EQ Next

[TeknoBug]

What's up with the wave of these paid early access/alpha/betas lately? Games are better tested when there are more people playing the games before they get released so now there's only going to be a small amount of people testing games, and who knows some that paid to enter alpha/beta might not like the game and can't get a refund?

Planetside 2's Forgelight engine isn't half bad, I can see EQ:N making good use of it.

 

[desura]

wow, a paid beta? That's a first.

Might be an expensive game. I thought they had a F2P model?

EQ Next is probably the only MMO that I'm excited for.

 

[KaOTiK]

What's up with the wave of these paid early access/alpha/betas lately? Games are better tested when there are more people playing the games before they get released so now there's only going to be a small amount of people testing games, and who knows some that paid to enter alpha/beta might not like the game and can't get a refund?

Planetside 2's Forgelight engine isn't half bad, I can see EQ:N making good use of it.

They are offering refunds to anyone that wants one for whatever the reason. This game truly is in alpha stage, they don't need to make it open, there is enough broke currently and not even implemented yet they are working on.

wow, a paid beta? That's a first.

Might be an expensive game. I thought they had a F2P model?

EQ Next is probably the only MMO that I'm excited for.

It is F2P. They are offering these founders packs to people who want to get extras and to get into the game and help shape it. Also, they said if players make some really impressive stuff that it could be possible they add it into EQ Next. People can still get a beta (not alpha) key if they are selected and signed up for the beta, but otherwise they wont open the gates to everyone till open beta (if they have one) or release.

 

[Bateluer]

It is F2P.

Well, its dead before it even leaves alpha state then. Shame.

Paid betas, or Early Access, are the new 'thing' now to bilk more money from gullible gamers. You'll pay for the beta, pay for the box, pay for every instanced dungeon, pay for every continent, pay for extra character slots, pay for gear, pay for mounts, pay for expansions, etc.

 

[KaOTiK]

Well, its dead before it even leaves alpha state then. Shame.

Paid betas, or Early Access, are the new 'thing' now to bilk more money from gullible gamers. You'll pay for the beta, pay for the box, pay for every instanced dungeon, pay for every continent, pay for extra character slots, pay for gear, pay for mounts, pay for expansions, etc.

SOE's F2P model is pretty good. I've spent a lot of time playing Planetside 2. The only things you can only buy with cash in that game that you can't earn from playing is cosmetic stuff. Otherwise you can just buy boosters or buy the the unlock for whatever you want, but all can be gained by playing and not some insane number of hours. Also the weapons in that game are pretty much all side grades to cater to your game style and aren't direct upgrades.

 

[Xed]

Landmark is not Everquest Next. It's basically Eq:Minecraft and the content might be put into Eq Next proper.

Thought we discussed this already but people still seem to think it is the same game.

 

[mizzou]

ummm it looks completely badass. the whole emergent ai concept seems ripe for failure, especially on a mmo level. many many games have tried it, and ended up omitting it completely from the game. hell, even ultima online tried it initially, but it was coded out because players response time was just too good and fast.

i like the idea how the world regenerates and reverts to stock after a while. that will maintain a unique flavor that wont be overly stale with time.

what they may end up with are very directed and controlled scripts on a huge scale. to have this all done on the client end on a massive scale will be interesting

 

[laezyre]

I'm not a huge fan of F2P games, although they do have their place. Pantheon is not free to play and is only being funded by players. The dev team is 100% responsive to what players want and won't be rushed into an early release(like Vanguard). The dev team answers questions all day long on the site. At one pledge level($250) you get the game for free and a yearly rate of $1(amoung many other benefits like alpha, beta access, and more). So, it will pay for itself in just over a year, then it's free. That's the type of F2P I prefer.

 

[laezyre]

I've heard that EQ next will allow any player to perform any role with one character and has an experimental de-leveling system. This doesn't sound much like EQ.

