Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Is EQNext Vaporware?
This discussion has been closed.
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
Unfortunately looks more and more vaporvare ...
Can we just retire the vaporware label? It might be applicable in 5 or 6 years, but probably not now. The label vaporware is open to so many interpretations.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Here's a specific something I've said before. It will get ignored or I will get attacked (again), but it is my opinion.
I do not know if the voxel technology brings enough benefit to the game. Its main benefit is to allow dynamic modification of the environment. I do not feel that that aspect of game play is worth the development hassle (complexity and cost) and graphic limitations that it currently imposes on any game. If I were in charge, I'd divorce this project from the voxel technology ASAP.
The problem is even when someone puts something constructive into an otherwise a statement that disagrees with any portion of the project objectives, the only responses possible are Agree or Disagree. Neither option really drives further discussion.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
This forum is to discuss MMOs. You don't need to understand why anyone posts here. lets please talk about games ok?.
The companies history and performance continues to be brought up because people keep asking questions or making claims that invite that information to be discussed.
Expecting people to ignore the current situation and instead only talk about old concepts and theories seems like requesting everyone behave like a blind fan. Sorry if most of the people who were once optimistic no longer feel that way. Those people felt like that well before I came back here.
As for not being on the forums a year or two ago, I'm sorry I wasn't here? I'm not sure what you expect.
I don't think Daybreak reads these forums, so why make suggestions here?
Perhaps you are not seeing talk about gameplay, because most people feel that Daybreak isn't giving information about the game anymore?
People are making threads about what is currently relevant.
If you want to talk about the gameplay, why not start some threads about it. There is nothing stopping you from moving the conversation forward.
It seems silly to expect to find discussion about gameplay or concept art in threads about the game possibly never being released or the companies unwillingness to communicate with their fans.
Pick a topic you want to discuss and make a thread. Easy peasy.
Again, can we please stop trying to shift discussion about games to a discussion of posters?
These development houses know they have tapped into a large audience of addicts who will do anything for their next fix. These addicts throw enough money at crappy games to make it worthwhile for the company and for them to keep making more, finished or not. Unfortunately, it appears that industry-wide game quality suffers as a result of this addictive behavior.
There was also a fraction of the MMO on the market as there are today as well.
Saying that, the main difference between FF and Everquest "popularity" (aka how much it is mentioned on the Internet because that is the only thing we can see) is that FF has a 2 years old MMO with a new expansion that just released and more single player games releasing soon or that just released (remakes and new ones).
While Everquest has two decade old games with a single one being in production and EQNext is kinda radio silent (well for anything that isn't lore and racial architecture).
It's not secret that EQNext development have been slowed down by R&D hurdles because many of things they wanted to do haven't been done before by SOE/Daybreak. But at the same time, they only started full production on the game in 2013 (going by when Storybrick was doing hiring for the game), that means the game have only been 2 yeas in development now...which is very short for any kind of game (average is 5 years for MMOs, 3 for non-MMO).
edit: Following The Landmark Live show sometimes give you a very good idea of where they are at. The last one mentioned them starting to implement seamless world and improving the combat (aka the things mentioned in the video they did right after becoming Daybreak).
There's two type of EQN fanboys: The blindly devout and the hopefuls. The blindly devouts are the one who say the game is going to be what Daybreak says it'll be and meet any bit of skepticism with full blown hosility. To be fair, I doubt there's a single person like that here. Anyone posing as that is probably just trolling.
The hopefuls - like me - are indeed looking for their Exalibur, nothing wrong with that, as long as when we draw this particular sword from the stone on release date, we still have the objectivity to take one look at it and say: "This thing isn't Exalibur - this is a rusty hunk of junk that's been sitting in a rock for the last 10 years."
No reason we can't be optimistic as long as we don't let optimism blind us. I know optimism, on these forums, labels a person as different and strange but... what the hell... I like to swim against the current once in awhile.
I think this is the crux of it. When I think back to being at the 2013 unveil for this game, it feels like I was swindled or conned somehow. I'm just stating how I feel about it independent of all the vaporware discussion. Just feels like I was Amway'd.
The fact that I keep looking after it makes me feel like an addict.
I don't think it's vaporware, but I have serous doubts about it being anything a fan of Everquest or EQ2 will want to play.
From what I've seen so far, it looks like EQNext will be a voxel based minecraft with procedural areas to run around killing things, and some handful of professionally done questlines... with more emphasis on player created junk.
In other words, the lazy way to produce a game... make the players build it. This works in sandbox games like EVE-Online, but I don't think it will feel anything like Everquest.
