The Tattered Notebook What I Want To See In EverQuest Subsequent

I was going to replace you effective folk 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 Reside date on us, which form of mucked up my nefarious plans.

Why do we care about SOE Live? Well, there are multiple causes, however crucial one is that instead of getting to attend until October, we now get to see (and touch!) EverQuest Next in early August!

This information threw me for a bit of a loop, I don't thoughts telling you. I imply, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out guaranteed a playable EQNext demo at SOE Live 2013. And that i knew that it is actually 2013 already, so hands-on time with what may be the subsequent nice sandbox will occur inside of a calendar yr. It still seemed really far off for some motive, although, I assume as a result of it was simply three months ago that we had been finishing up SOE Live 2012. August 1st goes to be here before we understand it, so it's high time we start prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?

Hopefully it goes with out saying that I'd like to see these items in addition to the usual high-high quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and progression content material.

Heritage quests

Although I performed the unique EverQuest for less than a few month, I like love love EverQuest II's heritage traces. In a franchise that already units the standard for MMO lore, it was a genius thought to tie the two video games together and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by offering up prolonged epic quests with EQ-centric merchandise rewards.

Extra like that in EQNext, please.

Housing

You know SOE is going to put housing in EQNext, as the company does the function higher than any other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- nice effort, although). The question is how can it ever be as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I don't suppose it will possibly, no less than not at release. It's literally a sport-inside-the-recreation that has more in frequent with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE some time to suit it into EQNext's framework, I am Okay with that. Whereas we're dreaming, I'd even be more than Okay with SOE discovering a method to do EQII's housing in an open-world setting.

And yes, I know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-fight choices are for Barbie lovers and casuals and nobody makes use of them. Except for the tens of tens of millions of gamers who've made the Sims franchise the most popular in the historical past of the non-public laptop.

A crafter-pushed economic system

This goes to be tough for SOE to tug off, particularly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is built on an actual participant financial system, though, and one among my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and enjoyable crafting system that is sort of completely wasted on a recreation the place many of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.

I don't envy the designers here because along with the balancing challenges inherent in making and maintaining a sandbox economic system, they've additionally obtained to deal with the psyche of the new-faculty MMO participant who doesn't want to be bothered with crafters and who wants to remote public sale his gear with a minimum of effort and player interplay. At the same time, the firm has minced no words about the truth that EQNext is a player-driven sandbox, so the way it navigates this potential minefield will probably be attention-grabbing to observe.

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 couple of paragraphs on issues I don't need to see. Firstly, in-sport VOIP. Look, I comprehend it makes for a very good back-of-the-field (will we still have recreation bins?) bullet point, however the truth is that it is a waste of improvement sources even if it is shoe-horned in there by a third get together.

I mean, actually, what guild with a clue would not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble these days? These are all free apps -- unless you're the guild leader paying for the server, and even then it's often a lot cheaper than a conventional MMO sub -- and they dwarf the performance found in present in-game solutions. In-game VOIP is going to be laggy, it's going to sound like crap, and the one 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 private story foolishness or the related voice-acting. This can be a massively multiplayer sandbox, in spite of everything, and that i can think of a minimum of two current AAA titles which have accomplished greater than sufficient 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 multiple interviews over the previous few months that illustrate the corporate's "the players are the content" motto. But, nonetheless. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please don't with the one-player savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thanks.

What's in a name?

Whew. This isn't an exhaustive listing of course, and I am quite curious to see what a few of you wish to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this matter often as SOE ramps as much as its August reveal and past. Minecraft

And with that, let's carry this week's concern of The Tattered Notebook to an in depth. Oh, that reminds me! With EQNext in our near future, MJ and i are seemingly going to rename the column sooner or later, each as a option to freshen issues up and to better seize the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we'd love your help! Be at liberty to put up your recommendations within the comments or contact us straight through [email protected] or [email protected].

EverQuest II is so large that it takes two authors to make sense of all of it! Join Jef Reahard and MJ Guthrie as they discover Norrathian nooks and crannies from the Overrealm to Timorous Deep. Operating each Saturday, The Tattered Notebook is your useful resource for all things EQII and EQNext -- and catch MJ every 'EverQuest Two-sday' on Massively Tv!