Seeing that I've been enjoying WoW and I also played a full year of EQ1 just a year ago, having a game that's EQ1 + WoW would be *awesome* to me. It may not satisfy everybody, it won't please all the gamers, but it will most definitely find a good following. I'd like to think someone like myself who grew up with EQ1/AC1/DAOC, but have changed habits to like games such as WoW recently, will enjoy EQ Next thoroughly. This is of course if SOE does it right, because everything is speculation until we see more, hear more, and get the details.
I really don't think the old EQ would work in today's market. Because many of us who started in EQ1 have grown up and have more responsibilities, we can no longer stay up until 4-5am doing corpse retrieval, we have enough stress each day to not want to worry about losing items upon death. I mean you may find a small niche that still enjoy that, but it won't be enough to justify a multi-million dollar project. Now I see more and more people are "core" gamers, meaning not hardcore, not softcore, but people who enjoy playing MMO's and play plenty. The core gamers don't really want the tedium from the old days, but they do like to be challenged and don't mind seeing things that give them nostalgia from the old days. If EQ Next shoots for the core gamers by bringing us the old nostalgia while utilizing new technology, graphics, interface, and newer generation features, I think it'll be a good game. It won't cater to everybody, but it'll have a pretty good sized following. 200k people bought Vanguard hoping to get what EQ Next is supposed to shape out to be.
There's a blog that outlines some good information about EQ Next. Honestly it sounds pretty darn interesting imo. http://www.completeheal.com/
copy/paste from the blog:
EQ Next
A new Everquest game is coming and right now it’s PC only. It’s going to have the name “Everquest” in the title although right now it’s referred to as “Everquest Next.” We had two surprise panels that were not on the official schedule about this game. A few notes follow. First, there is a very senior team on this game right now – including the director Clint Worley. The game is going to use a modified version of the Free Realms Engine but the concept art and in game screenshots that they showed us didn’t look very Free Realms like to me. They are going to have PVP in this game from the beginning or as Smed said “pvp done right.”
Who else is on this team? I was told by another developer that some of the Vanguard guys have been moved to this project. I didn’t get specifics but he also said that Sillius continues to spend a good bit of time on EQ2. He’s probably working on the new expansion. There was a lot of talk about immersion and with the Free Realms engine there will be no zoning in overland zones. It will be like WOW where you can basically walk anywhere above ground without zoning. There will be instanced dungeons and solo, group and raid content.
Things will look familiar if you are a veteran of Norrath. They mentioned that they are considering “corpse run servers” or “hard core servers” to appeal to the old school core gamer. That comment got a loud round of applause. There will be fewer classes than EQ2 and classes will have more defined roles – think Enchanters and Bards from EQ Live. The team has a lot of old school EQ developers on it and they are leaning on that experience a bit more than EQ2 when it comes to vision and direction for the new game.
The new game is very colorful and vibrant. Characters have big shoulder pads – almost WOW style. The engine is very scaleable so it will run on most laptops and yet still look amazing on high end gaming rigs. The game world is up and running now internally – they can move around the world etc… It’s still going to be a while before it comes out though – probably at least a year maybe two or more.
Ah Everquest... Where SWG was my first great MMO love, EQ2 was the reliable spouse for 5 years almost. Nothing too fancy or record breaking, but that reliable sort of game you'd always return to.
To all the WOW-this-WOW-that crowd: It was WOW which stole a lot from Everquest, not the other way around. And of course, any modern day MMO can't just fall back into the time before WOW. Some standards just were set by WOW, which can't be irgnored unless you make speciality niche games like Darkfall or so. And Everquest never was that kind of speciality game.
Yes, a bit the days of EQ are past days. And yet, I don't see no reason why there should not be chance for another new EQ game, if they make it right. The only question is: we have EQ and EQ2 AND tons of other MMOs, so will there really be space left for EQ3? I wonder. For me quitting EQ2 had basically one reason: after 5 years I just had seen the same game world enough. So if EQ3 is halfway decend, I am sure to give any return to Norrath a shot.
My wish is, I hope they don't make it all split into islands again, but more huge, connected landmasses in the fashion of the original EQ or WOW.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I watched the videos of the panel at Fan Faire, and I have a mixed reaction. It sounds like they might be taking this new game in a direction that I would enjoy, and I actually liked the look of Freeport as shown. I just wish I had the opportunity to give a couple of pieces of feedback regarding the other concept art and things said about the art direction.
First, I'd nix the rabbit ears on the dark elf. Big, pointy ears, sure, but not that big and not that pointy. They were somewhere between L2 and WoW elf ears. C'mon, artists. Just say no.
Secondly, and more importantly in my mind, the idea of planning to do big things in the shoulder area if you're wearing pauldrons (paraphrasing) makes me want to beat my head against a brick until I go blind. I would like to see more diversity in armor (model, textures, and colors), not bigger, spikier shoulder pads.
Other than that, I actually liked that the world looks more colorful, and I am cautiously optimistic about the direction they are hinting at. I look forward to hearing more.
Well it could be good, but most likely will fail. Unfortunate, as I was one of the people that beta tested EQ1 and played off and on for years and enjoyed it a lot.
