I didn't like EQ2, but I'm eager to see how EQ: Next turns out. Nice to see they don't wanna make a clone of WoW or anything else. WildStar, TESO, and EQ: Next are the games I'm watching. I hope at least one of them turns out to be good!
Originally posted by Tayah It seems like it will be years away, we'll have to see how it develops. I sincerely hope devs start taking mmo's in a different direction. The past years have been nothing but clones, sick of the typical themepark mmo's these days.
Thats why i think this article/interview bodes well. Smed admits that they had previous incarnations of the game that were essentially WOW 2.0 and that they totally scrapped them to do something better, while also keeping original EQ1 in mind.
I know that its popular to hate on smed, which i find completely ridiculous as lets be honest, we all know the NGE was not his doing, and nothing else i've seen him do has been any worse than anything blizzard or funcom or any other MMO dev has done.
So, that being said, ill keep faith.
Yah, from the sound of it so far, it sounds promising. Let's cross our fingers. We need more innovative mmorpgs out there, not more clones.
"Our opinion is that today's MMOs, and I'd include ours in that mix, are stagnant and stuck in this model that we frankly helped create with EverQuest, where we put new content in the game, and they go through it at an incredibly fast rate because of sites like Thottbot and that kind of stuff," Smedley said.
"We need to change the way we do this," Smedley said. "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 we're going in with EverQuest Next; trying to make a world that players create while being 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."
Though EverQuest Next, the studio's upcoming attempt to reinvent the 13-year-old MMO franchise, will be built around the kind of emergent interactions Smedley envisions, Planetside 2 has already incorporated those elements into its army-on-army battles.
"That wasn't a direction for development," Smedley said, "that was the direction. It's a great case-in-point; we gave players the weapons, the fight's all up to them. We give them some basic goals, but we want them playing that game in ways we never thought of. And that happens a lot."
That kind of experimentation characterizes perfectly the kind of year Sony Online Entertainment has had; a year spent preparing for Smedley's vision of the future of MMOs. In addition to experimenting with emergent gameplay and free-to-play models, the company launched a game on its Forgelight engine, a networking-centric development kit which allowed developers to make Planetside 2 in a little over two years. It also incorporated player-made items and designs into some of its games using its Player Studio platform, something Smedley says will be a big part of the studio's future projects.
All of these elements will be reflected and represented somehow in EverQuest Next; though firmer details on the title will have to wait until Sony Online Entertainment finally reveals the game in 2013.
"What we're doing [with emergent gameplay] is so radically new that we're not really talking about it," Smedley said. "What I will say is that what we're looking at is ways of making players part of the world itself. You'll understand it when you see it. We're almost at the point where we want to show the world."
Wouldn't it be refreshing if a game company developed a new game, never said a damn thing about it, never did public betas, then bam, delivered it to the market to the suprise of the world? What these games lack the most is surprise because you've been told everything about the game long before it reaches the store shelves. You've participated in betas of it. Watched countless videos, looked at countless screen shots... etc.
Yeah, back in the day, you had nothing but the packaging to go off of when buying a game. Amazing that most of those games were more than you expected them to be because, get this, you had no idea what you were getting in the first place. It's like too familiar for it's own good.
It is impossible to do something new if it's blabbed about all over the place well before it even becomes a reality. Do us a favor and not tell us a thing about the game. Keep it in the hush. Don't promise us a rose garden. Don't even offer presales. The game ships when it ships. People will go, hey, look, a brand new game and I've heard nothing about it. These last 100 games I've bought told me everything about them before a spent a cent and damn if I didn't get just that... exactly what I already knew I was getting. No surprises. No magic. Just a lot of the same old same old because you already told me about it long before I ever bought it.
EQ2 or whatever you want to call it will be as familiar to you as every other MMORPG out there... because you will have tried it long before it ever gets released. In reality, it was only new then, not when it went live. That's what the developers have done... moved release day to pre-release day. Anyone who didn't play in beta... is getting an old game.
