The Glade 4.0

So yeah, not surprisingly, the next expansion for EQ2 was announced as Velious, due out Feb 2011. Apparently they are planning it to be released in two parts, with the second part rumored to be a downloadable add-on as opposed to a separate release (taking the WoW approach it seems).

Some details can be found here.



One of the big points of the new expansion is apparently flying mounts in overland zones.


Also, they announced that the next EverQuest base game will called EverQuest Next. It will not be a continuation of either the EQ1 or 2 storyline, but rather a "re-envisioning" of EQ1. I hear that (according to someone on another message board) the art-style will be somewhat reminiscent of the game Fable.

Trying to find some high-res screenshots, but no avail. Then again, they aren't really releasing much atm.

If done properly, a re-envisioning of EQ1 could be awesome.

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EverQuest Next is a pretty terrible name though.

Yeah, I would have preferred "EverNext" myself.

Course, you almost have to put "EverQuest" in the title somewhere, or you lose name-brand recognition.

Ah well, what's inside counts the most, and I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

Seems strange that they are 're-envisioning' EQ1. Aren't there new stories to be told? Committing development resources to a new game, that is a re-write of the old game, is an odd direction to go when the very same company has active games, with lots of potential, in desperate need of development attention.

I wondered that too, Midgen.

I think they are basically trying to get their core player base back. They saw how well EQ1 did and how fondly it was remembered, and wanted to try to recapture that, based on current MMO tastes.

I have a feeling it will end up being a ground-up WoW clone (which is sad).

EverQuest was an utterly terrible game with a fantastic community. If they can make the game into a workable, enjoyable experience while recalling that community (impossible, I believe, due to the expansion and fracturing of the market; most of EQ's community came from the sense of camaraderie shared by such a relatively small group going through the same hellish experiences), then it'll be interesting. Having Brad McQuaid out of the picture will certainly aid in making a better game.

As far as "remaking" the game vs. pouring time, money and manpower into another game, MMORPGs are made or broken on their launches nowadays. The market's so overpopulated that you pretty much get one shot, and if you blow that, you're toast. Also, "EverQuest" still has some cache...it's like remaking films/TV shows/etc.: brand recognition (and nostalgia) are useful selling tools.

I'm kinda interested, to be honest. I liked Everquest, even back in the day. Everquest, in its current state, is certainly running out of ideas. We can only kill the gods so many times and kill so many dragons before it just gets old. I mean, they've done time travel, space invaders, space invaders involved in time travel...they are certainly running out of ideas.

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I would pay and play all over again for a direct copy of EQ with awesome graphics and modern interface.

Might be worth trying. The nostalgia factor without feeling like I'd have to get in and start over, and then catch up, might be neat.

I loved the nostalgia factor in EQ2, even. So many of the zones just felt.. right. Either beautiful, faithful renderings of old zones like Blackburrow, or interesting evolutions of old zones like Antonica and Thundering Steppes...

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"... 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

While I don't like the name, Everquest Next is a great idea. Certainly, EQ3 would be a bad direction to go in. They need to bring back that community, as well as introduce everyone to how it started. With WoW dominating, I feel it'd be pointless to advance the series further with an EQ3, when their EQ2 isn't even remotely close to WoW's presence in the MMO game.

Unfortunately, I believe WoW us such a firm grasp on the entire genre that it'll be impossible to regain even a fraction of the dominance EQ once had. MMO's have developed into something completely different than the original EQ. It's far more focused on mass appeal, user friendliness, and end game. In order to get back to what EQ1 was in its hayday, they'll either need to conform to WoW's new standards for MMO design, or go back to their original design with a bunch of refinements and improvements.

EQ1 has been all over the map with its development, but there's a lot to build on. I thought EQ2 would build on it, but it feels like more of a standalone version, much different than the original EQ. I'm not saying I want to go back to corpse runs and a bunch of the bs we had to deal with in EQ1, but I'd really like to see MMO's go back to the way EQ1 was. Group oriented leveling grinding rather than 1 million little go fetch this quests, for one would be a welcome return. I can't stand the focus on doing all of these "Kill x Pirates" quests, or the "Collect x pieces of couger meat" quests. It feels like more of a chore than just grinding it out, to be honest. Instead of having that amazing community atmosphere that was in EQ1 through grouping from level 1-65 and beyond, we're all stuck playing retrieve this quests alone or with a partner. Sure we can group up still, but it's not anywhere close to the same atmosphere. While end game was still huge in EQ1, the path to get to end game was a lot longer. I don't find that to be a bad thing like many people may feel. It's an MMO. It's supposed to be a grind. Only people who play 15 hours a day should have 3 or 4 max level characters.

I'd also love to see the focus get back to character development. In many MMO's, specifically the dominant one I mentioned, the focus seems to be on advancing end game, getting new gear, and PVP, and daily quests (which stems back to getting new gear). Gear is only one aspect of character development, or at least it should be. I'd love to see EQ Next go back to showing how character development doesn't have to revolve 100% around gear. Looking at how EQ2 handles it, there's at least some form of AA system to help advance your character, even at end-game. I'm positive they'll keep this mentality when developing EQ Next, and I'm happy for that. I really love the idea of characters being very different from one another. This starts with having different gear and skill levels, but ideally, it should extend to who puts the time in to advance other aspects of their character. New abilities and stats earned through gaining xp, even at end game, is an extremely important aspect to me in an MMO. If I have no ability to advance my character beyond gear and my own personal skill, I don't want to invest more time into that character. I want more options. I hope EQ Next brings many options to the table.

Now that I think about it, there's a ton of things I miss (which is why I'm actually revisiting EQ1 at the moment), but I'd really like to see a brand new game rather than go play EQ1 any longer. I like EQ2, but for very different reasons than I love EQ1. I hope their new vision turns out to change the game for the better. I'm looking forward to it. Now that I look back, this post is a little too anti-current MMO's. I think they do a lot of things great, which make EQ1 look terrible in retrospect. I just hope EQ Next takes everything into consideration and paves the way to change the formula for MMO's. Maybe my expectations are too high for the game, but we'll see.

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Any re-envisioning of EQ1 needs to focus on the game content prior to the catastrophe that was Luclin... ugh...

Nothing was wrong with Luclin or PoP content after it. The only problems were the expansions time sinks.

Did not care for the moon, PoP was ok. Had they gone from SoV to LDoN, I think it would have been better.

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I'd still rather have the problem of having a few less than stellar expansions than have the bigger problem of just not getting any full scale expansions in a reasonable time span. When a game has been out for the better part of a decade, there needs to be more than two official expansions, period. I fault the original EQ for sometimes not putting out the best expansions, but at least they put them out.

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While the content itself felt incomplete, I liked the Luclin expansion for the fact that it updated the terrible original character models. More realism FTW.

Luclin was EQ's "Jumped the Shark" moment for me.

If by "jump the shark" you mean SoE taking the more sci-fi route, then I know of some others who did not like that, either.

I think they still kept it pretty high fantasy themed, but those little alien guys were a bit of an intrusion into that.

Luclin seemed like an expansion of two worlds -- on one hand you had these expansive, lush, richly-detailed zones like Katta Castelum, on the other you had barren, virtually empty zones like Mons Letalis.

I did <3 The Grey and the Sissar pyramid, tho. Those were pretty cool.

And what was the name of that outdoor zone that had the Akheva entrance to it, where all the troglodyte guys and four arm things were. Had a nice, red-runed looking sword drop off trash?

I hope the moon returns in EQ2, and I hope they actually complete it this time.

Found a screenshot of EQ Next:



And a link to some concept art -- Link (and I think that the shot of the town entrance is an in-game screen capture as well).

Found some videos -- Link

The name must be some kind of Sony thing.. the sequel to Planetside is going to be called Planetside Next.

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Wow. That would definitely be a unique art style, and a serious asset to the game's attractiveness, especially if it wasn't too hardware exclusive.

I echo a lot of what Roophus said. I'm sick of this notion that I must have some kind of quest to tell me what to do 100% of my levelling time. It really shatters the community, because it takes your grouping pool down from "people in, say, a 4-5 level range" down to "people in a 1-2 level range who haven't completed my current quest, and are on the same stage I am if it's a multi-step quest." And then the group breaks up when the quest is done. The only way you get lasting groups that way is if they're pre-arranged and you only play together.

In EQ1, I made friends because I'd group with the same random guys 4 or 5 times over the course of a level. That doesn't happen with the quest-driven levelling method. As much as we griped about the grind, and random drops (and random quest drops!), that's what built the community that kept EQ going, and I wish new games would at least acknowledge that and try to adapt it to their new models if they want to change some of those features.

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"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

Okay, that shot of what I'm assuming is Freeport, with the red tiled roofs is pretty outstanding. Talk about kicking it up a notch with the art design, and creating a colorful setting.

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"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 wondered what city that was myself. FP makes sense, tho, as Qeynos was always more "castley" IMO.

That art style really reminds me of the old hand-drawn adventure PC games of the previous age (a la King's Quest and the later Monkey Islands).

I am definitely intrigued. I just hope they make it more accessible than original EQ1.

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. In EQ, it was virtually impossible to level up more than 10 levels without making at least 3-5 friends around your level. This was due to the fact that you were basically forced into grouping for extended periods of time to level. While this can suck if you don't feel like looking for a group, or if you were a ranger, it's was drove the community. There was a whole different level of interaction between characters before end game.

Even now, when you group in instances while leveling up, the focus is mostly on rushing through the instance. As boring as it could get back in EQ grouping and staying in the same spot for hours on end, chain pulling, it was almost relaxing. It wasn't any in-game content that made groups fun, it was the people I was with for those two-five plus hours. I'd be so happy if it went back to being less quest driven leveling. Questing takes focus, patience, and constant management. Grouping with a handful of others, finding a pull spot, and chain pulling allowed for plenty of time to get to know everyone you were with. Because you were with so many others, once you found a good group, it was almost like easy mode. It didn't take as much work as doing 20-30 quests in a night, or at least it didn't feel like as much work to me. Once you found a good group, you were on the train to XP heaven. All you had to do was heal, dps, or CC, or whatever from your static location. All of that downtime was spent interacting, having fun. I don't feel that with a quest focused leveling system.

In WoW, I actually managed to level a guy from 1-80 without really grouping even once, thus making zero new friends. That would be virtually impossible in the old EQ. With all that said, I still think they'd need to change up the leveling process in EQ Next. EQ1 wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The grind did take its toll sometimes. The balancing of the characters is nowhere near what WoW's is. Then again, I really did like the diversity of classes. I liked how you developed your character, and he was permanently transformed into whatever you made him into. There were no respecs or anything like that.

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I wonder tho -- how much of our fond memories were prompted by the game actually be that good or just that it was so new and nostalgia kicks in.

EQ1 had some major issues. For all their instant gratification and dumbing down -- modern MMOs are much more accessible than EQ1, not to mention far less of a time sink.

Don't get me wrong, EQ1 held some of the greatest gaming moments of my life, but everything was such a major production in that game, and there is definitely something to be said for just being able to pop on, play for a couple hours and actually feel like you've accomplished something.

I totally understand the nostalgia thing. However, all of the points I bring up are my own personal preference. Nostalgia may make the rest of the game seem better than it really was, but the points I bring up are ones that I genuinely feel.

The time sink you speak of isn't necessarily a bad thing. By being such a time sink, there's more community for grouping at all levels of the game, not just end game. Just because it takes a while to get to the level cap doesn't mean it's a bad thing. I actually loved the level balancing of EQ1. You didn't have 95% of the population sitting at the end cap for 2+ years. With that said, leveling wasn't the only time sink. Many of those other time sinks really do need to stay gone. Like I said, I don't miss corpse runs, stupid 25 hour spawns, etc. I just don't think the grind of leveling is such a bad thing when the game is focused on grouping rather than leveling. It makes the levels a lot more fun, in my opinion. Having an equal spread of players at every level range, rather than top heavy like most MMO's today, makes for a much better community.

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