EverQuest Next Cancelled, Landmark to Officially Launch This Spring
It seems that after a decade of development effort (2006-2016), including four separate reboots, all financed largely by the success of EverQuest and EverQuest II, which had been increasingly strangled for resources, development on EverQuest Next has once and for all been cancelled. This comes as little shock to us at EQ2Wire as there has been almost nothing revealed about the game since the smoke-and-mirrors PvP presentation at SOE Live 2014. Further, all discussion of EverQuest Next had been banned from the official EQN forums for almost a year now (as RadarX pointed out to me, it’s now allowed with the game’s cancellation). A game in active, transparent development would not see these two things happen.
From Daybreak Games President Russell Shanks:
To Our Daybreak Community,
I’m writing today to let you know that, after much review and consideration, Daybreak is discontinuing development of EverQuest Next.
For the past 20 years EverQuest has been a labor of love. What started as a deep passion of ours, as game creators, grew into a much larger passion shared by you, millions of players and Daybreakers alike. Watching EverQuest’s ability to entertain and bring people together has inspired and humbled us. It’s shaped our culture and has emboldened us to take aggressive risks with our game ideas and products. When we decided to create the next chapter in the EverQuest journey, we didn’t aim low. We set out to make something revolutionary.
For those familiar with the internals of game development, you know that cancellations are a reality we must face from time to time. Inherent to the creative process are dreaming big, pushing hard and being brutally honest with where you land. In the case of EverQuest Next, we accomplished incredible feats that astonished industry insiders. Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn’t fun. We know you have high standards when it comes to Norrath and we do too. In final review, we had to face the fact that EverQuest Nextwould not meet the expectations we – and all of you – have for the worlds of Norrath.
The future of the EverQuest franchise as a whole is important to us here at Daybreak. EverQuest in all its forms is near and dear to our hearts. EverQuest and EverQuest II are going strong. Rest assured that our passion to grow the world of EverQuest remains undiminished.
Yours truly,
Russell Shanks
President, Daybreak Games
MMORPG has been granted an interview with Russell Shanks which you can read here.
Meanwhile, Landmark will officially launch as a live game in Spring 2016 according to EverQuest, EverQuest II, and now Landmark Executive Producer Holly “Windstalker” Longdale on the Landmark forums:
To Our Loyal Landmark Community,
You read the title right: Landmark is LAUNCHING this spring and I’m thrilled to be on this adventure with you!
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Holly “Windstalker” Longdale. I’m the executive producer of both EverQuest and EverQuest II. I care passionately about the EverQuest franchise and have been involved with it for much of my career now, starting out as a player and game designer. Why am I here? I’m now the executive producer for Landmark and have been working with the amazing team for a few months!
As the community has grown and designs have flourished, we no longer view Landmark as just a building tool. We’ve been toiling away making Landmark into a wonder unto itself. While the look of our world was inspired by what was intended to be the voxel world of EverQuest Next, Landmark has evolved into its own game with its own unique identity and purpose. If you missed the news on EverQuest Next there’s a letter from Russell Shanks, Daybreak Games president, here.
The creativity of the Landmark community and the potential for telling stories in this digital world is beyond what we imagined. Our vision for Landmark is to provide a place where you can create ANYTHING, tell your own stories, and share your creativity with other players. We are wrapping up a HUGE game update for Landmark with LOTS of new additions and improvements, some of which you’ve already seen in sneak preview posts from Emily “Domino” Taylor on the forums. We are excited about what’s to come for Landmark and we can’t wait to see what you think.
The Landmark team has a lot to do before launch this spring and we’ll continue to keep you informed! For starters, here’s an FAQ if you have any questions after reading this letter.
We’re grateful for your continued support and are looking forward to the coming weeks as we prepare to launch Landmark!
Holly Longdale
Executive Producer
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Comments (95)
Necromancer
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GOOD! I really hope this means ALL resources go into making both EQ and EQ2 great games again.
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Feldon
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Democyde
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That guild name is already taken on Skyfire.
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Mizgamer62
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We can only hope, although probably in vain. Guess time will tell. 🙄
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Enric of Neriak
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We can only hope, but they will likely be funneled into LM or H1Z1. I have little faith the bean counters will do right by the house that EQ built.
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Archangel
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DBG, through a mouth piece, said more Devs were going to their zombie MMO. Now it’s obvious where these Devs are coming from.
