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[Preview] EverQuest Next: The World of EQN Panel Recap
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
We've got our boots on the ground and butts in the seats for all of the EverQuest Next panels this weekend at SOE Live. First up, the World of EQN. Read on for more information on how it will change and be shaped by player actions.
The team, all smiling, said that servers could indeed be in different places within the story arc but that it doesn’t mean that that’s an advantage if the server has passed over other, smaller details in the move to further the story. What’s cool is that players can then take or create characters on servers who may not have moved as far and can either re-experience content they loved or see it for the first time if they missed it. Each server will have its own unique personality.
Several key components of world interaction were, however, left out of the panel discussion. The team opted not to answer questions about PvP, housing and to reveal more information about housing. According to them, this gives something for fans to look forward to as time goes on.
Read on for Suzie's full recap of the World of EQN Panel.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
Comments
I've never been an EQ fan, althou I really enjoy the stories that I've heard from the two early games. People have told stories that just couldn't take place in the MMOs that I've played. So I liked how EQ have been, even thou I've never played it. Strange huh?
After seeing the live show I was blown away. I loved everything I saw and I want more. I know that I shouldn't get my hopes up to much, since many MMOs before have failed to deliver what they promised, but I think that EQN can pull it off.
I'll look forward to hear about crafting, PvP and some more about how the characters progress. Will most definitely buy it when it comes out, if it manages to keep me as interested as I am now.
English is not my first language.
"Because of the above stated goals, stylized art was chosen for several reasons: It ages more gracefully, it can evoke an emotional response and creates immersion and it allows the development team to give players a way to use senses other than vision to immerse themselves in the game world.
For characters, the stylized art allows for a weightier character, not so much in terms of gigantic oversized bulk, but more in the substance of a character. In addition, stylized art allows for better facial expressions. The team likened it to Pixar: Oversized eyes, lips, exaggerated body movements, etc."
Hmm so oversized "tony the tiger" cartoon characters and environment creates immersion?
Don't agree.
Making things in the environment useable, sitting in chairs, trees that fall when you chop them down, day and night cycles, one single world with no load screens, these create immersion.
While I am in awe of what the EQN team has come up with believing cartoonish art work creates immersion is just plain silly.
As an added note if cartoons created immersion than all the block buster movies, "Star Wars" etc. would have been made with cartoons.
Montaronx some of you folks mix up complaining with having a difference of opinion.
I highly respect all of these developers but that does not mean I don't have different tastes and also look at MMO history.
Other than WoW what other MMOs has been highly successful using kiddie cartoons?
I would accept the cartoon stuff if the team had just come out and said we needed to do this so you can blow the world up but no they come out and say it adds immersion and the game will look pretty in 5 years.
I am defiantly going to give the game a try and I even signed up for Beta. My only problem is I don't think they are doing enough new things. Sandboxes don't have to be just about people creating content... I wish more games would do what Darkages did and let players hold college classes and teach players about the lore and religion be run by the players too where players actually worked to become priests and then they did sermons. It was very elaborate and created some of the best immersion I've experienced in a game. Also the game had politics and people ran to be mayor of the town or city and there were progression ladders so it took time to gain widespread recognition.
That's what a sandbox is to me. Where player interaction and the community and world is driven by the players.
Smile
People in my opinion are too hung up on the graphics. While it slightly makes the game, the only part that matters is the gameplay. If the combat is fluid and fun that's all that matters. Successful game is not made in the graphics it is made from gameplay. Look at WOW old school cartoon graphics but you have much older people playing the game.
I'm willing to bet you have people in their 50's and 60's playing WoW despite the graphics. Leave the graphics alone and consider what is more important.
I would give you a guest pass to SWOTR, but then I wouldn't be able to find a way to live with myself afterwards....
Dig around on the net and find some of the surveys that gaming companies have done in the past and you'll find overwhelming that people want cartoon gfx in their games, they stop games from aging to fast and they do create immersion, reason being that when you go for more realistic gfx you end up picking more faults with how something should look and so lose your immersion.
Heck look at Star Wars: Clone Wars that cartoon's gfx are very like what SOE are doing in EQ's latest incarnation, it's won some awards to.
It's pretty obvious to me that SOE have a winner on their hands as long as they don't botch the delivery it'll be another game from SOE I'll play for the next 14ish years like I have with EQ.
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money
Look the thing is there is no doubt that the developers have worked real hard on this game, but it will be hard for the gamers to understand what they have implemented until they get their hands on the finished product. Only then will people get it!
But like many other people who have concerns like I do too especially about the character carton graphics. I do not want to play a game where I have to watch a carton looking character for 6 or 7 years it's real simple. The game play can be amazing as it sounds it is but this look needs to change imo. I like the way the world looks graphic wise but the over sizes armour and the look of them toons is a big deal for me so I hope that by using the round table we can get this changed then I'll be real happy.
Asbo
Good read and I agree on all the points.
Being able to hook a camera up to my PC and have my character emote my facial features is going to be AWESOME!
There is a LOT we don't know anything about yet, like crafting and pvp, but so far I got far more interested then I was before. They have great ideas and IF they can pull it off it will be impressive.
Did not really like the charactermodels (especially the lion) but that will not be gamebreaking for me. I did like the human expressions/emotions tho and the landscapes were very nice.
I'll sure keep an eye on this as long as I will not be forced to play thru Prosieben as a European......
So far, I'm delighted with the overview of EQNext.
I even like the art direction and the stylized character models (specially the emotes !).
Wow, I never thought about that but it is so true. I can play a game like WoW and think it looks really gorgeous still and enjoy the scenery. But If I try to play EQ2 my mind just fixates on how much things are supposed to look realistic but they just don't. I'm not getting sucked into a virtual realistic world, but an odd it doesn't really look real but it doesn't look fantasy either.
It's a very good point. No matter how realistic you make the graphics, it's never going to look like real life at least not yet.
Actually its funny you mention Star Wars.
When the last three Star Wars came out one of the most complained about things about the movies was the excessive use of CGI. When you use so much CGI the watcher will eventually find flaws in the CGI. When this happens it breaks immersion. Whenever you saw a live actor in this completely cgi world, you could tell what was fake and it broke immersion.
Its even worst for video games because in game graphics are nowhere near as good as produced CGI. So when you have a realism game everything has to be perfected because the player is constantly and sometimes unknowningly looking for flaws. We do this everyday when we look at real people.
Ever wonder why when a person see's a dead body for the first time they say it looks fake even if the body is in the same condition as when the person was alive? Its because unconciously when looking at the body something is now different and that person is no longer one of among the living.
So when we look at something thats obviously fake we no longer unconsiously try to find flaws. So when we put this obviously fake character into a cgi world, we feel this character belongs in that cgti world. Breath life and realistic movements in the character and immersion will never be broken.
Back to my original example. When watching the last three Star Wars you could contantly see cgi flaws. You were constantly looking for whats fake and whats not. When you saw characters you knew that they did NOT belong in that world.
No go watch the cartoon Clone Wars. At no time do you get this feeling that a character didnt belong. In during that time in he show you were immersed in the world that these characters were living in except for the occasional commercial break.
Pretty impressed. I think this tops wildstar regards what they are putting on the table. When's the release :P