Check out SOE fantastic Light-Forge engine on Planetside 2... It's laughable at best
I played PS2, I won't disagree that the engine is mediocre at best. (I only played the game to check out the graphics)
The graphics are meh worthy, they use a 32 bit engine which I believe limits their ability to use crisp textures, and the engine is pretty slow and easily hacked considering the amount of hacks PS2 has.
That doesn't mean they can't fix this on time, but it needs a whole lotta 'fixin to get to the level of the competition.
Since they claim their game is sandbox-like, one of their competitors would be ArcheAge, I'm not sure if they looked at that game, it uses CryEngine, so ArcheAge's graphics are way beyond what their engine can do.
Check out SOE fantastic Light-Forge engine on Planetside 2... It's laughable at best
I played PS2, I won't disagree that the engine is mediocre at best. (I only played the game to check out the graphics)
The graphics are meh worthy, they use a 32 bit engine which I believe limits their ability to use crisp textures, and the engine is pretty slow and easily hacked considering the amount of hacks PS2 has.
That doesn't mean they can't fix this on time, but it needs a whole lotta 'fixin to get to the level of the competition.
Since they claim their game is sandbox-like, one of their competitors would be ArcheAge, I'm not sure if they looked at that game, it uses CryEngine, so ArcheAge's graphics are way beyond what their engine can do.
Planetside 2 is a 64 bit client. There is absolutely no MMO that does what Planetside 2 does to the scale that Planetside 2 does it.
I won't get caught up in the hype this time, while PS2 Engine isn't horrible, the engine is very easily hacked and the graphics, I'll say it again, are mediocre at best, I haven't seen so many low resolution textures and low polygon scenery in years.
I'm not against EQNext, but I do know where people are coming from when they say they aren't impressed with PS2's graphics engine.
I won't get caught up in the hype this time, while PS2 Engine isn't horrible, the engine is very easily hacked and the graphics, I'll say it again, are mediocre at best, I haven't seen so many low resolution textures and low polygon scenery in years.
I'm not against EQNext, but I do know where people are coming from when they say they aren't impressed with PS2's graphics engine.
PS2 engine wasn't made for shiny, it was made for hundreds of players on screen at all times.
I won't get caught up in the hype this time, while PS2 Engine isn't horrible, the engine is very easily hacked and the graphics, I'll say it again, are mediocre at best, I haven't seen so many low resolution textures and low polygon scenery in years.
I'm not against EQNext, but I do know where people are coming from when they say they aren't impressed with PS2's graphics engine.
PS2 engine wasn't made for shiny, it was made for hundreds of players on screen at all times.
That wouldn't impact textures like that, that's why they use mip-mapping and texture-backface culling and lots of other things that make is possible to show high-resolution textures.
I could see miles further in Vanguard than I could in PS2, and the textures did not look washed out, they were high resolution and the screnery was sharp. Even Unreal Tournaments textures from 2004 looked crispers and higher resolution than those in PS2.
Don't tell me PS2's engine is great if it can't match the scenery of an 8 year old game that too could have many players on a single screen.
They're not competing against 8 year old games, they'll compete against games like ArcheAge, washed out low-resolution textures is not an option.
And I'm not against EQNext, I played more EQ than most, I have lvl 95 characters in EQ. I am also not blind.
Bla bla bla is just marketing. It's an organic low cost way to generate some interest. Spread rumors, build interest. It's the same old thing over and over. Games like life follow patterns. That said, if they pull off some kind of miracle I will be there to sing their praises. If not, it's just another in along line of failures with finger pointing and blame deflection.
I won't get caught up in the hype this time, while PS2 Engine isn't horrible, the engine is very easily hacked and the graphics, I'll say it again, are mediocre at best, I haven't seen so many low resolution textures and low polygon scenery in years.
I'm not against EQNext, but I do know where people are coming from when they say they aren't impressed with PS2's graphics engine.
