The Glade 4.0

This is how big plot sizes are going to be during the EQNL alpha. They may end up larger by release. 70x70x100 meters.

You can own multiple plots of land and have them side by side seamlessly. Devs have said that each plot will have an upkeep cost, which means the game will have some kind of currency, but they haven't elaborated.

Alpha is quickly approaching. Here's a video on crafting, all new infoz here.

Alpha launches today.

http://www.eqhammer.com/preview/tales-l ... ng-preview

-Game is 60% complete
-Core chat is ready, so you can make channels and shouts.
-Aiming for 95% at end of closed beta for a soft open beta launch.
-"Soft" open beta launch to keep adding features

NDA is lifted. I have been playing and am enjoying my time exploring / gathering / building. I know exactly what I want to make, unfortunately it's going to take a while to get all the materials.

In the game's current state, it is definitely a scaled down minecraft. The continents ATM are fairly small. Still, it's gorgeous and much easier to build in than Minecraft.

It takes a *lot* of resource gathering to build anything substantial. I can't do much yet.

Ok, I never got into Minecraft, I just didn't get it.

Where is the fun in this?

_________________
Raell Kromwell

I got a Founder's Pack for my birthday. My Friday and Saturday just happened to be spoken for, so between coming home from a half day at work and leaving for gaming, I only got a chance to create a character and wander long enough to lay a claim in whatever zone I spawned in (Ravine, Liberation) which I later found out was a tier 3, but at least I got something not on the edge of the zone.

Spent today ignoring all things Superbowl and between server issues, managed to figure out harvesting and crafting. Set up a stone forge and a copper wood cutting bench on my claim and crafted my way up to an iron pick. Stalled out for the evening working on harvesting for a lightstone.

It's interesting. Had it not been a birthday gift, I found is have found it worth paying to enter at the alpha stage, but as somebody who never took the leap into Minecraft, Landmark seems like the start of a nice canvas for that blend of creativity and crafting/harvesting. I can think of an old buddy from my EQ days who would find the gathering a great way to unwind, for sure.

Now, I just need to figure out what to make on my claim once my tools are all set. Maybe I should entertain suggestions since I rarely get accused ofa lot of creativity in the artistic realm...

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Did you ever know anybody who just loved gathering for crafting systems? This is a playground for those people before you even get into making things.

Then, the building stuff scratches a creative itch for a lot of people. In Minecraft, some people go above and beyond and make all of those crazy devices and painstakingly handcrafted landscapes you see on YouTube or gaming news suites occasionally. EQN Landmark promises that last group of people the opportunity, if they're awesome enough, to build designs for stuff that the devs might use in-game for EQ Next. And get paid for your trouble if they do, from the way Sony is talking.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

So will the normal EQN game be crafting free?

_________________
Raell Kromwell

It won't be crafting FREE, but it will be a normal MMO that has crafting on the side.

Also, if another player wants to use your widget/tower/castle, they can buy the use of it, and you get paid. And if he uses your widget/tower in HIS thing he sells, you get a cut.

As for crazy minecraft builds...

_________________

Oh, yeah. The other set of people who will adore something like Landmark are all the masses that seem to come out of the woodwork every time a new MMO is announced to demand player housing and tons of interior decorating options.

As such, it's bound to be successful, or something.

More seriously, it's really been a pleasure to see the art style they came up with for EQ Next live and in motion. It's really rather attractive. In addition, while it's currently sandbagged by technical glitches that get in the way, that whole "mastery of the environment" movement thing they talked about when revealing EQ Next is pretty fun when the lag and pop-in stars align and it works right (for some reason, you don't do the sliding down hills or diving over small obstruction things when scenery details are busy popping in, and there's currently a lot of lag in it doing so if you're doing a lot of overland movement, probably due to having to send fresh voxel data for every hole that's been dug or structure that's been placed on a nearby claim, etc.).

