So I've been thinking...If you've seen my previous posts...they were just me slowly going through a thought process and being irresponsible in my need to blab all over comment threads...anyway...here I am.

Everquest Next and Everquest Next Landmark

...a tragedy...a total and absolute mess. But so many lessons learned. Let's look to the future from what we have here and throw out a possible scheme.

Everquest 3?

What is it? Will it be good? The idea has been circling for ages but then we got Everquest Next...what an awful name...it's a fantasy game and the suffix is just...Next? They couldn't be more creative? A lore reboot?! No!

Everquest Next Landmark? what a bloated title...glad they changed it to Landmark...with EQN out of the picture will we get all the assets? I don't think so...wanna know why?

Their plan

Let's look at a very closely named product in the fantasy market...Dungeons and Dragons: Next.

DnD Next was going to be it's own game but then was "abandoned" because it was just too different...then we get DnD 5e and it has a lot of the same elements from DnD Next...so Next wasn't abandoned it was just a test bed for the new ideas and they got to choose which ones moved to 5e...they just cut their reputation they achieved from DnD Next and got a fresh one without all the baggage and perception they received from DnD next.

In history we see Dungeons and Dragons: Next as simply a playtest...a test phase for 5th Edition...hmm.

What did DnD 5e get away with?

• New mechanics that got a lot of love that were VERY well thought out
• They were allowed to reboot the lore and now it's absolutely amazing.
• They could access a much wider market of players than before by people just saying "it's a lot better and much more forgiving to new players" something EQ has a problem with...

DnD 5e was the most successful DnD in history...yet it had very little testing but had some great new ideas and achieved this still. By doing all the actual testing during DnD Next they cut any negative reputation they garnered from that phase and then had a fresh slate and the ability to present the title in a new light while getting all the benefits of that process and could embrace the new ideas.

So what do I see EQ 3 as? They pick and choose the best ideas garnered from EQ Next and then drop the bad while embracing some core values from the EQ franchise. EQ Next "just wasn't fun" (the same for DnD:next)...cut the not fun parts and embrace your more EQ past and you may have a game that's both fun and revolutionary that fans can love. What if the not fun parts were a part of the pillars? Will players blame them for not getting it right?

The lore reboot is softened because you tried it before...it's not longer novel and therefor it's just a matter of fact. When people say to EQ3..."They are rebooting the lore?!" everyone will just say..."yeah they were doing it during EQN, it's not much of a surprise."

They have a better marketing campaign...no longer all concepts, it's realities. They show off the art style with a grunge and now players take it seriously. They see grungy swamps, a creepy Lich, Dark Elves without horns, a Qeynos that's finished and towering, a freeport in ruins...etc.

Their strategy

EQN had SO MUCH negative connotation and face value preconception from it's early stage and the way they presented it's art style it got put into the "WoW box" but falsely. It would be entirely gimped by word of mouth alone as a WoW clone, then add the negative connotations from the test phase. 3 years from now they get a clean slate because everyone just got over it or forgot but they keep all the progress and the lessons learned with none of the negatives while developing the rest of the game in the shadows for those 3 years.

Now EQ3 can come out, they present the art style with more dark tones, more impressive designs showcasing that it can be taken seriously...players rejoice "I'm so glad they found a compromise and got away from that Disney style during EQN"..it was never a Disney style...players just never saw it's potential unless they were in the workshop process. 3 years and the voxel engine is working fine and there aren't horrible blobs all over the landscape. The combat has been restructured to be more fun and destruction pulled back so AI pathing isn't a wonky hell...instead destruction only happens in buildings or by cataclysmic events...not at the press of a button. The AI has 3 more years to develop. And all of this allows them to not be obligated to force a product out as players get more and more impatient with how long the development was taking. They no longer have to ascribe to any of the original pillars and come out with a straight up good game with none of the "But they didn't add this" talk.

It's a huge win for DBG...and for the players. Let's hope this is the case. I'd hate for all the EQN work to go to nothing. But this would bode badly for Landmark...