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Democyde
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Between this and axing of EQ2 PvP, I’m hoping this is the case, and not just cutbacks to meet some quarterly profit requirement from their parent company.
A reallocation of resources to the winning formulea is a way to ensure a sustainable future for further development.
I feel for people who had their hearts set on Next, but hopefully the entire Everquest franchise will have a more secure future with these developments.
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Nicolos
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This is the comment that always amuses me. If you think they will take all those people and pump them into a 17 and 12 year old game then you haven’t been paying attention. They will keep a few of the most productive (and most of them will got to their only true focus, H1Z1) and the rest will be part of another inevitable round of lay offs.
I know many have been yearning for this day but what you don’t really realize is that EQN was the only thing keeping Norrath relevant for the majority of people that aren’t already playing EQ/EQ2. It’s success would have almost guaranteed the safety of the first 2 games but now it’s clear CN deems the franchise expendable. Savor this day as a victory if you must and keep dreaming they will beef the team up and make some grand new content but don’t get too comfortable. EQ2’s day is not too far off.
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Democyde
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Next was never coming to market. Deal with it. It WAS, however, siphoning off money and devs from PRODUCTIVE MONEY MAKING PRODUCTS for FOUR YEARS! Four years that could have been used to stem the hemorrhaging subscriptions from EQ2 and EQ by providing more enriching content.
Instead, millions were thrown down a virtual bottomless black hole with literally nothing to show for it but one tech demo from FanFest.
Solving the problem of MMO market glut isn’t more glut. It’s better product. Plain as that. After millions of dollars wasted, they realized that they weren’t making better, just more of the same.
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madrat
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This ^^^^ one million times over. I totally agree 100%. We all knew it was a waste of resources. 4 times the project started over, Maybe even a 5th time after they stopped using story-bricks. We will never know. One thing we know they wasted millions of dollars on a failed idea.
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Melanore
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Couldn’t put it with better words! Absolutely true
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Jeeshman
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It probably siphoned money from other products (including EQ2) for longer than 4 years! But I strongly doubt Daybreak will choose to allocate additional resources to EQ2 now that EQN is canceled. There’s’ little incentive to spend more money on an 11-year old game that recently merged a bunch of servers due to a diminishing playerbase. I’d absolutely love to be proven wrong.
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Zhaan
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I know no one is surprised, but it’s still a bit sad to see it in writing. If I had confidence they were going to replace it with something else for the franchise that would be OK but I don’t feel confident at all about that. It feels like the company is going into a maintenance mode. Just keep the things already done rolling as long as they make money. I never let my husband put up the EQNext poster we got at SOE Live. I told him wait and see if it really happens. I hoped I was wrong but I think we all saw this coming a long time ago.
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Mizgamer62
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Agreed that we saw the end of EQNext coming for a while now. I also agree with you that they are just going in to maintenace mode with EQ1 and EQ2. Especially from my experience with what is going on (or not going on) there. ❓ 😥
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Mizgamer62
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From what I see in EQ2, it has felt like maintenance mode (and poorly done at that) for a while now. I have honestly felt for the first time that the game will be sunseted sooner rather than later unless a miracle occurs.
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Feldon
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If we could just get some resources back. EQ2 has been starved for resources for years.
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Malade
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I’m not sure I believe that when we got a ton of strange new items in ToT, deity tithe and infusion for instance. Those systems were completely unnecessary and probably took a lot of Dev resources. Why do that instead of other things if you are starved?
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Mizgamer62
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You can have all the resources in the world at your disposal, but it won’t do you any good if you continually mismanage them.
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Occam
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The tithe and infusion systems were a big miss, but at least it shows the devs are trying. If they don’t try new, interesting ideas, EQ2 will end up as just another WoW clone.
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Feldon
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The devs are still busting their ass working on a Game Update this spring and an expansion this fall. But imagine how much bigger it could be with more devs!
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Mizgamer62
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I would love to see them add some resources back to EQ2. It has been my favorite game for years. I just don’t feel very optimistic right now.
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Democyde
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It’s hard to feel optimistic when you’re seeing services shuttered. But DB is cutting unproductive dead weight, which is exactly what EQN and the EQ2pvp servers were This means a renewed focus on fundamentals and a strengthening of the core franchise.
If EQ2 was losing money, have no doubt that the servers would shutter. But they’re not, because it’s not.
