Notes

The Tattered Notebook: What I Need To See In EverQuest Subsequent
I was going to update you wonderful folks on my adventures in rolling my 17,000th EverQuest II alt for this week's Tattered Notebook, but SOE determined to drop a Fan Faire Live date on us, which sort of mucked up my nefarious plans.

Why can we care about SOE Reside? Well, there are multiple reasons, but crucial one is that instead of getting to attend till October, we now get to see (and contact!) Extremecraft in early August!

This information threw me for a little bit of a loop, I don't thoughts telling you. I imply, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out assured a playable EQNext demo at SOE Reside 2013. And that i knew that it is in reality 2013 already, so arms-on time with what could be the subsequent nice sandbox will occur inside of a calendar year. It nonetheless seemed actually far off for some cause, although, I suppose as a result of it was simply three months in the past that we had been ending up SOE Live 2012. August 1st is going to be here earlier than we realize it, so it's excessive time we begin prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?

Hopefully it goes with out saying that I would prefer to see this stuff in addition to the standard excessive-quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and progression content material.

Heritage quests

Regardless that I played the unique EverQuest for only a few month, I really like love love EverQuest II's heritage traces. In a franchise that already sets the standard for MMO lore, it was a genius idea to tie the two games together and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by offering up prolonged epic quests with EQ-centric item rewards.

Extra like that in EQNext, please.

Housing

You understand SOE is going to place housing in EQNext, as the company does the characteristic higher than any other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- nice effort, though). The question is how can it ever be nearly as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I don't suppose it could actually, at the very least not at release. It's literally a game-inside-the-game that has extra in widespread with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE a while to fit it into EQNext's framework, I am Okay with that. While we're dreaming, I'd also be more than Ok with SOE finding a way to do EQII's housing in an open-world setting.

And yes, I know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-combat options are for Barbie lovers and casuals and nobody uses them. Apart from the tens of hundreds of thousands of players who've made the Sims franchise the preferred in the history of the personal pc.

A crafter-driven financial system

This goes to be tough for SOE to pull off, notably given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is built on an actual participant economic system, although, and certainly one of my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and enjoyable crafting system that is nearly completely wasted on a sport the place most of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.

I don't envy the designers right here because in addition to the balancing challenges inherent in making and sustaining a sandbox financial system, they've additionally bought to deal with the psyche of the brand new-faculty MMO player who doesn't want to be bothered with crafters and who needs to remote public sale his gear with a minimum of effort and player interplay. At the same time, the agency has minced no phrases about the truth that EQNext is a participant-driven sandbox, so the way it navigates this potential minefield will likely be fascinating to look at.

Good guild instruments

Copy EQII's guild instruments. Anything less makes Jef cry. The end.

Issues I don't wish to see

Before I knock off for the day, let me spend a few paragraphs on issues I do not need to see. Firstly, in-sport VOIP. Look, I understand it makes for a very good again-of-the-field (will we nonetheless have sport packing containers?) bullet point, but the reality is that it is a waste of development resources even if it's shoe-horned in there by a third party.

I mean, actually, what guild with a clue would not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble these days? These are all free apps -- unless you are the guild leader paying for the server, and even then it is usually much cheaper than a traditional MMO sub -- they usually dwarf the functionality present in present in-game options. In-recreation VOIP is going to be laggy, it should sound like crap, and the only individuals who would possibly use it for greater than five minutes are the poor saps in pickup dungeon teams.

Secondly, let's not have any of that dev-generated personal story foolishness or the related voice-acting. This can be a massively multiplayer sandbox, after all, and that i can think of not less than two recent AAA titles that have done greater than enough to justify tossing these ideas onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I am most likely 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. But, nonetheless. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please do not with the single-participant savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.

What's in a reputation?

Whew. This is not an exhaustive record in fact, and I am quite curious to see what a few of you wish to see in EQNext. Relaxation assured that we'll be revisiting this topic often as SOE ramps as much as its August reveal and beyond.

And with that, let's deliver this week's situation of The Tattered Notebook to a close. Oh, that jogs my memory! With EQNext in our near future, MJ and i are likely going to rename the column sooner or later, each as a strategy to freshen things up and to better capture the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we'd 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 huge 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 issues EQII and EQNext -- and catch MJ each 'EverQuest Two-sday' on Massively Tv!

My Website: https://extremecraft.de/