Yeah, if this works half as well as they intend it will be a major step. I predict it will be massively buggy and the mobs will end up doing dumb stuff that looks like group windsprints or player goaded lemming behavior. It will be fun to watch but not in the way they intend. Also I think this means the release date is even further off, the testing alone will take forever.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Originally posted by amx23 It looked pretty smart to me i mean the dark elves took over, and in another simulation they had a good fight with the shadow elementals.
Where you there? Could you give us a little more detail on how the demo went?
I think a lot of it comes from people's past experiences and they can't understand how something so complex and advanced can actually run well enough to support the kind of ideas they are pushing.
Aion for example, while looked good for it's time no doubt but didn't have things like voxels or world destruction, emphasized huge scale pvp fort raids that would draw in 100's of players, yet once you started getting more than 30 or 40 players in the area, performance became really bad, and it wasn't even anywhere near as complex as what EQN is trying.
People remember playing EQ and doing a raid and having to turn down all the particle effects and eye candy as much as possible, looking down at the floor just to maintain decent frame rates lol. You do know that wasn't a software issue but a hardware one.. The program was more complex then the graphic card could handle..
Incorrect, it was poor programming. When a $3000 - $4000 water cooled enthusiast system OCed to hell stutters and skips along like an emachine even when you turn the video settings down to low, it's not a "hardware issue". The technical issues of vanguard are were/are well known.
Then they hear about a game like EQN with fully destructible environments, highly animated characters with advanced facial animations, complex AI systems and it just seems too good to be true based on passed experiences.
But that said, I don't think it's going to be nearly as bad as people are thinking it's going to be. I certainly think that this is going to push systems. This isn't going to be your typical blizzard game where it'll run on low end systems just fine. But it's not going to be unreasonable. That would be your guess.. IMO, anyone that doesn't have a new gaming computer with uber graphic card is going to have issue running the game "as intended" when in large groups.. However, I'm confident enough to hope they will have video sliders to nerf their own masterpiece..
The point was that it will be within reason. A midgrade gaming system build within a year or 2 of release won't have much, if any, of an issue even in most situations.
Right now in Landmark, Max settings and just turning off shadows gets me a solid 60fps constant even as I roam around and I'm near impressive structures players have built. I have a pretty awesome PC (3570k OCed to 4.7ghz, 8gb of ram and 2x 780 GTXs in SLI), but also take in the consideration that EQN will launch in a year from now, and will have been vastly optimized since then with a lot better driver support when it does. That isn't the difficulty of moving around and lag.. The trick will come when you have spell effects and DOZENS of player movement in a localized area such as PvP or Raiding.. I do wonder and question the quality of mass battles when you have that much graphic drawing going on.. Plus, consider this, especially when talking about voxels.. You come across a boss fight that requires 20, or 30+, imagine if most want to use their voxel destroying abilities in combat at what happens to the environment.. Boss fights could get stupid ugly.. OR will players be required to "NOT LOAD" said AOE world destroy skills on their hotbars because of that issue?
There are other work arounds, aside from the game being greatly optimized upon release from where it is now. For example, they can increase/decrease the "strength" of the terrain based on player's spell effects. They could also make it so that the ground under a raid-level mob is hardened or invul on the fly. I'm sure it won't be a low-system spec game by any means, but the point is that it will be "reasonable". That's just the nature of cutting edge PC games. You want to play Crysis 3 on max settings? Then pony up the bucks for an upgrade. We can't innovate if we have to constantly worry about upsetting some guy running a 4 year old emachine.
I can easily see a midgrade system of 2015 (something like a i5 CPU non-OCed, 8gb of ram, single 770 GTX / 860 GTX) playing the game capped out at 1080p with little to no issues).
I"m sure a very small percentage of the playerbase will be able to run high details..
Forge-Light has been upgraded so that each map section can be as big as 128km by 128km instead of 8km by 8km seen in landmark islands. That means H1Z1 can be as big as the continental US as they wanted it but they will make it roughly the size of Vermont. what doesn that mean for EQN? Earlier this year they said that the new norrath would be bigger than all the zones from EQ1 and EQ2 combined. Well, they can make it Massive. The map in the video is broken down into 30x60 sections. IF each section is 128km by 128km. THat means as a whole the world can be as big as 14,500,000 km squared. 1.5 times the size of the United States!
They will need all of that area. You guys should look forward to the EQNext chapter of Goonswarm or some other group that will dedicate their lives to conducting Trains to decimate areas, or just run hoardes of them off cliffs to empty areas of content. The giant phallus problem will look like a minor annoyance in comparison. There will also be Karma Herders who will grind up Karma for the purpose of starting NPC fights, but mainly only when it will inconvenience or grief fellow players. This system sounds fantastic on paper, but I am sure this will guarantee a new sport for the worst type of player.
