The Tattered Notebook What I Want To See In EverQuest Subsequent

I was going to replace you positive folk on my adventures in rolling my 17,000th EverQuest II alt for this week's Tattered Notebook, however SOE determined to drop a Fan Faire Live date on us, which sort of mucked up my nefarious plans. pessoa

Why will we care about SOE Stay? Effectively, there are multiple reasons, but an important one is that instead of having to attend till October, we now get to see (and contact!) EverQuest Subsequent in early August!

This information threw me for a little bit of a loop, I don't mind telling you. I imply, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out guaranteed a playable EQNext demo at SOE Stay 2013. And that i knew that it's in actual fact 2013 already, so arms-on time with what may be the next nice sandbox will occur inside of a calendar year. It nonetheless appeared actually far off for some reason, although, I guess as a result of it was just three months ago that we had been ending up SOE Reside 2012. August 1st is going to be right here before we understand it, so it is high time we start prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?

Hopefully it goes without saying that I might wish to see these items in addition to the same old high-quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and progression content.

Heritage quests

Though I performed the unique EverQuest for under a few month, I really like love love EverQuest II's heritage strains. In a franchise that already units the usual for MMO lore, it was a genius idea to tie the 2 games collectively and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by providing up extended epic quests with EQ-centric item rewards.

More like that in EQNext, please.

Housing

You know SOE goes to put housing in EQNext, as the company does the characteristic higher than every other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- great effort, though). The query is how can it ever be pretty much as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I do not assume it may well, not less than not at release. It is actually a sport-inside-the-sport that has extra in common with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE a while to suit it into EQNext's framework, I'm Okay with that. While we're dreaming, I would also be greater than Okay with SOE discovering a option to do EQII's housing in an open-world setting.

And yes, I do know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-fight choices are for Barbie lovers and casuals and nobody uses them. Apart from the tens of tens of millions of gamers who have made the Sims franchise the preferred in the history of the personal computer.

A crafter-pushed economy

This is going to be difficult for SOE to drag off, particularly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is constructed on an precise player economic system, although, and one in every of my frustrations with EQII is the vast, intricate, and enjoyable crafting system that is almost completely wasted on a game where a lot of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.

I don't envy the designers right here as a result of in addition to the balancing challenges inherent in making and sustaining a sandbox financial system, they've also bought to deal with the psyche of the brand new-faculty MMO player who does not want to be bothered with crafters and who wants to remote public sale his gear with a minimal of effort and participant interaction. At the identical time, the firm has minced no words about the fact that EQNext is a participant-driven sandbox, so how it navigates this potential minefield will likely be attention-grabbing to look at.

Good guild tools

Copy EQII's guild tools. Anything less makes Jef cry. The tip.

Things I do not need to see

Earlier than I knock off for the day, let me spend a couple of paragraphs on issues I don't want to see. Firstly, in-game VOIP. Look, I realize it makes for an excellent back-of-the-field (will we still have game packing containers?) bullet point, however the fact is that it's a waste of improvement assets even when it is shoe-horned in there by a 3rd occasion.

I mean, really, what guild with a clue would not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble as of late? These are all free apps -- until you're the guild chief paying for the server, and even then it is normally a lot cheaper than a standard MMO sub -- they usually dwarf the performance found in present in-recreation solutions. In-sport VOIP is going to be laggy, it's going to sound like crap, and the only people who would possibly use it for greater than five minutes are the poor saps in pickup dungeon groups.

Secondly, let's not have any of that dev-generated personal story foolishness or the related voice-appearing. This is a massively multiplayer sandbox, in any case, and i can think of at the very least two latest AAA titles that have accomplished greater than enough to justify tossing these ideas onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I am in all probability preaching to the choir right here, as Smedley has given a number of interviews over the past few months that illustrate the company's "the gamers are the content material" motto. pessoa However, nonetheless. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please do not with the single-participant savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.

What's in a name?

Whew. This is not an exhaustive listing of course, and I'm fairly curious to see what a few of you want to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this topic often as SOE ramps as much as its August reveal and past.

And with that, let's convey this week's issue of The Tattered Notebook to a detailed. Oh, that jogs my memory! With EQNext in our close to future, MJ and i are likely going to rename the column at some point, both as a approach to freshen issues up and to higher capture the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we would love your help! Feel free to put up your options in the comments or contact us instantly by way of [email protected] or [email protected].

EverQuest II is so large that it takes two authors to make sense of it all! Be part of Jef Reahard and MJ Guthrie as they discover Norrathian nooks and crannies from the Overrealm to Timorous Deep. Running each Saturday, The Tattered Notebook is your resource for all things EQII and EQNext -- and catch MJ every 'EverQuest Two-sday' on Massively Tv!