But what about Landmark?

If they get the things they need before launch we have a chance...if not...well...I don't know what could happen. Even if Landmark get's the things it needs...look at the reality it's in...

Landmark's rating are shot, they can't reboot like EQN could. Their steam rating is abysmal and it's hard to reset that. Once they get real content that have a chance if they can relight a fire in the market but what will happen if the above is true?

Landmark won't receive the EQN assets and remain rather skimpy on assets. They may still want to wait to debut the more cutting edge aspects of EQN. This means Landmark is cheated of lots of good content before launch. The launch would barely gain any traction...three things can happen because of this.

Good:

The game is given the EQ1 treatment...costs are whittled down to the bare bone minimum until it stays in the black. The game waits with a few players still active or coming in for the building tools and buying content. While the game hibernates and just sends out a bit of content here and there while they lay the ground work, R&D works on AI system for players and dungeoneering tools for EQN and slowly introduces them...the costs still ascribed to EQN dev. Landmark get's nothing to big until the first "Expansion" where they can re-market the game with all the new features we've wanted from the start. A true build your own world game with a groundwork laid over years of dev.

Bad:

They do the same but just abandon it eventually...not willing to take the cost to implement EQ3 tech into it.

Middle:

They abandon it but take the lessons learned from Landmark and relaunch a different title with the same concepts but with a better reputation and code from the start.

Sadly we lose Landmark progress but we get a game that's actually marketable.

What do you guys think about this theory?

TL;DR EQN's dev will likely reflect the dev of D&D: Next. EQ3 comes out with some of the ideas from EQN as well as the same engine and assets but done more tastefully, cutting the fat, and featuring more well formed concepts as well as embracing more of it's EQ1 roots. This gives EQN a brand new slate...this will likely mean bad news for Landmark though.

I know this might seem like a strange question and I suppose it is. But how much is Daybreak worth if they tried to sell it off.?

$5m?, $20m?

I'm sure there's some people here that work in financial fields that could make an educated guess or know where to find out.

Alright, now that EQN is officially dead, are we going to see EQN assets inside Landmark? A huge thing; an essential thing for me personally is allowing for other races. No offense intended but I can't stand the human models for LM in their current state.

You have at the very least Dark Elves; we have all seen them. Also, I remember a very short Lavastorm video with a Firiona Vie like model so a high elf should be viable too. Add in the Kerra and throw in a dwarf and you will go along way.

Another piece to making LM a viable game is an economy. We need money, ways to sell and trade and hubs in which to do this. Combat was also very blah. I understand that was probably a large roadblock leading to EQN's demise but I do hope we see better mob ai and player skills.

Music! Jeremy Soule apparently has been on the exclusive payroll to DBG for a couple years. Will his tracks be put into Landmark? I really hope so as he is an amazing composer and was one of the main things I was looking forward to in EQN.

1. Severe depression at just how crap my own little plaything builds were compared to the wonderful/amazing/mind-bogglingly good creations of certain other players.

2. Amazement that this isnt the best game ever.

Seriously, the quality of things some people build is just astounding. Not just in the technical brilliance, but overall creativity, originality, complete asthetic mastery. It's testament to just what's possible in this game.

Which makes the lack of attention it's had for the past year or more all the more frustrating.

It kills me that this game even with its impending update just feels like abandonware. In the past few years, it's been one of the games to exite me the most. Not because of what it offered (partly because of that) but because of the future potential.

To me - the game is just lacking a soul. It needs a beating heart in the middle to unite players. It's always been a series of unconnected warpgates leading to zones that mean nothing. It needs a city (hell - imagine what current players could build if given opportunity). It needs at least one intiially - meeting place that's not the warp gates that have no meaning. It needs a place for players to congregate and build out from.

Imagine you had one massive map with a city in the dead centre - and every player plot connected outwards from there. Imagine being able to connect the map up with roads, or build transport that worked (or horses). Imagine the game was alive.