PS2 engine wasn't made for shiny, it was made for hundreds of players on screen at all times.
That wouldn't impact textures like that, that's why they use mip-mapping and texture-backface culling and lots of other things that make is possible to show high-resolution textures.
I could see miles further in Vanguard than I could in PS2, and the textures did not look washed out, they were high resolution and the screnery was sharp. Even Unreal Tournaments textures from 2004 looked crispers and higher resolution than those in PS2.
Don't tell me PS2's engine is great if it can't match the scenery of an 8 year old game that too could have many players on a single screen.
They're not competing against 8 year old games, they'll compete against games like ArcheAge, washed out low-resolution textures is not an option.
And I'm not against EQNext, I played more EQ than most, I have lvl 95 characters in EQ. I am also not blind.
That's a game from 2007, they will compete with current-gen, games like ArcheAge.
Tell me again how me saying that the textures and scenery are low resolution is not a valid complaint.
Like I said, I am not blind, maybe you are.
And don't tell me this is because you can not see as far or as many people in Vanguard or other games as in PS2, I could see at least three times as far in Vanguard as I could in PS2.
The complaints people are making about the LightForge engine are valid complaints.
That's a game from 2007, they will compete with current-gen, games like ArcheAge.
Tell me again how me saying that the textures and scenery are low resolution is not a valid complaint.
Like I said, I am not blind, maybe you are.
And don't tell me this is because you can not see as far or as many people in Vanguard or other games as in PS2, I could see at least three times as far in Vanguard as I could in PS2.
The complaints people are making about the LightForge engine are valid complaints.
If that is an accurate screenshot of both it is sad graphic wise to see a 2012 game look so poor. I personally have not played PS2 (not into fps games). On the other hand I have had much experience with fail SOE gaming and developers. Not to say I did not play SOE games that I enjoyed, but most have had many performance issues. Even to this day EQ2 on a high end rig still is a memory HOG and has many leaks over long play times.
My biggest question over EQ Next is more along the lines of ... If you are trying to not follow the old models and come out with something completely new.... why..... oh why SOE are you even bringing the EQ title into the game then? Why not start fresh with NO preconceived ideas from the older game model? DROP the old title all together and start completely fresh!!!!!!! OR ARE YOU SCARED? I can smell fear.
That's a game from 2007, they will compete with current-gen, games like ArcheAge.
Tell me again how me saying that the textures and scenery are low resolution is not a valid complaint.
Like I said, I am not blind, maybe you are.
And don't tell me this is because you can not see as far or as many people in Vanguard or other games as in PS2, I could see at least three times as far in Vanguard as I could in PS2.
The complaints people are making about the LightForge engine are valid complaints.
I don't think you quite remember Vanguard. Repeat textures were everywhere. An example:
Basicly calm is shifting him / her self that eqn is going to be a sandbox with a pvp focus and not a linear raid grinder following smedleys seeing of the light with his eve playing.
I don't think you quite remember Vanguard. Repeat textures were everywhere. An example:
It looks miles better than PS2, you called PS2's engine the most advanced MMO engine in existence, and now you're failing to defend it against ancient games.
As I pointed out, I am not against EQNext, but I know it's nowhere close to acceptible level to compete against current MMO.
For one, no it doesn't. Secondly, you are confusing textures for the engine. You can put extremely high resolution textures in old games. Vanguard's textures repeat a lot. However that has nothing to do with Vanguard's engine because that was a design choice to allow the game to run on the then current systems. I can put the super high resolution texture pack in my Oblivion, and bring my current generation system to a crawl.
While Vanguard's environmental view distance was good, as is many games nowadays, but it's actual player rendering wasn't so great. The common symtom of seeing spell effects before you ever saw the player was extremely common. The screenshot I posted above, you probably couldn't even see a player down near that shore.
