who knows?

SOE did it before in EQ with their Legends server, where players paid a monthly fee of $40.00

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=662

The monthly cost is $39.95 and will include your current subscription. Sign up is February 4, 2002. Remember ONLY 8000 lucky people will get this chance. Sign up at EverQuest Legends.com

Originally posted by BearKnight

Originally posted by Nadia

SOE supports the sub model too  -- EQ2 is both a ftp game and sub game

the cash shop in EQ2 is cosmetic only  (w exception of mounts and experience potions)

Their EQ2-X server had REAL items in their cash-shop for sale to "Help noobs on their way". Everyone saw it as a Pay-To-Win scheme and they caught a lot of flak for it.

that was true for EQ2X -- the inital server (Freeport) had gear equivalent to Tradeskilled gear

before all the servers went ftp,  that cash shop gear was *removed* from Freeport

EQ2 has been that way for 18+ months, since Dec 2011

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by jdnyc

Except Titan doesn't exist and MMORPG.com got to see EQNext preview.  Please read the actual article first.

Kind of like Star Wars The Old Republic. That went really well and delivered in spades.

We don't need to shit all over EQN or stop being interested.  We do need to stop hyping games with no real information.  We have some concept blurbs and vague references and that's it.  It's really easy to compete when you don't actually have to show yourself along with the competition.

i agree - its helpful to see WHY a game was chosen for best of show

Originally posted by zaxtor99

So Smedley says that players can actually change the environment in dynamic ways. What does THIS mean exactly??!?

I dunno. Two extremes of players being able to change the environment. What I hope that it doesn't mean is that if a blasts a fireball at a wooden fence, it catches fire and burns down but somehow magically re-spawns moments or seconds later. That's NOT a dynamic change but rather a momentary 'effect'. I've seen games promise players being able to change/alter the environment before only to see it nothing more then momentary effect changes like that.

So what does this mean to you guys/gals? Thoughts?

- Zaxx

i dont know

it doesnt sound like change will only be momentary

ZAM interview

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=30916

You’ll be able to destroy, massive, massive parts of this world, almost all of it. You can light the forest on fire; we have ambition with this thing. We want it to be something where the world you log into, might not be the world you log into in five days.

What you saw in WoW’s Cataclysm could take place because someone cast a spell that is powerful enough to do something major. We want it to be meaningful. And that’s what we’re building. It’s actually what we’ve built, because we’ve got this now. It just isn’t quite at the level where we’re OK [to reveal it to the public]. We have a story that we want to tell for the announcement of it, we want it that you’re seeing every aspect of the gameplay, we’re one aspect short of that until we’re ready to show, so we’re close now.”

http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/18/3777814/planetside-2-is-just-the-start-of-sony-online-entertainments-free

"Our opinion is that today's MMOs, and I'd include ours in that mix, are stagnant and stuck in this model that we frankly helped create with EverQuest, where we put new content in the game, and they go through it at an incredibly fast rate because of sites like Thottbot and that kind of stuff," Smedley said.

"We need to change the way we do this," Smedley said. "We're building a sandbox and giving players the tools to help shape the world that they're in. That's the direction we're going we're going in with EverQuest Next; trying to make a world that players create while being a living, breathing world around them.

It's not just a prop for them to walk around in, which is really what all of today's MMOs are. Their worlds are nothing more than a movie set."

regardless,  the EQN reveal is in 46 days

Smed hinted at giving players system level tools

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/13/planetside-2-eq-next-and-soes-player-driven-future/

RPS: SOE’s Player Studio seems like an extension of that to me. Let players make their own new content. How far do you hope to expand that, though? Right now it’s just objects in games like EverQuest and eventually PlanetSide. Would you ever like to see players creating their own missions and gametypes, though?

John Smedley: Stay tuned. The answer is yes, wholeheartedly. We have plans for that that go out a long way, and a game that is going to dominate because of that kind of stuff.

It’s not just players making quests. Don’t think of it just as Dungeons & Dragons. What we’re actually building is the ability for players to put in systems. System-level stuff. We give them some rules, some basic simple rules, and they can make things out of whole cloth. They could build their own battlegrounds style of gameplay. That’s what we want. What we have is an amazing infrastructure and ability to let players do new and emerging things.

We want them to… Not make their own fun. We’re going to make our games amazingly fun. We want them to be able to make things we didn’t think of fun. That’s really what it is. I mentioned Hulkageddon, I love that in EVE. That’s just players putting bounties on something. It’s nothing. That’s all it is. But that’s as fun as anything in EVE. More fun if you ask me. It’s amazingly fun.

