The Tattered Notebook What I Want To See In EverQuest Subsequent

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I was going to replace you fine people on my adventures in rolling my 17,000th EverQuest II alt for this week's Tattered Notebook, but SOE decided to drop a Fan Faire Dwell date on us, which form of mucked up my nefarious plans.



Why can we care about SOE Stay? Well, there are multiple causes, but the most important one is that as a substitute of having to attend until October, we now get to see (and touch!) Mpservers EverQuest Next 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's in actual fact 2013 already, so palms-on time with what is perhaps the next nice sandbox will occur inside of a calendar 12 months. It still seemed really far off for some reason, although, I assume as a result of it was simply three months in the past that we have been finishing up SOE Stay 2012. August 1st is going to be right here earlier than we comprehend it, so it's high time we begin prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?



Hopefully it goes with out saying that I might wish to see this stuff along with the same old excessive-high quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and development content material.



Heritage quests



Though I performed the unique EverQuest for only a couple of month, I like love love EverQuest II's heritage lines. In a franchise that already sets the standard for MMO lore, it was a genius idea to tie the 2 games together and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by offering up extended epic quests with EQ-centric item rewards.



More like that in EQNext, please.



Housing



You already know SOE goes to put housing in EQNext, as the company does the characteristic higher than every other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- nice effort, though). The query is how can it ever be as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I do not think it can, not less than not at release. It is actually a sport-inside-the-sport that has extra in common with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE some time to fit it into EQNext's framework, I am Okay with that. While we're dreaming, I might even be greater than Ok with SOE discovering a method to do EQII's housing in an open-world surroundings.



And yes, I do know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-combat choices are for Barbie lovers and casuals and nobody makes use of them. Apart from the tens of hundreds of thousands of gamers who have made the Sims franchise the most well-liked within the history of the personal computer.



A crafter-pushed economic system



This is going to be tough for SOE to tug off, significantly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. MULTIPLAYER SERVERS My definition of sandbox is built on an precise player financial system, though, and one of my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and fun crafting system that is almost completely wasted on a game where a lot 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 economy, they've additionally obtained to deal with the psyche of the brand new-college MMO player who does not need to be bothered with crafters and who needs to remote public sale his gear with a minimum of effort and participant interaction. At the identical time, the firm has minced no words about the fact that EQNext is a player-pushed sandbox, so how it navigates this potential minefield will likely be interesting to watch.



Good guild tools



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



Things I do not wish to see



Before I knock off for the day, let me spend a couple of paragraphs on issues I don't want to see. Firstly, in-sport VOIP. Look, I understand it makes for an excellent back-of-the-box (do we nonetheless have sport packing containers?) bullet point, however the fact is that it is a waste of growth sources even when it is shoe-horned in there by a third get together.



I imply, really, what guild with a clue does not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble these days? These are all free apps -- until you're the guild chief paying for the server, and even then it's usually a lot cheaper than a conventional MMO sub -- and they dwarf the performance present in current in-sport options. In-recreation VOIP goes to be laggy, it's going to sound like crap, and the one individuals who would possibly use it for more than five minutes are the poor saps in pickup dungeon groups.



Secondly, let's not have any of that dev-generated private story foolishness or the related voice-performing. This can be a massively multiplayer sandbox, after all, and i can think of a minimum of two latest AAA titles that have performed more than enough to justify tossing these concepts onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I am probably preaching to the choir here, as Smedley has given multiple interviews over the previous few months that illustrate the company's "the gamers are the content" motto. But, nonetheless. MULTIPLAYER SERVERS MMORPG. Sandbox. Please don't with the only-player savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thanks.



What's in a name?



Whew. This is not an exhaustive checklist after all, and I'm quite curious to see what a few of you would like to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this matter often as SOE ramps up to its August reveal and past.



And with that, let's deliver this week's problem of The Tattered Notebook to a detailed. Oh, that reminds me! With EQNext in our near future, MJ and that i are probably going to rename the column at some point, each as a technique to freshen issues up and to raised capture the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we'd love your assist! Feel free to publish your suggestions in the feedback or contact us straight via [email protected] or [email protected].



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