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Content of EQ Next Panel - highlights (Storybricks)

NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,610

Because every video of this you cant understand whats being said someone on the Lankmark forums did some highlights of the Panel. Thanks Khandro. More highlights here. Hope this helps =-)

 

Content of EQ Next Panel
(Storybricks CTO and Lead Designer, SoE Lead Content Designers, T. Michaels)
Youtube: 

1. Dynamic world changes based upon both NPC, Mob, and Player actions

2. No traditional quest hubs; you have to find the content (guided by journal "Rohsong", discovered via exploring, etc)

3. Concept core: You are living a Life of Consequence... what you do MATTERS

4. NPCs and Mobs will be a bit different; they have their own drives and motivations, they move around, they react based upon elements of AI for their personal motivations, their racial motivations, their class motivations, and of course, how they perceive you (and how you engage with them). 

Inference: You cannot always be sure the reception you will receive; knowing your own situation (i.e., current faction, past choices, etc) are going to figure into how (or if) an NPC or mob is glad to see you, will talk to you, will offer you chances to interact or access their content, etc. 

5. The Rohsong journal not only offers you content, but REMEMBERS YOUR CHOICES and DEEDS. 

Inference: Game accesses your journal to determine how (or if) it needs to interact with you; welcome you, attack you, offer you content, etc.

6. Storybricks allows the game designers to drop NPCs and mobs with different or opposing drives into the world and allow them to independently operate based solely upon them when encountering other NPCs, mobs, or players.

7. Kithicor confirmed for Next.

8. Exclusive Demo!!

- Simulation of how player choices and NPC/Mob AI engage and operate.

- Dynamic story generation; how player interacts determines what content/quest/opportunies are created and introduced into the world.

- Conflict points, loot/reward locations, monster locations, etc are set during these interactions.

- The drives of each mob or NPC introduced may differ/complement/oppose any other mob or NPC or player.

- The result is a unique encounter that responds to each player according to their specific history, deeds, and choices.

9. T. Michaels mentions Druids in this panel; while watching as scenario unfolds without player intervention, he says, "Is there a Druid in the audience?" (Could have just been a joke, or could have been a slip up.)

Inferences: 

- The world is driven by "karma" of the player - everything you do has the potential to, at some point in your game life, make a difference or even significantly change the entire server's game experience.

- If players do not engage an area's content, it continues to evolve and change based upon the AI of the NPCs and mobs in the area. This means that certain areas of the world may be much more dangerous (or less so) depending upon whether or not players have chosen to engage that content. 

- It is entirely possible that an area will become so overrun by NPCs and/or mobs that it becomes inaccessible OR requires a coordinated effort by the server's players to effect a change in the area/make it accessible.

- It is entirely possible to create the circumstances for a server-wide conflict/event even though it is not part of the 
"overall design plan" of SoE! (On the other hand, it could just trigger an existing/defined "Rallying Call".)

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Comments

  • SlyLoKSlyLoK Member RarePosts: 2,698
    All of this does not require the voxel touch of Landmark.. So I have no idea as to why they wanted to use it. Its ugly and performs horribly.
  • ridiadhridiadh Member UncommonPosts: 9
    Originally posted by SlyLoK
    All of this does not require the voxel touch of Landmark.. So I have no idea as to why they wanted to use it. Its ugly and performs horribly.

    I am not getting 60 fps, but I am not having any problems and the game is not even optimized.  I disagree about it being ugly, but that is opinion and everyone has a different one.  I enjoy the sun and moon and the shadows they cast.  I think the colors are vibrant and lend themselves to a fantasy world.  Why use it?  Because it is cool. 

    My machines running Landmark right now:

    3 year old desktop - i7 2700k, gtx 570, 16g ram, ssd - settings ultra everything - never drops below 30 fps

    3 year old laptop (daughter plays on it) - i72630qm, gtx 560m, 16g ram, ssd - settings around medium, but tweaked a bit, 25 fps

    new laptop - i7 4700hq, gtx 870m, 16g ram, ssd - everything ultra - never drops below 30 fps

     

    I think bandwidth seems to be a bigger issue than specs though.  You are not going to be able to play this game on dial up.  At all.  I was struggling the first few weeks of alpha, but I upgraded my internet from 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps and it was a lot better for me.

