EverquestNext - Catch All

Storybricks integration with EQ Next.

Could be interesting.

https://www.everquestnext.com/

More in 3 weeks or so.

I'm actually pretty excited about what they may be doing here. Everquest would be a great name to evolve the MMORPG genre with. The original did the same 13 years ago.

13 years ago. Holy sh*t.

Hahaha
*sobs* Where did the time go?

I'm trying not to get excited, but I would so love for this new EQ to be my new mmo love. I have a lot of fond memories of the original!

I might be excited if I had the slightest clue what they were doing aside from using the name.

Kehama wrote:

I might be excited if I had the slightest clue what they were doing aside from using the name.

No one really does beyond some wide sweeping comments from Smedely about it and that it will be the biggest sandbox ever. We've been waiting for the SOE live event to find out.

I won't ever be the hardcore raider I was...but it would be special to dust off my Half Elf Bard for one more go around....

Oh man, huge nostalgia kick with your comment about "Half Elf Bard". That's what I played most of the time (tried a High Elf Magician but it had too much downtime and I enjoyed Wood Elf Druid but it seemed like everyone else was one too ).

I was never a hardcore raider. I never even made it to the first level cap, much less any of the subsequent ones. But man, managing song twisting was still among the top experiences I've had in any game ever. I could never understood why some people complained about it. I'd twist even when the group was resting. Muscle memory is song strong my hands almost starting doing ALT-2>ALT-3>ALT-4 again and I haven't twisted a song in probably 9 years! And then later I heard that song twisting wasn't actually the original design but was a bug discussed in EQ beta they decided to leave as is?

This is the kind of emergent behavior driving game systems that I feel has been lost to MMOs since they started becoming so controlled. There's been many great MMOs since the heady days before guaranteed chat channels, actual minimaps, actual quest logs and all that. But in their drive to become refined, they've also become contrived enough that the only personality people can bring is the kind that sometimes compels me to turn off the chat channels

Closest I ever came to twisting outside of EQ was as a Shadow Mage (or was it Assassin Mage) in Shadowbane where you could time effects to overlap multiples.

My two most played characters were a high elf cleric and a wood elf ranger. Man I loved EQ. Never hit the level cap myself, either, but had lots of fond memories of antics with groups and impromptu roleplaying events.

I fired EQ (when it went f2p) up a while ago and even with its warts, I had a lot of fun with it.
It is funny that this is the anti-action mmo where fights take minutes and you could conceivably claim it boils down to watching a snails race to see which bar reaches zero first.

But to me, EQ combat proves that tension, pace and pacing are very different things. This is magnified with the pet classes and even more so with hirelings.

It will be interesting to see if they slow down the pacing of combat with what is sure to be twitch or more action based combat.

I'd be happy to have EQ Next bring a modern MMO back to the pacing of EQ Classic's combat, so long as you have more things to actually do during combat (perhaps stances, various attack heights/styles such as how Asheron's Call and Age of Conan did, some sort of active blocking for shield-using warriors or parry-oriented fighters, etc) than just hit auto-attack and then use cooldown abilities.

Yeah, don't get me wrong. EQ combat had flaws. I mean there would be little need for DAOC or WoW if there wasn't room for improvement in EQ. I mean the whole bit where if you were angled 5 degrees off or 1 inch too close or far from your opponent, you would miss anywhere for 50-90% of your swings. That has to change.

Oh, to clarify in case I came across wrong, I was basically agreeing with your post. EQ still has some of the best tension in mmo combat of the ones I've played.

fangblackbone wrote:

*sobs* Where did the time go?

Just calculate how much of that 13-year period you spent grinding or farming.

Just calculate how much of that 13-year period you spent grinding or farming

I think you mean sitting and staring at a book. =P

fangblackbone wrote:
Just calculate how much of that 13-year period you spent grinding or farming

I think you mean sitting and staring at a book. =P

The thing about Everquest was that while the down time was happening, we talked. I made more friends while playing Everquest than I have in every other game I've played combined.