I wonder if Brad McQuaid is anywhere around this game....
And I also wonder which of the SOE MMOs coming out will succeed: DCUO, EQN, Agency...? Another unfortunate thing is that I think they'll all fail for the most part, i.e. nothing bigger than LOTRO numbers in their height, that's for sure.
To be fair though, at least they aren't spending $150 mil or so like SW:TOR is. Because if that fails...well...
---------------------------- "Hero of Time! Face me!"
it was already semi confirmed in that jade hall feature on eq some months ago.
i praise soe for actually trying to keep the ip alive as most other mmorpg have let the ip die such as ultima or the ill fated asheron's call 2.
but i think soe always felt they under achieved with eq2 and in all honesty i thought the eq vs wow pre launch felt like a tight competition and in the end was a tyson vs spinks fight (so much anticipation and ending in 1-2 mins).
they listened to a few elite players and ignored most other beta testers with eq2 and ended up in trouble and i think this is their last chance to get it right at the start(eq2 became a great game but took too long to do it).
it was already semi confirmed in that jade hall feature on eq some months ago. i praise soe for actually trying to keep the ip alive as most other mmorpg have let the ip die such as ultima or the ill fated asheron's call 2. but i think soe always felt they under achieved with eq2 and in all honesty i thought the eq vs wow pre launch felt like a tight competition and in the end was a tyson vs spinks fight (so much anticipation and ending in 1-2 mins). they listened to a few elite players and ignored most other beta testers with eq2 and ended up in trouble and i think this is their last chance to get it right at the start(eq2 became a great game but took too long to do it).
thats bullshit they listened to a bunch of soon Wow players ignoring their Everquest 1 base, pissed them off with almost every dumb down patch, introduced a NGE light into the game. Their new audience went to Wow, others gone back to Everquest 1 till they started carebearing this game also -->lost their former audience failed to gain the WoW audience --->doomed (rightfully so).
I'll never ever touch a game from SOE again doesn't matter if they are only publishing it or designing it. Smedley is a greedy, stupidd bastard who turned everything into crap. He's the Chilton, Ghostcrawler of Soe.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I was dissappointed by the Freeport screenshot. It looked too colorful and didn't come close to resembling the feeling that the original Freeport gave me when looking at it. I would prefer EQ2 style Freeport to that image.
I'm not going to get too dissappointed though because it is only one image. I just hope those that follow do not share the same "cuteness" as this one.
I dont think it looks like a screenshot. I think that was a drawing.
Soe hurt EQ1 and EQ2 Blizzard had litte to do with it.EQ1 picked up subs after WoW an EQ2 were both launched because both at that time were buggy as hell. So in self destructive fashion Soe bugged EQ1 later with dx9 poorly implimented upgrade.
An for the record for a "destroyed " game it plays pretty well now. An is due its 17th expansion House of Thule..
Why did they ditch the elven girl on their game boxes?
She was classy.
EQ has changed.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
Comments
Seeing that I've been enjoying WoW and I also played a full year of EQ1 just a year ago, having a game that's EQ1 + WoW would be *awesome* to me. It may not satisfy everybody, it won't please all the gamers, but it will most definitely find a good following. I'd like to think someone like myself who grew up with EQ1/AC1/DAOC, but have changed habits to like games such as WoW recently, will enjoy EQ Next thoroughly. This is of course if SOE does it right, because everything is speculation until we see more, hear more, and get the details.
I really don't think the old EQ would work in today's market. Because many of us who started in EQ1 have grown up and have more responsibilities, we can no longer stay up until 4-5am doing corpse retrieval, we have enough stress each day to not want to worry about losing items upon death. I mean you may find a small niche that still enjoy that, but it won't be enough to justify a multi-million dollar project. Now I see more and more people are "core" gamers, meaning not hardcore, not softcore, but people who enjoy playing MMO's and play plenty. The core gamers don't really want the tedium from the old days, but they do like to be challenged and don't mind seeing things that give them nostalgia from the old days. If EQ Next shoots for the core gamers by bringing us the old nostalgia while utilizing new technology, graphics, interface, and newer generation features, I think it'll be a good game. It won't cater to everybody, but it'll have a pretty good sized following. 200k people bought Vanguard hoping to get what EQ Next is supposed to shape out to be.
There's a blog that outlines some good information about EQ Next. Honestly it sounds pretty darn interesting imo. http://www.completeheal.com/
copy/paste from the blog:
EQ Next
A new Everquest game is coming and right now it’s PC only. It’s going to have the name “Everquest” in the title although right now it’s referred to as “Everquest Next.” We had two surprise panels that were not on the official schedule about this game. A few notes follow. First, there is a very senior team on this game right now – including the director Clint Worley. The game is going to use a modified version of the Free Realms Engine but the concept art and in game screenshots that they showed us didn’t look very Free Realms like to me. They are going to have PVP in this game from the beginning or as Smed said “pvp done right.”