The coolest thing I've seen somebody build so far, just on the sheer utility and cleverness of it, is a wooden diving board above a smooth sand dune off near the edge of one of the maps I was mining. I don't know whether it's simply because the slope was pretty clear of debris or because it was far enough into the middle of nowhere that there wasn't a lot of transient data that needed to be updated, but somebody had a claim near the top of this huge sand dune. They carved a little ledge into it to give some flat space to support a wooden plank probably 20-30 feet long. On a whim, I decided to walk out to the end and off... and discovered its true purpose: it was built at the right height on an appropriate slope to trigger the slide animation... down a hill that was big enough to keep sliding for a good twenty or thirty seconds.

It shouldn't have been nearly as fun as it was. But it was just cool. And that's not something you say about simple movement animations in many games, let alone MMOs.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

You do the parkour style animations when you're sprinting (hold shift). Otherwise it just seems to happen randomly.



I had a kind of "holy ****" moment when I put my view into first person with settings all the way up. Game is gorgeous.

On a performance note, I am finding my i7 2.2ghz 2720QM to be the bottleneck playing this game. I lag BIG TIME when I am harvesting things, and I am pretty sure it's because of the voxel chunks that fly out of ****. When I am just running around, I get 30ish fps. I did see big improvement on loading after this latest patch, so hopefully it's just an optimization thing.

Yup. I dialed a few of mine back for framerate issues (I can get around 15-20fps at 1600p with everything maxxed -- *very* pretty, but not comfortable to play at) and it's definitely got the chops to deliver that sense of awe and wonder with the right content populating it.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I was wanting to recreate this scene from FFXIV on top of my mountain, but I don't think it's going to be possible in alpha. The sheer amount of material needed, plus the fact that I'd need more than one claim to pull it off, makes it kind of impossible.

Speaking of team-built projects...

I wonder if I could get a bunch of people to create BlackBurrow for EQN Landmark, in a style appropriate for EQN.

Now *that* would be pretty amazing.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I am 100% positive that those nostalgic group projects will exist. Unfortunately they wont be possible in alpha for a myriad of reasons, key systems not being implemented yet being the biggest factor. In the end I expect to see every original EverQuest dungeon recreated to a T.

I am thinking they will have subscriber-exclusive continents where most of that will happen. They will be a haven from the dicktowers.

Oh, for sure. It has to wait for permissions lists, better systems for permitting and facilitating adjacent claim spaces, and so forth.

But I'm just thinking that BlackBurrow has to be it. It's the perfect project for this. It has a great sense of depth and combines narrow, twisty spaces with big open chasms and spaces to look across over a distance. Rope bridges, huge trees, pit traps, water elements...

And it's memorable and has TWO original sources to draw on with few conflicts.

All I know is that in my time in EQ2, that dungeon was a wonderful experience because of how it faithfully retained the geometry of the old dungeon while bringing it to a smoother, higher fidelity vision of life than before. This is a chance to do that all over again with this fantastic art style in place.

Sorry, I'll shut up now.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I personally can't wait for the recreations of Old Sebilis and Temple of Veeshan. They were always my favorites.

Edit - okay. I NEED a grappling hook.

Disclaimer: I have zero interest in EQ Landmark and virtually no interest in Minecraft, I've only played around with it. (My son loves it.)

Where is the fun in this? Did you ever play with Lego blocks as a kid? Minecraft and similar games are Lego on steroids. They let you build anything, in a structured environment that makes acquiring the blocks used for building part of the challenge, and provides a survivalist aspect to doing so. (Or, if you just want to play with blocks to see what you can make and not deal with the hassle of gathering, Minecraft has a creative mode as well.)

Seriously, I may not get hooked on it, but I get it. It's quite a unique, and intriguing game. It just doesn't hold my interest long term.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I attempted to play Minecraft and hated it.

EQNL on the other hand feels different. The building tools are far more powerful even before you craft the REAL building tools (selection boxes, smoothing, etc). I enjoy it a lot and can't wait to get home and build more **** even if it is a crash-happy alpha.

Speaking of Minecraft though, you can actually turn off voxel smoothing to make EQNL look like it:

That's.. hilarious.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Interesting. This also means EQN proper will be 64-bit only.

Makes sense. Seriously, all you need in order to make it so it won't run on 32-bit is to require 4 or more GB of RAM to play it.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yeah but then retards would just slap extra RAM into their Windows XP box and then complain when the game doesn't run.

In other news, someone made an upside-down floating claim: