Everquest Next

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http://www.everquestnext.com/

EverQuest Next (working title) is the planned next game in the EverQuest franchise of massively multiplayer online role-playing games, a successor to EverQuest and EverQuest II. The first indication that a new game was in development appeared in a chapter written by EQ creative director Rich Waters in the EverQuest 10th Anniversary Book (2009).[1] Sony Online Entertainment, the developer and publisher, released further details in August 2010, at which point development was still in its earliest stages and feedback was being solicited from existing EQ and EQ2 players.

The game will also not be a sequel or prequel to any of the games in the EverQuest franchise; it is planned to present to players a "parallel world" of Norrath, one in which some of the locations and characters may be familiar, but specific relationships and events can diverge from the official storylines of the other games. The developers have stated an intention to return to a style of gameplay more like the original EverQuest, while retaining the advances in MMORPG design that have developed in the years since that game first launched.

I'm in and have been following it very intently for quite some time
Screenshots from Everquest Next or 3 (still no "official" title yet)



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Freeport?





Faydwer?





Oasis?





Fan Faire 2010: John Smedley and the SOE crew talk EverQuest Next



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Update: We received a note from SOE clarifying that the screenshot here is not mere concept art -- it's actual in-game art. Only makes you more curious, doesn't it!







EverQuest Next the surprise news out of this year's Fan Faire, has certainly gathered a lot of attention from the general MMOGsphere since word broke about the game last night. Across Twitter, Facebook, and myriad blogs, many people are wondering just precisely what the plans are, and what this new incarnation of the world of Norrath might be like.



Well, the developers behind the game sat down with attendees at Fan Faire not only to show off screenshots and concept art from EverQuest Next, but also to solicit questions and ideas from the -devoted -- and they've captured it all on video for those of us who couldn't make it! While they stress that this is all in the very early stages, there are some great insights on the thinking behind this reboot of their beloved franchise. There's also some information on what players can expect with regard to support for subscribers of EverQuest and EverQuest II once EverQuest Next comes out. If you're hungry for more details straight from the people behind this surprising new title, then check out the videos behind the break!



VIDEO #1

VIDEO #2

VIDEO #3

The long anticipated follow-up to Everquest isn’t looking to plough the same furrow as previous MMOs. In fact, SOE threw away two prototypes because they weren’t radical enough (possibly making the character shot above woefully out of date). Now recently unveiled internally to SOE staff, the redesigned game hopes to “define the next generation of MMOs” – such is the claim by SOE president John Smedley during our lengthy interview – which is to be posted in full later.

“Everybody has been making the same game since Everquest, really,” says Smedley. “If you look back, Ultima Online was out before us and really, all the current crop of MMOs are a lot like Everquest – they’re in that style. They’re great because the quality level has really improved, but nobody has really changed the game. the previous designs we had for the next Everquest were cookie-cutter, they were ‘me too’. We had some great, innovative things in there and they’d have been great games in themselves, but they wouldn’t have been enough to keep an audience. We’ve had people playing Everquest for 13 years and we kept that in our mind as the main goal when making Everquest Next.”

Bold words! But, in any case, the game seems to have gone down well with SOE staff at its internal unveiling.

“I was really nervous about [showing SOE staff the game],” says Smedley. “We showed it to them on Monday, and I couldn’t sleep on Sunday night because I was scared. We’ve thrown out two previous designs of the game to go with something pretty crazy and… well, it’s awesome. When the team saw it I could barely breathe when they were watching it. But when I’d finished they were clapping and cheering – and these guys are gamers, so they’re not afraid to call bullshit when they see us make a mistake. It’s happened before. We’ve made mistakes, and the guys internally will call us on it every time. But they loved this, and we really felt vindicated that the way we’re going with Everquest Next is the right way. I feel good about it. We’re not trying to make WOW2 or Everquest 2.5 – we’re making something that we think will define the next generation of MMOs.”

Heres the link

The new design for EverQuest Next has recently been shared internally with SOE staff, bringing the game closer than ever before to being A Thing. SOE President John Smedley talked with PC Gamer about his hopes for the game.