Originally posted by Storm_Cloud

I wish I was employed by SOE. I'm currently unemployed, living in Sweden and looking for a job in transportation. Oh, and this will raise questions. I do have a valid greencard. :)

 hire me SOE, and I will move tomorrow.

Hahaha :)

SOE's Job Board

 an interview from October 2012 - back then it sounded too good to be true

after mmorpg.com claimed EQN best of show from what they saw behind closed doors, I gotta wonder

Smed interview

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10/20/soe-live-2012-john-smedley-on-eq-next-and-soes-future/

Massively: Let's start with EQ Next. When did you make the call to scrap everything? What was it that made you choose to do so?

John Smedley: A year and a half ago, we made that decision. I didn't get to cover this in the keynote, so I should mention it here. The engine and underlying technology has not changed. A lot of the guts and infrastructure are staying the same. What we're really changing is what the game is all about, all the design elements. We made one fundamental shift to emergent gameplay.

Once we made that shift, everything else had to follow. And what we saw was RIFT. We saw the writing on the wall with SWTOR. We saw The Secret World. We saw all these games that we knew were in development and very high-quality, but we saw what was going to happen -- this big spike and then it goes down. That's the truth of what's been happening with MMOs. The fans need to realize that if you don't change the nature of what these games are, you're not going to change that core behavior. We want to make games that last more than 15 years. That's why we made the decision to change it.

You mentioned last night that EQ Next will look like nothing we've ever seen. Will EQ Next still have the familiar feel to it that EQ fans are used to? How do you strike the balance between innovation and still staying true to the franchise?

I also said in there that it will still be very familiar to you, but what I meant by that statement is that we're changing what an MMO is. MMO means something now, and it means the same thing to everybody because it's the same game. EverQuest, WoW, SWTOR all use the same core loot gameplay, which is kill stuff, get reward, get loot, level up. Very few games have broken out of that mold. One or two have. EVE Online is a great example; it's not standard level-based gameplay, although I'm not saying we're going to a big skill-based system. You're still going to recognize the roleplaying game heritage in it. In EverQuest Next, the world itself is a part of the game. What is the world in these other games? It's a simple backdrop. It's nothing. We are changing that greatly. We're changing what AI is in these games to a degree that we're going to bring life to the world. That to us is the essence of the change that we're making.

At GDC last week, you also talked about how quickly traditional MMO content is consumed and how that plays into your decision to adopt a philosophy toward emergent gameplay. The question comes up about how that affects the future of raid content -- something that takes a lot of time to design and is usually played by only a portion of the community. What are your thoughts on that?

This is a very interesting question. I think it's at the core of why what we're doing is sustainable. I'll go right to the heart of the matter. You get to the point where we make an expansion, and when I say we, I mean the entire MMO community. You make your expansion, the real hardcore players consume it in a month, and they're doing the raids over and over and over until the next round of live content that we put in. Typically, three or four times a year, we as MMO companies put new endgame in there to keep the raiders happy.

We absolutely need to build that style of content into every game we make because players want that. We're not talking about the end of raids, the end of this incredibly high-level content. We're talking about changing the nature of the world around it so that there's a lot more to do "in between" expansions. A good example, but a very narrow example, is battlegrounds in WoW or EQII, where players get bored doing it over and over again. But imagine the entire world as part of the interaction. Imagine seasons changing. Imagine if you're a Druid and you need to literally seek out reagents for your spells or worship your deity in a glade somewhere off in the wilderness, but you don't know where. Or imagine forests growing back after they're burned to the ground by invading forces. What we want is a dynamic world that gives all those other possibilities and doesn't just say OK, go to raid X with group composition of X, Y, Z, and kill the dragon for the 52nd time to get the tier 800 gear. It's this rinse-and-repeat gameplay that's got to change, and so we're changing it.

Originally posted by Slampig

Originally posted by Foomerang

So lets say August comes and we find out that EQ Next isnt the epic sandbox we were lead to believe. What if all the features that Bill saw were not actually implemented in the game yet and was simply a list of planned features they want to do.

What does it matter? When they have their reveal in August I totally do not expect a complete and finished game with every feature implemented. People act like companies have just punched their puppies when something isn't in game.

im expecting every feature implemented but i know thats unrealistic

ZAM interview from October 2012

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=30916

What you saw in WoW’s Cataclysm could take place because someone cast a spell that is powerful enough to do something major. We want it to be meaningful. And that’s what we’re building. It’s actually what we’ve built, because we’ve got this now.