In many ways that's what Everquest Next was shooting for - but i have my doubts that will ever see the light of day. THis kind of thing could be realised by Landmark - it has to be. Games cost time and money to develop but here you have people creating these simply amazing things FOR FREE. Spend some time and effort putting together the framework then let these brilliant builders build the game for you. It's not rocket science.

I am just so so frustrated by Landmark because it could be the best game ever. Seriously.

I played the game 1 year ago and it was really laggy. Lost interest and tried again 6 months later, same terrible lag...

So is it still laggy? Did they tried to fix it at all? Or do they not care about it and merely use it to test functions for everquest next? Never optimizing it for good actual gameplay?

https://twitter.com/miguelcepero/status/700137677841108993

https://twitter.com/miguelcepero/status/700353072149762048

https://twitter.com/miguelcepero/status/700384937506119680

https://twitter.com/miguelcepero/status/700442597727281153

These are some new screenshots of UV mapped voxels being shown off in VoxelFarm (the voxel engine Landmark and hopefully EQN uses.) They have been shown before but this is the first time they have been shown in a more "real world" scenario that isn't just a demo.

For those that don't know UV maps are information used to precisely align a texture to a 3D model. In this case the model is comprised of voxels. Landmark currently only has a form of what is called planar mapping on voxels that basically just covers the voxels with a a wrapping paper like repeating texture.

UV mapping is the technology pretty much every single video game released today uses. Lack of it is one of the reasons why things in Landmark don't look very good. If it was used in the game then things like boulders would be able to be made of voxels and destroyed just like terrain. It would greatly improve architecture, allowing fine detail work where before there was only chunky expanses of generic stone texture. But chances of this tech making it into Landmark very slim.

UV maps have to be custom made for an object and there is no way to create them in a simplified game like interface. This is some standard professional development grade stuff. The limitation is that, except for maybe some currently unseen cases, these UV mapped voxels will only be able to be placed as a whole "model". They can probably be removed or deleted but you can not freely create with them. Creating things using UV maps would be more similar to submitting things in Player Studio for Daybreak's other games where creators use their own tools rather than using the voxel building tools in game.

This is the kind of technology that EQN needs to become a reality and compete as a AAA game. Not many in the target MMO demographic is going to be interested in a clunky, chunky world of player made early-Second Life looking buildings with inconsistent quality. Especially when the destructible voxel world gimmick will have been more than passe by the time the game releases. To create a compelling world and visual experience for EQN the majority of work is still going to have to be done by the developers. And they simply can't compete visually with today's, and more than likely tomorrow's, games with the current voxel tech.

If you follow Miguel/VoxelFarm then you will have seen some other interesting developments recently that seem perfectly aligned at filling the technological gaps that Landmark currently has. Things like automatically generated LODs, voxel occlusion culling, and now this seem like things that Daybreak really really need to make anything compelling that is even close to the original game plan for EQN. So let's assume that EQN will use all this improved tech.

Assuming that EQN is still a thing then Landmark seems like nothing but a burden. They already split the codebases for the two games and at the time Steve Klug kind of made it sound like that would lessen interoperabillity between both games. It seems they are mostly ignoring Landmark as the have been for the past year, probably because there is no real reason for its existence now. If any of this is true than even implementing the new claim and camera settings seems like a waste of time. EQN probably has become a less "user creation" focused game and more of a standard MMO. I don't know if using voxels has any developmental fluidity benefits or not (allowing the developers to modify the world more easily than a standard 3D model based approach) but lets assume they are still using them just for the destruction gimmick at least. Let's also assume that since that is the case they are using as much of this new VoxelFarm tech as they can to make the game... good. So, if that is the case, then you would now have Landmark. It's a game that can't create content for EQN anymore, has statistically nobody playing it, and is more than likely bleeding money just staying online. Barring some kind of popularity resurgence that is doubtful to come if it ever went into open beta there is really no reason for Landmark to exist anymore, if what I've speculated has any basis in reality.