Two previous designs for EQ Next have been scrapped because they were too close to the source. Smedley said that "the previous designs [SOE] had for the next EverQuest were cookie-cutter, they were 'me too.'" He admitted to being nervous before showing off the newest designs to the staff but that in the end, he felt "vindicated" by SOE's warm reception. "We're not trying to make [World of Warcraft] 2 or EverQuest 2.5 -- we're making something that we think will define the next generation of MMOs."

John Smedley's MMO revival tour continues, with the latest stop being an interview at Polygon. The SOE CEO lends some context to impressive numbers recently released by the firm touting the success of its new business model intiative, and he also evangelized about the future of the company and EverQuest Next.

Since switching to F2P across its extensive MMO portfolio, SOE has seen DC Universe's daily revenue increase by 700%, EverQuest II's registration numbers triple, and EverQuest's registration numbers tick up by 350%. Oh, and PlanetSide 2? It's seen 1.6 million players registered thus far, 250,000 of whom log in daily. "Free-to-play is just too good of an idea," Smedley says. "The idea is just so simple. It democratizes and capitalizes, makes true capitalism out of the MMO gaming space."

He goes on to say that the MMO industry is stuck in a rut that SOE helped create via design choices made in the original EQ. "We need to change the way we do this," Smedley says. "We're building a sandbox and giving players the tools to help shape the world that they're in. That's the direction we're going in with EverQuest Next; trying to make a world that players create while being in a living, breathing world around them. It's not just a prop for them to walk around in, which is really what all of today's MMOs are. Their worlds are nothing more than a movie set."

Are sandbox games making a comeback in the MMO space? That remains to be seen, but there are a handful of major titles in development that self-identify as either sandboxes or sandparks, and all of them will be playable to one degree or another in 2013.

First up is Age of Wushu, currently in a public beta and scheduled to officially debut in February. Next up is ArcheAge, which, while still in limbo for the western market, will certainly launch in Korea and probably China in 2013. Finally we have EverQuest Next, which SOE has said will be playable at its annual SOE Live event in the fall.

Assuming you're a sandbox fan, which of these three titles do you see yourself playing the most? Vote after the break!

Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choi

Leaderboard:
Age of Wushu 138 (9.0%)
ArcheAge 673 (44.0%)
EverQuest Next 720 (47.0%)

Is this our first in-game glimpse of a revamped EverQuest Next? Take it with a grain of salt since it comes from an anonymous Joystiq tipster with a fishy timestamp, but regardless, it's awful purty.

Sony Online Entertainment originally teased some heavily stylized in-game assets over two years ago, but since then the company has announced that its next EverQuest title has been blown up and re-designed as a sandbox. We don't know whether this includes an artistic revamp as well, but we do know that the game will make use of the same proprietary Forgelight engine that powers PlanetSide 2.

Have a look at the full-size leaked image after the cut and tell us what you think. Legit? Fake? If fake, what game is it from?

[Update]: Well, SOE CEO John Smedley has officially burst our bubble and we're playing the sad trombone. That said, any guesses as to where the image is actually from?

SOE CEO John Smedley recently talked to Gamasutra about his company's free-to-play business makeover and a new focus on players-as-content.

"Everybody is content for everyone else," Smedley said. "That's the core of our strategy moving forward. A simple way to put it is: By allowing players to interact with each other, we're providing tools. It's like we're building a gladiator arena and throwing in the swords... We might bust the tigers out or bring in new kinds of weapons, like a tank. In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can't win the war. Star Wars:The Old Republic proved that. Players bought it, loved it, and they played the game. Then they left."

Smedley also hinted that SOE's long-awaited EQNext project may be closer to fruition than many folks expect. While we've known for some time now to expect a playable demo of the fantasy sandbox at this fall's SOE Live convention, Smedley's comments to Gamasutra will probably invite plenty of speculation.

"Players will get their hands on an actual release version of what we're doing late [this] year -- and I don't mean a beta," he said.

This year's SOE Live (formerly Fan Faire) is coming a little early, at least compared to the 2012 incarnation. It's also coming to you from a new location. The annual convention is moving house from Bally's Las Vegas to Planet Hollywood Las Vegas, and it's also happening in August instead of October. The official dates are August 1 - 4, 2013, if you're in a calendar-marking mood.