Plus there's like ZERO load time in ps2 which is important for the sort of game it is. High rez textures mean longer load times, more memory usage and more gpu memory usage. Hi rez textures also mean smaller playing fields OR repeating the same textures a lot in the same playing field.
From what I gather eqn is going to be ALL open world like PS2.
Comments
Yah, from the sound of it so far, it sounds promising. Let's cross our fingers. We need more innovative mmorpgs out there, not more clones.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
The Forgelight engine is probably the most robust, technologically advanced MMO engine in the existance.
More Everquest tidbits.
http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/18/3777814/planetside-2-is-just-the-start-of-sony-online-entertainments-free
"Our opinion is that today's MMOs, and I'd include ours in that mix, are stagnant and stuck in this model that we frankly helped create with EverQuest, where we put new content in the game, and they go through it at an incredibly fast rate because of sites like Thottbot and that kind of stuff," Smedley said.
"We need to change the way we do this," Smedley said. "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 we're going in with EverQuest Next; trying to make a world that players create while being 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."
Though EverQuest Next, the studio's upcoming attempt to reinvent the 13-year-old MMO franchise, will be built around the kind of emergent interactions Smedley envisions, Planetside 2 has already incorporated those elements into its army-on-army battles.
"That wasn't a direction for development," Smedley said, "that was the direction. It's a great case-in-point; we gave players the weapons, the fight's all up to them. We give them some basic goals, but we want them playing that game in ways we never thought of. And that happens a lot."
That kind of experimentation characterizes perfectly the kind of year Sony Online Entertainment has had; a year spent preparing for Smedley's vision of the future of MMOs. In addition to experimenting with emergent gameplay and free-to-play models, the company launched a game on its Forgelight engine, a networking-centric development kit which allowed developers to make Planetside 2 in a little over two years. It also incorporated player-made items and designs into some of its games using its Player Studio platform, something Smedley says will be a big part of the studio's future projects.
All of these elements will be reflected and represented somehow in EverQuest Next; though firmer details on the title will have to wait until Sony Online Entertainment finally reveals the game in 2013.
"What we're doing [with emergent gameplay] is so radically new that we're not really talking about it," Smedley said. "What I will say is that what we're looking at is ways of making players part of the world itself. You'll understand it when you see it. We're almost at the point where we want to show the world."
Wouldn't it be refreshing if a game company developed a new game, never said a damn thing about it, never did public betas, then bam, delivered it to the market to the suprise of the world? What these games lack the most is surprise because you've been told everything about the game long before it reaches the store shelves. You've participated in betas of it. Watched countless videos, looked at countless screen shots... etc.
Yeah, back in the day, you had nothing but the packaging to go off of when buying a game. Amazing that most of those games were more than you expected them to be because, get this, you had no idea what you were getting in the first place. It's like too familiar for it's own good.
It is impossible to do something new if it's blabbed about all over the place well before it even becomes a reality. Do us a favor and not tell us a thing about the game. Keep it in the hush. Don't promise us a rose garden. Don't even offer presales. The game ships when it ships. People will go, hey, look, a brand new game and I've heard nothing about it. These last 100 games I've bought told me everything about them before a spent a cent and damn if I didn't get just that... exactly what I already knew I was getting. No surprises. No magic. Just a lot of the same old same old because you already told me about it long before I ever bought it.
EQ2 or whatever you want to call it will be as familiar to you as every other MMORPG out there... because you will have tried it long before it ever gets released. In reality, it was only new then, not when it went live. That's what the developers have done... moved release day to pre-release day. Anyone who didn't play in beta... is getting an old game.
I played PS2, I won't disagree that the engine is mediocre at best. (I only played the game to check out the graphics)
The graphics are meh worthy, they use a 32 bit engine which I believe limits their ability to use crisp textures, and the engine is pretty slow and easily hacked considering the amount of hacks PS2 has.
That doesn't mean they can't fix this on time, but it needs a whole lotta 'fixin to get to the level of the competition.
