I'll be responding till 5pm.

So there are a lot of mixed feelings going on in this subreddit right now, and I wanted to see if I could properly explain why I'm excited. This is of course looking at all the mechanics with optimism and not putting the expectations of the genre behind it.

First off, and I know this might be tough but it's definitely not a cheap jab, forget about this being EQ Classic and try to imagine what it would take to create a genre changing game. EQ1 changed the gaming industry and defined it. This time they are trying to do no less than change the industry once again. We have to start with a clean slate and see the game for what it is, and not for what it isn't. Second, for the time being let's replace MMORPG with MMOG. This is another huge step away from what we were expecting but it might help us to change our expectations. This isn't a bad thing, it's just a different game and so far undefined. A lot of hurt feelings here seem to surround themselves around these concepts. If we can put those aside and look at the game honestly, we'll see some great things. This is EQ Next, not EQ3

:::::::::Features/Debates:::::::

• Multiclassing: To some extent, we will be able to customize our characters and play exactly what we can imagine. For the sake of this post let's assume the best possible outcome. A game where we play what we want and the classes don't simply become a mesh of GW2 style optimized healer/tanks. In an interview, when asked about game balance they said “We’re not worried about balance. We’re worried about fun.” From a personal standpoint, this is amazing. I don't like starting over with alts, and in a world built like this, the single class model doesn't hold up as strong. When there is so much invested in the NPCs, how they feel about you and the world in general, it will be nice to start over as a different class without starting over on the rest of it. If the complaint is over anything other than the ability to change your class, save it until we have more details.

• Voxels: This is a feature most of us like anyway so no need to get too far into it, but combined with the procedural generated content in the world below we have unlimited content. It will change from day to day and there will be unlimited bits to explore. If you go back and watch the heroic walking video, just imagine diving straight down at any point and just digging. You're telling me that I have an entire game world... and that at any point I can just start digging down to unlimited content. How can you not love that.

• Emergent AI: If this works as promised, we'll have factions of bad guys in constant struggle with the rest of the world. The lines of struggle edging back and forth, and reacting to our actions. Combine that with their notion of questing, when they mentioned the choice of helping the orcs or the villagers. We have the potential for incredible faction on faction warfare. Team evil rallying to increase the threat of orc invasion on all side while putting pressure to the good guys. The thought of open world PVP in this kind of environment sounds fantastic.

• No Levels: We'll have skills in varying areas that will work as our form of linear progression but it also means that the game will be the game. It won't be the grind, the rush to max level will be a thing of the past. I'll get to log on each day and play the way I want to. The areas shouldn't be as level restricted, and the days of the quest hub should be gone. I can log on and just start digging until I find something to explore. I can push the camps against the orcs, or rally to build that city. Open World PVP can be reborn again because we won't all just be sitting in city hubs or designated leveling areas. I can sit stealthed along a road waiting for players to try to push back the orcs before leaping out unsuspectingly. There is so much potential when we take away levels and combine it with multiclassing's ability to "downlevel", the world literally opens up.

• Combat: Man this one is touchy. The plan and simple is people don't seem to like it. Full disclosure, I don't mind it at all. It could be GW2, it could be Diablo, or it could be it's own thing entirely. We can sit here and take what we saw as an easy and disgusting dust fest that's going to ruin our sense of community but I'm going to remain optimistic for some level of difficulty and grouping requirement. I can't imagine an everquest where content was completely soloable, and I can smash through it all mindlessly. So instead I am being reserved. One thing I will say is that this action based gameplay will bring more players. That means more players for me to gank by the road side. It's not what I expected, but it's not bad by itself. I'm definitely going to turn some special effects down but meh'. However it works out, I won't let this part of the game be something that effects my ability to build that community feeling I want. I might have to work harder because grouping might not be mandatory for every action but I will carve out my little home in Norrath.

• Cartoony Graphics: I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a complaint. The graphics of any game should be secondary to the gameplay. Dark and gritty would be nice but cartoony doesn't make it bad, and it makes it better if it causes it to run (and look better) on lower end PCs. There also seems to be quite a bit of customization and from the look of some of the bad guys, my character will be able to be very dark and gritty if I make it so. Then I can sit by the roadside and gank the oversized kittens in their WoW-Blue Shoulderpads.

• Comparative Games: The threads are full of people comparing the various features, and it's fair because they mentioned on the stream that this game was a molding of many games and their great features. We all see minecraft. We all see aspects of GW2, and Rift and the list goes on. However I present one you might not have thought of. Planetside 2. A world of constantly changing boundaries and territories with factions constantly warring on all sides. That's what I see when I look at the combination of Emergent AI, Action Combat, and the potential for Open World PVP. We might not be fighting over Qeynos, but there will definitely be patches of dirt that are going to be constantly contested. If those permanent world changes are contestable, and have the potential for failure, we might see an entirely different type of game here.