You can also say hello to open world PvP (non-consensual) as the NPCs will now be used as proxy attacks by Karma Herders who will wait till you attack an orc and bring a hoard over the hill.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Internet matters with this game because they stream everything which is also another bad idea.
As for the above post about voxels allowing more ... More what? You cant destroy terrain to trap creatures in for easy kills because that will be viewed as an exploit no doubt. Mining? I dont think I want to see thousands of holes in the ground ruining the landscape because people are mining. I would be fine with a Ultima Online setup when it came to mining.
What else? Building homes? Sounds great but voxel homes look terrible with all the smudges and bleed effect that happens. When you are at the perfect distance they look ok but close up.. Yikes.
Magic combos destroying landscape during battles? Again that goes back to combat exploits and I am sure people would end up not liking it in PvP either after being trapped for the 1000th time by the same combo that everyone would be using.
Castle Seiges? That can already be done with basic physics.
I dont think voxels bring anything major to the MMORPG genre and from what I can tell will end up being more of a headache for the devs than anything.
I like these opinions on Voxels. They definitely cause performance issues in their current state. I have doubts if these performance hits can be optimized away without a new generation of voxel-specific graphics processors. The transient nature of 'destructible environments' tends to generate a lot of bandwidth traffic, as these changes to the environment must be propagated from the server to each individual client (player) in the area. I don't know how SOE will approach this problem, but I suspect that EQN is going to have robust networking requirements, maybe even to the degree that dial-up, DLS and some lower broadband services will be unusable for this game. Is everyone ready (willing and able) to pay for an upgraded service from your ISP?
I've stated a couple of times that the ability to destroy anything doesn't add anything for me. Like this poster says, there is too much inherent potential for exploits. SOE will have to negate the exploit potential for these features to be even remotely attractive to me. We've already heard that there will be limits on how close together destruction events can occur to alter the landscape. Digging and vertical 'exploration' could be done with a traditional pixel-based environment, by defining limited regions where the terrain could be altered, and providing alternate terrains for various levels of destruction. Conceivably, voxels will allow terrain alteration at any location, but it appears that there are already plans to restrict the 'any location' aspects of destructible terrain.
So, the use of voxels in this project could be building a complicated way of doing something, which will ultimately create a sizable workload for the development staff. We'll see.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Internet matters with this game because they stream everything which is also another bad idea.
As for the above post about voxels allowing more ... More what? You cant destroy terrain to trap creatures in for easy kills because that will be viewed as an exploit no doubt. Mining? I dont think I want to see thousands of holes in the ground ruining the landscape because people are mining. I would be fine with a Ultima Online setup when it came to mining.
What else? Building homes? Sounds great but voxel homes look terrible with all the smudges and bleed effect that happens. When you are at the perfect distance they look ok but close up.. Yikes.
Magic combos destroying landscape during battles? Again that goes back to combat exploits and I am sure people would end up not liking it in PvP either after being trapped for the 1000th time by the same combo that everyone would be using.
Castle Seiges? That can already be done with basic physics.
I dont think voxels bring anything major to the MMORPG genre and from what I can tell will end up being more of a headache for the devs than anything.
I like these opinions on Voxels. They definitely cause performance issues in their current state. I have doubts if these performance hits can be optimized away without a new generation of voxel-specific graphics processors. The transient nature of 'destructible environments' tends to generate a lot of bandwidth traffic, as these changes to the environment must be propagated from the server to each individual client (player) in the area. I don't know how SOE will approach this problem, but I suspect that EQN is going to have robust networking requirements, maybe even to the degree that dial-up, DLS and some lower broadband services will be unusable for this game. Is everyone ready (willing and able) to pay for an upgraded service from your ISP?
I've stated a couple of times that the ability to destroy anything doesn't add anything for me. Like this poster says, there is too much inherent potential for exploits. SOE will have to negate the exploit potential for these features to be even remotely attractive to me. We've already heard that there will be limits on how close together destruction events can occur to alter the landscape. Digging and vertical 'exploration' could be done with a traditional pixel-based environment, by defining limited regions where the terrain could be altered, and providing alternate terrains for various levels of destruction. Conceivably, voxels will allow terrain alteration at any location, but it appears that there are already plans to restrict the 'any location' aspects of destructible terrain.
So, the use of voxels in this project could be building a complicated way of doing something, which will ultimately create a sizable workload for the development staff. We'll see.
I agree with both of the above.. The technical issues that can lead to game performance is a big hurdle for SOE to solve.. As it was pointed out, the bandwidth and communication between "MULTIPLE" clients will cause lag for many. Now add that in that we don't have tab targeting, and have to rely on twitch action combat, many players will be MISSING their targets..
Then take a look at non-consensual PvP.. It happen in SWG and WoW, that I know of first hand.. Players will always find ways to grieve others using game exploits.. What is to keep one player from digging a hole under another causing them to fall into a undesirable location? Or just to be a pain in the ass.. I"m trying to help Mr Farmer against Orcs, and another player that is trying to help Orcs keeps using voxel destruction to interfere with my game play..
I put faith in this.. "What can go wrong, will go wrong".. You can bet on it..
Uneducated opinions by people who have never worked on a voxel-based game.
They definitely cause performance issues in their current state.
Alpha. It will be optimized for launch, but optimized is not a synonym for "It'll run 120fps constant on a $300 emachine". It will require slightly higher system specs than what you're used to with WoW, but this isn't an inherent problem in itself. They will set the bar where they want to as far as what system minimums are required to play the game and you can either choose to hit that mark or deal with it / play another game.
I have doubts if these performance hits can be optimized away without a new generation of voxel-specific graphics processors.
Lol. No, Nvidia and AMD don't need to make "voxel GPUs" (whatever that means) lol. In unoptimized landmark alpha, with max settings at 2560 x 1440, and shadows turned off I get constant 60fps right now, today. The system requirements after optimization and driver updates will be many times improved over this to top it off.
The transient nature of 'destructible environments' tends to generate a lot of bandwidth traffic, as these changes to the environment must be propagated from the server to each individual client (player) in the area. I don't know how SOE will approach this problem, but I suspect that EQN is going to have robust networking requirements, maybe even to the degree that dial-up, DLS and some lower broadband services will be unusable for this game. Is everyone ready (willing and able) to pay for an upgraded service from your ISP?
Game packets for all games, even something like EQN/Landmark are very, very small. An unused DSL line (not being saturated by other usage) is still way overkill when it comes to gaming. Anyone with the most very basic cable bandwidth, or a normal DSL line, are going to have no problem playing Landmark, EQN, or any other game for that matter. You really have no idea just how small game packets are. Your location in comparison to the server, the amount of hops your packets make to and from the server and your packets having to wait in queue while other usage goes out (delaying your game packets), are far more detrimental to your gaming experience than any foreseeable bandwidth issue would be.
I've stated a couple of times that the ability to destroy anything doesn't add anything for me.
Actually it does, to include proceedurally generated environments and the ability to have realistic fort sieges just to name a couple things. The basis of the system allows for drastic environment changes without direct dev intervention along with adding more realism with how you yourself can treat the world.
Like this poster says, there is too much inherent potential for exploits.
This argument is old, tired and baseless.
SOE will have to negate the exploit potential for these features to be even remotely attractive to me.
They already can and do. Don't worry, you're not going to have a guild of idiots mowing freeport to the ground for fun (unless it's a part of a siege event :P )
We've already heard that there will be limits on how close together destruction events can occur to alter the landscape. Digging and vertical 'exploration' could be done with a traditional pixel-based environment, by defining limited regions where the terrain could be altered, and providing alternate terrains for various levels of destruction. Conceivably, voxels will allow terrain alteration at any location, but it appears that there are already plans to restrict the 'any location' aspects of destructible terrain.
Then they would be required to "script" destruction events just like other games and this would prevent the freedom and proceedural aspects of the game environment generation they want to have to keep the world fresh. So your idea doesn't work at all.
So, the use of voxels in this project could be building a complicated way of doing something, which will ultimately create a sizable workload for the development staff. We'll see.
Your alternative was far more complex and far more limited in what it would bring while not really gaining anything worthwhile. Leave this stuff to the professionals please. We don't spend 4 - 8 years in expensive universities learning computer science and spend every day tackling complex software engineering problems, honing our skills for no reason.
At the end of the Landmark week twitch stream (In the last few min) HERE David G said that they will be redoing this panel with better audio and extra goodies for us soon. Not sure when but soon. So we will be getting this info for the masses. Again SoE devs listen =-)
Although it was a high level demo of how it worked (we did see some in game AI working elsewhere though) it showed the kind of evolving, complex world we all hope they can achieve. The simulations never ran the same because not all the choices made by the AI were the same.
From some conversations with the Storybricks guys here are a few possibilities...
Players can affect the world through their actions. Over time battles can be turned and factions can be removed from area's. You could turn a peace loving Druid's lands filled with tree's and flowers into a dark, foreboding haunted wood. And through player interaction it could be turned back again.
Factions may have hidden agenda's so while you might think you are helping the good guys but it may turn out that their motives are not always as they seem.
2 factions that might seem to have the same agenda might come to blows due to another part of their personality. 2 good factions might come to blows because one of them like to bring peace via the sword and another through peaceful interactions.
Depending on your actions and interactions in the world, NPC's might seek you out and give you an objective to achieve on their behalf because they see you as the right person for the job. And when I say you, I mean ONLY you. i.e. A quest given uniquely to you.
The only mystery I was left with was how the Micro and Macro interactions will play out. I await more info on that.
Although it was a high level demo of how it worked (we did see some in game AI working elsewhere though) it showed the kind of evolving, complex world we all hope they can achieve. The simulations never ran the same because not all the choices made by the AI were the same. Are you the only one to see a working version of Storybricks in game? I have yet to hear or see anything on it yet..
From some conversations with the Storybricks guys here are a few possibilities...
Players can affect the world through their actions. Over time battles can be turned and factions can be removed from area's. You could turn a peace loving Druid's lands filled with tree's and flowers into a dark, foreboding haunted wood. And through player interaction it could be turned back again. Sounds like a GW2 dynamic event, but triggered by players, not a computer code, and honestly I hope that isn't the case.. I'm not a big fan of players having too much control and effect in the game world.. It will become another grieving tool..
Factions may have hidden agenda's so while you might think you are helping the good guys but it may turn out that their motives are not always as they seem. OK, so it's faction based with consequences.. Which can be more dressing, then substance, and be careful with that substance because again if players can use it to grieve or interfere with others, they will..
2 factions that might seem to have the same agenda might come to blows due to another part of their personality. 2 good factions might come to blows because one of them like to bring peace via the sword and another through peaceful interactions. And why to players care what NPC's do? and how would it effect the community? No details on this yet from anyone..
Depending on your actions and interactions in the world, NPC's might seek you out and give you an objective to achieve on their behalf because they see you as the right person for the job. And when I say you, I mean ONLY you. i.e. A quest given uniquely to you. Now this you totally made up because I have not heard word about NPC's tracking and seeking out a specific player for a quest..
The only mystery I was left with was how the Micro and Macro interactions will play out. I await more info on that.
There is a whole book of mystery's about EQN and how Storybricks will actually fit in, in a meaningful way.. I would LOVE to sit down and ask Storybricks or EQN some REAL questions about the game for an hour.. Personally I"m a little tired of these scripted interviews that have limited vague talking points.. They come across like an paid advertisement you see on early morning TV, then real interviews..
Although it was a high level demo of how it worked (we did see some in game AI working elsewhere though) it showed the kind of evolving, complex world we all hope they can achieve. The simulations never ran the same because not all the choices made by the AI were the same. Are you the only one to see a working version of Storybricks in game? I have yet to hear or see anything on it yet..
From some conversations with the Storybricks guys here are a few possibilities...
Players can affect the world through their actions. Over time battles can be turned and factions can be removed from area's. You could turn a peace loving Druid's lands filled with tree's and flowers into a dark, foreboding haunted wood. And through player interaction it could be turned back again. Sounds like a GW2 dynamic event, but triggered by players, not a computer code, and honestly I hope that isn't the case.. I'm not a big fan of players having too much control and effect in the game world.. It will become another grieving tool..
Factions may have hidden agenda's so while you might think you are helping the good guys but it may turn out that their motives are not always as they seem. OK, so it's faction based with consequences.. Which can be more dressing, then substance, and be careful with that substance because again if players can use it to grieve or interfere with others, they will..
2 factions that might seem to have the same agenda might come to blows due to another part of their personality. 2 good factions might come to blows because one of them like to bring peace via the sword and another through peaceful interactions. And why to players care what NPC's do? and how would it effect the community? No details on this yet from anyone..
Depending on your actions and interactions in the world, NPC's might seek you out and give you an objective to achieve on their behalf because they see you as the right person for the job. And when I say you, I mean ONLY you. i.e. A quest given uniquely to you. Now this you totally made up because I have not heard word about NPC's tracking and seeking out a specific player for a quest..
The only mystery I was left with was how the Micro and Macro interactions will play out. I await more info on that.
There is a whole book of mystery's about EQN and how Storybricks will actually fit in, in a meaningful way.. I would LOVE to sit down and ask Storybricks or EQN some REAL questions about the game for an hour.. Personally I"m a little tired of these scripted interviews that have limited vague talking points.. They come across like an paid advertisement you see on early morning TV, then real interviews..
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
Although it was a high level demo of how it worked (we did see some in game AI working elsewhere though) it showed the kind of evolving, complex world we all hope they can achieve. The simulations never ran the same because not all the choices made by the AI were the same. Are you the only one to see a working version of Storybricks in game? I have yet to hear or see anything on it yet..
I think the Storybricks presentation had some issues with the recording which they are re-recording so It might not be out there yet but everyone that attended the presentation knows what was presented. And to be honest, talking to others there on the day this site is not respected for allowing clear, precise and unbiased information to be discussed and so don't come here.
From some conversations with the Storybricks guys here are a few possibilities...
Players can affect the world through their actions. Over time battles can be turned and factions can be removed from area's. You could turn a peace loving Druid's lands filled with tree's and flowers into a dark, foreboding haunted wood. And through player interaction it could be turned back again. Sounds like a GW2 dynamic event, but triggered by players, not a computer code, and honestly I hope that isn't the case.. I'm not a big fan of players having too much control and effect in the game world.. It will become another grieving tool..