 

[imaheadcase]

You could argue that Everquest Next might be called Pantheon, since that's Brad Mcquaids self proclaimed next Everquest. Follow this link for more about this project under development now.
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Stop trying to make it a thing, its not going to be a thing.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'm not a huge fan of F2P games, although they do have their place. Pantheon is not free to play and is only being funded by players. The dev team is 100% responsive to what players want and won't be rushed into an early release(like Vanguard). The dev team answers questions all day long on the site. At one pledge level($250) you get the game for free and a yearly rate of $1(amoung many other benefits like alpha, beta access, and more). So, it will pay for itself in just over a year, then it's free. That's the type of F2P I prefer.

Bitch better give a free game copy and at least a year paid, lets look at the math. $60 for game + $180 for years subscription which is kind of high. I doubt there will ever be a game I want to play for more than 2 years.
I know this is a lifetime offer still looks like a huge risk. $250 now for a game that will probably be released in close to 3 years plus the inherent risk in ANY mmo. As I said before lets be honest almost all mmo's fail to live up to expectations.

 

[laezyre]

It's worth the risk to many fans of MMO's and especially EQ and Vanguard. I want more people willing make MMO's. More innovation and risk taking. If these guys play it safe, we'll have mostly WoW clones and stagnation. It's really expensive to make MMO's today. I heard ESO has cost $200 million and Vanguard's prices was $39 million years ago.

 

[mizzou]

I've heard that EQ next will allow any player to perform any role with one character and has an experimental de-leveling system. This doesn't sound much like EQ.

they call it "multileveling" im not sure i like it....but could be interesting if you needed to change group characteristics on the fly....like say you need a tank but dont have one...you just reset your loadout and rejoin as a tank

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

they call it "multileveling" im not sure i like it....but could be interesting if you needed to change group characteristics on the fly....like say you need a tank but dont have one...you just reset your loadout and rejoin as a tank

Maybe it won't be like this, but personally I think it waters down class importance and takes role-playing out of RPG.

 

[laezyre]

I'm all for innovation, but I too really like the importance of classes and role playing. Pantheon is about role playing and class importance. It's about tough penalties for failure, and nice rewards for success. It's about grouping up and playing our role. That's what I miss.

 

[Cuular]

Currently Landmark is in early alpha. And based on how things have been going, they have a lot of work to do to get it ready for large amounts of people.

First up was world crashing, and people losing their claims, items they built on the claims, crafting stations assembled and put there. The reason? Oh in our internal testing we never had more than a world and 1 island setup. Scaling it out to 2 worlds and multiple islands failed because their code had no clue what to do with islands beyond one. So anything created on the 2nd world or any island beyond the original 1 on the first world, would get lost, or disappear.

So they fixed that, or so they thought. At least peoples claims were being held. But still anything people created on their claim("voxels") would end up disappearing when they logged off.

The reason was that creating the claim db for each world, they introduced a new argument to db access routines, but the "voxel" routines hadn't been made to use separate dbs for each world. So when they went to update the db, it was using random indexes for which db to put data in. This of course caused huge db corruption, so they of course did a wipe of the db, tried to give people back the pre-order items lost, and let people start over again.

They decided to use a single db for all the voxel data. But what happens when you get the initial 500k people there, with 10k-20k voxel items on their claims? That's 10billion items a single database is going to be managing and trying to access in realtime. With out separate dbs for each world, or a good database with partitioning to make look ups faster, it's going to suck.

I submitted some ideas about database design to help alleviate that issue, lets see if they stop to think about it.

But overall, being able to EQ:minecraft has been fun. And when the servers are up long enough to actually collect and build, it's rewarding.

 

[imaheadcase]

Yah i was watching streamers play it, seems like a neat concept if pulled off in the end. I'm not much for minecraft stuff, but be interesting to see what people actually build in the long run and gets into EQ next.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I saw some stuff people created its early on but I have to admit this could be a genius move by Sony, essentially have fan create some of the game assets.

 

[imaheadcase]

I saw some stuff people created its early on but I have to admit this could be a genius move by Sony, essentially have fan create some of the game assets.

Don't they also get compensation for it though. The EQnext presentation said if you make something, people can buy the blueprints from you. They sounded like it was going to be a big deal.

http://www.twitch.tv/cohhcarnage
This guy is fun to watch.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I think there has been talk of compensation somehow.