  • azzamasinazzamasin Member UncommonPosts: 3,105

    All hail our new EQ next overlords. Queue the *Halleluiah* choir!


    2. No traditional quest hubs; you have to find the content (guided by journal "Rohsong", discovered via exploring, etc)

    I don't care about anything other then this, no matter how bad the game looks, costs, or plays I will be all over this like a fat kid on a twinkie! OMFG the death of quest hubs and exploration centric content can't get here soon enough!!!!

    Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!

    Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!

    Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!

    image

  • AlleinAllein Member RarePosts: 2,139
    Originally posted by SlyLoK
    All of this does not require the voxel touch of Landmark.. So I have no idea as to why they wanted to use it. Its ugly and performs horribly.

    Performance is never perfect across the board, welcome to PC gaming. 

    Ugly is subjective.

    While it doesn't require Voxels, the potential with them is much greater.

    Don't want to define or argue about what a "sanbox" is, but at least in EQN/Landmark players can build/destroy and impact the world to some degree instead of simply being an open world and having the "sandbox" title applied like all the rest coming out.

    Sadly no game is 100% perfect for everyone.

  • Gallus85Gallus85 Member Posts: 1,092
    Originally posted by Allein
    Originally posted by SlyLoK
    All of this does not require the voxel touch of Landmark.. So I have no idea as to why they wanted to use it. Its ugly and performs horribly.

    Performance is never perfect across the board, welcome to PC gaming. 

    Ugly is subjective.

    While it doesn't require Voxels, the potential with them is much greater.

    Don't want to define or argue about what a "sanbox" is, but at least in EQN/Landmark players can build/destroy and impact the world to some degree instead of simply being an open world and having the "sandbox" title applied like all the rest coming out.

    Sadly no game is 100% perfect for everyone.

    None of the emergent AI stuff requires voxels, but the fully destructible world does.  This also lends itself to more realistic sieges, especially since different materials will have different strengths.  Unlike other games where siege is just -> Hit the door or scripted section of the wall until it opens up!

    With fully destructible environment, you can break into fortresses and attack outposts in countless different ways.  Not to mention everything else it can offer, like the layers of the game world and accessing them randomly.

    Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL

  • SlyLoKSlyLoK Member RarePosts: 2,698
    Originally posted by ridiadh
    Originally posted by SlyLoK
    All of this does not require the voxel touch of Landmark.. So I have no idea as to why they wanted to use it. Its ugly and performs horribly.

    I am not getting 60 fps, but I am not having any problems and the game is not even optimized.  I disagree about it being ugly, but that is opinion and everyone has a different one.  I enjoy the sun and moon and the shadows they cast.  I think the colors are vibrant and lend themselves to a fantasy world.  Why use it?  Because it is cool. 

    My machines running Landmark right now:

    3 year old desktop - i7 2700k, gtx 570, 16g ram, ssd - settings ultra everything - never drops below 30 fps

    3 year old laptop (daughter plays on it) - i72630qm, gtx 560m, 16g ram, ssd - settings around medium, but tweaked a bit, 25 fps

    new laptop - i7 4700hq, gtx 870m, 16g ram, ssd - everything ultra - never drops below 30 fps

     

    I think bandwidth seems to be a bigger issue than specs though.  You are not going to be able to play this game on dial up.  At all.  I was struggling the first few weeks of alpha, but I upgraded my internet from 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps and it was a lot better for me.

    By ugly I mean the horrible LOD after a certain distance.

    And no you arent running over 30 fps with no drops on ultra with shadows at the highest no matter your setup. And I dont mean standing around either. I can play the game on Ultra and average 30 fps ( with a better rig ) with drops in the teens and some highs in the 40s MAYBE 50s depending on the area.  Near a decent claim? Forget about it.

    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.

  • TamanousTamanous Member RarePosts: 3,025
    I've been waiting 15 years for an improvement to AI and this pretty much how I envisioned it ... mobs with their own objectives. Can't wait to see if all this works as planned.

    You stay sassy!

  • TamanousTamanous Member RarePosts: 3,025
    Originally posted by DMKano
    Originally posted by Tamanous
    I've been waiting 15 years for an improvement to AI and this pretty much how I envisioned it ... mobs with their own objectives. Can't wait to see if all this works as planned.

