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[Column] EverQuest Next: Of Sony and Skynet
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A year ago, or just about, I sat in a large banquet hall in Las Vegas as Dave Georgeson outlined the next big project for Sony Online Entertainment. The speech centered on a list of “Holy Grails” in MMO development, and how their EverQuest Next team would be reaching to achieve those lofty benchmarks.
Read more of Red Thomas's EverQuest Next: Of Sony & Skynet.
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Comments
I'm excited for EQ:Next though trying to keep my hype level down. The last mmo i was super hyped for was Warhammer, and that was a huge disappointment and they've already shut their doors for good.
With that said i think SOE will have something special with this game, whether its a huge success like WoW is still to be seen, but it doesn't need to reach that high, in fact they shouldn't be trying to do that, but instead focus on creating a fun world for us to play in. Everquest is a big name, and they know it, so lets hope they dont muck it up.
the land size needs to be beyond massive - beyond anything we've seen before in a MMO.
ArcheAge had a decent idea. The problem with that game, however, is that virtually most of the land is outleveled and becomes unimportant.
Good column, very close to my take on the SOELive presentations and what it all means.
I just wish they could reveal all the other stuff but understand why they have a scheduled release of things.
Interesting article on the next version of the EQ saga. Hope they can achieve success with AI changes, but players always seem to figure out ways to take advantage of them.
People should not really use the term sandbox for this game, it is just an improved EQ, hence just an upgraded theme park.
I would like to see a world atleast if not bigger than EQ1 was when it came out nothing of that scale has every be done on initial release, would also like to see higher server pop cap aswell to accomodate the mass scale of the land. Imagine instead of servers like we have now where there identical each server was a different land mass and you could travel between them someway without interuption or maybe a brief load time. Acualy this might even be how SoE might do it now that i think about Landmark, Landmark has like 7 servers than you can teleport between at any time so could this be a sign that servers could resemble one huge land mass that connects to other servers that have there own individual land mass. hmmm i find this intriging now imagine if that was the case it would be amazing the size and scale they could have the world and the population on them. The only problem i see is what will happen if say everyone went to the same lkandmass as everyone else would it destroy the server due to population or will they be able to find away to advoid that.
Emergent ai is the future - pretty sure that the intense resource costs to run it has always been its biggest setback.
The concerns listed here are the exact reasons why it is good. Any action results in a reaction. Its the sort of thing that makes the game replayable because every day you dont log in and kick off from where you left off - because when you log back in things are different. If you have a horde of hard monsters stomping through your hood, its time to flee like any other refugee to another area of the world which you can enjoy until you feel like going back and reclaiming your lands. It beats going from place to place and never returning.
It isnt that hard for them to control populations by spawning things in other areas - causing migrations of players and world events.
EQN is breaking shackles of the conventional mmo, do not expect to go on kill quests since they will likely be emergent events instead more similar to GW2.
"The problem was that the plan was developed and tested on a small player-base. Once it went live, players quickly exterminated all the sheep in the game, and then proceeded to do the same to the then ravenous dragons. The lesson learned was that emergent behavior is seriously cool, but developers need to cheat a little bit or players will systematically hunt creatures to extinction."
Surprise? That's what humans do in real life too. In fact, we do it to such an extent that laws and regulations have to be put into place to limit this behavior.
I hope with all my heart that SOE can create an interesting world with great AI, but I know MMO players and MMO developers tend to underestimate players regularly. Are they ready for guilds to farm areas 12 hours a day? Are they ready for those special people who will lose their jobs or neglect their children (like that recent couple in California) to play a game?
If any mobs have or are guarding something that players want, those mobs will be farmed infinitely or until everything they have is exhausted.
For example, you'd think years later you could just go farm elementals in Nagrand in WoW in peace. Well you can't. They are still, to this day, farmed 24/7. That expansion came out 7 years ago and because the primal motes still have some value (alts/transmog item crafting/profession leveling via AH) they are still being constantly farmed.
