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Is there someplace where I can find a balanced and clear exposition as to current status of EQN
noncley
Member UncommonPosts: 718
and Landmark?
I was really looking forward to the launch of these two games - but both of them *seem* to have misfired.
Is there anywhere which has a good summary of the current state of play - or anyone who can explain what is going on clearly and using terms that a relative layman can follow without depending on their prior knowledge?
Comments
Wow misfire is the best I've heard to sum up the situation.
In the latest director's letter DGC has stated that they have halted work on Landmark in order to work on EQN you can find this letter on the Landmark forums.
Landmark is in closed beta and you can pay to get access to it. Landmark is testing EQN alpha systems and they are very alpha. So unless you are a builder or you want to give solid feedback on EQN systems, Landmark is really not worth playing. Landmark is being developed in one direction currently. Only tools and props needed to build EQN will be updated till EQN is released.
EQN project keeps growing in size because of player feed back. Like the project starting with 1 starting city now we are getting many. At this point their is lots of info on EQN when it comes to Concept art and Lore. Also the systems in Landmark being tested for EQN. Combat and NPCs are very basic right now and the AI systems have not been added. DGC fired the team that was doing their AI but has retained the work done to date and is now doing this in house. They have made huge promises on what the AI will do, many are waiting to see if this will happen. They have promised this will hit Landmark for the builders to play with. When that will happen no one knows. As they said soon mid last year.
Mostly at this point, its a waiting game. With many saying its doom and gloom. That DGC will fail and many more stable minded people saying, lets wait and see what happens. As info comes out we try and talk about it here but mostly you will get nay sayers saying the info means nothing as the game is vaporware and DGC sucks =-) There is many nuggets of what EQN will be about in their live streams but at this point thats all we got. Little hints of what is to come.
EDIT: P.S. The dev team keeps saying things like "We will be ready when we are ready" "We will let you know when we know" "We will keep working at it till we make a fun game" They dont seem to be in any rush. Its almost like the company that bought them has given them a lot of freedom of time.
Where is this info about multiple starter cities? They argued us down about Qeynos being the only place on the official forums.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
I self identify as a monkey.
Go back to the round table videos from last year. Look for the one on "Starting Cites" The vote was clear and the devs replied.
EDIT: Also for the past year all we have gotten is contents on cities for many playable races and many more to come.
I have read his posts on EQN, H1Z1 and some things he posts as facts is not even close to info given by the devs. I am sure he has some insider info but it does not come close to cover the number of topics he talks on. Good guy but I take his words with a huge grain of salt. Kinda like Smed
Here's a summary: Status of EQ Next and EQ Landmark is unknown and unclear.
Any further attempt to summarize the situation would mean either explaining why we don't know anything about the status for certain, or that you'd have to trust guesswork and/or unreliable, biased, possibly outdated or partial information.
Unofortunately - and with respect - I know that the *one* source of information with will not be unbiased, clear or balanced will be from the developer. This goes for all developers but particularly and specially SOE.
EQN producers Q/A
That Q/A has some decent answers about the status of some things, others not so clear. Unfortunately Terry avoids answering the question about the status of either game.
Pretty much, Daybreak has shifted the development team to work on EQN and not Landmark (whatever that means). The EQN systems they are working on are still concepts and things could be dramatically changed. Based on some of the responses they mention "how much we get done by this time next year", so it is likely they think at least another year of internal development.
In a nutshell, outside of Landmark EQN is mostly a "on paper".
Actually I don't believe the developers can either!
They can only tell you what they are working towards on the day.
It gets worse. What they said e.g. last year may no longer apply or apply when the game launches. Number of starting cities .... ?
What developers cannot account for are external factors. Forget "simple" issues like stuff turning out to be harder than "planned". External factors? Sony sell SoE and Storybricks let go; 2014 re-organisation; 2013 lay-offs and staff realignment; ditto 2011, 2010, 2009.
Ah but it was only non-essentials let go right? Seriously? In 6 years around 80% of positions have gone; hundreds and hundreds (c. 700) of staff have been laid off. Wouldn't surprise me if there were MTBL jokes - Mean Time Between Lay-offs.
I can remember a thread after the 2013 lay-offs about SoE prioritising H1Z1 - they only had enough staff to fully staff one - and what impact that would have on EQN. Officially EQN was launching in 2014 but people were sceptical ....
And that type of constant pressure and change makes people very wary of giving out estimates. Boss asks when a task will be finished underling says 6 months ; the day comes task not done, boss makes displeasure known; protests that half the staff were fired fall on deaf ears. Next time boss says when underling starts to box clever. Doesn't surprise me that the letter gives no dates. It would take very good project management to generate solid plans in such troubled times.
So if it launches it launches, if not no sweat. At the end of the day I don't think anyone knows.
As someone looking forward to EQN, I wouldn't pay any attention to it currently. Unless you see a site (such as this) with some sort of significant news update, probably nothing of note worth looking into.
Both are still works in progress with Landmark being a playable game if you really enjoy building without much depth.
EQN itself is still a mystery until they release more beyond what they already did during the two previous SOE Live's.
A balanced and clear exposition?
Well I will give it a try.
Guess you missed the word "current" which leads to the OP answer.Noyou can't find a current exposition.
I think what I said is the current position. There may be a Daybreak internal document that is more informative, but they are not sharing that. What they are sharing is:
I think what I said is the current position. There may be a Daybreak internal document that is more informative, but they are not sharing that. What they are sharing is:
Nope you never mention the word current in your attempt to answer the OP. Fact is you go over information that is old and not current. There is no current information on this game.
Thanks this is very clear and useful.LOL!
And also, if I may add something.
All this talk about what devs say is how things are, and, If it's not from them, anything else is bogus crap! I even read here from the high and mighty EQN supporter himself that even he takes what Smed says with a huge grain of salt!
See, that's the problem, the devs doesn't say jack shit unless it's approved by Smed. So, pretty much, if any dev opens their mouth it's the words of Smed that comes out.
I hope that clear things up!
The bottom line! DO NOT TRUST SMED!
Have a nice day!
*snorts coffee through nose*
We don't have a release date, specs needed, or any other information that would lead anyone to go out and buy a new computer for EQN. It might not come out for 2 years (official launch), so any purchasing now would be exceedingly premature.