The Skinny on EverQuest Next Landmark

EverQuest Next Landmark is turning up the volume on player centric creation and exploration. Details emerge from the recent development panel here at SOE Live 2013.

EverQuest Next Landmark simply has to be one of the greatest suprises about SOE Live this year. The release is promised to be by the end of this year, and the game sets to combine creation hits like Minecraft and SecondLife with MMORPG resource gathering, sharing, and collaboration. 

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Today’s panel on EverQuest Next Landmark opened our eyes to the upcoming creation project that will coincide with Sony Online Entertainment’s newest EverQuest game. A gripe of mine about MMORPGs is the fact that creative collaboration is often quite limited. EverQuest Landmark is a social building world that lets players head out into a creative space built with Forgelight graphics and unprecendented voxel based creation and possibly export their creations into EverQuest Next

 

This isn’t just MineCraft

Minecraft is an amazing product, there is no reason to downplay it at all. In fact, multiple developers here at SOE Live have praised the game as a source of inspiration. It is easy to categorize EverQuest Landmark as an object building game but here is why it isn’t just that.

1. EQN-Landmark is an open world with very strict limitations. This isn’t your “server” based creation game. 

2. EQN-Landmark creation is exported as a template. These templates are the creation itself but all creations will require resources in order to build. Go out and gather obsidian or wood for your creation.

3. EQN-Landmark is a social world. You can find friends, build with them, set permissions and, if you decide to sell it, set profit standards for you and your groups.

EverQuest Next Landmark: Unbridled Creations

The team is setting up intricate tools for editing the world as seen by the keynote videos presented yesterday. Players of the game are using the same tools the development team uses when creating the world. You can start off with box based voxels, chip them away with smaller vectors, and even smooth them out to create unique looking shapes and a high quality looking world. 

After this, players can use a material painter to further customize their builds. These builds have been quoted to not be your 10×10 building space but plot sizes have not been stated. The game will have to make money, perhaps they will sell larger plot sizes or sell boosts for resource gain but so far, nothing has been mentioned.

EverQuest Next Landmark is Continent Based Creation

With confirmation from Rosie Rappaport, senior art designer on EverQuest NextLandmark will be seamless on the level of continents. Discussed within the panel, each continent will limit how many plots can be staked on them; keeping forests, areas to explore, and plenty of materials to harvest. 

Continents will have themes to them. While some might stick with the Norrathian approach, others can venture off to continents of sci-fi creations, real world replications, or even far out contemporary approaches. Players can tag their builds within themes to allow for easy search out in the world.  

EverQuest Next Landmark is Social!

The new medium of near seamless voxel based creation and philosophy behind the game is centralized around a simply yet powerful concept: inspiration.

Our goal and guiding principal principle is to provide our players with the ability to have an immediate reaction to what they create. – Jeff Butler  SOE Live 2013


The continued mantra is creativity through experimentation with an approach towards reaching critical mass and inclusivity. The game will simply grow with the more that play it and with that EverQuest Next Landmark will have no barrier to entry. 

Like the long-lost SecondLife, players will be able to group together and set permissions on claims that they hold. This allows guilds to create cities, or two friends to play around with creating mines or their own Tower of Babel, hopefully without the gravitational results.

Landmark is social, players can follow other’s and receive notifications, which they can set up, to remind them of new builds around the world. Flaunted by the development team is the ability to take the experience of exploring the world into the realm of mobile. At work? Not a problem! Queue up the build on your phone and travel to it when you get home. 

Don’t worry about trolls–the world will be monitored and put anti-grief protection in the hands of the players.

See a giant sexual organ? Report it! The game will feature a full time customer service team and give players the ability to rate others, report others, and report any conspicuous builds.

There is still tons of info coming forward about EverQuest Next Landmark and I am more than certain we will see more footage in the near future as the team prepares for a Winter release. I am quite intrigued and these hands are ready to get dirty with some world building. Do you plan to download and play the game? Do you think this can be the new MineCraft?

Don’t forget, Max and I are live here in Vegas to bring you the latest SOELive news. Have a question? Follow us on Twitter @Chad_Albritton@MaxPlosions.


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Author
Chad "Chuina" Albritton
Communications and Media Studies graduate from Stetson University with a fascination towards virtual escapism.