Funny you say that but their goal is to make the largest sandbox game ever made lol They said they have a game for EQ1 and EQ2 gamers, its EQ1 and EQ2. They are building a game for new fans or people who are ready for something different. No one knows if they will be able to pull this off but DGC seems to want to try. On that note I remember when Star Trek made Enterprise the last Star Trek series. They said the same thing, making a show for new fans, not for the ones who have been with them forever. That didnt turn out well. IMO I think this game would do better if it followed the old school trinity, Tank, CC, Support but I will judge when I play it.
I think you are correct.. It has all the signs... A few years ago, it would have been released as a half finished mess. I don't think Daybreak will go there. I'm betting the plug will be pulled before that comes to pass.
I agree with the posters here as well that in any event it will in no way resemble what Dave G. and team were working on. I'm not saying that is good or bad. I'm not sure that vision would have cut it either. It is getting very hard to compete in the MMO space. The genre needs some new blood. I thought the integration of the player-crafted content would do that. Now, I am not so sure.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
THIS forum is to discuss EQN, not mmos in general or SOE/Daybreak in general or their various other games.
Lets discuss it. Going on and on about the company past, Landmark, and what happened years ago on previous development attempts do not really relate to what has happened since the reveal beyond common sense and surely has very little to do with the actual design of the "game" presented.
I agree that it keeps going because it keeps being brought up, but it has to stop somewhere to not continue.
I get that, but this is sort of my overall point. We all know the current situation for the most part, now what?
How many times do we need to rehash 2 failed attempts, SOE closed other games, Landmark isn't full of players, etc?
I don't see anyone trying to ignore the current situation, but it simply is endless back and forth about nothing of substance. EQN is vaporware, no it's not, yes it is, no it's not.... SOE sucks, we all agree, SOE sucks, we all agree....That is not a discussion.
What is relevant that hasn't been said within the last 10 threads a ton of times and needs repeating? Who is the message for?
Seems like there is this agenda to show everyone that EQN is doomed due to XYZ, but why?
Look at the count on threads actually trying to be on topic (the game itself). Compare that to flame bait titles...
As I've said, there isn't much to talk about at this point so I find some of you more entertaining and interesting as I simply don't get why people spend time on things they don't like or have no faith in. Very odd and very interesting to me, happens to take place in a forum for a game I'm actually hoping makes it.
So guess it will go on forever or I'll eventually have to get bored or Crowfall's Alpha will start, whichever
Mendel's post above what exactly what I'd like to see though. Discussion about the game, procs/cons, likes/dislikes, some actual on-topic discussion.
Maybe my issue is with the Mods and them letting so many threads like this go on. But whatever, it is entertaining for what it is. Such open-ended flame starter questions should have a shelf life. After 150 responses, the answer is still "we don't know."
I had many of those agree/disagree conversations about the actual game concept/design for a long while until the whole company drama turned it into a poo slinging event and is totally off the rails.
I'd much rather debate/discuss the visuals, multi-classing, voxels, number of skills on the bar, etc then if the company is terrible or the game might one day be released or not.
At least one is actually discussing the project and presented and not playing virtual fortune teller predicting what's to come.
With that said....
I agree that their huge focus (only focus?) being on voxels has probably done more harm then good. I wouldn't doubt if they eventually limit it quite a bit. While I get wanting to go crazy with it, would much rather see voxels have a place/time for use instead of every inch of the world being involved.
Unless they figure out how to optimize it, I'd guess that they'll tone it down quite a lot.
THIS topic is about the possibility of EQN becoming vaporware. Everything you want people to stop talking about is directly on topic to the issue. There is no reason to expect a topic like this to focus on discussing concept art and gameplay.
The obvious solution is to go start threads about topics you want to discuss.
As many times as people are interested in talking about it? Everything you say here can be directly applied to rehashing years old information about gameplay and concept art... which may or may not even still apply to the direction of the game.
Again, start some threads about gameplay instead of complaining other are not doing it for you.
Again I say the same applies to rehashing theories about the minimal gameplay concepts the company has talked about. Much of which may not even be relevant anymore.
People are talking about what is current.
Just because you don't like the issues being discussed doesn't mean they are not on topic to the game. This thread brings up a very valid question.
Again, if you think there are better topics you can always start a new thread about it instead of trying to force people to be silent on the ones you don't want discussed.
As for conspiracy theories agendas, that is the truly pointless.
People talking about relevant information that may bother you isn't an agenda.
An agenda would be someone who is trying to stifle discussion attempting to limit what topics can be discussed and what cannot.
You are pretty clear about your goal there, no offense intended, but it seems very off base for you to accuse others of having agendas.
Like Daffid said above, vaporware is a term applied to failed software projects. In the context of ongoing development projects, I think the original question indirectly asks the question will this project become vaporware. In that context, it is most certainly appropriate to discuss the company's (and staff's) ability to complete that project. That's a primary factor in the successful completion of EQ:N.
