The Tattered Notebook What I Wish To See In EverQuest Subsequent

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I was going to update you tremendous 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 Reside date on us, which kind of mucked up my nefarious plans.



Why do we care about SOE Reside? Effectively, there are multiple causes, however an important one is that as a substitute of getting to wait until October, we now get to see (and touch!) EverQuest Subsequent in early August!



This news threw me for a bit of a loop, I don't mind telling you. I mean, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out assured a playable EQNext demo at SOE Stay 2013. And i knew that it is in reality 2013 already, so palms-on time with what might be the following great sandbox will occur inside of a calendar 12 months. It still appeared really far off for some cause, although, I assume as a result of it was simply three months ago that we have been finishing up SOE Dwell 2012. August 1st goes to be here earlier than we comprehend it, so it's high time we start prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?



Hopefully it goes without saying that I would wish to see these items in addition to the usual high-high quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and development content material.



Heritage quests



Regardless that I played the original EverQuest for under a couple of month, I like love love EverQuest II's heritage lines. In a franchise that already units the usual for MMO lore, it was a genius thought to tie the 2 video games collectively and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by offering up prolonged epic quests with EQ-centric merchandise rewards.



More like that in EQNext, please.



Housing



You realize SOE goes to put housing in EQNext, as the corporate does the feature better than some other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- great effort, though). The query is how can it ever be as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I don't think it can, at least not at release. It's actually a recreation-within-the-game that has more in widespread with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE a while to suit it into EQNext's framework, I'm Ok with that. Whereas we're dreaming, I'd also be greater than Ok with SOE finding a strategy to do EQII's housing in an open-world setting.



And yes, I do know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-combat choices are for Barbie lovers and casuals and no one makes use of them. Aside from the tens of hundreds of thousands of players who have made the Sims franchise the most popular within the historical past of the private laptop.



A crafter-pushed economy



This is going to be tough for SOE to tug off, significantly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is constructed on an actual participant economic system, though, and one in every of my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and fun crafting system that is sort of completely wasted on a recreation where most of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.



I do not envy the designers here as a result of along with the balancing challenges inherent in making and maintaining a sandbox financial 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 needs to remote public sale his gear with a minimum of effort and player interaction. At the same time, the firm has minced no phrases about the truth that EQNext is a player-pushed sandbox, so the way it navigates this potential minefield might be attention-grabbing to observe.



Good guild instruments



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



Issues I do not wish to see



Before I knock off for the day, let me spend a few paragraphs on issues I don't wish to see. Firstly, in-sport VOIP. Look, I know it makes for a very good back-of-the-box (will we still have recreation boxes?) bullet level, however the fact is that it's a waste of improvement sources even if it's shoe-horned in there by a third party.



I imply, really, what guild with a clue does not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble as of late? These are all free apps -- except you are the guild leader paying for the server, and even then it is often a lot cheaper than a traditional MMO sub -- and they dwarf the performance present in current in-game options. In-game VOIP is going to be laggy, it may sound like crap, and the one individuals who may 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 associated voice-appearing. It is a massively multiplayer sandbox, in any case, and that i can think of not less than two current AAA titles that have achieved greater than enough to justify tossing these concepts onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I am probably preaching to the choir right here, as Smedley has given multiple interviews over the previous few months that illustrate the company's "the players are the content" motto. However, still. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please do not with the one-player savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.



What's in a reputation?



Whew. This isn't an exhaustive list of course, and I am fairly curious to see what a few of you want to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this matter often as SOE ramps up to its August reveal and beyond.



And with that, let's convey this week's difficulty of The Tattered Notebook to a close. Oh, that reminds me! With EQNext in our close to future, MJ and i are likely going to rename the column in some unspecified time in the future, each as a option to freshen things up and to higher capture the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we'd love your assist! Feel free to put up your solutions within the feedback or contact us directly through [email protected] or [email protected]. minecraft servers



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