the market. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but they offer something special and are moving forward in the market significantly.

I have to say I'm excited about EQNext - the one thing that SOE's "EverQuest-y" side can do better than everyone else, is WORLD BUILDING. I admit a certain amount might be rose tinted glasses, but I think its still realistic to say that EverQuest (at least up to Velious/Luclin/PoP) has one of the most amazing virtual worlds around. Even EQ2 has some (but not nearly as much) of the design that is important. Likewise, the recently free-to-play Vanguard was created to recapture some of that EQ feeling and expand upon it. Don't get me wrong, the game systems in EQ and Vanguard are often buggy or positively archaic, but the world design is just amazing.

The scope of EQ was tremendous. You could spend 15 minutes running across West Karana and still not reach the end. The Ocean of Tears was a real ocean, complete with islands with dangerous MOBs if you were brave enough to fight them - you needed to actually sit on the boat and wait. Freeport and Qeynos were fantastic cities - the guards were actually on different factions and "evil" characters had their trainers and whatnot in secret areas under the city's sewers and whatnot. If you stumbled in there as a newbie - bad news! I remember a Velious dungeon which had a whole city of ice dwarves halfway down into it. You fought you way down and then depending on your faction with the Coldain, you could perhaps stock up and move on to even greater treasure below. Secret doors, keys, and fancy walls, tricks, traps, and pits where everywhere. And then...there was Mayong Mistmoore and his castle. Even relatively low level dungeons like Befallen had all sorts of fake-floors and "Hey, what's in this well, I wonder if I can.... AHHHHH THE SKELETONS ARE EATING ME".

There was a lot wrong with the game and much I would like to see retained but improved, but the world design was absolutely top notch. I hope EQNext has the same sort of people at work upon it.
 
Xaeos said:
The scope of EQ was tremendous. You could spend 15 minutes running across West Karana and still not reach the end. The Ocean of Tears was a real ocean, complete with islands with dangerous MOBs if you were brave enough to fight them - you needed to actually sit on the boat and wait. Freeport and Qeynos were fantastic cities - the guards were actually on different factions and "evil" characters had their trainers and whatnot in secret areas under the city's sewers and whatnot. If you stumbled in there as a newbie - bad news! I remember a Velious dungeon which had a whole city of ice dwarves halfway down into it. You fought you way down and then depending on your faction with the Coldain, you could perhaps stock up and move on to even greater treasure below. Secret doors, keys, and fancy walls, tricks, traps, and pits where everywhere. And then...there was Mayong Mistmoore and his castle. Even relatively low level dungeons like Befallen had all sorts of fake-floors and "Hey, what's in this well, I wonder if I can.... AHHHHH THE SKELETONS ARE EATING ME".

There was a lot wrong with the game and much I would like to see retained but improved, but the world design was absolutely top notch. I hope EQNext has the same sort of people at work upon it.
Click to expand...

This is how I remember EQ. It was just so much fun, and so penal for mistakes.. I can remember staying up all night just trying to fight back in to a corpse in a dungeon.. I was in college but I ended up in a guild with a bunch of older people and it was a stable, helpful environment.. you had to be nice because there were no server transfers or name changes or anything.. My biggest personal achievement was killing the ancient cyclops with a friend and getting the quest done to get my journeyman boots(clickable item for a speed boost similar to the one cast by druids)...
I played WoW for a long time but it was rare that I had anything close to the community of people that I felt like I knew from playing EQ. I played through Scars of Velios... bought Shadows of Luclin but with that expansion, AA points, etc... kind of lost interest mostly because I was getting into more difficult college classes.. I be interesting in seeing EQNext though, definitely.
 
Psych2l said:
Um yea, they're going to have to impress me a lot to get me off Arche Age ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv5Sh3M2iP8
Click to expand...

I would not be surrpised EQ Next is in response to ArcheAge. ArcheAge is looking very promising as a sandbox fantasy MMO, and I hope localization doesn't kill it. I'd like it to retain the same level of difficult if and when it transitions to US shores.