GW2 had the Queensdale train (haven't played in a while so I dunno if it's still going strong). You could log in at any hour of the day and a train of people would just be going from event boss to event boss constantly. Seriously all day.
If there's any system that can be exploited, it will be exploited until it becomes banworthy and/or patched. Players will make sure of it. That's just the reality of the MMO community.
Just to comment on this.
It was strongly hinted at SOELive about how something like this 'might' be dealt with. Please do not take this as gospel though as with all things my interpretation may be wrong and things might change in development but to use your example...
Eventually the Elementals would be wiped out of that area. The effect would change many things, such as perhaps changing the land type from Magic to Nature. So not only would the Elementals be removed from that area but other NPC's and mobs that were attracted there because of it's magical properties.
But the interesting thing is, now NPC's and mobs attracted to nature will start to migrate there and so the land and it's occupants have changed. And in turn, land that was nature based might now start to become encroached upon by magical creatures and other things that wish to change nature to magic, perhaps another group of Elementals turn up.
So what you end up with is almost a tidal system of flow that players can affect, sometimes very drastically, at least at the micro scale of things.
Where I still wonder is what happens at the macro level. They have said that races will not go extinct and no content is unobtainable because of the actions of another player or the system so they already have checks in place to manage the system but how far it will go and how it will eventually work is still up in the air.
It's the same unanswered questions to the same posts. Who's the one playing the broken record?
Because until I see otherwise, this new "AI" system is going to be figured out by the players and manipulated, used and farmed. Players always find the most efficient way to use game mechanics. That's a given.
The problem really is that you can't realistically model RL systems in a MMO, because players won't enjoy it at all.
The vast majority of players want a game first and foremost. They want to be able to kill sheep 24/7 without worrying about the sheep running out. They're not interested in the lifecycle of the sheep, they're interested in getting as much wool as possible in THEIR play session.
That's why developers always have to "cheat" with their system rules.
Heard somewhere on one of the dev videos or somthing cant remember which one but i recall them saying that they have the ability to tweak mobs behaviors and things to a degree on the fly so maybe they can change mobs bahavoir slioghtly to prevent this once they see it happening.
Perfect timing. Guess the go ahead was given for the next round of information releases
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=34988
A great interview by Locksixtime done while at SOELive with the 2 main AI guys at Storybricks.
That's my other main concern with the design, outside of the players "gaming" it to death. If it works properly, is it going to be fun? A fully dynamic world might be a giant pain in the behind to play in - it may make literal the term "murder-hobo" and constant change might be as boring as static content. Let alone the possibility of influencing the server will lead to those with more influence than others - correct assessments or not, and the conflict that brings.
I still think SOE will chicken out before it's all said and done and put out a current-model game, rather than this grand experiment. The chances of Everquest Next - the End Times are just too high at the moment. It'll take a LOT of proof in the Alpha/Beta testing to show otherwise.
Avatars are people too
In some respects, I'd rather they keep it all under lock and key, that way no expectations are prematurely crushed.
Landmark, even with the so-so combat update and free for anyone 7-day keys, was barren and clunky this holiday weekend.
When they reveal in-progress design doc's like this and get everyone thinking about how "it could" be realized in game, the deflation all of the dreamy expectations (after they get your money of course) wont be pretty.
And what if it exceeds our expectations?! Then what?! =D
Amazing interview. If they can make this happen this game will be a incredible.
"It's like a finger pointing away to the moon... Don't concentrate on the finger or you'll miss all the heavenly glory" (Bruce Lee)
(Insert your favourite mmo here): ......And behold, a pale horse.... And a million hellishly bad mmos followed with it.
I think this AI / player base (humans) interaction is going to be interesting and messy and wonderful to be a part of. It is going to be really interesting seeing the ways players come up with to mess with the AI....
I agree, though, that we shouldn't be striving for a recreated reality. We should remember it is a fantasy hyper-reality we truly desire as gamers. If we want reality we would, like...go outside and stuff *shudder*
Co-Founder of Elder Moot
SotA Founder
If Sony delivers a system like this without screwing it up, I will literally give them my bank account number and say: "Take what you want for it."