It isn't a dynamic event like GW2. Your actions in the world can have an effect on what is happening and change things. The system my control a fight between 'good' and 'evil' over some part of the world but nothing is set in stone and the outcome is determined my many variables that can be influenced by the players.
Factions may have hidden agenda's so while you might think you are helping the good guys but it may turn out that their motives are not always as they seem. OK, so it's faction based with consequences.. Which can be more dressing, then substance, and be careful with that substance because again if players can use it to grieve or interfere with others, they will..
Not faction based as in the generic way people have seen factions in previous games. Sure you might have good standing with a certain faction (or group, or nation, or race or whatever a collective of like minded individuals can be called) but they are not one dimensional like normal factions from previous games. You would not 'faction grind' as such but if your actions align with the wants, needs or desires of individuals or groups of individuals then how they view you might change.
2 factions that might seem to have the same agenda might come to blows due to another part of their personality. 2 good factions might come to blows because one of them like to bring peace via the sword and another through peaceful interactions. And why to players care what NPC's do? and how would it effect the community? No details on this yet from anyone..
You have to stop thinking of this like previous games have played. Would you care if the Dark Elves managed to destroy all the Druid holdings in your homeland and turned the lands into a dark and foreboding, dangerous area?
If you happen to play a Druid would you fight back, seek help, try and make an alliance with others to protect your lands? Or would you flee and hope to take over another part of the world? Again, this was discussed in the presentation about Storybricks which had a problem with the recording.
Depending on your actions and interactions in the world, NPC's might seek you out and give you an objective to achieve on their behalf because they see you as the right person for the job. And when I say you, I mean ONLY you. i.e. A quest given uniquely to you. Now this you totally made up because I have not heard word about NPC's tracking and seeking out a specific player for a quest..
It was discussed personally and not as part of a presentation.
The only mystery I was left with was how the Micro and Macro interactions will play out. I await more info on that.
There is a whole book of mystery's about EQN and how Storybricks will actually fit in, in a meaningful way.. I would LOVE to sit down and ask Storybricks or EQN some REAL questions about the game for an hour.. Personally I"m a little tired of these scripted interviews that have limited vague talking points.. They come across like an paid advertisement you see on early morning TV, then real interviews..
Believe me or not I don't care but nothing I stated is made up, it comes from presentations at the event and discussions with developers at both Sony and Storybricks.
Edit : A player made a recording of the presentation which is not great but does have subtitles I believe. Here is the link but SOE will apparently be redoing the presentation with better quality as their recording failed for some reason: -
or just search for the following in Youtube: -
SOE Live 2014 Storybricks - The Content of EQ Next
I'm keeping my eye on this game. Played EQ when it first game out and moved to EQ2 and went through four content additions before drama killed my favorite raiding guild. Just wasn't fund after that 8( Will definitely try the game and hope to make some new pals and maybe run across some old ones too!
Originally posted by amx23 What i have seen from that was unlimited gameplay. But im guessing some people still prefer quests hubs for some reason...
I certainly got the impression that quests can come from all sorts of places. While there might be hubs of civilization they do not have set quests and there are no static NPC's (outside of the fact they will be living in the same town) or mobs (again outside the generalized area in which they might currently be inhabiting).
The Rohsong seems to not only be a book recording your deeds but also the way to get suggestions for what there is to do in the world. During the Dev brunch we got to spend 2 hours chatting with the devs and the one on the table I sat on went into quite some depth about the way the Rohsong book worked and how quests in general worked.
Any NPC you speak to could potentially have a quest for you to undertake. They might need materials gathered or their barn cleared of vermin or items delivered but they would only be available when needed so you wouldn't be able to clear the barn of vermin only for the next guy to come along to get the same quest as you just did it.
Then, depending on your standing with individuals, organisations, guilds, races, political factions or any other individual/group there might be more open quests such as helping reduce banditry in the region or killing off a local population of Orcs that are harassing the area. Several people might be given the task of helping and it may take quite a long time for such an activity to be completed.
Another really cool thing is that there is the potential for unique quests just for your character should a need arise and your 'standing', past activities, skillset meet their requirements. An individual or 'faction' may seek YOU out for a task/quest.
One of the other nice things mentioned was that there are lots of possible ways to complete certain quests. For example, say you have to reduce the Orc population. You might just do that by killing Orcs or you might realise that Orcs love weath, especially Gold, and so could achive the same thing by either protecting travellers (making the Orcs decide to move on and find an easier place to target travellers) or even go so far as to mine out all the local deposits of gold (which again might make the Orcs move on to look for other places with gold).
