Notes

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

Why will we care about SOE Reside? Properly, there are a number of causes, however crucial one is that as an alternative of having to attend till October, we now get to see (and contact!) EverQuest Subsequent in early August!

This news threw me for a little bit of a loop, I do not thoughts telling you. I mean, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out guaranteed a playable EQNext demo at SOE Reside 2013. And i knew that it is actually 2013 already, so hands-on time with what is likely to be the subsequent great sandbox will happen inside of a calendar yr. It still appeared actually far off for some cause, although, I suppose because it was just three months ago that we had been ending up SOE Live 2012. August 1st goes to be here before we realize it, so it's excessive time we start prognosticating about EQNext, would not you agree?

Hopefully it goes with out saying that I would prefer to see these items in addition to the usual excessive-quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and development content material.

Heritage quests

Regardless that I performed the original EverQuest for only a couple of month, I like love love EverQuest II's heritage traces. In a franchise that already units the usual for MMO lore, it was a genius concept 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 know SOE goes to put housing in EQNext, as the corporate does the feature higher than some other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- great effort, although). The question is how can it ever be nearly as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I don't think it may well, not less than not at launch. It is literally a sport-inside-the-game that has extra in common 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. Whereas we're dreaming, I might even be greater than Ok with SOE discovering a method to do EQII's housing in an open-world setting.

And sure, I do know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-combat options are for Barbie lovers and casuals and no one uses them. Apart from the tens of millions of gamers who have made the Sims franchise the most well-liked in the historical past of the private pc.

A crafter-pushed financial system

This is going to be difficult for SOE to drag off, significantly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is constructed on an precise player financial system, though, and one of my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and enjoyable crafting system that is sort of totally wasted on a sport where a lot of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.

I don't envy the designers right here as a result of in addition to the balancing challenges inherent in making and sustaining a sandbox economy, they've additionally acquired to deal with the psyche of the brand new-college MMO player who doesn't wish 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 firm has minced no phrases about the fact that EQNext is a participant-driven sandbox, so the way it navigates this potential minefield might be attention-grabbing to look at.

Good guild tools

Copy EQII's guild tools. Something less makes Jef cry. The tip.

Things I do not need to see

Earlier than I knock off for the day, let me spend a couple of paragraphs on issues I do not wish to see. Firstly, in-recreation VOIP. Look, I realize it makes for a good again-of-the-box (will we nonetheless have sport containers?) bullet point, however the truth is that it's a waste of growth sources even when it is shoe-horned in there by a third occasion.

I mean, actually, what guild with a clue would not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble lately? These are all free apps -- except you're the guild chief paying for the server, and even then it's often a lot cheaper than a traditional MMO sub -- and so they dwarf the functionality present in present in-sport options. In-game VOIP is going to be laggy, it will sound like crap, and the one individuals who might use it for greater than 5 minutes are the poor saps in pickup dungeon groups.

Secondly, let's not have any of that dev-generated personal story foolishness or the related voice-performing. This can be a massively multiplayer sandbox, in any case, and that i can think of at the very least two recent AAA titles that have carried out more than sufficient to justify tossing these concepts onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I'm probably preaching to the choir right here, as Smedley has given multiple 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 only-participant savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.

What's in a name?

Whew. This is not an exhaustive record of course, and I am fairly curious to see what some of you would like to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this subject usually as SOE ramps as much as its August reveal and past.

And with that, let's deliver this week's concern of The Tattered Notebook to a detailed. Oh, that reminds me! With HYPEDPVP.NET in our near future, MJ and i are likely going to rename the column sooner or later, both as a technique to freshen issues up and to better seize the spirit of the franchise going forward. And we would love your assist! Be happy to post your recommendations within the comments or contact us directly through [email protected] or [email protected].

EverQuest II is so large that it takes two authors to make sense of it all! Be a 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 things EQII and EQNext -- and catch MJ every 'EverQuest Two-sday' on Massively Tv!

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