SOE hasn't officially announced this as of yet, but some sharp eyes at EQ2Wire picked up on the company's Live-related tweeting and the tiny dates at the top of the SOE Live web page. The company also hasn't announced an official itinerary as of yet, though it is expected to show off EverQuest Next for the first time at the late summer event.

I was going to update you fine folk on my adventures in rolling my 17,000th EverQuest II alt for this week's Tattered Notebook, but SOE decided to drop a Fan Faire Live date on us, which sort of mucked up my nefarious plans.

Why do we care about SOE Live? Well, there are multiple reasons, but the most important one is that instead of having to wait until October, we now get to see (and touch!) EverQuest Next in early August!


This news threw me for a bit of a loop, I don't mind telling you. I mean, I knew that SOE's John Smedley flat-out guaranteed a playable EQNext demo at SOE Live 2013. And I knew that it is in fact 2013 already, so hands-on time with what might be the next great sandbox will occur inside of a calendar year. It still seemed really far off for some reason, though, I guess because it was just three months ago that we were finishing up SOE Live 2012. August 1st is going to be here before we know it, so it's high time we start prognosticating about EQNext, wouldn't you agree?

Hopefully it goes without saying that I'd like to see this stuff in addition to the usual high-quality PvE questing, dungeon, raid, and progression content.

Heritage quests

Even though I played the original EverQuest for only about a month, I love love love EverQuest II's heritage lines. In a franchise that already sets the standard for MMO lore, it was a genius idea to tie the two games together and throw EQ vets a nostalgia-drenched bone by offering up extended epic quests with EQ-centric item rewards.

More like that in EQNext, please.


Housing

You know SOE is going to put housing in EQNext, as the company does the feature better than any other MMO developer (sorry Trion -- great effort, though). The question is how can it ever be as good as EQII's implementation. Realistically I don't think it can, at least not at release. It's literally a game-within-the-game that has more in common with Minecraft than typical MMO afterthought design, so if it takes SOE a while to fit it into EQNext's framework, I'm OK with that. While we're dreaming, I'd also be more than OK with SOE finding a way to do EQII's housing in an open-world environment.

And yes, I know, Mr. Hardcore Gamer, housing and non-combat options are for Barbie lovers and casuals and no one uses them. Except for the tens of millions of players who have made the Sims franchise the most popular in the history of the personal computer.


A crafter-driven economy

This is going to be difficult for SOE to pull off, particularly given the loot-drop legacy of themeparks like EQ and EQII. My definition of sandbox is built on an actual player economy, though, and one of my frustrations with EQII is the vast, intricate, and fun crafting system that is almost totally wasted on a game where most of the gear is mob-dropped and bind-on-equip.

I don't envy the designers here because in addition to the balancing challenges inherent in making and maintaining a sandbox economy, they've also got to deal with the psyche of the new-school MMO player who doesn't want to be bothered with crafters and who wants to remote auction his gear with a minimum of effort and player interaction. At the same time, the firm has minced no words about the fact that EQNext is a player-driven sandbox, so how it navigates this potential minefield will be interesting to watch.

Good guild tools

Copy EQII's guild tools. Anything less makes Jef cry. The end.


Things I don't want to see

Before I knock off for the day, let me spend a couple of paragraphs on things I don't want to see. Firstly, in-game VOIP. Look, I know it makes for a good back-of-the-box (do we still have game boxes?) bullet point, but the reality is that it's a waste of development resources even if it's shoe-horned in there by a third party.

I mean, really, what guild with a clue doesn't use Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, or Mumble these days? These are all free apps -- unless you're the guild leader paying for the server, and even then it's usually much cheaper than a traditional MMO sub -- and they dwarf the functionality found in current in-game solutions. In-game VOIP is going to be laggy, it's going to sound like crap, and the only people who might use it for more than five minutes are the poor saps in pickup dungeon groups.

Secondly, let's not have any of that dev-generated personal story foolishness or the associated voice-acting. This is a massively multiplayer sandbox, after all, and I can think of at least two recent AAA titles that have done more than enough to justify tossing these ideas onto the proverbial pile of MMO fail. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, as Smedley has given multiple interviews over the past few months that illustrate the company's "the players are the content" motto. But, still. MMORPG. Sandbox. Please don't with the single-player savior-of-the-cosmos nonsense. Thank you.