The Rohsong will also provide clues as to where you might find quests fitting your play style. So if you happened to be a predominantly nature based build favouring combat it would suggest area's in the world where nature was under attack. An example given in the Storybricks presentation was on the druid lands being attacked by the Dark Elves. If you followed the suggestion of the Rohsong then you would travel to the area and help the local Druids defend their lands. Enough players do that and the Dark Elves get driven back, not enough and the Dark Elves might eventually take over the Druid lands and drive them all away. It also means that players can come into conflict, both through combat and in other ways to determine what happens. Although the outcome is dependent on many factors, player intervention in the world will have a very dramatic impact on what cam take place in the world.
I am sure more information about how it all works will come out in due course and there are some things that still have an embargo but from conversations and watching the presentations the future looks bright.
Wow Maelwydd, thanks for the info. I opted out of the brunch but almost wished I would have gone! You mentioned Orcs mining gold. I was wondering from the SB video if NPCs actually harvested the world like players when they need things. That would really add a level of depth.
Also, any system that removes the need for ? And ! is boss.
Originally posted by Aelious Wow Maelwydd, thanks for the info. I opted out of the brunch but almost wished I would have gone! You mentioned Orcs mining gold. I was wondering from the SB video if NPCs actually harvested the world like players when they need things. That would really add a level of depth.
Also, any system that removes the need for ? And ! is boss.
The brunch was well worth it but to be honest the devs were very approachable the entire convention, especially in the bars late at night
Didn't go into specifics in a micro level in terms of mining gold (and to be honest that was one question I didn't really get to ask I wish I had) but essentially it seems that everything is marked, including terrain, buildings, NPC's, Mobs etc...So gold would be marked as perhaps 'valuable' and so anything that wants wealth would go looking for things of 'value'. Finding a Gold mine they might decide to start harvesting it (not sure if they would physically harvest it but from what was shown and presentations it appears that is possible as in one presentation Dark Elves, upon finding an altar of power interacted with it) and so would effectively camp the gold mine till it was exhausted or someone forced them to move on.
As for having ? or ! to mark mobs, it sounds like you will never see one of these again. Essentially every NPC could potentially have a quest depending on their specific wants, needs and desires. SO you might be at an inn talking to the barkeep and his stock levels hit critical and he asks if you could go pick up some more barrels for him. No ? or ! symbol, just obtained through interacting with the world.
The closest it seems the game will have ? or ! is through the Rohsong book which essentially gives you suggesting on what to do and where to go. These suggestions could be to match your playstyle (combat types will be directed to places of conflict and crafter types to places to get work), for class/skill progression (perhaps telling you to go somewhere to find a school that can teach you advanced hand to hand combat) or simply area's of interest such as the big dynamic events or simply just places where stuff is going on.
Oh just remembered an example given...You might be travelling down the road and find an NPC getting attacked. You decide to help and it turns out they are a priest. He thanks you, tells you his order name and where it is located and says look him up some time. If you go visit him you can help them with what they need and eventually, through interaction with them they ask if you want to join their order (learn a new class).
With combat and PvP coming to landmark on the 27th and in the very near future the game maker tools and AI we should get a much better idea of how the maco and micro AI will work and how it will affect combat. Good times
Originally posted by amx23 What i have seen from that was unlimited gameplay. But im guessing some people still prefer quests hubs for some reason...
I certainly got the impression that quests can come from all sorts of places. While there might be hubs of civilization they do not have set quests and there are no static NPC's (outside of the fact they will be living in the same town) or mobs (again outside the generalized area in which they might currently be inhabiting).
The Rohsong seems to not only be a book recording your deeds but also the way to get suggestions for what there is to do in the world. During the Dev brunch we got to spend 2 hours chatting with the devs and the one on the table I sat on went into quite some depth about the way the Rohsong book worked and how quests in general worked.
Any NPC you speak to could potentially have a quest for you to undertake. They might need materials gathered or their barn cleared of vermin or items delivered but they would only be available when needed so you wouldn't be able to clear the barn of vermin only for the next guy to come along to get the same quest as you just did it.
Then, depending on your standing with individuals, organisations, guilds, races, political factions or any other individual/group there might be more open quests such as helping reduce banditry in the region or killing off a local population of Orcs that are harassing the area. Several people might be given the task of helping and it may take quite a long time for such an activity to be completed.
Another really cool thing is that there is the potential for unique quests just for your character should a need arise and your 'standing', past activities, skillset meet their requirements. An individual or 'faction' may seek YOU out for a task/quest.
One of the other nice things mentioned was that there are lots of possible ways to complete certain quests. For example, say you have to reduce the Orc population. You might just do that by killing Orcs or you might realise that Orcs love weath, especially Gold, and so could achive the same thing by either protecting travellers (making the Orcs decide to move on and find an easier place to target travellers) or even go so far as to mine out all the local deposits of gold (which again might make the Orcs move on to look for other places with gold).