If San Andreas were suddenly active, it could also be a significant factor impacting success and appropriate in this kind of discussion.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You are correct and I probably should have stopped posting after my first response which was as useful as everything that followed. My bad for getting sucked into the empty void of open ended questions such as this.
Nothing I actually want to discuss that hasn't already been said.
I dont think EQN is vaporware or will be vaporware.. I just think their lack of planning and direction finally caught up to them. That has been the issue from the get go. With Landmark they never really finished one thing before moving on to the next bit ( sometimes really random stuff ) and I am sure they were the same with whatever was going on with EQN behind the scenes.
Doing R&D isn't the same thing as "lack of planning and direction" and you might want to read about Agile development for the context of "never finished one thing before moving to the next bit" part.
Domino did a twitch interview recently (Reddit TLDR) that is quite informative about what they are doing right now. It's technically a Landmark show, but she talks about EQNext in it.
My first hand experience with Landmark tells me they have had no real plan or direction for it for a long time other than to try and milk players. So IMO I am right to think they are facing the same issues with EQN.
To me they had a pretty clear direction and followed it decently over a time period much longer than initially presented. I'll chalk that up to adding Voxel Farm to Forgelight being a hot mess.
While they did do a piece-meal job in areas, they tried to tick of the boxes when possible.
Despite doing an good job in a lot of areas and trying to tame Voxels as best possible, the biggest draw that I saw for Landmark was the whole "build your own mmo" hype.
Which is very dependent on having the ability to actually do that. Requiring what appeared to be "coming soon" AI and DM tools and "same tools as the devs."
Probably a lot easier to make scifi texture and doors than "smart AI" but a bunch of pretty props and textures aren't going to let someone build a dynamic experience. Gathering resources to build something relatively useless and smacking crap AI around isn't a very deep experience.
To me this is where they've dropped the largest ball. Not only have they not released the tools, they avoided talking about them.
Domino talks about how it takes what sounds like way too long to make a bunny, but briefly going into the status of the AI which seems to be the core to everything, just doesn't happen. (I'll admit I didn't watch the whole stream, but no one's mentioned any AI news).
With only a few hundred players currently, tossing in whatever buggy half baked AI and tools to manage it couldn't make things much worse or less interesting. Thought that was sort of the purpose of Landmark before it became a game to be played instead of a platform to build experiences of our own.
They still have as long as the funding will last and EQN's success could help Landmark's, but it is unfortunate that they have left a huge hole that was supposed to be filled with a hyped up feature. Now fans have to cross their fingers and hope it is actually figured out for EQN one day.
I followed EQNext before they even gave it the EQNext name. It was originally slated for a 2013/2014 release back in 2010 when it was in the early drawing board. I was a follower before it was even public knowledge through inside contacts. However since then its been pushed back and then nearly dropped completely by SoE. Most of the programmers and Devs from the EQNext team have been pulled to help on Landmark. My contact has since left SoE and last heard from him on the subject was don't expect EQNext to actually happen or least within this decade.
As such I pretty much entirely wrote off EQNext. They haven't been giving any real updates on it in the last year and keep pushing landmark's updates on the EQNext page. Its really feeling like IF EQNext happens its really just Landmark with a bit more combat and race/class options. I also was in Landmark in alpha to pass time and I just saw nothing good really coming out of it. Nice for builders but really empty for the rest and the builders get bored out when they see their limitations on having their creations seen.
In the last Landmark Live (a few weeks ago), they said that players shouldn't expect to see the full tools this year. Well outside of the ones we already have: gamemaster table and authoring system. The one missing is the quest editor, but without NPCs there is no point in adding it into the game.
Which is rather unfortunate as the impression I got was they were coming first half if not by the end of last year. Clearly they bit off more than they could chew.
Time for some knowledge:
In the software world, when there is no tangible working product/project, then that piece of software, or software project is considered to be just a concept and theory and vapor. (EverQuest Next)
In the Hardware world, when you do not have all the components to fully build your product, or the hardware doesn't physically work, or is not tangible, then that piece of hardware is considered vapor. (Phantom console)
Vaporware doesn't mean the product never releases, it means it never existed in the first place, or in a solid state. Essentially never panning out, or simply over-hyped and the project usually folds. Because the project never gains substance.
Understand many things are never released and fail because they are vapor. That doesn't mean, that things that fail, (or are never released) are vapor.
So..
You must have to have all of the components physically working and tangible.. or the product is vapor. That is why at the auto shows, you have CONCEPTS of their ideas. Those concept illustrate the vapor they are working on. They do not release a concept "as their product", but what their product will some day resemble.
They are building up to that idea, and showing concepts of what they hope to one day to build.