I didn't play EQ as much as I'd like to, but EQ Next looks very interesting. Ever since starting EVE Online, I've always believed that sandbox MMOs are the way to go. Majority of the fantasy MMOs to date are trying to copy, mimic or one-up World of Warcraft. The problem with that no matter how many ways you try to distance your game from WoW or try to be as popular as WoW, it's still a WoW-like game. Even SWTOR was WoW with Star Wars layered on top of it right down to the controls.

ArcheAge to me, and now EQ Next taking the sandbox route, are probably the way fantasy MMOs should be done in the future. And, most importantly get rid of the WoW-like controls with standing there and lock-on targeting. TERA was refreshing in terms of action combat, Guild Wars 2, C9 and Vindictus to a lesser degree. If it was going to be a fantasy MMO, for once developers should consider real time action controls. Unlike the Elder Scrolls MMO developers who claim that such real time combat is impossible due to network technology and lag (HAHAHA), TERA proved them wrong, same with C9 and a few other MMOs with similar controls. I think the Elder Scrolls MMO developers are smoking some really good stuff and letting the smoke cloud their eyes.

However, storytelling in an MMO I'd like to see be as good as WoW, SWTOR, and even Final Fantasy XI and XIV. I hope EQ Next and ArcheAge doesn't fall into that redundant skip this cutscene and quest dialog just to go to the next story area that plagues a lot of MMOs nowadays. i'd like an actual MMO with meat in it, in other wrods, content, stories that exude epic struggle or fights, a story that changes the MMO world you're in, or immerses you into it. It would be great to see something like that in an MMO.
 
I'm sorry but if you were expecting gw2, a FTP game, to be the holy grail of mom's, you were fucking delirious


Posted from Hardforum.com App for Android
 
Your post just got raped by auto correct. I had to read that post like 4 times before I figured it out

How exactly do you guys describe a "sandbox mmo?"
 
Bangorang said:
at the very least, they 'get it'...they realize why mmo's suck...the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one
Click to expand...

I think the hard part is to come up with an effective solution that works and is actually an improvement, especially in MMO.
 
I will find it quite ironic is EQ truly is a sandbox mmo a la Ultima Online and if it actually does well and becomes a huge hit that rivals wow.

It would just be icing on the cake,it brought themepark style mmo's into the world and made it popular, then to come full circle and make a sandbox mmo more popular, I'd love to see it.

The main thing that they need to do to really break the mmo open is the combat.

People are TIRED and sick of the "spam specials/auto attack" style of combat. It's worn out it's welcome. It's boring, repetitive, and got old a long long time ago. I'd love to see them have pure player skill combat and have mounts and range combat as good as say Mount and Blade, melee combat as good as Severance.
 
This game is destined to fail if all SOE wants to do is keep trying to one up someone else. These companies are spending more and more money on the games hoping to have the next WoW and it simply isn't going to happen. Then when the games fail, like the latest star wars game, the company loses big time. It's just not worth the risk. WoW doesn't have a "secret recipe" like Colonel Sanders, it was just the right game at the right time, there is nothing to reproduce to get the same kind of subscription numbers.

Find a niche, build a game for that market, and stick with it.
 
tehslippery said:
How exactly do you guys describe a "sandbox mmo?"
Click to expand...

An MMO with no quests.

Okay, that was a joke, at least halfway. I found a good definition of sandbox MMO features of sandbox MMO here, which I will quote:

  • An open world, not a collection of small maps
  • A non-instanced game world, no private instances for story mode or private dungeons (zones are okay if technically needed)
  • Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading
  • Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)
  • Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design
  • Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items
  • Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes
  • Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters
  • In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items
  • In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay)
  • Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent
  • Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world
  • Some form of customizable player housing/building
 
evilsofa said:
An MMO with no quests.

Okay, that was a joke, at least halfway. I found a good definition of sandbox MMO features of sandbox MMO here, which I will quote:

  • An open world, not a collection of small maps
  • A non-instanced game world, no private instances for story mode or private dungeons (zones are okay if technically needed)
  • Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading
  • Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)
  • Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design
  • Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items
  • Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes
  • Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters
  • In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items
  • In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay)
  • Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent
  • Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world
  • Some form of customizable player housing/building
Click to expand...

This game sounds a whole lot like SWG. I would honestly play EQ Next for a very long time if it was a first person version of galaxies with an actually good ui.
 
tehslippery said:
Your post just got raped by auto correct. I had to read that post like 4 times before I figured it out

How exactly do you guys describe a "sandbox mmo?"
Click to expand...