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Katz
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It’s probably totally unrealistic but I would love to see Everquest II go to a more modern game engine moving areas, all the old quests, and most everything to the new game engine. Something that would play well with most computers and open up the opportunity for new game features.
Of course I would want all my houses, furniture, pets, mounts, etc. to move to the new one.
Not a realistic wish but I do love my Everquest II.
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rexxor
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Let’s hope they do the right thing, and put the resources back into their Cash Cow that built them instead of squandering their resources on something else.
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Nicolos
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So into EQ1 then? Because let’s face it, EQ2 was pretty much a flop out of the gate. It redeem itself there in the middle but it’s been on a steady decline for 5 years or more. The resources they keep after they lay the bulk off will be heading over to the zombie section of the studio.
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Noctew
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So that’s what Holly has been up to in tha past months…we didn’t hear much from her except for that one Producer’s Letter announing the pending announcement of the Spring Update. So…she’s now producing three titles or has she movet to Landmark exclusively?
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Pipsissiwa
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Not a big surprise – but very sad for those looking forward to it. I genuinely feel for them & their disappointment.
However, I was not one of those – the graphical style and apparent lack of Ratonga had me firmly counted out. I admit that I am kinda relieved that I won’t have to worry about it’s dreadful Disneyfied version of Norrath taking people from EQ2 any more (not that I know anyone who was planning on trying it – they all seem to feel the same as me).
It would be nice if we can get some more love & attention for EQ2 out of this, but sadly I doubt it.
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Feldon
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When players started designing with Landmark’s tools, they immediately found glitches and unexpected behavior. Players were able to create incredibly realistic, curved and smooth surfaces using subvoxel manipulation.
The Disney art style was targeting simplistic buildings that the devs assumed people would make, not the truly awesome buildings players ended up creating. So the character design would have needed a revision to match the style of the cities.
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Pipsissiwa
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And the lack of Ratonga?
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Chris
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I walked away from all things Everquest a while ago. So sick of the way things have been run by SOE/DBG, so much wasted money over the years. Looking at Pantheon as the true Next Everquest.
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Carnifex
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Here here! I have high hopes for Pantheon myself, and I think killing EQ Next was a good call, as the graphics alone made it look like the game was targeted at three year olds. Hopefully both EQ one and two get some much needed funds put back where they belong, into the products that create revenue.
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GriffonLady
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/snortlaughsnortlaug I don’t play this game, but I take every opportunity to make my opinion known on it’s fan sites cause I’m awesome like that… /snortlaughsnortlaughsnortlaugh
Now I gotta go ask my mom for more hotpockets.
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Momster
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Yes, but Brad McQuaid is involved with Pantheon. Not sure if that’s a good thing. . .
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Tarb
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Same here, I played EQ since the Kunark expansion in 2000 and EQ2 from launch on and off until the Rum Cellar announcement. Im done for good and will be in Black Desert until Pantheon comes out. Graphics don’t make a game but the Disney art style turned myself and so many other off from the get go. I agree they will put Minimal if any resources back into EQ or EQ2. The only thing that would bring me back to EQ is a full reskin or new engine and we all know that wont happen.
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Mermut
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Reading between the lines in the interview, I’m hearing ‘no new EQ games’… all the focus that was talked about was xbox and zombies 🙁
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Heinzy
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In a way, they have acted on Vavle’s fears of HalfLife3 not living up to expectations.
Can you imagine how much us EQ vets would have torn EQN apart 🙂 hehe
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Anaogi
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Talk about mercy killings. Wonder what else is getting the axe…
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Runswithscissors
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This company made a tragic mistake. They should have thrown money at it. Takes money to make money! EQN had the potential to be the biggest MMO in history (well beyond WoW). This is exactly what I’ve come to expect from this company though.
Let’s hope they sell the Everquest franchise to a company that actually realizes what a “Black Desert Online” version of EQ3 should/could be. It deserves more, so do we.
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Feldon
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They threw money at it. They threw EverQuest’s money at it. They threw EverQuest II’s money at it. It still wasn’t enough.
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madrat
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Hopefully now that the money is not being stripped from EQ2, they will reinvest it back into EQ2. This last expansion, well I will say it a tad bit small, I expected a lot more for the money I paid.
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Mizgamer62
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^^^ Ditto
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Pipsissiwa
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I’d argue that it doesn’t take money to make money – it takes talent, patience and a lot of hard work. Otherwise there would be no Indie Devs (like me).