    I hope it works out - because without it EQNext loses most of what would make it truly stand out.

    IMO SoE has to nail Storybricks - without it EQNext goes from potentially groundbreaking to another MMO

     

    Storybricks is what makes or breaks EQNext for me

    I imagine it will. Making stuff in these games always brings certain players in but this is a huge change of direction for making a world come alive. It will either feel natural and interesting or turn into nothing more than a more complex public quest system. I have yet to play a single mmo who's "dynamic" public quest system wasn't boring and repetitive. 

     

    The issue for me is when a game's system becomes too apparent and I am distracted from the game world. Rift was a good example. I found myself amused by the rift spawns for the first few hours and then it simply became repetitive. WAR pub quests were the worst.

    You stay sassy!

  • DodsferdDodsferd Member Posts: 10
    All of this sounds awesome, but I have yet to see a single video of EQN showing any of these things... for now they are just words.
  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,610
    Originally posted by DMKano
    Originally posted by Tamanous
    I've been waiting 15 years for an improvement to AI and this pretty much how I envisioned it ... mobs with their own objectives. Can't wait to see if all this works as planned.

    I hope it works out - because without it EQNext loses most of what would make it truly stand out.

    IMO SoE has to nail Storybricks - without it EQNext goes from potentially groundbreaking to another MMO

     

    Storybricks is what makes or breaks EQNext for me

    Storybricks look promising. I really hope it turns out to be what they say it is. From the highlights the point on an area of the game ignored by players could turn into an event that would take many players to over come. That has me excited. How many times does the community outgrow an area? With a tiered system you would not outgrow an area and to top it off the zones that dont get used much would turn into an event that would bring players back to old areas making it so you never outgrow an area. That could be fun. Hay guys you gota see whats going on in the Desert of Ro, the Sand Giants have made a fortified city, time to raid =-)

  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,610
    Originally posted by DMKano
    Originally posted by Nanfoodle
    Originally posted by DMKano
    Originally posted by Tamanous
    I've been waiting 15 years for an improvement to AI and this pretty much how I envisioned it ... mobs with their own objectives. Can't wait to see if all this works as planned.

    I hope it works out - because without it EQNext loses most of what would make it truly stand out.

    IMO SoE has to nail Storybricks - without it EQNext goes from potentially groundbreaking to another MMO

     

    Storybricks is what makes or breaks EQNext for me

    Storybricks look promising. I really hope it turns out to be what they say it is. From the highlights the point on an area of the game ignored by players could turn into an event that would take many players to over come. That has me excited. How many times does the community outgrow an area? With a tiered system you would not outgrow an area and to top it off the zones that dont get used much would turn into an event that would bring players back to old areas making it so you never outgrow an area. That could be fun. Hay guys you gota see whats going on in the Desert of Ro, the Sand Giants have made a fortified city, time to raid =-)

    Or just bring a couple of druids and quad kite those Sand Giants - ah the fond memoried of EQ1 circa 1999

    (I actually played a bard and was swarm kiting (the term didn't exist back in the day) - can't tell you how many times I got reported for hacking because so many players couldn't even understand how I was able to take on 10+ mobs my level at the time)

    Yes I died a lot - but I hit 50 within 4 months post launch with casual play - loved my bard SO much, was crazy OP

     

    The thing is with world Tiers - I am not sure how they will keep Tier 5 players having any interest in Tier 1-4 zones though - that is something I'm looking forward to hear how SoE tackles that problem.

     

    I had a bard alt in EQ1 as well and swarm kited as well but the scale they are talking about is not a level you could solo. You are thinking 15 years ago when what they are shooting for has never been done. As for going back to lower tiers to play, this is something they say they are shooting for. I tend to trust SoE as they have made many good and solid MMOs. More then any other company I can think of. For sure no other MMOs have had their duration. But I am not a fan boy shouting they are going to save MMOs and be the WoW killer. I just understand what they are shooting for and hope they hit that target. Nothing would make me happier. 

  • ArchlyteArchlyte Member RarePosts: 1,405

    Step right up! Step right up! Take a gander at Dr. Georgeson's wonder tonic. It cures Themeparkidus, Questhubosis, and will even give you relief from Staticmob Sickness! Guaranteed not to glitch or hump trees. This little bottle contains a miracle cure for all that ails you in mmorpgs!

