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EverQuest Next Twitch Live Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/soe
Info:
EverQuest Next Twitch Live Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/soe
Info:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/02/soe-live-2013-everquest-next-explained/
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/08/02/everquest-next-is-real-and-its-amazingEverQuest Next is Real, and it's Amazing
The next-gen MMORPG offers a destructible world, intelligent monsters, and a whole lot more.
by Kat Bailey
August 2, 2013
EverQuest Next will feature destructible environments, procedurally-generated quests that stem from independent monster behavior, and a revamped crafting system. If the team at SOE actually pulls off what they want to do with the next-generation MMORPG, then it could truly be the long-awaited next step for what has become a largely stagnant genre.
Lately, MMORPGs have existed on something of a linear continuum. On the one end, you have your strictly enforced amusement parks like World of Warcraft. On the other, your free-for-all sandboxes like EVE Online. However, Sony Online Entertainment Director of Design David Georgeson doesn't think EverQuest Next fits on that continuum.
"EverQuest is another point in the triangle," he says. "We're creating a triangle; it's not just a line anymore."
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It's a sort of massively multiplayer Minecraft with elves, crafting, monsters, and all of the other trappings of a fantasy RPG.
It sounds like a bit of a cop-out. After all, what game wants to be directly compared to the competition, unless it's the in the most positive light possible? But there's some truth to that statement as well. EverQuest Next definitely isn't as linear as World of Warcraft, but it's not quite like EVE Online either. In essence, it's a game where players shape the world together, a sort of massively multiplayer Minecraft with elves, crafting, monsters, and all of the other trappings of a fantasy RPG.
As the name suggests, EverQuest Next is meant to represent an evolutionary leap for the venerable series. It's not a traditional MMO, Georgeson says. The original concept behind EverQuest, which was fresh back in 1998, has been done to death. It's time for something new.
"What we need to deliver with EverQuest Next is something really original, so what we did was tear it down to the bedrock,” Georgeson says. “We pick what we liked, what we didn't like, and we came up with a list of holy grails that we as designers had always wanted to do, but never had the time or the intestinal fortitude to try before."
Georgeson, obviously, is confident. He points to the experience of his team, which averages about 10 years. Most of the leads have four or five MMORPG under their belt. Georgeson himself was the force behind the original Planetside and Tribes 2, both of which are highly-regarded today. That experience has allowed them to iron out most of the technical issues early.
"It's intimidating, but we've been breaking these things down into categories and attacking them one at a time, so that we can polish up what needs polishing before moving on," he said. "We've also prioritized all of our heaviest risks at the earliest stage to prove that we can get them done. Now we're past all of the R&D hurtles, and we're at the point where we're doing what we know how to do, which is build an MMORPG."
Of all the new features that EverQuest Next brings to the table, the ability to alter the world is the most intriguing, since it fulfills a promise that was seemingly made way back in the early days of the genre. When we hear, "Massively multiplayer player-controlled world," we tend to think of a world where players can do whatever they want. That hasn't really been the case though, what with all the careful moderation and linear quests. Sure, we've seen player-created cities in Star Wars Galaxies, and EVE Online has long given complete control of the galaxy over to its players. But by and large, online worlds remain static until the development team comes along with the next batch of content.
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Every player can work together to build a permanent settlement.
In EverQuest Next, a rallying call with periodically go out across an entire server; and for the next two months, every player can work together to build a permanent settlement. Along the way, there may be subquests or monster attacks, and construction may be delayed. But when it's all finished, it's very much permanent.
This degree of control extends to the world itself. Teleport away from an attack, and you'll leave a little dent in the ground. If you're an Earth Wizard, it's possible to raise barriers out of any part of the ground, or create sinkholes to trap monsters. If a large party of enemies happens to be crossing a bridge, then a spell can knock out the bridge and send them plunging to their doom. Of course, the bridge will be gone as well, which opens up a new set of challenges.
This is all accomplished with voxels – the fundamental building block of EverQuest Next – which allow for more convincing destruction. Players will occasionally be prevented from destroying things, Georgeson says, because otherwise "player cities would become player parking lots." Monsters, however, can and will show up to wreak havoc, and left unchecked, they can do plenty of damage to player settlements. A dragon, for instance, may come in and knock a castle wall down, necessitating repairs.
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Jump to another server, and a city may be where a field is supposed to be, or it might not exist at all.
Over time, individual servers in EverQuest Next are meant to become their own worlds. Jump to another server, and a city may be where a field is supposed to be, or it might not exist at all. It will be possible to dig deep into the ground and make all kinds of interesting archaeological discoveries. And to keep things fresh, SOE will occasionally use an earthquake to shake things up and open up new areas.
Rather than a static playground, EverQuest Next is meant to be a living breathing world. Many of the quests will be dynamic, and monsters will have likes, dislikes, and general motivations for their behavior. Orcs, for example, love gold, and will go anywhere they can get it, which can result in a battle for territory as players fight to establish a city. Exterminating one group of monsters can rile up another group, prompting them to attack; or it may result in them picking up and moving on to another location.
On a micro level, Georgeson hopes that all of these actions, reactions, and dynamic quests will allow players to build up individual histories; to allow them to say, in effect, "Oh yeah, I was there when the southern regions were hit by the Great Goblin Invasion of 2014."
