This week's Landmark livestream felt light on the surface, what with a discussion of a set of rustic-themed props being the primary sort of feature discussion. Hidden among the informative tidbits this week, however, is the awesome new power that will be wielded by beta testers for visiting other folks' claims once the latest patch comes in: teleportation!
Let's jump right into the good stuff, shall we?
Rustic Props and Landmark's Art Direction
Coming into the game this week is a full set of what some might want to call themed props. These include, candles, a bench, a bed, bookcases, a stool, and rugs.
While the rugs weren't implemented in time for the livestream, they did say that those rugs would have the same feature set as everything else, meaning they collide with things, so they're stackable and can be hung if one chooses.
Along with the introduction of the new props, Art Director Rosie Rappaport talked about what made them decide introduce matching items. According to her, part of the impetus for introducing matching set pieces was in seeing what wasn't seen in players' designs and interiors. For instance, while your crafting tools can easily serve as outdoor props, having interior props that are easily built would serve the community well.
New props are being made to serve people's needs, and a thread will be set up on the forums so people can suggest props and provide styled visuals for the things they might like to see. Users on the forums can then actively participate in the iterative process of creating things other like-minded players might enjoy but can't quite design with drawings.
Teleport, Please!
The system for teleportation as it relates to visiting claims is actually pretty simple. From the in-game gallery, users can actually click a button on a claim to teleport them directly to that claim at the cost of one portal shard.
For those who aren't clear, this means that you can use the same item used for traveling to a continent's portal spire or to other claims you own to visit other people's claims if everything goes well in the upcoming patch.
All the different teleports will now also have a 30-minute cooldown, which is a considerable speed-up from the existing 60 minute cooldown. Of course, this also means you'll want to spend some time visiting people's claims, but a future update is looking into improving the map so that it'll be easier to traverse the world.
Parting Shots
That said, I'm looking forward to being able to hunt for portal shard ingredients and building the shards so I can visit other claims in the coming week. Before I go though, here's a little early May present from me to you: Omeed, take it away!
Victor Barreiro Jr. / Victor Barreiro Jr. maintains Everquest Next/Landmark column (and formerly The Devil's Advocate) for MMORPG.com. He also writes for news website Rappler as a technology reporter. You can find more of his writings on Games and Geekery and on Twitter at @vbarreirojr.
Links to more MMORPG.com coverage:
- Last week on Landmark: Forms and Functions, Apps and Upgrading
- Air, Glass, and Upkeep Sass
- Regarding All-Access Revisions