Sandbox is honestly a world where everything is targetable and killable. There are no area's that are artificially blocked off and with some ingenuity most places can be made attainable through spells or abilties. The original EQ was a sandbox in the fact that were no instances, so guilds weren't killing the same god/king/dragon/bug/whatever at the same time. If Tunare was dead, she was dead for everyone until respawning.

Quests weren't required in the game other then certain ultra high end zones.

You could attack anything. A GM Class trainer that has nothing to do with the lore/progression of the game can be killed. In EQ that changed with the introduction of Plane of Knowledge but that actually fit the lore behind the area.
 
Trimlock said:
Sandbox is honestly a world where everything is targetable and killable. There are no area's that are artificially blocked off and with some ingenuity most places can be made attainable through spells or abilties. The original EQ was a sandbox in the fact that were no instances, so guilds weren't killing the same god/king/dragon/bug/whatever at the same time. If Tunare was dead, she was dead for everyone until respawning.

Quests weren't required in the game other then certain ultra high end zones.

You could attack anything. A GM Class trainer that has nothing to do with the lore/progression of the game can be killed. In EQ that changed with the introduction of Plane of Knowledge but that actually fit the lore behind the area.
Click to expand...

Being able to attack any npc is one of the things that made EQ great. I remember always killing myself just to zone out of the city because that 2ac tunic they'd give you was completely worthless.

I'd also like to be able to drop coin on the ground and give mobs weps/equipment/buffs like you could in the early days of EQ. I remember orc pawns that would absolutely rape you in EC.
 
Sigh, EQ was so far better than the easy mode drivel we have today. Hopefully SoE can surprise us with EQNext.
 
evilsofa said:
An MMO with no quests.

Okay, that was a joke, at least halfway. I found a good definition of sandbox MMO features of sandbox MMO here, which I will quote:

  • An open world, not a collection of small maps
  • A non-instanced game world, no private instances for story mode or private dungeons (zones are okay if technically needed)
  • Gameplay features other than combat activities, for example: fishing, harvesting, prospecting, crafting, diplomacy, music, trading
  • Character progression or development outside of combat (see above examples)
  • Open-ended gameplay, no "game starts at level 50" game design
  • Player-driven in-game economy, not a loot-driven economy, no bind-on-equip or bind-on acquire items
  • Character development that can be customised via skills and/or customisations of class roles, not a class system where every level 50 warrior has the exact same skills and attributes
  • Non-linear character development where characters are not limited to developer-defined roles, for example: free skill trees or multi-classing of characters
  • In-depth crafting system. A crafting system is considered in-depth if the majority of items in the game is player-made and when crafted items can be at least as good as dropped items
  • In-depth resource system. A resource system is considered in-depth if items can be made from raw resources that influence the resulting item (either it's stats or it's appearance is okay)
  • Persistent game world. A game where the world (or parts of the world) reset to a known state in regular intervals is not persistent
  • Player's ability to change aspects of the game world, either by being able to modify the physical game world or by being able to take ownership of structures in the game world
  • Some form of customizable player housing/building
Click to expand...

RuneScape.

All the crap it gets, and despite its childish stereotype (well, kind of true here), I will go ahead and say it is the most "complete" MMORPG that I have ever tried. It's so complete that if you want to max your character in that game, you can do it in one of three ways:

1) Have it consume your entire life for at least 2 years
2) Play casually for 7-10 years
3) Bot for an entire year straight and hope you don't get caught.

But if you're more focused on just one trade or skill, maybe 6 months of casual play? That is how MMORPGs should be. I am surprised others have not tried to copy it, considering it has been around for, a decade now?
 
Do we know what the estimate release dates are for Arche Age and EQNext?
 
Right now it would be rumor.


They could literally take eq, give it a new engine, better ui and it would a new game. It would bring a lot of die hards back given it has good support. Eq had a lot of what most games didn't, the element of something being unbeatable. That was a nice feeling having something so dominant that when it does finally go down there is a massive shock.

Heck they even eventually killed the see through dragon in velious.
 
Vega said:
Sigh, EQ was so far better than the easy mode drivel we have today. Hopefully SoE can surprise us with EQNext.
Click to expand...