Since they claim their game is sandbox-like, one of their competitors would be ArcheAge, I'm not sure if they looked at that game, it uses CryEngine, so ArcheAge's graphics are way beyond what their engine can do.
Planetside 2 is a 64 bit client. There is absolutely no MMO that does what Planetside 2 does to the scale that Planetside 2 does it.
It wasn't when I installed it on a 64-bit OS.
I won't get caught up in the hype this time, while PS2 Engine isn't horrible, the engine is very easily hacked and the graphics, I'll say it again, are mediocre at best, I haven't seen so many low resolution textures and low polygon scenery in years.
I'm not against EQNext, but I do know where people are coming from when they say they aren't impressed with PS2's graphics engine.
Sounds to me they're playing all their cards on this...thus, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
PS2 engine wasn't made for shiny, it was made for hundreds of players on screen at all times.
That wouldn't impact textures like that, that's why they use mip-mapping and texture-backface culling and lots of other things that make is possible to show high-resolution textures.
I could see miles further in Vanguard than I could in PS2, and the textures did not look washed out, they were high resolution and the screnery was sharp. Even Unreal Tournaments textures from 2004 looked crispers and higher resolution than those in PS2.
Don't tell me PS2's engine is great if it can't match the scenery of an 8 year old game that too could have many players on a single screen.
They're not competing against 8 year old games, they'll compete against games like ArcheAge, washed out low-resolution textures is not an option.
And I'm not against EQNext, I played more EQ than most, I have lvl 95 characters in EQ. I am also not blind.
Coulda fooled me by what you wrote.
Let me show you then.
PLANETSIDE 2, Max graphics, 2012
Vanguard, 2007
That's a game from 2007, they will compete with current-gen, games like ArcheAge.
Tell me again how me saying that the textures and scenery are low resolution is not a valid complaint.
Like I said, I am not blind, maybe you are.
And don't tell me this is because you can not see as far or as many people in Vanguard or other games as in PS2, I could see at least three times as far in Vanguard as I could in PS2.
The complaints people are making about the LightForge engine are valid complaints.
If that is an accurate screenshot of both it is sad graphic wise to see a 2012 game look so poor. I personally have not played PS2 (not into fps games). On the other hand I have had much experience with fail SOE gaming and developers. Not to say I did not play SOE games that I enjoyed, but most have had many performance issues. Even to this day EQ2 on a high end rig still is a memory HOG and has many leaks over long play times.
My biggest question over EQ Next is more along the lines of ... If you are trying to not follow the old models and come out with something completely new.... why..... oh why SOE are you even bringing the EQ title into the game then? Why not start fresh with NO preconceived ideas from the older game model? DROP the old title all together and start completely fresh!!!!!!! OR ARE YOU SCARED? I can smell fear.
I don't think you quite remember Vanguard. Repeat textures were everywhere. An example:
It looks miles better than PS2, the crispness and draw distance is insane in Vanguard compared to PS2,
You called PS2's engine the most advanced MMO engine in existence, and now you're failing to defend it against ancient games.
As I pointed out, I am not against EQNext's engine, but I know it's nowhere close to acceptible level to compete against current MMO.
Express your opinion
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/371172/Poll-Most-hated-MMORPG.html
I'll give you that, is looks decent, the scenery is my complaint.
THAT'S why Lightforge is a great mmo engine.
For one, no it doesn't. Secondly, you are confusing textures for the engine. You can put extremely high resolution textures in old games. Vanguard's textures repeat a lot. However that has nothing to do with Vanguard's engine because that was a design choice to allow the game to run on the then current systems. I can put the super high resolution texture pack in my Oblivion, and bring my current generation system to a crawl.
While Vanguard's environmental view distance was good, as is many games nowadays, but it's actual player rendering wasn't so great. The common symtom of seeing spell effects before you ever saw the player was extremely common. The screenshot I posted above, you probably couldn't even see a player down near that shore.
From what I gather eqn is going to be ALL open world like PS2.