• Why you fail the genre when you bitch: Let's save the downvote generator part of my comment for last. This is the industry trying to change. This is the industry trying to adapt. Every person who bitches about a tech demo of the game is actively voicing an opinion that will prevent future developers from taking this kind of risk in the future. I don't care if you only dislike small portions of the game, but comparing it to your misguided expectations and voicing your opinion in a public forum you are actively discouraging game developers to try new things. We need this. We spent the last 5-6 years complaining that the genre isn't changing and a handful of you can't wait to bash the industries first real attempt at innovation. Fuck you.

TLDR; This isn't the game we expected which means it's also not the game we wanted. However this is the game that I didn't know I wanted and I've very excited about the prospect.

-----------EDIT------------

Sources

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/02/soe-live-2013-everquest-next-explained/

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/news/gameId/952/showArticle/28244

New Information

http://www.eqnextfans.com/news/25309-curse-interviews-dave-georgeson-at-soe-live

From the sound of it (just past the 7 minute mark), they are going to avoid instances. If there were instances he would have referenced actual raid content as it's been defined by the genre. Instead we have difficult content throughout the world that we'll have to team up to take on. This also gives a nod to the game/combat having a difficulty in general and not being a solo fest :-D

...

First, thanks for everything so far! We appreciate the dialogue, discussion and suggestions more than we'll ever be able to express.

We'll probably be a little slow and quiet for the next few days, just recovering from SOE Live, improving the website/beta applications, getting some new features into the app, planning for Gamescom and, oh yeah, actually making the game. :)

Don't let my account fool you - it's an EQNext-specific alt, but I've been on reddit for over five years and I'm very passionate about it and this sub. I'll be here every day, lurking at the very least.

Two things I wanted to point out, because I'm super excited:

1. We've built a reddit feature directly into the front page of EverQuestNext.com, so we can highlight interesting conversations here. There's an old one towards the bottom currently - but we'll be using it more as we go.

It's mostly just the ability to link to a post (still trying to figure out how to get up/downvoting integrated), but that's how important we feel reddit can be. Expect good posts and discussions to get some extra love!

2) Round Table. We'll be discussing it in more detail soon - but I love the thread where you guys are cataloguing community questions. We're doing that internally as well, so that's going to be a massive help for us. We will be using community questions in the program, but probably not for the next few rounds, as we've all got terrifically hectic travel schedules (and so have planned out the next few questions in advance).

Project M was one of the most innovative ideas ever experimented with in the original EverQuest. Back in late 2001, a button was added to the character selection screen that allowed you to spawn as a random monster in a random zone, usually low to mid leveled. You couldn't communicate with anyone, including other monster player characters, but you could attack PCs/MPCs/NPCs. You could level up, but once you died, your monster was lost forever.

Of course, this had unintended consequences, particularly on PvE servers where it introduced an element of griefing and PvP that the developers had unintended. Hordes of MPCs were grouping up together to hunt down unsuspecting newbies. It was removed, deciding that they couldn't have this in their game.

I think coming into EverQuest Next, a game which already has "intelligent AI," Project M could be an awesome addition to the game.

Say there are orc camps that have been raiding nearby towns. Perhaps players could choose to be a monster on that day, allowing them to join the ranks of the orcs hellbent on raising the local villages.

Maybe even being a monster in a rallying call could be a possibility? For the example of the dragon besieging the castle, you could potentially be a part of the dragon army.

I think that Project M is a feature that was well received in EverQuest 1, but it was destined to not be able to work in that type of game in the end. Since there's such a different design philosophy going into EverQuest Next, with proper implementation Project M could be an awesome feature!

Hey everyone! I talked to Darrin the lead game designer for a bit at the pool party and wanted to share the info with everyone here. I do want to mention that I was slightly intoxicated (and still am) so forgive my brevity. Also I know a lot of this is already out there but some tidbits may still be unknown.

WORLD

• Seamless world - no zones

• The land mass shown was not Antonica, it was just a land mass. I asked if Kelethin existed and he shrugged as if he could not answer. BUT IF THEY HAVE CRUSHBONE (concept art) THEY MUST HAVE KELETHIN RIGHT?!

• I asked about the limitations I had read about with the Light Forge engine in regards to water (rivers) and square-ish maps, his response was that it was a heavily modified version so there will be fluids in the game.

• No oceans, 'yet'.

• There will not be 2 factions (ie alliance/horde), or 2 sides (evil/good).

CHARACTERS

• There will be 8 starting classes, the one you pick you basically get for free. The other classes you will be able collect. I am assuming these 8 will be a part of the 40 planned classes (more of which will be shown tomorrow in the classes panel). Their plan is to release new classes as the years progress. It was also mentioned that some classes will be extremely hard to obtain.