Who else is on this team? I was told by another developer that some of the Vanguard guys have been moved to this project. I didn’t get specifics but he also said that Sillius continues to spend a good bit of time on EQ2. He’s probably working on the new expansion. There was a lot of talk about immersion and with the Free Realms engine there will be no zoning in overland zones. It will be like WOW where you can basically walk anywhere above ground without zoning. There will be instanced dungeons and solo, group and raid content.
Things will look familiar if you are a veteran of Norrath. They mentioned that they are considering “corpse run servers” or “hard core servers” to appeal to the old school core gamer. That comment got a loud round of applause. There will be fewer classes than EQ2 and classes will have more defined roles – think Enchanters and Bards from EQ Live. The team has a lot of old school EQ developers on it and they are leaning on that experience a bit more than EQ2 when it comes to vision and direction for the new game.
The new game is very colorful and vibrant. Characters have big shoulder pads – almost WOW style. The engine is very scaleable so it will run on most laptops and yet still look amazing on high end gaming rigs. The game world is up and running now internally – they can move around the world etc… It’s still going to be a while before it comes out though – probably at least a year maybe two or more.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I'll be on the old school server
Ah Everquest... Where SWG was my first great MMO love, EQ2 was the reliable spouse for 5 years almost. Nothing too fancy or record breaking, but that reliable sort of game you'd always return to.
To all the WOW-this-WOW-that crowd: It was WOW which stole a lot from Everquest, not the other way around. And of course, any modern day MMO can't just fall back into the time before WOW. Some standards just were set by WOW, which can't be irgnored unless you make speciality niche games like Darkfall or so. And Everquest never was that kind of speciality game.
Yes, a bit the days of EQ are past days. And yet, I don't see no reason why there should not be chance for another new EQ game, if they make it right. The only question is: we have EQ and EQ2 AND tons of other MMOs, so will there really be space left for EQ3? I wonder. For me quitting EQ2 had basically one reason: after 5 years I just had seen the same game world enough. So if EQ3 is halfway decend, I am sure to give any return to Norrath a shot.
My wish is, I hope they don't make it all split into islands again, but more huge, connected landmasses in the fashion of the original EQ or WOW.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
EQ2 is one of those bad games executed fairly well. Like an opposite of Champions Online.
SOE could mess up a roast beef sandwich so it'll be a 'year after it's launch' wait and see.
Really kind of sucks that this news won't bring as much hype as it would've 6 years ago. How the mighty have fallen.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
I watched the videos of the panel at Fan Faire, and I have a mixed reaction. It sounds like they might be taking this new game in a direction that I would enjoy, and I actually liked the look of Freeport as shown. I just wish I had the opportunity to give a couple of pieces of feedback regarding the other concept art and things said about the art direction.
First, I'd nix the rabbit ears on the dark elf. Big, pointy ears, sure, but not that big and not that pointy. They were somewhere between L2 and WoW elf ears. C'mon, artists. Just say no.
Secondly, and more importantly in my mind, the idea of planning to do big things in the shoulder area if you're wearing pauldrons (paraphrasing) makes me want to beat my head against a brick until I go blind. I would like to see more diversity in armor (model, textures, and colors), not bigger, spikier shoulder pads.
Other than that, I actually liked that the world looks more colorful, and I am cautiously optimistic about the direction they are hinting at. I look forward to hearing more.
Well it could be good, but most likely will fail. Unfortunate, as I was one of the people that beta tested EQ1 and played off and on for years and enjoyed it a lot.
I wonder if Brad McQuaid is anywhere around this game....
And I also wonder which of the SOE MMOs coming out will succeed: DCUO, EQN, Agency...? Another unfortunate thing is that I think they'll all fail for the most part, i.e. nothing bigger than LOTRO numbers in their height, that's for sure.
To be fair though, at least they aren't spending $150 mil or so like SW:TOR is. Because if that fails...well...
----------------------------
"Hero of Time! Face me!"
Oh! Interesting observation. It does resemble Free Realms...a bit too much.
it was already semi confirmed in that jade hall feature on eq some months ago.
i praise soe for actually trying to keep the ip alive as most other mmorpg have let the ip die such as ultima or the ill fated asheron's call 2.
but i think soe always felt they under achieved with eq2 and in all honesty i thought the eq vs wow pre launch felt like a tight competition and in the end was a tyson vs spinks fight (so much anticipation and ending in 1-2 mins).
they listened to a few elite players and ignored most other beta testers with eq2 and ended up in trouble and i think this is their last chance to get it right at the start(eq2 became a great game but took too long to do it).
thats bullshit they listened to a bunch of soon Wow players ignoring their Everquest 1 base, pissed them off with almost every dumb down patch, introduced a NGE light into the game. Their new audience went to Wow, others gone back to Everquest 1 till they started carebearing this game also -->lost their former audience failed to gain the WoW audience --->doomed (rightfully so).I'll never ever touch a game from SOE again doesn't matter if they are only publishing it or designing it. Smedley is a greedy, stupidd bastard who turned everything into crap. He's the Chilton, Ghostcrawler of Soe.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I dont think it looks like a screenshot. I think that was a drawing.
Why did they ditch the elven girl on their game boxes?
She was classy.
EQ has changed.
All those memories will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.