Throwing money at a problem rarely works in isolation. Other resources, like enough quality devs & good management (who actually know what they are doing) are needed too – something SOE & now DBG seem to have overlooked.
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Mizgamer62
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^^^ This
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GriffonLady
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:\ This is looking more and more like what I feared would happen when SOE was sold. Milking it for all it’s worth, put as little into it as possible, let it die, and sell the parts. /..\
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AJ
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Yes, I am truly hoping as well that another company, a REAL gaming company purchases the franchise and then makes EQ3 all it really could be!
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Kruzzen
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Knew this was coming for some time. the writing was on the wall, now it has been cemented. wish they could take some of the ideas though from it and update current games.
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Filly67
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I would be surprised by anyone being surprised by this. I didn’t need a “letter” to announce this, it’s basically been known for two years.
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Fire
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Bring the ideas (like emergent AI) from EQN to EQ1 and EQ2.
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Wilhelm Arcturus
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I hate to see Holly Longdale side-tracked away from Norrath and into Landmark. That is a real blow.
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Evrett
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So I was under the impression the whole point of landmark was to use people power to develop assets for EQnext. With EqNext dead ..what is the purpose of landmark?
Sorry if this is a newb question..I havnt been following closely since eq2 got sold
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Feldon
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Excellent question. Now you can build buildings for a game that will never ship.
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madrat
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They said they are keeping Landmark going, not sure why. I guess to avoid having to pay those folks back who bought into the promise of you test this out to help make eqnext better? Kind of seams counter productive to have landmark.
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GriffonLady
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Decorating is a viable playstyle in EQ2. Not all of us are hell bent on killing things to get gear that will be obsolete in a year. =P
Housing is forever!
>.> I never liked Landmark though. Too much digging and chopping, not enough building…. that and if you have a crazy life that keeps you from logging in you risk your house getting dismantled and sent to you in pieces while someone takes your plot… or worse, a plot close enough that the buffer zone makes the spot you liked unclaimable. >.<
It's alright for dedicated (or house bound) people who don't get deprived of free time or internet. /..\ I can't wait till I retire. (just hope I have enough stashed away to keep playing games… and keep an up-to-date computer…)
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Tarb
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I assume they are doing this to attempt to appease a few of the people who paid for alpha, other than that, Landmark is completely pointless.
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GriffonLady
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Only pointless if you are not creative or into decorating (or if you are creative and love decorating, but are not into endless digging dirt and chopping wood…)
Believe it or not, there are people in the world that are different from you and like different things. Aside from selling expansions and subscriptions, where do you think most of EQ2’s income has been coming from? I’ll give you a hint. There is a reason most of the marketplace consists of furniture.
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Pink Poodle
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I kinda mad, but eh, maybe someday there will be another entry in the franchise.
Look at how long it took for Kid Icarus to get a third game.
I just hope the current games don’t go to ass.
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Eschia
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I think the server setup for Landmark needs to be changed to a Minecraft style setup where you download the server and set up your own, or play offline. I don’t really like how it is now where you have to pay rent for a plot of land or lose it. It puts me off from wanting to do anything. Its usually fine in a MMO like Vanguard, but this isn’t Vanguard. Its a building simulator, like Minecraft (but better). So it should be treated as such. Let us have the freedom to build large scale cities and keep them up for as long as we can host the data ourselves.
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Ohnix
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The only rent in LM is that you have to log in periodically. Doing so will reset the claim expiration and add a day to your claim expiration period. The claim times start at 30 days (I believe) and increase by a day each time you long in up to the maximum length of 90 days. This may change when they finish with the updates and claim wipes this spring. But we’ll see. I got my claim expiration time up to 90 days and it sure is nice not having to log in every couple days just to refresh and extend your claim time out. How demanding is logging in and taking a quick look – real easy and no need to pay with resources.
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Eschia
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That does seem better than what It used to be. 90 days ain’t that bad. I have a hard time remembering to keep logging into all the MMOs I play to get my daily tasks / rewards taken care of though, but thats my own fault.
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GriffonLady
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Ohix, some people have lives that are.. you know… different. Things you take for granted might not be so predictable for others.
I will NEVER understand why a change that can be made to make something more accessible for someone different is just blown off as “Hey, all you have to do is…” /blablabla
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Ohnix
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GriffonLady, I wans’t trying to state anything as a “blown off. I merely said that you could easily maintain claim expiration, and even extend it, just by logging in. I also clarified that you no longer have to pay for rent.
