Recently, Sony Online Entertainment revealed details on their new MMORPG, Everquest Next. If anything, they seem to have at least demonstrated their intentions to do something different in the MMORPG genre. Now, before you roll your eyes, take a look at some of the features they've revealed so far:
-Fully destructible environment: With the new Forgelight Engine, you will be able to destroy anything in the surrounding environment. The two examples they showed were collapsing a bridge, dropping the enemies on it to their deaths, and the second showing a giant construct knocking down a castle. Of course, their are limits to this to prevent abuse; some parts of the environment, such as towns, are not destructible. Environments also 'regenerate' over time, therefore players can't end up destroying the world. The destructible environments also mean that you can dig down into caverns and dungeons to explore. By partnering with Nvidia and utilising Physx, they have an improved physics system, so you can toss enemies around like ragdolls. The physics system also adds to the 'weight' behind your attacks and stops them from feeling 'floaty'.
-Quests: Honestly, this sounded like an expanded upon version of Guild Wars 2's method of doing quests. If you see a problem or conflict, you go and solve it. None of this 'NPCs with ! over their head' business. Where they have expanded upon here is the fact that the player has an element of choice in who to help. If you see a band of orcs attacking a town of humans, you can aid either the orcs or the humans, both with different rewards. Then, like GW2, there are the larger scale group public quests, dubbed 'rallying quests', except each step of the quest has a choice that the players can choose from.
-AI: 'Mobs' in the game have a memory, and as such will remember if you helped them before or not and react accordingly. Another example given was that if a city start encroaching on a group of orcs, they will move to a different location, therefore making the world seem more organic. Going to a certain location doesn't guarantee there will be the same mobs there.
-Combat: Wasn't really expanded upon but it seems it uses some sort of action combat system, or perhaps a hybrid one like Guild Wars 2. You can equip 4 weapons and 4 skills at one time. Speaking of skills, that leads us to...
-Character Progression: There are no levels. Instead, your progression seems to be based around the development of skills. However, you can multiclass an infinite number of times, meaning that there are countless combinations of skills.
-Movement: Players are able to move across the environment more naturally, using their skills to help them move. You can vault over ledges, glide across canyons, jump and teleport in mid-air across a large gap. Movement is made more organic.
Honestly, it sounds like they're going for a deeper, improved upon version of Guild Wars 2, which I'm all for. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Here are some videos:
What do you think?
-Fully destructible environment: With the new Forgelight Engine, you will be able to destroy anything in the surrounding environment. The two examples they showed were collapsing a bridge, dropping the enemies on it to their deaths, and the second showing a giant construct knocking down a castle. Of course, their are limits to this to prevent abuse; some parts of the environment, such as towns, are not destructible. Environments also 'regenerate' over time, therefore players can't end up destroying the world. The destructible environments also mean that you can dig down into caverns and dungeons to explore. By partnering with Nvidia and utilising Physx, they have an improved physics system, so you can toss enemies around like ragdolls. The physics system also adds to the 'weight' behind your attacks and stops them from feeling 'floaty'.
-Quests: Honestly, this sounded like an expanded upon version of Guild Wars 2's method of doing quests. If you see a problem or conflict, you go and solve it. None of this 'NPCs with ! over their head' business. Where they have expanded upon here is the fact that the player has an element of choice in who to help. If you see a band of orcs attacking a town of humans, you can aid either the orcs or the humans, both with different rewards. Then, like GW2, there are the larger scale group public quests, dubbed 'rallying quests', except each step of the quest has a choice that the players can choose from.
-AI: 'Mobs' in the game have a memory, and as such will remember if you helped them before or not and react accordingly. Another example given was that if a city start encroaching on a group of orcs, they will move to a different location, therefore making the world seem more organic. Going to a certain location doesn't guarantee there will be the same mobs there.
-Combat: Wasn't really expanded upon but it seems it uses some sort of action combat system, or perhaps a hybrid one like Guild Wars 2. You can equip 4 weapons and 4 skills at one time. Speaking of skills, that leads us to...
-Character Progression: There are no levels. Instead, your progression seems to be based around the development of skills. However, you can multiclass an infinite number of times, meaning that there are countless combinations of skills.
-Movement: Players are able to move across the environment more naturally, using their skills to help them move. You can vault over ledges, glide across canyons, jump and teleport in mid-air across a large gap. Movement is made more organic.
Honestly, it sounds like they're going for a deeper, improved upon version of Guild Wars 2, which I'm all for. I'm cautiously optimistic.
Here are some videos:
What do you think?