     

    MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    @DMKano

    I agree they will have a lot of optimizing to do in order to run the plan they have smoothly. Already in Landmark they have repetitive checks like character animations. When you jump off of a surface the system constantly checks for water below you and if it detects water will put you in a dive animation.

    In EQN there are checks for voxel type like the Elementalist being able to change the ground to ice and freeze players who are on ice with another ability. I can only imagine how many "state checks" there will be in a world filled with all of this processing going on via constantly evolving content.
  • AlleinAllein Member RarePosts: 2,139
    Originally posted by DMKano

    I wish I had your optimisim - I think if they even hit 40% of plans for EQNext they have a winner.

    What they are trying to pull off is extremely difficult due to scaling - destructible world voxel based MMOs are a *bitch* to scale to a large number of players without a MAJOR performance hit.

    I think the technical challenge right there alone is huge - now add Storyricks and all the other systems they want to do.

    Yeah - I am very skeptical at this point still.

    Would I love to see it done - HELL YES.

    But I have serious doubts about SoE (or ANY studio) being able to pull off anywhere near 100% of  what they promised 

    I hope I am wrong

    Now these are issues I can understand instead of "It's SOE run for the hills" or a picture of Tony the Tiger.

    A question I have is, out of the major stuff they have hyped, what do you think isn't possible or highly unlikely? And why? Do you have any evidence to back these opinions up or just simply skeptical because new stuff is just plain crazy? =)

    I'm not a designer of anything myself, but to me, for a company to not only say "We are making a destructible world" but to also say it won't revolve around instancing and will be an "open world" is pretty bold. We've never seen it and because of this, have nothing to compare it to. No Trove doesn't count.

    Obviously other companies have made very big claims before, but usually they are "dynamic world" "never ending fun" etc which are fairly meaningless. Tech either works or it doesn't. If Storybricks AI has NPCs walking into building walls for hours, I'm not going to be too impressed with their "needs/wants" unless they need a headache.

    Another question I have is, wouldn't it be pretty stupid to make such bold claims if they didn't have it tested or proven to some extent? Would be disastrous for another year to pass and they go "Oops we forgot that people like to play in groups and stuff, our bad, voxels are out."

    Rally Calls are supposed to be huge events with massive numbers in one area. Don't you think they might have a better grasp on the tech and limits then you or I who simply don't have access to the same things as them, unless you've snuck into SOE HQ in the middle of the night...

    I understand when people say they hate action combat or think multi-classing is stupid, that's their opinion. But to say voxels or whatever won't work without any evidence seems kind of prejudice and going beyond being skeptical. We can look at Landmark and assume that such things might not work due to it's performance issues, but again, this could be any number of things causing the problems (such as claims and player created stuff covering the world, not to mention it is Alpha/Beta status).

    For me, I'll at least give them the benefit of the doubt before doubting them.

    Not sure if you've seen early tech testing videos/demos, I know Black Desert and Camelot Unchained showed them off for recent examples. Where they spawned hundreds of characters on screen to test if the system could handle it and see what would happen. Obviously not a true representation of a real experience, but just an example that they have ways of testing things that don't revolve around you or I seeing. I've seen "gameplay" videos and or streams since of both and notice lag issues with just a few players/npcs on screen where hundreds of dummies were flawless. Lots of kinks to work out.

    Once all these systems are completed and mashed together, the total package might be underwhelming and simply not fun for some, but that's a lot different than the systems not working at all.

    You and I might both see a magic trick. I might swear it was real, you might swear it was fake. Until I see what really happened, I'll let the illusion make me happy. Guess I see games the same. Until someone rips the blinders off and I see something that wasn't their before, I'm not going to make up reasons to doubt just because doubting is safer or the wise thing to do.

    If I did, I would simply put any anticipation or hype for games on complete hold until release. If you can't have a little fun and let the hype train take you at least a couple stops, might as well just wait until the train makes it all the way to the end to make sure there are no cliffs anywhere. I'll take the risk myself.

  • Gallus85Gallus85 Member Posts: 1,092

    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.

    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.

    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.  

     

    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). 

    Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL

  • NadiaNadia Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
    Originally posted by azzamasin

    OMFG the death of quest hubs and exploration centric content can't get here soon enough!!!!

    agree

  • AlleinAllein Member RarePosts: 2,139
    Originally posted by Gallus85

    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.  