What's in a name?

Whew. This isn't an exhaustive list of course, and I'm quite curious to see what some of you would like to see in EQNext. Rest assured that we'll be revisiting this topic often as SOE ramps up to its August reveal and beyond.

And with that, let's bring this week's issue of The Tattered Notebook to a close. Oh, that reminds me! With EQNext in our near future, MJ and I are likely going to rename the column at some point, both as a way to freshen things up and to better capture the spirit of the franchise going forward. And we'd love your help! Feel free to post your suggestions in the comments or contact us directly via jef@massively.com or mj@massively.com.

Sony Online Entertainment has become largely pseudonymous with the free-to-play movement, offering triple-A titles like PlanetSide 2 for no cost from day one, and converting legacy games like EverQuest to the model.

It's fairly seamless these days, but when Smedley and his team decided to embrace free-to-play, it was a big leap of faith.

"Sometimes you make a decision and you're like 'Oh God, let's buckle in and hope everything goes well.' That's how it was with free-to-play," he says. "Now we look back and wonder 'How did we ever survive before this?' Living in a world where retailers control your software was horrible."

Though he did not reveal revenue figures, Smedley says that since the move to free-to-play, SOE has seen a 300 percent increase in new players for EverQuest 2, a 125 percent increase in item sales for EverQuest and a 350 percent bump in overall registrations. Planetside 2, its most recent release, has more than 1.6 million registered users, with 750,000 logging in to play every week.

Roughly 10 percent of those Planetside 2 players end up paying for items, says Smedley. And while he acknowledges some parties might focus on the 90 percent who don't pay, he's not concerned about it.

"Everybody is content for everyone else," he says. "That's the core of our strategy moving forward. A simple way to put it is: By allowing players to interact with each other, we're providing tools. It's like we're building a gladiator arena and throwing in the swords. ... We might bust the tigers out or bring in new kinds of weapons, like a tank. In my opinion, the days when companies can make content [generation] the number one strategy, in the kinds of games we make, are over, because we can't win the war. Star Wars [The Old Republic] proved that. Players bought it, loved it and they played the game. Then they left."

That, in part, is why Smedley takes such a very public no-tolerance stance on hackers. In December, he made headlines by declaring war on Planetside 2 hackers - banning one and naming him on Twitter.

"The reason I took that step was because that guy was one of the senior people at one of the most famous AIMbotting sites there is," says Smedley. "I think cheaters are disgusting human beings - specifically when it comes to gaming. I fail to see it is anything but being a scumbag, to cheat, because it's hurting other people. In a game like PlanetSide 2, you're ruining someone else's fun and that is the height of scumbaggery. ... We might lose players because of that. That means they're hurting our revenue and our living."

Smedley comes to that opinion as a "gamer" himself. He's an avid Planetside 2 player. He says he regularly plays EVE Online and League of Legends. And he watches a lot of TwitchTV.

What he's really itching to play, though, is the one game he can't talk much about: EverQuest Next.

SOE has been dropping hints about the game for a while now, but Smedley says to expect a much bigger reveal this year.

"There are times you know something and you're bursting to talk about it - and that is the case here," he says. "We're betting the company's future on this game. ... The last EverQuest game launched in 2005. We've blown up two design ideas over the last four years because they were too 'me too.' It wasn't enough of a change. We settled on a design that, when we looked at it, everyone in the room thought we were crazy. We gave it a week and came back, and we all said 'yeah, we're still crazy, but we can't get the idea out of our heads. ... It's going to be the world's largest sandbox game."

EverQuest Next was a black box project for years - and it was only last month that Smedley and the team showed it to the EverQuest and EverQuest 2 teams. Smedley says he was so nervous the night before the presentation that he couldn't sleep - but that both teams received it enthusiastically.

Players will have to wait a bit longer to try it themselves, but maybe not as long as you'd expect. "Players will get their hands on an actual release version of what we're doing late [this] year - and I don't mean a beta," says Smedley.

I started keeping up with EQN here

http://deadrabbits.forumotion.com/f36-everquest-next