The Rohsong will also provide clues as to where you might find quests fitting your play style. So if you happened to be a predominantly nature based build favouring combat it would suggest area's in the world where nature was under attack. An example given in the Storybricks presentation was on the druid lands being attacked by the Dark Elves. If you followed the suggestion of the Rohsong then you would travel to the area and help the local Druids defend their lands. Enough players do that and the Dark Elves get driven back, not enough and the Dark Elves might eventually take over the Druid lands and drive them all away. It also means that players can come into conflict, both through combat and in other ways to determine what happens. Although the outcome is dependent on many factors, player intervention in the world will have a very dramatic impact on what cam take place in the world.
I am sure more information about how it all works will come out in due course and there are some things that still have an embargo but from conversations and watching the presentations the future looks bright.
Nice info man. Thanks for sharing.
And no, GW2's Dynamic Event system is no where near the same thing as Story Brick's Emergent AI system.
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Where you there? Could you give us a little more detail on how the demo went?
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They will need all of that area. You guys should look forward to the EQNext chapter of Goonswarm or some other group that will dedicate their lives to conducting Trains to decimate areas, or just run hoardes of them off cliffs to empty areas of content. The giant phallus problem will look like a minor annoyance in comparison. There will also be Karma Herders who will grind up Karma for the purpose of starting NPC fights, but mainly only when it will inconvenience or grief fellow players. This system sounds fantastic on paper, but I am sure this will guarantee a new sport for the worst type of player.
You can also say hello to open world PvP (non-consensual) as the NPCs will now be used as proxy attacks by Karma Herders who will wait till you attack an orc and bring a hoard over the hill.
I like these opinions on Voxels. They definitely cause performance issues in their current state. I have doubts if these performance hits can be optimized away without a new generation of voxel-specific graphics processors. The transient nature of 'destructible environments' tends to generate a lot of bandwidth traffic, as these changes to the environment must be propagated from the server to each individual client (player) in the area. I don't know how SOE will approach this problem, but I suspect that EQN is going to have robust networking requirements, maybe even to the degree that dial-up, DLS and some lower broadband services will be unusable for this game. Is everyone ready (willing and able) to pay for an upgraded service from your ISP?
I've stated a couple of times that the ability to destroy anything doesn't add anything for me. Like this poster says, there is too much inherent potential for exploits. SOE will have to negate the exploit potential for these features to be even remotely attractive to me. We've already heard that there will be limits on how close together destruction events can occur to alter the landscape. Digging and vertical 'exploration' could be done with a traditional pixel-based environment, by defining limited regions where the terrain could be altered, and providing alternate terrains for various levels of destruction. Conceivably, voxels will allow terrain alteration at any location, but it appears that there are already plans to restrict the 'any location' aspects of destructible terrain.
So, the use of voxels in this project could be building a complicated way of doing something, which will ultimately create a sizable workload for the development staff. We'll see.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I agree with both of the above.. The technical issues that can lead to game performance is a big hurdle for SOE to solve.. As it was pointed out, the bandwidth and communication between "MULTIPLE" clients will cause lag for many. Now add that in that we don't have tab targeting, and have to rely on twitch action combat, many players will be MISSING their targets..
Then take a look at non-consensual PvP.. It happen in SWG and WoW, that I know of first hand.. Players will always find ways to grieve others using game exploits.. What is to keep one player from digging a hole under another causing them to fall into a undesirable location? Or just to be a pain in the ass.. I"m trying to help Mr Farmer against Orcs, and another player that is trying to help Orcs keeps using voxel destruction to interfere with my game play..
I put faith in this.. "What can go wrong, will go wrong".. You can bet on it..
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I was at the presentation.
Although it was a high level demo of how it worked (we did see some in game AI working elsewhere though) it showed the kind of evolving, complex world we all hope they can achieve. The simulations never ran the same because not all the choices made by the AI were the same.
From some conversations with the Storybricks guys here are a few possibilities...
Players can affect the world through their actions. Over time battles can be turned and factions can be removed from area's. You could turn a peace loving Druid's lands filled with tree's and flowers into a dark, foreboding haunted wood. And through player interaction it could be turned back again.
Factions may have hidden agenda's so while you might think you are helping the good guys but it may turn out that their motives are not always as they seem.
2 factions that might seem to have the same agenda might come to blows due to another part of their personality. 2 good factions might come to blows because one of them like to bring peace via the sword and another through peaceful interactions.
Depending on your actions and interactions in the world, NPC's might seek you out and give you an objective to achieve on their behalf because they see you as the right person for the job. And when I say you, I mean ONLY you. i.e. A quest given uniquely to you.
The only mystery I was left with was how the Micro and Macro interactions will play out. I await more info on that.
There is a whole book of mystery's about EQN and how Storybricks will actually fit in, in a meaningful way.. I would LOVE to sit down and ask Storybricks or EQN some REAL questions about the game for an hour.. Personally I"m a little tired of these scripted interviews that have limited vague talking points.. They come across like an paid advertisement you see on early morning TV, then real interviews..
Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
Believe me or not I don't care but nothing I stated is made up, it comes from presentations at the event and discussions with developers at both Sony and Storybricks.
Edit : A player made a recording of the presentation which is not great but does have subtitles I believe. Here is the link but SOE will apparently be redoing the presentation with better quality as their recording failed for some reason: -
or just search for the following in Youtube: -
SOE Live 2014 Storybricks - The Content of EQ Next
I certainly got the impression that quests can come from all sorts of places. While there might be hubs of civilization they do not have set quests and there are no static NPC's (outside of the fact they will be living in the same town) or mobs (again outside the generalized area in which they might currently be inhabiting).
The Rohsong seems to not only be a book recording your deeds but also the way to get suggestions for what there is to do in the world. During the Dev brunch we got to spend 2 hours chatting with the devs and the one on the table I sat on went into quite some depth about the way the Rohsong book worked and how quests in general worked.
Any NPC you speak to could potentially have a quest for you to undertake. They might need materials gathered or their barn cleared of vermin or items delivered but they would only be available when needed so you wouldn't be able to clear the barn of vermin only for the next guy to come along to get the same quest as you just did it.
Then, depending on your standing with individuals, organisations, guilds, races, political factions or any other individual/group there might be more open quests such as helping reduce banditry in the region or killing off a local population of Orcs that are harassing the area. Several people might be given the task of helping and it may take quite a long time for such an activity to be completed.
Another really cool thing is that there is the potential for unique quests just for your character should a need arise and your 'standing', past activities, skillset meet their requirements. An individual or 'faction' may seek YOU out for a task/quest.
One of the other nice things mentioned was that there are lots of possible ways to complete certain quests. For example, say you have to reduce the Orc population. You might just do that by killing Orcs or you might realise that Orcs love weath, especially Gold, and so could achive the same thing by either protecting travellers (making the Orcs decide to move on and find an easier place to target travellers) or even go so far as to mine out all the local deposits of gold (which again might make the Orcs move on to look for other places with gold).
The Rohsong will also provide clues as to where you might find quests fitting your play style. So if you happened to be a predominantly nature based build favouring combat it would suggest area's in the world where nature was under attack. An example given in the Storybricks presentation was on the druid lands being attacked by the Dark Elves. If you followed the suggestion of the Rohsong then you would travel to the area and help the local Druids defend their lands. Enough players do that and the Dark Elves get driven back, not enough and the Dark Elves might eventually take over the Druid lands and drive them all away. It also means that players can come into conflict, both through combat and in other ways to determine what happens. Although the outcome is dependent on many factors, player intervention in the world will have a very dramatic impact on what cam take place in the world.
I am sure more information about how it all works will come out in due course and there are some things that still have an embargo but from conversations and watching the presentations the future looks bright.
Also, any system that removes the need for ? And ! is boss.
The brunch was well worth it but to be honest the devs were very approachable the entire convention, especially in the bars late at night
Didn't go into specifics in a micro level in terms of mining gold (and to be honest that was one question I didn't really get to ask I wish I had) but essentially it seems that everything is marked, including terrain, buildings, NPC's, Mobs etc...So gold would be marked as perhaps 'valuable' and so anything that wants wealth would go looking for things of 'value'. Finding a Gold mine they might decide to start harvesting it (not sure if they would physically harvest it but from what was shown and presentations it appears that is possible as in one presentation Dark Elves, upon finding an altar of power interacted with it) and so would effectively camp the gold mine till it was exhausted or someone forced them to move on.
As for having ? or ! to mark mobs, it sounds like you will never see one of these again. Essentially every NPC could potentially have a quest depending on their specific wants, needs and desires. SO you might be at an inn talking to the barkeep and his stock levels hit critical and he asks if you could go pick up some more barrels for him. No ? or ! symbol, just obtained through interacting with the world.
The closest it seems the game will have ? or ! is through the Rohsong book which essentially gives you suggesting on what to do and where to go. These suggestions could be to match your playstyle (combat types will be directed to places of conflict and crafter types to places to get work), for class/skill progression (perhaps telling you to go somewhere to find a school that can teach you advanced hand to hand combat) or simply area's of interest such as the big dynamic events or simply just places where stuff is going on.
Oh just remembered an example given...You might be travelling down the road and find an NPC getting attacked. You decide to help and it turns out they are a priest. He thanks you, tells you his order name and where it is located and says look him up some time. If you go visit him you can help them with what they need and eventually, through interaction with them they ask if you want to join their order (learn a new class).
With combat and PvP coming to landmark on the 27th and in the very near future the game maker tools and AI we should get a much better idea of how the maco and micro AI will work and how it will affect combat. Good times
Nice info man. Thanks for sharing.
And no, GW2's Dynamic Event system is no where near the same thing as Story Brick's Emergent AI system.
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