    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). 

    For me, if they say they are able to do X and are able to, regardless if I need a 5 year old PC or the best of the best, they still did what they said. Going the high end route is a very poor design choice to me as it cuts out the majority of possible customers (Looking at EQ2/VG), but they still achieved making all the systems work together and for the lucky few that can play, GG.

    Now if they say all of this is possible on a 5 year old PC in a "playable" state, yet I have to turn everything off, stare at the ground (lol I totally forgot about that), and still stutter step, they didn't live up to their promise.

    I actually believe they said during the reveal or soon after that they plan to have scaled settings to make it as accessible as possible, but I might be mistaken and that could mean whatever anyway.

    Even with optimization, I'm assuming EQN will need at least a few things (8gb ram, i3+, video card made within last couple years, etc) and that some of those old no longer white office PCs that people can play WoW on, might not cut it. Which might cut down on their target audience, but hopefully not too much. By the time EQN rolls out, probably looking at a $500 or less box if people haven't upgraded in the last few years already. If people want PhysX (already shown I think), then maybe they will need to start thinking about upgrading to a bit more beefier machine. As it will be F2P, should have a few extra dollars to spend even.

    Anyway, as I ramble on, still sounds like people simply can't believe it is even technically possible to do what SOE is saying, as in AI can't do what Storybricks is saying and Voxels can't work when you have 50 people on screen going crazy, even though Rally Calls are a promised common occurrence. Regardless of PC specs. Glad I'm not one of them. No fun at all.

  • Gallus85Gallus85 Member Posts: 1,092
    Originally posted by Allein
    Originally posted by Gallus85

    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.  

    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). 

    For me, if they say they are able to do X and are able to, regardless if I need a 5 year old PC or the best of the best, they still did what they said. Going the high end route is a very poor design choice to me as it cuts out the majority of possible customers (Looking at EQ2/VG), but they still achieved making all the systems work together and for the lucky few that can play, GG.

    Obviously the higher the system specs, the less people can play, but I'm sure they've aimed for a reasonable middle ground.  EQN will be playable by reasonable midgrade systems for sure.  VG btw was a different story.  It wasn't that it was so insane that it had poor performance.  It was literally broken.  My $3500 custom built and OCed built just months before VG went live was crushed to a stuttering mess and crashing mess by VG.  There's a difference between aiming high and being broken. 

    Now if they say all of this is possible on a 5 year old PC in a "playable" state, yet I have to turn everything off, stare at the ground (lol I totally forgot about that), and still stutter step, they didn't live up to their promise.

    I actually believe they said during the reveal or soon after that they plan to have scaled settings to make it as accessible as possible, but I might be mistaken and that could mean whatever anyway.

    Even with optimization, I'm assuming EQN will need at least a few things (8gb ram, i3+, video card made within last couple years, etc)

    Quick note, 4GB of ram is probably enough.  Most games, even insanely intensive ones like Crysis 3 only seen FPS increases up until 4GB,  6GB shows a less than 1% performance increase and 8GB does nothing.  For gaming, you only really need 6-8gb at most.  Not that it really matters.  Ram is dirt cheap.  It doesn't cost that much more to get 8gb vs 4gb.  or to go from 8 to 16.

    and that some of those old no longer white office PCs that people can play WoW on, might not cut it. Which might cut down on their target audience, but hopefully not too much. By the time EQN rolls out, probably looking at a $500 or less box if people haven't upgraded in the last few years already. If people want PhysX (already shown I think), then maybe they will need to start thinking about upgrading to a bit more beefier machine. As it will be F2P, should have a few extra dollars to spend even.

    It's clear that creating a game on the same engine as PS2, with all the innovations and features that EQN is pushing for, it's clear they're not aiming for the e-machine-WoW gamer crowd.  They're targeting core gamers with at least a decent midgrade setup.  Again, yes, it cuts back on their possible audience, but they are trying to innovate.  I think we can rest assured that they won't make it unreasonable and they'll make sure that their sieges and large events run well on the appropriate level of hardware.

