world's largest sandbox

nice will try it for sure

if they want to make a good mmo

Hire hardcore/eppic raiding guild members 

Hire casual raid guilds

Hire casual players.

Hire PvP hardcore guilds

Hire PvP casual guilds

MMO's designers burden themselves with designing 2 games - the leveling game and the endgame. If they fail at either one then their game will not stand the test of time. If they want to succeed, then they need to focus on just the endgame and eliminate the leveling game. If they can keep people engaged in the endgame, then they don't need the leveling game. If they can't, they lost anyways. By eliminating the leveling game they can refocus their devs, artists and level designers on creating a great endgame instead of splitting their attention.

I wrote a blog entry about it in 2009:

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/mrjimorg

I'm no Smedley fan, and every thing he says should be suspect because he has been less than honest with the community in the past.

That said, if you look at it a certain way, he has in some ways been forward thinking. The NGE was a major debacle.  I still believe that.  But a huge part of that is they transformed a game that had already been out for a year or so and it was too much change.

He was also forseeing the cash shops and f2p phenomenom, before it really caught on and went mainstream.

Maybe he's seeing which way the wind is blowing.  People are tired of themepark.  Maybe sandbox is not the answer, but maybe themepark/sandbox is.  I hope is words bode well for the genre and what is coming.

Originally posted by William12
Remember he has already stated EQ Next will be free to play.  Not buy to play although I fully expect him to go into the buy to play model.

Based on the nickel and dime you to death system of their cash shops in other games being F2P is not comforting.

Originally posted by Dantae87
So far im not happy with SOE's games PS2 was a horrible flop of a failure and just look at the state of EQ2...hardly alive at all...

What makes you think PS2 is a flop?  

@Darkhall 

Dantae is just trolling. PS2 is the most sucessfull game start SOE ever had and seams to make a lot of money. In a few weeks SOE will release a 6 month roadmap and offer the players to give feedback. 

And about EQ2 beeing hardly alive? I just tried the German server - which isn't the most populated - and was flashed on how many people are at the starting zones. And since ProsiebenSat.1 Games is now publishing SOE games for the EU there are even new TV commercials adverticing for EQ 2. 

But back to EQ Next. Does anyone know a bigger fan community out there? I only found www.everquestnext.com which seams to be abandoned and www.everquestnext.de which looks nice and active but seams to be German. 

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Originally posted by Dantae87
So far im not happy with SOE's games PS2 was a horrible flop of a failure and just look at the state of EQ2...hardly alive at all...

What makes you think PS2 is a flop?  

its not as good as PS1, but, it doesnt look like its going to be a flop, which was a bit surprising, but, it is pay to win,  you can play for free and do a few minor upgrades with certs etc, to basic weaponry, which does make it more, 'competitive' but if you really want to kick whatsit, then you need to buy the weapons, and that means station cash, as a TR heavy you need to buy several weapons, there are 3 types of rocket launcher, ground to air, ground to ground and one that can track both, not to mention other closer range weapons that put you on a stronger footing in close range combat, they each cost 700 station cash, or 1000 certs to buy, now you can save 1000 certs but seeing as it can take you a few days just to get 100 cert points - providing you don't use them to improve your base skills, then paying station cash is about the only way you can use to get them.  And it costs i think, about £10 for about 1000 station cash, or seven cash its called on the proseiben site.

Originally posted by Phry

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Originally posted by Dantae87
So far im not happy with SOE's games PS2 was a horrible flop of a failure and just look at the state of EQ2...hardly alive at all...

What makes you think PS2 is a flop?  

its not as good as PS1, but, it doesnt look like its going to be a flop, which was a bit surprising, but, it is pay to win,  you can play for free and do a few minor upgrades with certs etc, to basic weaponry, which does make it more, 'competitive' but if you really want to kick whatsit, then you need to buy the weapons, and that means station cash, as a TR heavy you need to buy several weapons, there are 3 types of rocket launcher, ground to air, ground to ground and one that can track both, not to mention other closer range weapons that put you on a stronger footing in close range combat, they each cost 700 station cash, or 1000 certs to buy, now you can save 1000 certs but seeing as it can take you a few days just to get 100 cert points - providing you don't use them to improve your base skills, then paying station cash is about the only way you can use to get them.  And it costs i think, about £10 for about 1000 station cash, or seven cash its called on the proseiben site.

I wouldnt call that Pay to Win.  Its more like Pay to be first.  As long as someone has the ability to get the same exact options as someone who pays its not pay to win.

I do see your point of, well if person X gets something NOW while I have to wait X amount of days/weeks/months then they win. But thats a difference of time rather than a difference of paying.   If you played x amount of time to achieve the same I would go as far as to say you would be better from a skill perspective making the broad assumption that person X doesnt play as much since they can 'buy' their weapons/upgrades.

In the end I can see it ruining the experience for some but not all.  But then again that is why I dont like playing PvP games.  Much prefer exploration and challenge through (hard) PvE.  Give me something to fight for ;-)

Originally posted by MikeB

Fans expecting new information on 'EverQuest Next' during this year's SOELive came away tonight with a bittersweet announcement from SOE president John Smedley.

During tonight's SOELive keynote address, Smedley explained that everything we've seen on EverQuest Next thus far has been scrapped and the game is in the process of being reworked. Given the turn of events, SOE will not be showing off EverQuest Next during this year's SOELive. However, Mr. Smedley did promise attendees that not only would EverQuest Next make an appearance at SOELive next year, it will also be playable.

Why'd SOE scrap the work done up to this point? Smedley noted that the team ultimately wasn't happy with the game. EQ Next felt too 'evolutionary', more like an EverQuest 3 than what SOE was going for. According to Smed, SOE 'changed the world' with the launch of the original EverQuest, and they want the launch of EverQuest Next to be an equally monumental moment in the MMO genre.

To that end, Smedley promised that EverQuest Next would be the "world's largest sandbox", with content delivered to players in an entirely new way. The team is being lead by EverQuest staples such as Terry Michaels and Dave Georgeson and fans were assured that they are intending on remaking Norrath into something unlike anything players have seen before.

Smed promised me playable capital ships and walking on the bridge of the super star destroyer, still waiting for that...

Originally posted by health001
wow thats just sad they spent 3 years working on it and then trashed it O_O sounds fishy to me but then again we are working with John Smedley here this guys motives are profit driven but then again thats every ceo

They didn't necessarily need to trash everything and restart from the first line of code. Virtually all the artwork & game engine work would trivially transfer over, and really quite a lot of the game mechanics too.

IN the nutrition world it's called "Talk fit, eat fat."

In the MMO world the players "Talk Sandbox and buy Themepark"

Originally posted by William12
Here's what happen.  They were going with what rift, wow, eq2 are like seen how bad SWTOR did and seen GW2 and scrapped it all to copy GW2 :) 

This may be true, if GW2 had a single Sandbox element to it. Seeing as GW2 is the ultimate Theme Park, I do not think they will be copying GW2.

"The team is being lead by EverQuest staples such as Terry Michaels and Dave Georgeson and fans were assured that they are intending on remaking Norrath into something unlike anything players have seen before." 

Remaking Norrath? Why the heck won't they make a different world. If they remake Norrath the game WILL be the same old EQ again. EQ3. That sucks.

It's sad they keep remaking it. I want it to be good but what a waste of money. They sound like they need to plan better to engineer the game. These reworks make them look bad. IMO