First there was Everquest, then the parallell sequel Everquest II, and now there’s Everquest Next. And it looks great! The world will be ever-changing (if someone punches a hole in the wall, it will stay that way if noone bothers to fix it), with player constructed cities and a myriad of playstyle choices. Players are unbound by the traditional class system, but instead have talents and weapon specializations to choose from. This is similar to what Funcom did with The Secret World (let’s just hope the learning curve will be less steep), and it’s a fun way to play and build a character. Players also have access to EQN Landmark, an online sandbox game; where they can build and construct objects that may be featured in EQN. Objects can even be sold for real money in Player Studio, which is a huge incentive for aspiring video game designers out there.
But do we really need yet another MMO? So many MMO’s have come and gone the past 10 years, but every single one of them has suffered greatly from the hold Blizzard has on the genre. The typical life stages of a modern MMO have 1. been tempting players with great visuals, extensive voice overs and promise of new and exciting game play; 2. the launch with lots of new players flocking to it; and 3. the subsuquent fall from glory when players realise there’s nothing to do once they reach the maximum level (these days that usually takes the most hardcore players a couple of days to a week), and go back to whatever they were doing or playing before. Several of the games have gone pay to play or free to play, with micro transactions instead of a monthly fee, and for the most part the studios manage to keep the games alive for the core group of players who stick with the game. Like Everquest, ever since the launch in 1999, they’ve had steady numbers, and they even went up with the change to f2p.
We need someone to take up the competition with Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (and their upcoming Titan). With WoW’s subscription numbers dipping pretty low at 7 million this year, from a steady 10-12 million some years ago, maybe EQN is it. The graphics are more cartoony than most of the MMO’s that have hit the market in the last decade, and the developers are focusing on making the game playable for people with older computers. If they also manage to push out fresh content frequently, keep players from being bored and offer a myriad of different things to do for all categories of players, then they might have the winning card. The original EQ has a mindblowing 19 expansions, and Everquest II has three adventure packs and 8 expansions, so I have faith in SOE when it comes to keeping it fresh. With their decade-long experience with MMO’s, I believe they will also succeed in actually making it feel like a multiplayer game. A couple of the MMO’s that have come out the past few years have had such extensive voice-overs and cutscenes that they feel more like singleplayer games. It’s awesome for immersion, but not so much when it comes to playing with others (people are impatient, and waiting for other players to finish their cutscenes can take a long time).
People want something that’s accessible and fun, a break from the daily stresses of life, and well made MMO’s are great for that. I have more days and months played in WoW than I like to admit, and the feeling of winding down for a couple of hours here and there is great. I play a lot less now than I used to, but it’s easy to pick up wherever I left off the last time. And that’s what I want from an MMO, the ability to just pick it up whenever and have it be as fun as the last time I played it. This is where I think Everquest Next will shine, with its dynamic world. It invites you back in to take part in something that’s constantly changing and evolving. The ever-changing world will be a breath of fresh air, and will hopefully make people want to come back again and again.
There’s no certainty that EQN will actually end up on the PS4, only that they will see when time comes and the games is properly polished and the kinks are worked out for the desktop. But it will fill a very sad and empty gap in the gaming industry, and that is the cross platform MMO. DC Universe Online could have filled the gap, but had separate servers for different platforms. Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, due to launch late August, is featuring true cross platform functionality with players on different platforms being able to interact. With the PS4 I expect we will see more of them, at least there will be no lack of technology or any memory problems stopping developers from going the route of MMO’s.
How do you think the controls will translate for a console and might this be the problem with making games cross-platform (PC/Console)?
There might be some issues, the number of skills will have to be reduced ever so slightly and developers will need to find creative ways to work around the limited amount of buttons. But as for EQN, Georgeson said they’ve already made it controller friendly, though it was by accident.
“It was never our intent to make a controller friendly game,” said Georgeson, “but when we decided to minimize the number of buttons you can use to just one hotbar, it almost accidentally becomes controller friendly.”
Happy accidents do happen! Well I wouldn’t be surprised, like you say, if they announce it for PS4 down the line, with or without cross-play.
I’m not initially a big fan of mmo’s, but I’m slightly intrigued by this one. Just comes off as colorful, fun and insanely pretty, so maybe something about that attracts me. Will probably give it a chance when the time comes.
I wanna play as that lion-dude.