"We want people to develop a long, detailed history of their character," Georgeson says, "so that when they tell others that story, they actually care, as opposed to, 'Yeah, yeah, I did that quest.'"
For EverQuest lifers, of course, many of the elements that have defined the series over the years will still be in place. Crafting will be a huge part of the EverQuest Next experience ("Crafting is us. We love crafting," Georgeson says), especially with the battle system being revamped so that hotbar actions are innate to weapons. Many of the familiar locations from the past games will also be present, albeit with much better graphics. SOE is also encouraging players to help build up the world of EverQuest Next by releasing their internal toolset to the public. Fans can build landmarks; and if the developers like them enough, they will be put in the game.
A human wizard and a Kerran warrior break through a cavern floor into a magma chamber.
Having been in development for more than four years now, EverQuest Next has been something of a mystery to fans, to the point that it's been regarded by some as vaporware. Now that SOE has taken off the wraps, it's clear that they have some very interesting ideas for the MMORPG space. With World of Warcraft on the decline and no clear successor ready to take its place as the dominant MMO of the generation, the time is ripe for a new MMORPG to rise up. It's still early, but EverQuest Next has at least established itself as a strong contender for that position; a worthy comeback for one of the genre's founders.
EverQuest's Next Landmark
Since 2009, Sony Online Entertainment has been promising fans of the online role-playing game EverQuest that the 14-year old franchise would get a much-needed facelift. Today they took off the bandages –and surprised players with news that they’re not just giving the game a new look, but taking massively multiplayer RPGs in a whole new direction.
In a keynote presentation at the fan convention SOE Live in Las Vegas on Friday, Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley officially announced EverQuest Next, the long anticipated next game in the EQ franchise. But he also surprised the crowd with details of a new project called EverQuest Next Landmark, which introduces environmental building tools to the game. In short, the next generation of EverQuest will allow players to make and unmake the entire massively multiplayer world around them.
“With EverQuest Next, we’re going back to our roots –a space we defined with the EverQuest legacy– and ushering in a new era of MMOs,” Smedley said in a statement. “Today, many MMOs fail because players consume content faster than developers can create it. With EverQuest Next, we’re creating a living world that players are part of and empowering them to produce new content alongside the development team.”
EverQuest is one one of the oldest and most-played massively multi-player online role-playing games in operation. First launched in March of 1999 by a Sony SNE -1.5%-owned video game studio called Verant Interactive, the 3D fantasy-themed game was a quick success, and proved so addictive that fans began referring to it as “EverCrack.” In the fourteen years since, EQ has lived on through nineteen major expansions –but while it’s outlasted most of its contemporaries, the game has lost ground against newer competitors like Activision Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and Electronic Arts’ Star Wars: The Old Republic.
EverQuest Next has been in development since 2009, but two years ago developers scrapped much of their work and started over, with the intention of leapfrogging the competition by taking the game in a new direction. The main thrust of that initiative, announced today, is that the entire world of Norrath can now be torn apart and rebuilt by players –and that by playing around in the separate sandbox world of Landmark, players can design new objects, houses, towns and even cities.
In Landmark, players use some of the same building tools as SOE developers, putting them to work in huge persistent worlds that each support thousands of other players. After a player has constructed a new object –whether it’s small (like a castle door) or big (like the entire castle)– they can share the design with other players —or simply wander the world to check out other people’s creations.
EverQuest Next Landmark launches this winter as a free-to-play game, and while SOE hasn’t announced a formal launch date for Everquest Next, they say that what happens in Landmark may help shape and color the final MMO; if players create compelling new objects and environments, they could easily show up in the official game world.
When it finally does launch, SOE says EverQuest Next will include several major changes, including:
Multi-Classing: “There are no levels in EQN, but there will be more than 40 distinct classes (or professions) at launch, with multi-tiered abilities and specialized weapon skills to collect and master; players will mix and match abilities from each class, creating truly custom characters.”
Destructible Environments: “Every piece of the world is fully destructible and players will have the ability to manipulate almost all of it… the EQN world will extend far into the heavens and deep into the procedurally-generated earth through 10,000 years of known lore and history.”
Permanent Change: “Players will also have the ability to cause the world to change around them, permanently, in dramatic ways. Through the concerted effort of the world’s inhabitants… city walls will be built and destroyed, large-scale wars will be fought and won, and epic stories will unfold over months and years.”
Emergent AI: “In EQN, NPCs will have specific motivations and preferences that direct behavior in nuanced and unpredictable ways. Players will find themselves in a world where NPC decisions are based on core values, not dictated by static spawn points. For example, Orcs may attack opportunistically because they want an adventurer’s gold, not simply because a careless hero wanders into an attack radius.”
A Life of Consequence: “Each character in EQN will have a unique story; they will not follow a predetermined path. Instead, they will seek out adventure, fame and fortune in a constantly changing sandbox world. The game will remember every choice and action that players make and will organically deliver increasing opportunities to do more of the things players like to do … from crafting armor and exploring the wilderness to purging goblins from the forests.”
For more on EverQuest Next and EverQuest Next Landmark, check out the game’s official site.