What I did not do was address any of the suggestions/requests – those still remain as valid now as when Eschia typed them in. So, please do not mistake my attempt to be helpful as an attempt to “blown away” other folks suggestions. tyvm.
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GriffonLady
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Yes please! 0.0 Unfortunately, any similar suggestion I made in the beta forums was stomped into the ground by people who wanted everything exactly the way it was in beta…. GODS forbid changes be made to open a game to a wider audience during beta!!!! -.-
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Eschia
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Yeah I run into those kind of people all the time and just about every MMO forum. They’re very conservative when it comes to change, even if its change for the better. Then they wonder why their favorite MMO is bleeding subscriptions until only the hardcore players remain, which is not sustainable for any MMO.
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thait
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Well i would have loved a new game, though i would also really love more assets being shifted to EQ2 as well.
Then again i also wish they would remake EQ1 with new graphics, just redo the game with new graphics, new UI that sort of thing. I loved EQ1 and would play it again if the graphics and such were brought up to current.
Still. They need to do something. There has to be some new MMO game that is developed and put out, not landmark, that will bring in both new customers and much more money. If they don’t they will end up slowly making less and less money till they are forced to shut down and sell the games to some other studio.
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chanmac
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The day is coming…
The are dropping support for EQ/II in general left and right… Its getting scary.
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Ohnix
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sorry but a general question is:
If you had a dollar to spend and had two options of customer support or game development – would you:
a.) develop the game at 100%
b.) devote 100% to customer support
OR
c.) split your focus and give 50% to each?
there is a limited amount of resources that DBG has on hand – and it looks like they’re trying to focus more on option ‘a.)’. Imho.
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Feldon
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You realize developers and support people is two different sets of employees, right? And if a product has no support, it will eventually cease to exist as customers abandon it.
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Mizgamer62
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^^^ This
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Occam
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I believe Ohnix was talking about overall resources. When all is said and done, the funding for both the dev and support teams comes from the same place. The fear is that the suits will look at the bottom line and make the producers choose to cut either development or support.
Let’s hope they decide to put some of the resources freed up by this cancellation back into the games that the company was founded on. 😐
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Middlefinger
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To DBG a big F U.thanks for the false hopes and waste of time.don’t care if this gets blocked bit it’s the truth.would guarantee that if we could thumbs up this it would prove it.bye everquest2
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DarkSkyViking
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So incredibly disappointed. What a waste of resources.
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Quelaag
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I’m sure all four people left playing Landmark are super excited about the launch date. I actually really can’t imagine why anyone would play Landmark over Minecraft at this point.
I can’t imagine why anyone would play H1Z1 over Rust either, but some people like it more I guess. I unfortunately don’t see a bright future for Daybreak, I just hope EverQuest has a happy ending somehow.
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Arazons
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Lmao thats exactly what I was thinking
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AJ
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They have done ANOTHER server reset of Landmark and now this time all the resources and extras that I PAID FOR WITH REAL $$$ are gone…..talk about steal and run….thanks DBG ❓ 👿 👿 👿
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Feldon
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Watching the Landmark forums has been like watching a slow motion trainwreck. I’ve never seen so many angry customers.
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Cyliena
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Bets on a MOBA based in Norrath being announced within the next 1-2 years?
While I’m sad to hear about EQNext, it’s really no shock to anyone that it was dead in the water. Parting ways with Storybricks was its deathknell imo.
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Anaogi
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MOBAs go bust six months later.
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Quelaag
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The MOBA genre is far too saturated, it wouldn’t be a good idea for Daybreak of all developers to attempt to get in at this point. Then again people said that about survival games as well, and while they aren’t doing great they had one of the bigger games before they split the player base for no reason.
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Arazons
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I am not sure why people are so mis-informed on the Storybricks situation. SOE/DBG got what they needed from Storybricks, a functional prototype that they were to build upon themselves. They contracted with Storybricks for their input and that prototype, they got it and the business partnership ended there. The AI was still a part of what was supposed to be Next.
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EverQuest Next and the End of the Classic MMORPG | The Ancient Gaming Noob
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[…] EQ2 Wire […]
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alan
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What a waste of time..
