The Tattered Notebook What I Wish To See In EverQuest Next

I used to be going to replace you fantastic 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 sort of mucked up my nefarious plans.

Why can we care about SOE Dwell? Properly, there are a number of reasons, but an important one is that as a substitute of getting to wait 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 mind telling you. I mean, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out assured a playable EQNext demo at SOE Dwell 2013. And that i knew that it is in fact 2013 already, so palms-on time with what might be the next great sandbox will occur inside of a calendar 12 months. It still seemed really far off for some reason, though, I assume because it was simply three months ago that we have been ending up SOE Live 2012. August 1st goes to be right here before we understand it, so it's high time we begin prognosticating about EQNext, would not you agree?

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

Heritage quests

Even though I played the original EverQuest for under about a month, I love love love EverQuest II's heritage strains. In a franchise that already units the usual for MMO lore, it was a genius concept 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.

Extra like that in EQNext, please.

Housing

You realize SOE goes 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 pretty much as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I do not suppose it will probably, no less than not at release. It's literally a recreation-within-the-sport that has more in widespread 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. While we're dreaming, I would also be more than Ok with SOE discovering a strategy to do EQII's housing in an open-world environment.

And yes, I know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-fight options are for Barbie lovers and casuals and nobody makes use of them. Apart from the tens of millions of players who have made the Sims franchise the most popular within the history of the personal pc.

A crafter-pushed economy

This is going to be difficult for SOE to pull off, notably given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is constructed on an actual participant economy, though, and one of my frustrations with EQII is the huge, intricate, and enjoyable crafting system that is almost completely wasted on a recreation 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 maintaining a sandbox financial system, they've also got to deal with the psyche of the new-school MMO participant who would not want to be bothered with crafters and who desires to remote auction his gear with a minimal of effort and participant interplay. At the identical time, the firm has minced no phrases about the fact that EQNext is a participant-driven sandbox, so how it navigates this potential minefield will likely be attention-grabbing to observe.

Good guild tools

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

Things I don't want to see

Earlier than I knock off for the day, let me spend a few paragraphs on issues I do not wish to see. Firstly, in-recreation VOIP. Look, I comprehend it makes for a great again-of-the-field (do we nonetheless have recreation bins?) bullet point, however the fact is that it's a waste of improvement assets even if it is shoe-horned in there by a 3rd social gathering.

I mean, really, what guild with a clue would not use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble lately? These are all free apps -- until you're the guild chief paying for the server, and even then it is often much cheaper than a traditional MMO sub -- and so they dwarf the performance present in current in-sport solutions. In-recreation VOIP goes to be laggy, it will sound like crap, and the one people who may use it for more than 5 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-acting. This is a massively multiplayer sandbox, after all, and i can think of not less than two recent AAA titles that have done more than enough to justify tossing these concepts onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I am in all probability preaching to the choir right here, as Smedley has given a number of interviews over the past few months that illustrate the corporate's "the gamers are the content" motto. But, still. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please do not with the one-player savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.

What's in a name?

Whew. This isn't an exhaustive listing in fact, and I'm quite curious to see what some of you want to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this subject usually as SOE ramps up to its August reveal and beyond.

And with that, let's bring this week's difficulty of The Tattered Notebook to an in depth. Sometimes Oh, that jogs my memory! With EQNext in our near future, MJ and i are seemingly going to rename the column sooner or later, both as a method to freshen issues up and to raised capture the spirit of the franchise going ahead. And we'd love your assist! Be at liberty to submit your strategies in the feedback or contact us directly through [email protected] or [email protected].

EverQuest II is so big 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. Operating every Saturday, The Tattered Notebook is your resource for all issues EQII and EQNext -- and catch MJ every 'EverQuest Two-sday' on Massively Television!