Live Blog of SOE Welcome Reception
Linda “Brasse” Carlson is starting out with the sponsors and and then about GameBreaker.tv’s live cast of the event. Vivox is also broadcasting the event in-game.
Talking about the panels tomorrow including Dev War Stories, also tomorrow night’s Pool Party. Introducing Backstage Bloggers using Bloggie cameras. Showing pictures of Guides in different SOE games.
SOE President John Smedley coming to the stage… Prepare for big announcements…
Personal Apology: Back in April, we were hacked, victims of a very bad cyberattack not only on our network but on our sister company networks.
It was a very deeply troubling incident for those of us at SOE. We did not rest. We brought in the best cybersecurity professionals in the world. We take this very seriously. We are going to ensure this never happens again.
Introducing Vasco Data Security key fobs for every SOE game including EverQuest II. Every Fan Faire attendee gets a key security fob.
Slide: SOE is transforming the way people play games online.
Showing the past 10 years of games. EverQuest, Planetside, Star Wars Galaxies, EverQuest II, FreeRealms, Clone Wars Adventures, DC Universe Online.
Showing a new trailer for DC Universe.
Clone Wars Adventures & tie-ins with the TV show, updating the game every week to match story lines with the episodes.
Showing a trailer for Clone Wars Adventures.
Slide: We believe everyone is a gamer at heart…
Talking about FreeRealms.
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Executive Producer of EverQuest Franchise Dave Georgeson is coming up to make announcements about EverQuest and EverQuest II.
Original EverQuest: Veil of Alaris expansion. New continent, 12 new zones, New guild halls, level cap to 95, Hotbar revamp. November 2011.
EverQuest II: Age of Discovery
* Tradeskill Apprentices — new crafting class, uses a new table and can make new kinds of items
* Reforging items — Changing stats around, customizing items; not a tradeskill class but everyone can be one
* Increased AA limit
* Mercenaries — NPC players to help fill out a group (more info in tomorrow’s panel)
* Beastlord — 25th class
* Build your own dungeon system
* Freeport revamp
* EverQuest II: Age of Discovery — November 2011
Free expansions of EQ and EQ2 for all Fan Faire attendees.
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John Smedley back to the stage to talk about new things.
Forge Light MMO Engine
* Being used to build PlanetSide 2 and EverQuest Next.
* Massively seamless worlds — NO ZONES
* Real-time Radiosity
* Designed to Scale to newer computers
* Advanced atmospheric scattering
* Volumetric fog
* Advanced ambient occlusion — objects shadowing each other
* Complex shaders
* Advanced environmental lighting
* Real-time physics system with nVIDIA PhysX
* Partnered with nVidia
Showing screenshot of EverQuest Next. Incredibly detailed male face.
Calling Brian Harvey from NVIDIA to the stage. SOE’s partnership with nVidia.
John Smedley talking about PlanetSide. Introducing PlanetSide 2. Showing the trailer for PlanetSide 2. Very few people inside SOE had seen the trailer until tonight. Bringing Matt Higby, Creative Director of PlanetSide 2 to the stage.
We’re hoping to blow the roof off the FPSMMO market. The Forge Light engine really made the difference in developing it. Very familiar to PlanetSide players.
Going into details about PlanetSide 2 class and itemization systems.
John Smedley coming back to the stage, showing the PlanetSide 2 trailer again.
Talking about SOE All Access pass. $14.99/month if you pay a year in advance.
We have a lot more coming.
Linda “Brasse” Carlson coming to the stage. Dressed as a dwarf of course, but with a light saber. 🙂
Talking about Star Wars Galaxies.
It breaks the heart of everyone at SOE that this world has to come to an end. It was felt throughout the company when the announcement was made. The admiration and feeling we have for the players is strong. 2003-2011 wasn’t long enough for me, but it is a long time for an MMO.
Showing a video made by the SWG developers.
EQ2Wire Exclusive: It is unfortunate that LucasArts wanted to terminate the contract not only on Star Wars Galaxies but SWG The Card Game to avoid any confusion with SW:TOR by BioWare. And this is not supposition, it’s confirmed by 2 sources in the industry. SOE didn’t want to end the game.
I hope that you will join us in the last few months of Star Wars Galaxies. We have many events planned. Be with us and share the dream for the rest of the year.
Talking about various events back in the Grand Ballroom including various games, Karaoke, etc. Live Podcast.