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Moose
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Id be less annoyed if Landmark goes Minecraft where I can run it on my home server and just buy additional licenses for others in my home that want to play on it.
Looks like I pissed away 75.00 when they started the Landmark/Eqnext debacle!
Oh well
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Melanore
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I grab a EQL pioneer pack when they announced that it was like a tool that would help them to develop EQN. So I was thinking that by doing this, I was supporting the dev team. Looking at this cancellation, I claimed my money back. I don’t have any intention to play EQL, this empty shell. To me, EQL is just useless right now. I never considered this building tool as a real game.
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FutureQuest - FacePalm Raid Alliance
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[…] franchise might not see the light of day. If you’ve not seen the news, here is a link to the EQ2Wire article. Now, with the reduced funding that EQ2 seems to be suffering from, the question is where do we […]
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Arazons
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The worst part about this is people are blind to the fact that no matter how much resources and money they pour into EQ2, the game is dying. Sure it may have been in part due to the shrinking expansion syndrome. But the fact still remains that it is dying because people have left and will still continue to leave. EQ2 was never a blockbuster and the more money spent on it will not make the population suddenly explode, 12 years after its best chance it being “the” MMO to play. We will be down to 4 servers for EQ2 here shortly. How long before you think that is 3 or 2 or 1 server. The writing is on the wall, too long have they let buggy code remain, let business decisions rule development processes and alienated their player base. EQ1 and EQ2 are and have been on life support for some time now.
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Mizgamer62
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^^^ This ^^^ Excellent summation of the state of EQ2!!!
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Feldon
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I think you meant to say:
No matter how much resources they siphoned off EQ2 to try to make EQN, shrinking the team to 1/4 the size of the team that shipped Rise of Kunark, they still produce an expansion and a spring update every year. Imagine what they could do with more resources.
EQ and EQ2 made and continue to make more money than most people realize. Enough to support themselves AND the Agency, FreeRealms, EQN, need I go on? How do people think tens of millions of dollars of development for those three bombs was paid for over 10 years? The tooth fairy?
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Arazons
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There was a single reason that they shrunk the teams, player population and thus subscriber numbers drop regardless of the size of expansion. Teams shrink when games go into maintenance mode. Staffing a RoK size team for the last 8 years would not have, imo, caused any growth in the EQ2 in any way shape or form. We would still have population deflation regardless of the amount of content being released. Game age is a contributing factor, new MMO’s competing for players, the list goes on, you know all this already Fel.
With that said, I do feel the game population dropping out would have gone A LOT slower, had there been more meat in the expansions. But there were also a lot of other poor decisions made along the way too in regards to development.
Regardless of the issues, surrounding it, and regardless of the fact that their sheets are still in the black (By how much is a matter of perspective and opinion), the state of the game is a mess.
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Noctew
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Well, modernizing the engine might have helped some. ImagoQuem had attempted to update the graphics engine a few years ago, and I am sure the work done especially on shaders helped to make to make new zones look much better in the past few years, but in the end updating all the assets already in the game turned out to be too much work for one lone graphics coder and much was scrapped.
Yes, the game population would probably still be to small to warrant a Kunark sized team now, but two or three resources more could make all the difference now. All quest design is done by, what, two and a half designers now…two designers more and we could at least have long heritage questlines or updated (instead of rehashed) older zones again, like Nek3 or Runnyeye2.
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Danny
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I really, really hope that either a) we still eventually get some new continuation of EQ, and/or b) substantial resources are allocated to EQ/EQ2 and they become relevant again.
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Tabri
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Goodbye Disneyland game with the Everquest name stamped on it. So glad it was cancelled.
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Crash
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Instead of zombies, how bout new clients for eq1 and eq2? I liked it when Ultima Online did it.
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whilhelmina
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I wondered if EQN had finally died its expected death and find out that it was just cancelled. That was expected.
I hope that you’ll get some of the staff back. EQ2 was a great game (and EQ too) and I hope it’ll survive for a long time.
*hugs folk*
I miss you all. May Innoruuk bless you! (well, Teir’Dals, others don’t matter *snickers*)
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Kaisk
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I don’t see good things happening for EQ or EQ2, but that’s probably the pessimist in me talking.
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Oxymorphone
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Zombies are dead too. Pack your bags people, only the gullible are still around here. Save yourself some monies !
Especially those from the ‘gear eye’ company. Nothing ever good comes from companies that utilize such imagery.
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