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EQ:N -- What do we really know about how much work is pending?
Mendel
Member LegendaryPosts: 5,609
With the recent code separation between Landmark and EQ:N creating an internal EQ:N server, there hasn't been a wealth of information on the game status of EQ:N. So, I thought an interesting discussion point to speculate on what work is still left to do on the game. I hope this will help those anticipating this game to develop some way to predict an actual completion date for the project.
We acknowledge that no one posting here is really in the know, and are probably protected by NDAs. But there are artifacts of the project that are common knowledge -- the (sometimes) vague promises made by SOE/Daybreak since 2013 and the current state of the Landmark project.
I will start with adding a few generalities.
We acknowledge that no one posting here is really in the know, and are probably protected by NDAs. But there are artifacts of the project that are common knowledge -- the (sometimes) vague promises made by SOE/Daybreak since 2013 and the current state of the Landmark project.
I will start with adding a few generalities.
- Art work: Player races. There only a few functional character models in Landmark. When are the other traditional Everquest races, such as Barbarians, Ogres, Gnomes and Trolls going to be done? I've never built character models (and animations) before, so I've no real idea on how long this stage might take. Also, what specific playable character models exist in Landmark?
- Art work: Major cities. We've seen the contest to develop Qeynos and some of Halas, but what about other cities? Kelethin, Felwithe, Grobb, Ogguk, Freeport, Rivervale, Erudin, Ak'Anon, Kaladim and Neriak? There appears to be little existing artwork for the other major locations in Norrath. The Landmark community were given about a month to create elements for Qeynos, so with that same pace, Daybreak may need another month to get the building elements down (community work) and maybe another month to judge, evaluate and place the various elements to create each area. That is 10 major cities (from EQ1), that might take 20 months to develop based on recent performance.
- Systems: Crafting. We have seen the ability to create voxels in Landmark, but is that the limit for crafting? How will crafting for armor and weapons and other items happen?
- Systems: Combat. The first Landmark attempt at combat was mostly unsatisfactory according to most who experienced it. There is desperate need for a new, fluid combat system. The mechanisms may require additional animation work on all in-game models. From the little I did see with the Landmark combat system, they may be 12-18 months away from functional combat mechanics.
- Systems: AI. Much was promised for the game's AI. We know that Daybreak and Story Bricks jointly worked on EQ:N, and that relationship was dissolved. No one knows exactly what that means. Did they inherit only some SDK-level interfaces and preliminary hooks into the game-engine (work done with Daybreak code), or did they receive the decision engine (the proprietary SB bits) that would have driven all that? Polishing and adding behaviors should be relatively straight-forward, but building (or reverse-engineering) a decision engine from scratch would be a much more significant task, even if Daybreak personnel had a clear look at the Story Brick code. I think this might take anywhere from 18 to 36 (or even more) months to develop this step.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
just be patient or let it die.
EQN is Vaporware and will never release.
EQN will release Nov 13th 2017.
EQN never existed, it was just a necessary but fictitious part of the Landmark cash grab.
Or perhaps EQN really was a success? Maybe it was too successful and they did too good of a job on the emergent AI and accidentally created Skynet, and Daybreak has been usurped by a sentient EQN program that has consumed the human development team for energy.
Either they're going to release a really really cheap version of EQN to try and capitalize on brand loyalty or someone at CN has some vision for EQN, which could be very very interesting.
But if there plan was to release EQN for as little money as possible and try and get people to sucker in on nostalgia for oldschool EQ they should be hyping the hell out of it not being quiet. This too is a good sign.
AAA MMO titles start to die the minute they start to lose momentum and it is really hard to get them moving forward again. I agree with some of the posters here. There may have been some other reasons the IP was purchased.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
Going to assume they are way into the red at this point (millions) and the number of folks that didn't receive a refund and or have actually put further money in are very insignificant in comparison.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
since this process takes so much time, its absolutly possible that eqn is dead or rather gets developped into a totally different direction (ftp cash grab) OR its also possible that they simply revealed way too fast...
I mean if they basically restarted from scratch in 2012, its absolutly plausible that we wont see an alpha/beta before somewhen 2017
....Being Banned from MMORPG's forums since 2010, for Trolling the Trolls!!!
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
IMO this game with their inept staff would take 3-5 more years to release a legitimate product.They did manage to get gamer's to make a lot of their assets "nice scam"but that is not even close to enough to make a triple A game.
IMO they will look at factual numbers based on EQ and EQ2 and decide how much time will be put into development.I would expect an early access release based on selling early access packages.Matter of fact i would 100% bet on it,no way in hell is this released as a polished product.
The game might need 3-5 years,but no way is that happening,i would not put it past them to attempt a release as early as Christmas time.You can bet your ass this is getting a full on rush job.
My guess?Most definitely early access release next year.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
actually World of Darkness alpha was pretty darn bad considering how long they had been working on it. And the gameplay sucked big time, and it was not even close to what they wanted.
CCP realized that, and cancelled the game on a well founded decision.
If...and its a HUGE IF.....EQN gets released, it'll be a shell f the potential it could of been. The game as announced back in 2013 (or what ever year it was first announced) at SOE fanfaire was what sold me on the potential. Imagine open ended Classes, smart AI, 3-4 month long Public Quests, multi-layer destructible world. Yea the game as first announced was going to be amazing and would be my holy grail to find a replacement for Asheron's Call.
Sadly that'll never happen which is why too me, MMO's are dead. I now exclusively play CCG's and ARPG's.
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!!!