• No levels - referred to as `tiers', the 'zones' will be tiered with certain level mobs and usually will be higher tiered the deeper you go in that specific area. In order to tier up you will have to complete certain objectives; one example given is say completing a specific set of armor would tier you up.

• 8 max total abilities at any given time. 4 per weapon, and 4 per class. He mentioned something about all 8 being from weapons if you were say duel wielding, but I may have misunderstood him here.

• There is NO XP from mob killing, no grinding, etc etc. Essentially what we're looking at is a set of objectives and how we go about completing those objectives will be up to us. It was said that one may be able to tier up without even having to fight.

• RANGERS ARE A CONFIRMED CLASS

• Cannot progress both a paladin and a shadow knight at the same time. Basically you have to do bad things to get friendly with the SK people so you can up the SK skills, but you have to do good things to get in nice with the paladin folks to get trained in paladin things. You can however, do bad things and get the SK class, then redeem yourself and get the paladin class, but in doing so you may no longer be able to talk to the SK people and continue your progression with that class.

• I asked about death; they cannot talk about death. All he said was "it's cool and we think you'll like it".

ITEMS

• All items will be bind on equip (or pickup, not sure). He said that he loved the idea of non-bind weapons but they ruin the economy.

• the game will be heavily based on gear, he loves gear and loves the hunt for gear. One example he gave us is say you were a Rogue that wanted to get the wizard's teleport spell - well once you obtain the teleport spell and use it, you most likely would not have enough stamina/mana/whatever to do your backstab, so you would want to gear that class specifically for this task by obtaining a weapon that returned stamina/mana/whatever on teleport.

• Crafted items and dropped items (say from raids) will be of equal value many times. This is all dependent on the class, spec, etc though. He basically said there is a big emphasis on crafting and they want their goods to be competitive.

COMBAT

• NO AUTO ATTACK, I asked if was similar to NW's combat system and he said it was similar, but more advanced.

• The demo shown was more of a `tech demo' for the destructible environment. None of the NPCs were even pathing (the small ones were not even attacking back).

• BOWS are in the game (more on that tomorrow apparently).

MISC

• I asked if there was a large majority of the game that they were not showing us (maybe due to lack of polish etc etc) and he said yes.

• Crafting was compared to SWG, but better

• There are currently 70-90 devs (don't remember the exact number) on the dev team for EQN.

If you have any specific questions let me know and I'll try and get some more dev time before SoE live is over!

EDIT (things I am remembering):

• There will be phasing for certain parts of quests etc etc.

• I asked if any of the dungeons would be instanced and his response was 'sure'. The gist I got was that they have not settled on anything specific yet and are open to the options.

• undecided on player-player collision

• he is a min-maxer himself and is very excited about the class system

Basically I propose an idea that players shouldn`t recieve full world maps with every little detail put on it. Instead they should buy maps from NPC cartographers which would reveal parts of the world with more or less information depending on the price.

Or alternatively give an option to make your own maps while exploring and selling them later to other players. That would be really cool!

This would promote communication between players, immersion in the world and the world itself would feel much, much bigger than it actually is.

EDIT #2: After some friendly discussion I came to a conclusion that we need a map for the starting zone/zones so that there would not be a barrier of entry that`s too high for the average casual.

EDIT: Words.

I am dumbfounded by some of these posts. People wait for years for a game and then nerd rage over the keynote?

This was a high level overview on the general concept of the game. They showed almost nothing about anything. This is a multi-day event and you just watched the first 5%.

There was not a thing they could have said to impress you. That's your issue, not theirs, mine, or everyone else that's at least willing to hear them out over the course of the weekend.

They said that this game was different, that it would change mmo gaming the same way EQ Classic did. In that, they delivered. This is not a wow clone or like any other mmo out there. It's bold, it's different. Isn't that what we asked for? Maybe just hear them out.

I was thinking that having 1 type of death penalty is an old concept , with something like EQN they could do something very different. We know orcs like gold , so maybe when an orc kills you he steals all your gold. Maybe if a wolf kills you , you respawn with an injury that slows your movement. If a lich kills you a corpse run might be needed. By having multiple penalties they can scale difficulty or risk reward more as well. It would also let people choose the kind of penalty they receive in a way by letting them choose what areas and mobs they fight more often. I just think the whole 1 size fits all penalty for death is outdated and could be another thing they change with a next gen title.

I like the idea of increasing difficulty for travel during night. Maybe not for the whole cycle, but for part at least. Would be a cool way to encourage players to go to cities and/or their house.

edit

A quick little response to cover some of the comments/issues I saw pop up:

I don't think the day/night cycle should match with real time, not to mention I think that would be difficult to program 24 time zones into a game lol.

Someone made a comment about shady merchants coming out at night, and it reminded me that the devs actually said things like that would occur. With all the NPC's having their own schedules we can at least expect things to be different at night, but not sure how dangerous.

I do think the limit of vision is a bit ridiculous for the top-world, but should be expected for underground.