Going back to claims in general, the devs were asked which of the crafting stations would be the one that did salvaging, finally allowing us to reclaim materials from gear we don't need (such as the neverending supply of grappling hooks found in the treasure chests in caves). Terry Michaels couldn't tell us then, but no doubt all will be clear when the update goes live. Next up, the topic shifted to the claim vendors, and they will not be able to be used to auto-pay upkeep for a player. SOE's goal in this is the same as in their required monthly logins for All Access players in other games to claim their Station Cash grant: ensure players actually log in. While we know from previous editions of Landmark Live that players will be able to earn the ability to pay upkeep further into the future, Dave Georgeson pointed out that what they didn't want was absentee landlords, that nobody liked them. In the future, he added, a player whose upkeep expired would be able to reclaim their same location as long as no other player sauntered in and claimed it. The cool news he included was that when these ghost claims were reclaimed by the original player, they wouldn't have to go back and rebuild it and re-site all of their props, the game would just restore everything from the point the claim expired. Speaking of props, both Georgeson and Michaels showed off a plethora of new props, ranging from curtains, shutters, and we were told about tables and trap doors and the like.
The next topic that they went over had Dave Georgeson almost acting like a kid in a candy store. The linking and triggering systems he's alluded to in past Landmark Lives was finally revealed, and it's a very sweet thing. Basically, it allows a player to link an item such as the trap door in this screenshot to a light on the panel. When the trap door goes through a certain portion of its rotation, the light turns on and vice versa. These links and triggers can be used to create rather complex automations within the game. I asked Terry Michaels whether there were concerns that players would create infinite loops by linking the last object in a chain to the first object and in essence create perpetual motion machines and runaway processes. He said that was the first bug they found and fixed, but are hopeful that any further issues with the system will quickly be located by players so they can be resolved.
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The final thing discussed was Vivox, the in-game voice chat. As many Landmark players know, it's a very keyboard and mouse-intensive game in terms of building and PVP (and now fighting PVE monsters). I've personally spent many a time ignoring a whisper for a few minutes while I'm placing a prop just so or working on a new template, and there aren't enough fingers on the planet to count the number of times other people have done the same to me. Voice chat will revolutionize the social aspect of the game. Of course, some people might be wary of having their real voices out there due to poor experiences in chat on other games or simply a perfectly natural shyness. However, the benefit of voice chat is overwhelming, particularly for builders. Dave Georgeson told us that by default, Vivox would be set to Push-To-Talk, because they didn't want a bunch of new players showing up and not realizing they were on the air, as it were. There will also be options for guild and group (party) chat, and they were also going to have proximity chat. The latter is currently only set for within a specific claim, but they were looking into possibly extending the range. A future plan for the voice chat would be the creation of custom channels, but no estimated date was set for that to go out.
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There you have it, folks, the biggest update to Landmark since its initial launch with lots of new systems, updates to current systems, and plenty of new toys to play with. It's time for the game to put on its big kid pants and join the rest of the world. For the first time, players will truly get a glimpse into how EverQuest Next will also start to take shape. Not unexpectedly, we were told that after the new year, many of the devs currently working on Landmark will be shifting duties over to Next, so that can only mean that open beta is coming. Winter will be here sooner, but more players will start dying in Landmark than George R. R. Martin ever dreamed of. For those players who have been waiting for this, what are your thoughts? For those who wandered off, will this bring you back? And how about the folks who just want to build their magnificent creations in peace? What are your thoughts on the matter? We'd love to hear from all of you. We're also planning on streaming the new game content as soon as possible after the servers go live, so keep an eye on our Twitch channel or follow us on Twitch to get notifications as to when we go live. SOE will be hosting an Update Show edition of Landmark Live on their Twitch channel as well on Thursday, December 18th, at 10am Pacific. I'm sure the chat will be quite lively.