GOOD NIGHT EVERYONE
8:24pm — Thank you for tuning into the live broadcast of the SOE Fan Faire Welcome Reception and reading the Live Blog here at EQ2Wire.
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Comments (28)
Kruzzen
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Happy that there is no level increase. not thrilled about having to pay for 2 expansions in the same year. That is why I left EQ1. 🙁
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Quabi
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“Age of Discovery” sounds like a bunch of gimmicks we don’t need, assuming they aren’t even adding any new AAs but just raising the cap.
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Techno
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So we make our own item stats, our own item looks, and our own dungeons, and it won’t be Planes of Power? Fail.
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Kruzzen
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No see, here is the thing. They gave up on itemization, so they letting the players do there work for them.
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Kwill
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EQ has mercenaries, people love them. Reforging has been done in other games. The authenticator is also familiar to people who play the other popular MMO. But it’s a good idea.
Props to Linda for announcing her age to the fans, that surprised me! The crowd seemed tepid, but then again, the jokes needed a little more energy to be wildly funny.
Smed really, really shouldn’t say Star Wars is mostly for boys. Oops. Did he say it because Free Realms is targeted at girls? Who knows, but kind of a weird slip there.
Wish they could have shown a video of the ForgeLight engine instead of just a still shot .. it probably looked better in person. Lots more physics is always a good idea, though. Clouds! With sunlight shining through them! And fireballs.
Sadly, people had been watching the Planetside2 video for an hour before it was shown at the event (it was on lots of websites), despite the Planetside guy saying otherwise. Smed loved it so much he showed it twice, though.
All in all, I was glad I could see the live stream. Thanks SOE and Vivox!
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Striinger
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Reforging sounds cool…and unique. Itemisation is, of course, important, and I’m sure there will be some limitations on what can be changed (i.e. maybe different gear allows different changes to be made).
Still, it’s fresh, it’s not just the same old stuff. I’m interested to see how this turns out over the new few months.
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Dethdlr
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Sounds pretty good to me. I would say that reforging items could be why they made the items so bland, but I’m not giving them that much credit. Could be pretty interesting though. I like the mercenaries. This should help on the slow nights when we’re short a few to run a zone. Build your own dungeon could be interesting as well but I foresee being asked to run several player made zones that are mediocre. Hopefully though there will be some really good ones that rise to the top. I’m personally looking forward to it. Surprised that this is planned for Nov.
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Quabi
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Reforging is essentially the same as choosing between multi-attack, crit bonus, crit chance, or crit mit yellow and red adornments. It will just be a matter of busting out your calculator and figuring out which stats you need the most. Like the boring (non-War Rune) red/yellow adornments, it will do practically nothing at all to make itemization more interesting to me.
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Chuina
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Thanks for your coverage so far. I missed the live feed and now feel all caught up. The dungeon creator sounds the most exciting to me as of now with Everquest 2. Planetside 2 looks good but no real info released yet. Probably waiting on tomorrow’s panel.
Let’s just hope we get some good Everquest III goodness! *crosses fingers*
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karl
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I listened to the reception but thank you for posting this so soon!
love your site
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Feldon
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I can’t elaborate too much but Georgeson is aware of the complaints about itemization. Actually I meant to use a quote of his in my article today.
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Tarb
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The EQ2 age of discovery sounds like a content patch that will be free I assume since they said no more expansions, unlike the EQ1 notes that does say “expansion”
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cyanbane
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Eager to see how PlanetSide 2 competes with an already established Firefall. SOE has been lagging the last few years. Can’t say I am all that enthralled with this year’s announcements.
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Tarb
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It all sounds good to me, I can’t wait to see pics Feldon 🙂
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Sole
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@Tarb
for sure it would be not free, i think SC only maybe or somthing like that.
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Lincus
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Since Smokejumper said free expansions of EQ and EQ2 for Fan Faire attendees, I would think the rest of us are going to be paying for this.
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isest
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Yes I would like to hear more about itemization, and progression and how broken it currently is. And their plans as right now they don’t seam to be doing anything to fix the progression of itemization in velious.
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Green Armadillo
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This plan sounds suspiciously like the new features of an expansion without the new content of an expansion, now that the new content is coming out in Velious content patches instead. Can’t say that I’m thrilled at the possibility of paying full price for half an expansion a mere 8-9 months after the last $40 expansion box.