The only problem with giving soe hope or a chance of that they didn't bring us eq, verant gave us eq. I doubt anyone could bring us another game that felt like what we had.
 
Trimlock said:
The only problem with giving soe hope or a chance of that they didn't bring us eq, verant gave us eq. I doubt anyone could bring us another game that felt like what we had.
Click to expand...

EQ continued to be good even after Verant was no more, in spite of the small and vocal group that says anything after Velious sucked.
 
I think one important point is that all the great things that EQ did in world design could STILL be done today without a lot of the less-fun-more-work aspects of MMOs back then.

Few quests, lots of grinding, no instancing, forced grouping for all but the earliest levels, "Hell levels" (ie experience was twice as hard to gain on certain level just because), corpse runs where you lose all your gear if your corpse decays, XP penalties or unavoidable item loss chance on death, massive imbalances between classes, crappy crafting, lack of any organization tools, horrid random item drops or rare spawns as such it may take literally 6 months to build a key to get into a zone , "meditate while looking into your spell book until level 40" etc...

Many people attribute the "good times" they had back then to the "difficulty" which in many cases was why MMOs hadn't broken out yet - only the kind of people that could afford to grind for hours to earn 1/3 a level, die and LOSE 3 days worth of grindy playsessions, if they didn't have an Epic-weapon equipped Cleric to res them, and then have the time to get back on the horse and grind again... were playing.

In my opinion, the best thing we can do is bring the excellent designs and systems of both "Theme Park" and "Sandbox" design to the next-gen MMO and do it in such a way while increasing the accessibility and quality of life/fun of play, as opposed to putting down pointless restrictions that narrow your audience to the "I want to be better than everyone else and I have exactly nothing else to do 12+ hours per day" group. We should be focusing on making better virtual worlds, not adding "its a job/work/danger" timesinks as an alternative to actual content. Designing perpetually in fear of the "Fires of Heaven", "Death and Taxes" getting "bored" etc... is holding back the genre.
 
I loved Everquest because, as sadistic as this sounds, the grind is what made your character, and your experience. It made your identity. Because it's how you spent your TIME.

The more time you spent on your character, the more vested you were in and to the game. Sadly, the mmo/fps marketplace is not for this kind of game anymore. Children cry out because they can't be fed new content or new pretty gear to look at. They aren't content with what's now, but rather, what's next.

So our mmo's now are working under a what, 8 month to two year assumption for your attention?

Even in Planetside 2 it's interesting to watch the ebb and flow of the developers, try and nail down how often they'll let us earn certs to get that awesome new ability or new weapon.

Personally, I'm FINE with not being able to cert myself into a new scope after a week of play. I'm FINE with not being able to achieve a higher rank of a spell. I'm COOL with being where I'm at in the game.

WOW came along and showed us MMO'ers that there was a different way to play MMO's. Somehow, both the developers and the users thought that "different" equated to "better". And I'm not convinced that's the case.

If you want an EQNext, you need to realize what made EQGreat.
 
Xaeos said:
Few quests, lots of grinding, no instancing, forced grouping for all but the earliest levels, "Hell levels" (ie experience was twice as hard to gain on certain level just because), corpse runs where you lose all your gear if your corpse decays, XP penalties or unavoidable item loss chance on death, massive imbalances between classes, crappy crafting, lack of any organization tools, horrid random item drops or rare spawns as such it may take literally 6 months to build a key to get into a zone , "meditate while looking into your spell book until level 40" etc...
Click to expand...

Lets be honest, there is no way in hell they would implement a death system like in original EQ. Just that alone would drive away a very large chunk of the potential audience that has been playing WoW or other WoWclones.

It is nice to reminisce about the past, but it really wasn't that great. Go google Project 1999, and go play for a while. It's not fun now, although I remember it being fun way back when, it is not a viable option. People want some instant gratification, or at least feeling that they accomplished something each time they log in anymore. They don't want to have days where they play 2-6 hours and are actually worse off than if they hadn't logged on at all. And who can blame them? Back in 1999 there were basically 2-3 options for MMOs. Now there are 100s and many free to play. Plus there are tons of other great multiplayer games which MMOs have to compete against.
 
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