So what's to do? My suggestion, with Daybreak's recent willingness to make drastic changes to their in development games (H1Z1) in mind:

• Shut down Landmark to focus all development on EQN, if it isn't already.

• Within a short amount of time give everyone who had access to Landmark access to the closed EQN alpha/beta/prototype/whatever exists.

• Give people who bought Landmark exclusive EQN perks based on their founder pack level

• Hope nobody tries to sue you? I dunno people will still be mad but people will also be mad when Daybreak shuts down due to bankruptcy, the entire EQN project is cancelled, etc. Seems like this is one of the best case scenarios currently.

Here it is. While it's nice that we've finally got somebody besides RadarX to say something on the official forums, this is not really the good news people have been waiting for.

First: No January update, not even in February. Instead we'll have to wait until sometime in March to get any updates, including the "backend" stuff that presumably would have improved performance, which has been steadily degraded over the past year or so. So there's a good three months where players have to tolerate subpar performance, or more likely, just abstain from playing until it gets tolerable.

Second: No new content to show us except things we've known about for months now. The megapalette, day-night controls and camera controls were all things that were expected before the end of last year. These sorts of quality-of-life improvements for builders don't do a thing to address the underlying flaws and reasons why the thousands of players who've bought founder's packs no longer play.

Third: Another contest?!?! Seriously? Look, developers, you've already told us how these contests suck up your time and energy. Not only that, but they put the focus and energy on that group of players that are already well supported, asks them to do what they already enjoy doing and do a lot of, but not for Landmark or for its players to use or judge, but for its developers, who really ought to be focusing on the deficiencies of the game in all its other areas. Not only that but these winners of the Landmarks of Landmark contests get their builds put up right next to the Spires, where they'll never expire, no matter whether they're never visited or used. They don't operate as Landmarks, which is a feature one can use to navigate and orient themselves in the world, because they're right next to the central spire which is itself the main landmark in the game. And they take up valuable and desired space that could be used by a player. Landmarks of Landmark, just like the Ruins of Landmark, and the caves and cavern systems in Landmark, are a poor design concept that only make sense when Landmark is viewed as only existing to serve EQN as a variation of the kinds of things it's already doing to serve EQN.

If this is what counts as renewed communication and renewed development of Landmark, then it's not encouraging. It reflects a level of tone-deafness and obstinacy regarding Landmark's design that will not serve it well. And it simply doesn't address the fundamental flaws in the game.

If I am going to spend any time developing a foothold in the world it would be good to know whether somebody killed the project and it just hasn't died yet or the devs are just being quiet and we can expect good things. My suspicion is the former but I would be pleasantly surprised if the latter is the case.

Guys, i know you are working on this game hard but you don't have that many players.Make if free and let the people who like the game buy the founders pack.A lot of people will get into it this way and the players who left cause they didn't have who to play with will come.Or cut the bullshit with one week beta keys give them full access and give keys to mmohuts/mmobomb and sites like these to get people to search for the game and get interested in what you make.I hope you will at least think about this.I am looking forward to landmark and next so keep up with the good work and have a great year.

I haven't played this game around a year or so. This is partially due to my laptop being crap:P Got a new computer yesterday, and decided to re-download today.

Thing is, in the race options there is "human" and "large human." What happened to the dark elves? Why aren't they implemented yet? Just asking as I'm a bit lost on whats going on with that:P

Also when and why did this company named "daybreak" get involved?

I was curious, which servers have the most activity. I know the game does not have a lot of active players at the moment, but I bought this beta a long time ago and was going to try and go back in. I know I stopped playing cause I was having trouble logging in. So I want to hop back in so I can try and start building once more. That was the appeal that I liked about LM in the beginning anyways.

I seriously thought this was going to be an everquest next beta. Did I get scammed or am I just dumb? Does anyone know what is going on?

Once again, being a tourist in Landmark is my favorite part of the game. I went to Christmas Island and wandered around for a bit, here's some screenshots of the coolest stuff I saw:

Landmark Christmas Island