Game mechanics in MMOs have improved a lot, but at the expense of the social element. There are people I've never met in meatspace that I still consider good friends and have been in constant contact with since 1999 all thanks to the social medium EQ provided. Meanwhile I hardly ever talk to anyone while playing Guild Wars 2 because the awesome combat mechanics keep me too busy bouncing around like a gerbil on meth and I can't afford to stop and type.

Elycion wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:
Just calculate how much of that 13-year period you spent grinding or farming

I think you mean sitting and staring at a book. =P

The thing about Everquest was that while the down time was happening, we talked. I made more friends while playing Everquest than I have in every other game I've played combined.

Game mechanics in MMOs have improved a lot, but at the expense of the social element. There are people I've never met in meatspace that I still consider good friends and have been in constant contact with since 1999 all thanks to the social medium EQ provided. Meanwhile I hardly ever talk to anyone while playing Guild Wars 2 because the awesome combat mechanics keep me too busy bouncing around like a gerbil on meth and I can't afford to stop and type.

This is uncanny, I was just about to post exactly this but was thinking how to phrase it.

EQ1 was probably the first game where I actually made some new friends online. There were a lot of fun times chatting while we waited for SSOY to drop in lguk

Unfortunately I have lost touch with most of the EQ1 friends. Is there a meetup site like those highschool meetup thingies but for EQ1 players?

DAOC/Shadowbane were the first MMOs where I remained friends with the people I played with. I still play/chat regularly with people I met in those games.

Elycion wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:
Just calculate how much of that 13-year period you spent grinding or farming

I think you mean sitting and staring at a book. =P

The thing about Everquest was that while the down time was happening, we talked. I made more friends while playing Everquest than I have in every other game I've played combined.

Game mechanics in MMOs have improved a lot, but at the expense of the social element. There are people I've never met in meatspace that I still consider good friends and have been in constant contact with since 1999 all thanks to the social medium EQ provided. Meanwhile I hardly ever talk to anyone while playing Guild Wars 2 because the awesome combat mechanics keep me too busy bouncing around like a gerbil on meth and I can't afford to stop and type.

Lot of this though is due to voice comms being prevalent and in some cases required. Back in EQ/AC days there was only 2 or 3 of us with comms and all communication was done by typing through the client or forums. Past few years almost all mmos i've played i rarely typed in game because i was in mumble or vent.

... This game has potentially re-awakened all of the feels.

Honestly, I give more credit to the nature of the early internet than EQ.
I got started with the lobby chat and making friends with the original Diablo haging out in the Rogue forum. (and pressing the chat gem mercilessly)

As for making friends in RL from playing an online game, it was all Quake. So many of my roommates and co-workers were Quake buddies. I got my first jobs in the game industry because of Quake modding. If it wasn't for Quake, I wouldn't have read Redwood's, Blue's and Evil Avatar and thus wouldn't have bumped into our illustrious leaders and found my way here.

EQ was my first time in a large guild. Those friends went away after I stopped playing.

12 pst not 12 est

ranalin wrote:

12 pst not 12 est

ARGH so impatient for details!

I have not been following this at all and never played the first EQ but now I'm looking forward to what they're showing today.

mmo pre-release promises have a terrible track record but I'm willing to tag along to see what they're doing at least.

Discovered this thread a mere two hours away from a major announcement. I didn't even know SOE was working on another thing. All of the enjoyment, none of the suspense. Sweet.

Holy crap: Everquest + Minecraft/Wurm Online?! AWESOME.

They're in 'Open' development similar to PS2. Created a separate thread for Landmark.

I'm very curious to see what the system requirements on this will be, particularly once you get a lot of players in those detailed destructible environments though IIRC voxels are very efficient.

Landmark is an interesting take on minecraft type stuff but not something I'm interested in personally.

I'm guessing system requirements will be much like Plantside 2.

They really caught my eye; however, no mention of housing, one world (no instance), PvP etc... I am not writing it off, just did not say anything!