Feldon, if you get the chance, I’ll be curious to hear how the Beastlord class will work for EQ2X players. Will it be included for expansion-owning non-subscribers? It seems like it would be very hard to justify an additional fee on top of the expansion box, but that approach would make Freeport the destination of choice for Beastlord alts, which isn’t in anyone’s best interest.
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Lempo
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Putting Beastlords in the game isn’t in anyone’s best interest at all, that is clear by the amount of drool you have to wade through in any thread that even mentions the class.
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James
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I still don’t see how beastlords are going to fit into the 4/3/2 (profession, archetype, class) model.
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Silzin
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Can some one point me at the “Live feeds” that have bin talked about PLZ?
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Kwill
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gamertv.com streamed this live over their network. The chat room that ran during the presentation was actually rather amusing, as well! The entire chat room was filled with fans of Planetside, who kept screaming (in text of course) that they wanted to hear about the changes to that game — and then the one lone person who came late and spammed everyone demanding to know what Smed said about Free Realms. Which was … not much. His whole family likes to play it.
Apparently, Free Realms is for girls (Smed’s daughters, in particular), Star Wars Clone Adventures is for boys.
Who knew that Linda Carlson thought that Star Wars Galaxies was the best game SOE ever did, ever — really? But she doesn’t play it any more. I do feel bad for the fans, though.
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Beastlord to be the New Class in the Next EQ2 Expansion « The Ancient Gaming Noob
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[…] were some other high level items announced at the Fan Faire […]
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Me
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In the transcriped can someone tell me where this paragraph is coming from?
EQ2Wire Exclusive: It is unfortunate that LucasArts wanted to terminate the contract not only on Star Wars Galaxies but SWG The Card Game to avoid any confusion with SW:TOR by BioWare. And this is not supposition, it’s confirmed by 2 sources in the industry. SOE didn’t want to end the game.
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Karofin
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@ “Me”
I have not seen that SWG was due to end as I no longer play the game or follow anything in relaiton to it.
However, I remember when I did play the game before the NGE and before the hieous level changes, Jedi camp and when you used Holo Unlocks. That game was superb and the changes were cried over and many of us left in droves. The reality which became quite clear at the time was that this was a LA change imposed and not a SOE one. Since LA own the rights to the franchise and not SOE their hands are often tied. LA killed SWG and are now sealing the coffin. Very sad… I am no SOE Fanboi but the blame should rightly rest for most of the SWG wrongdoings with LA, and not SOE.
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Brasse
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We actually track such stats, and the majority of FR players are girls. In CWA (which Smed was specifically referring to, the overwhelming majority are boys. The adult audiences in these games, while smaller, skew the same way. So it was an accurate statement, not a slip. =)
As a roleplayer, it is the best game I’ve participated in for *my* particular playstyle. My characters there are not named “Brasse” and perhaps that’s why you have not seen me. I tend to keep my play characters secret so that I can actually play when I log in – separation of work and play is good for the soul. My alt isn’t even known to my old guild, because I tend to solo a lot in any case. =P
SWG is a very good game. I base this not just on my opinion, but on the sentiment and statistics we collect for our daily, weekly and monthly Community reports; the current player base has been very happy with the game, for a long time. SWG has provided me with many, many indelibly wonderful memories, and, I hope, more to come as we prepare for the sunset.
We do not expect those who dislike the game to share the final months with us, but I am pretty sure we’ll have plenty of folks on hand as we go. However, if anyone has not been in SWG for a few years, they may want to come back to see how development has progressed… but come with an open mind. It is absolutely different from the launch game. That is the nature of MMOGs in general; EQ and EQII are much different from their early iterations as well.
What I initially logged on to say was:
Great coverage, Feldon… you were working like a madman throughout Fan Faire – and thank you again for agreeing to help on stage Saturday night. I was surprised that you said yes!
;-)#
Brasse
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San
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the future is user created content.
this is innovation and empowerment combined with profiting off others efforts and calling endusers bluff that they can do it better. its win win in so many ways.
it has pros and cons, such as herd dynamics to see which content is most popular vs. board room logical thought, but its a new angle and is bound to have some significant advantages, AS WELL as educating the player base about why designers itemize/place mobs/etc since they will think about these things themselves.
this is bad news for content developers, good news for artists.
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Person
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I was playing CWA on 10-13-11 and I just happened to see ALL OF MY FRIENDS ARE GONE. I don’t know what happened but they are all gone. This has really turned me off the game.
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