    Anyway, as I ramble on, still sounds like people simply can't believe it is even technically possible to do what SOE is saying, as in AI can't do what Storybricks is saying and Voxels can't work when you have 50 people on screen going crazy, even though Rally Calls are a promised common occurrence. Regardless of PC specs. Glad I'm not one of them. No fun at all.

    While I think people are justified in their disbelief in them pulling it off, I personally don't see any reason to think that they won't succeed.  They have the talent.  They have a solid engine (PS2 runs great with a lot of action on screen), and they got the financial backing to make it happen.

     

    Legends of Kesmai, UO, EQ, AO, DAoC, AC, SB, RO, SWG, EVE, EQ2, CoH, GW, VG:SOH, WAR, Aion, DF, CO, MO, DN, Tera, SWTOR, RO2, DP, GW2, PS2, BnS, NW, FF:XIV, ESO, EQ:NL

  • observerobserver Member RarePosts: 3,685
    Originally posted by azzamasin

    All hail our new EQ next overlords. Queue the *Halleluiah* choir!

     


    2. No traditional quest hubs; you have to find the content (guided by journal "Rohsong", discovered via exploring, etc)

    I don't care about anything other then this, no matter how bad the game looks, costs, or plays I will be all over this like a fat kid on a twinkie! OMFG the death of quest hubs and exploration centric content can't get here soon enough!!!!

    I'm with you on this.  When i tried ArchAge, i just felt like i stepped back in time 5 years ago.  The quest hubs really need to die off already.  The only problem i have with EQN is that SOE might not pull it off too good.  I'm really not liking Landmark's direction at all, and EQN is going to be basically using Landmark's tech and mechanics.  Storybricks does sound interesting though, and i'll give it a chance in Landmark whenever it comes out.

  • RydesonRydeson Member UncommonPosts: 3,852
    Originally posted by Gallus85

    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.. And yes, I had to look at the floor many times, but then I was just a healer, and didn't need to look at anything but health bars..  Anyways, you don't think EQN is going to have similar issue with all their fireworks combat when you get large groups together.. WoW still suffers from that.. They all do..

    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..

    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?

     

    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..

  • ShaighShaigh Member EpicPosts: 2,142

    Having everything moving around and encouraging exploration is a great thing, but my worry isn't that they can make things change, but instead I wonder what kind of content that you will have moving around. MMO's have quite a lot of issues with static quests with static monsters that ends up broken, how simple do the quests have to be so that they don't break while using storybricks?

     

    Storybricks sounds amazing on paper, but I have serious doubts about how it turns out and the actual content that the game will have.

    Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
  • azarhalazarhal Member RarePosts: 1,402
    Originally posted by Gallus85

     

    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.  

    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 run Landmark between 50-60 FPS most of the time with the highest setting possible except shadow (high only, has opposed to Ultra) at 1650x1050 on a single 770 GTX. If I set shadows at Ultra I drop by 10FPS.

    The real problem is the dips in FPS, but those are either caused by everything running in a single thread (shadows/LOD) or downloading stuff not fast enough. They are changing both soon (they showed their new algo in the Tech evolution panel) and also bringing multi-threading optimizations at some point. 

  • AvarixAvarix Member RarePosts: 665
    Deja Vu. I remember a few of these same promises made by ArenaNet. Dynamic world changes, no quest hubs, what you do matters etc etc Sadly, I guess I am a bit more cynical than you guys about this. Waiting to see how this plays out but so far it's all just words. Storybricks seems to be picking up quite a bit of hype here, and that never seems to end well.
  • NanfoodleNanfoodle Member LegendaryPosts: 10,610
    Originally posted by Avarix
    Deja Vu. I remember a few of these same promises made by ArenaNet. Dynamic world changes, no quest hubs, what you do matters etc etc Sadly, I guess I am a bit more cynical than you guys about this. Waiting to see how this plays out but so far it's all just words. Storybricks seems to be picking up quite a bit of hype here, and that never seems to end well.

    I played GW2 to death and they did get rid of quest hubs. The chain of events that happened after most people ran away because step 1 of a public event was over made me laugh. Thats one area GW2 shined. Most people would run to the few highlighted areas on the map and miss 75% of the content lol. 

  • RusqueRusque Member RarePosts: 2,785

    Oh yay, a feature list! I haven't seen one of those before. Looking all pretty, boasting of amazing things yet to pass.

     

    I want to see it in action before I believe a single word.

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