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Smedley: "EverQuest Next will be the world's largest sandbox-style MMO ever made"
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The game had very few quests that's true, but some of them took weeks to complete. I think that's where the name came from. You had to find the quests and often even after talking to the guy you still had no idea what you had to do. If you didn't check spoilers on the web you could had couples hours to those quests easy.
I played EQ for about 3 years from release and I don't think it fits in the sandbox category. I see it more as a theme park without many rides.
- Loot mostly dropped, almost meaningless crafting system. Economy based on loot, not crafted items.
- World wasn't interactive, no player created or destroyable content.
- Set class without customization
Those 3 things for me are needed to make a sandbox game.
It was an open world but still had a path you pretty much had to follow for level progression.
Today Theme Park are more obvious cause they have those big arrow neon signs telling you where to go.
That's nice.
But the guy responsible for putting the sandbox systems into SWG (Raph Koster) is not involved in the MMO industry anymore, let alone SOE.
And as time went on, SOE personel continued to damage those few remaining sandbox elements that remained in SWG after the NGE nuke, simply because they did not know how do deal with those effectively.
So, Smed saying anything about sandbox play should be taken with a pound of salt.
Well the whole point of CU/NGE was to make SWG a contender to WoW so it's no suprise other sandbox aspects suffered. It's a completely different situation now and I'm sure Ralph Koster is not the only person who knows how to design a sandbox MMO. We shall see but I will lean on the side of optimism for obvious reasons.
Edit: I would also like to add that even an EQ MMO that is more sandbox than EQ/EQ2 would be better than anything out right now. Even if SoE doesn't get it 100% right it's still a win for me.
Like theres only one guy in the world that can make a good game. Move on man. That games dead and buried and that guy has given up on mmo's altogether. Neither of those are the future of MMO's. EQN is, or will be.
Even after the NGE, and time went on, it got less and less "sandboxy" and not because SOE lost most of the programming and design talent they ever had: it was also straight up management decisions.
For instance, their crappy pseudo lottery TCG scam to put new items into the game: all of those items, ships, vehicles, buildings, decorations, pets. etc etc. went into the game at the expense of the crafting game, arguably the last significant sandbox left in SWG. And none of that was a programing/design decision: that was a straight up management decision to soak the players for more than the sub fee.
This was also at a time when looted items had already taken over the economy, again, at the expense of all the crafting professions.
And that was just one of the many, many ways SOE clearly demonstrated they did not understand how to run/manage a game with anything sandbox in it, over the longterm.
Or else they just didn't care.
I never said there was "one guy in the world who can make a good game."
What I said was, in regards to SWG and SOE and Sandbox play, that guy was Koster and he is long gone.
And as such, any expectations of SOE in regards to SWG elements going into EQNext, should be tempered by that fact.
Just out of curiosity, is there anything about EQN or SoE that you could find remotely positive? I mean, I appreciate you trying to save us from our own optimism and all but I'm interested to know.
They are not quite as bad or crooked as Cryptic....
Whelp... here's to high hopes, and not letting things like past reputations get in the way of believing them this time around.
Lol, fair enough. I'll measure one of EQNs success marks making even you a fan
thread keeps on rollin.
wtb EQN forums.
That doesn't matter, they likely still have the code.
The EQ Next ideas thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=399389
Having code is one thing, trying to interpret it is another. From what I understand the SWG code was not that easy to interpret.
I will take a wait and see attitude, it is possible Smedley has woken to the fact he had a real gem on his hands before he broke it and really wants to make something in the realm of a sandbox.
SWG was not a perfect game, but better than most of the trash out there today. Hopefully EQnext will improve on it.
I'm not supporting any PvP only based game. Just not doing it.
Just because Koster is a visionary doesn't mean the EQN staff can't jack ideas from UO/Eve/SWG lol
Last time I checked Ford isn't the only car company.
This is true. They need programmers who can use (and update) what they own (patents).
The EQ Next ideas thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=399389
Nuh-uh, Raph did it all by himself! (See above posters.)
The EQ Next ideas thread: http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=399389
I am starting to get worried that this potential sandbox masterpiece will be ruined by carebearism.
Smedley knows what the text book definition is, but Smedley doesn't comprehend what a Sandbox mmorpg is so there is no way he can make that statement and be taken seriously.
IMO his statements are all just PR and Advertising hogwash to make the StockHolder's happy. That's all.
Don't let yourselves get sucked into believing anything he says.
Oh, c'mon, you know they will have a PvP server. Sandbox =/= PvP anyhow. I'm always amused by mentions of carebear though so thanks for that
.
Clearly im going to have to start a 12 step SWG program here to bring everyone back into the "light".
If below is any indication, i would imagine hes either turned a new leaf or your blowing smoke. I dont think ive ever seen a president of a company answer so many questions and not be in front of a judge.
https://twitter.com/j_smedley
There will be pvp free areas. There won't be full loot. You know, typical carebear fare. But I think we'll see better implementation of PVP than most expect, no it wont be the glory of the Dread Lord era UO, but it won't be vanilla EQ pvp afterthought mechanics.