It just isn’t quite at the level where we’re OK [to reveal it to the public]. We have a story that we want to tell for the announcement of it, we want it that you’re seeing every aspect of the gameplay, we’re one aspect short of that until we’re ready to show, so we’re close now.

Originally posted by skamper
This is a joke right? Is there any sort of credibility left? So now our reviews and awards are based off "ideas".

the staff saw EQN at the show

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7501/page/1

we were treated to an early look at what SOE has planned for the game’s unveiling in August and we were quite simply blown away by every little detail we saw.

Originally posted by lizardbones

It's fairly well established that the keyboard and mouse dominates gamepad controls, so it's not the PC players that would be getting pwned.

I've seen similar claims that PC users trump console players

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/rumor_microsoft_killed_pcxbox_cross-platform_play_because_%E2%80%9Cconsole_players_got_destroyed_every_time%E2%80%9D

http://www.rahulsood.com/2010/07/console-gamers-get-killed-against-pc.html

Originally posted by Nanfoodle
In 2 months we can decide if MMOrpg.com was paid off or now =-) My guess is its legit. This is a SoE in house game. Cant wait to see what they have for us fans. EQ1 was my first MMO love!

46 days to Aug 2nd

Originally posted by Rhinotones

Originally posted by sportsfan

 WOW had 170 million in ... the last 3 months according to the stock reports.

Any chance of providing some sort of link if this info is shared publicly? I would love to have a look at this stock report.

that figure is from 2 years ago, May 2011

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/09/activision-blizzard-banks-503-million-in-first-quarter-profits/

Originally posted by sportsfan

Originally posted by Nadia

Originally posted by sportsfan

Even in F2P format WOW will never have more than 40 million players, so unless they go under 1 million F2P it is not going to happen.

back in 2006, SOE servers had over 20 million registered  -- with 1/10th of WOWs active playerbase

 

WOW easily has over 40 million registered players, probably over 100 million registered including trials

how many would want to play ftp WOW,  i have no clue

You are really optimistic :) My guess is that WOW would triple its current players (subscriptions now, f2P then) and so hover around 25 million.

if runescape can claim 200 million - you think its unrealistic that 100 million have tried WOW in the last 9 years?

http://www.examiner.com/article/runescape-passes-200-million-registered-accounts

Originally posted by Xthos

I have not played any of SoE's f2p titles, so I do not know what all they do and don't do.  I had hoped that EQN would be p2p, but that seems to have sailed, so if they had a subscription that basically removed the cash shop for me, I would do that.  I do not like to feel like I am being nickel and dimed every time I do something.  That is why I like p2p, I know what I am going to spend, and it is easier imo to have a cash shop that is cosmetic only.

SOE supports the sub model too  -- EQ2 is both a ftp game and sub game

the cash shop in EQ2 is cosmetic only  (w exception of mounts and experience potions)

RIFT recently went ftp and Trion still supports subs

Originally posted by Nanfoodle

Originally posted by Sephros
You dont skip one of the largest gaming expos to show your product later if it is ready.

You do when you play smart and target your fan base. To many times developers forget who their fans are and spend more time trying to make new fans over keeping the fans they do have happy. 

EQN was shown to the press at E3  -- behind closed doors

Originally posted by DMKano
EQN best of the show, and we know nothing. Hype overdrive.

 I agree

im a fan of EQnext but i dont think a "closed doors" mmo deserves best of show

Originally posted by sportsfan

Even in F2P format WOW will never have more than 40 million players, so unless they go under 1 million F2P it is not going to happen.

back in 2006, SOE servers had over 20 million registered  -- with 1/10th of WOWs active playerbase

WOW easily has over 40 million registered players, probably over 100 million registered including trials

how many would want to play ftp WOW,  i have no clue

Originally posted by strangiato2112

This is a comparison between rift at launch and WoW as it was when Rift launched.  Some things have obviously changed a little

7.  Combat is extremely GCD based (this wasnt so common pre-WoW) and is certainly emulating WoW.  

8.  Raids are clearly divided into tiers with each tier raising the stat allocation of your gear slightly

11. Dungeons are meant to be run over and over and over again for currency to buy gear

12.  Multiple difficulty levels for the dungeons

Everquest shared these same features, before wow

Lost Dungeons of Norrath w instanced dungeons of different tier difficulty released in 2003

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest:_Lost_Dungeons_of_Norrath

LDON had a token system for upgrading gear - requiring you to run them repeatedly

Everquest, Anarchy Online, DAOC, EQ2 all had global cooldowns prior to WOW

Game Update 67: Darkness Dawns — July 30th

http://eq2wire.com/2013/06/14/game-update-67-darkness-dawns-july-30th/