News
Sony Online Entertainment Reveals Much Anticipated EverQuest Next
LAS VEGAS - August 2, in the year of our Lord 2013
- Fourteen years ago, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) changed
the way people play games together online with the introduction
of the original EverQuest™. Today, SOE offers a new vision for
the future of online games with the worldwide debut of EverQuest
Next (EQN).
"With EverQuest Next, we're going back to our roots -- a space
we defined with the EverQuest legacy -- and ushering in a new
era of MMOs: The Emergent Era," said John Smedley, President,
Sony Online Entertainment. "Today, many MMOs fail because
players consume content faster than developers can create it.
With EverQuest Next, we're creating a living world that players
are part of and empowering them to produce new content alongside
the development team. What does the future hold for EverQuest
Next and Sony Online Entertainment? It's in the players' hands,
and we like it that way."
"EverQuest Next is not the continuation of a familiar story. It
represents the fundamental reimagining of the characters, lore
and environments of the EverQuest universe," said Dave
Georgeson, Director of Development for the EverQuest Franchise,
Sony Online Entertainment. "Make no mistake; while great care
has been taken to respect the extraordinary influence that
EverQuest has had in this industry and with our player community
over the years, this is a boldly different game unlike anything
that has come before."
EverQuest Next has been in development since 2009. Nearly two
years ago, SOE made the decision to rethink core creative and
technical aspects of the design and start from the ground up to
build a new kind of game. As a result, EQN is different from all
of the MMOs that have been made before in very important ways,
including:
Multi-Classing - EQN will offer players the ability to explore
and interact with the world according to their individual style
of play. There are no levels in EQN, but there will be more than
40 distinct classes (or professions) at launch, with
multi-tiered abilities and specialized weapon skills to collect
and master. Players will even mix and match abilities from each
class, creating truly custom characters that feel distinct and
powerful.
Destructible Environments - No modern MMO has successfully
implemented destructible environments that stretch across an
entire seamless game world -- this changes forever with EQN.
Every piece of the world is fully destructible and players will
have the ability to manipulate almost all of it. They will
interact with and explore the world in amazing ways; venturing
down into the deep bedrock beneath the surface and using
powerful combat abilities to blow gaping holes into the ground.
The EQN world will extend far into the heavens and deep into the
procedurally-generated earth through 10,000 years of known lore
and history.
Permanent Change - Players will also have the ability to cause
the world to change around them, permanently, in dramatic ways.
Through the concerted effort of the world's inhabitants,
including players, creatures, and non-player characters (NPCs),
city walls will be built and destroyed, large-scale wars will be
fought and won, and epic stories will unfold over months and
years.
Emergent AI - In EQN, NPCs will have specific motivations and
preferences that direct behavior in nuanced and unpredictable
ways. Players will find themselves in a world where NPC
decisions are based on core values, not dictated by static spawn
points. For example, Orcs may attack opportunistically because
they want an adventurer's gold, not simply because a careless
hero wanders into an attack radius.
A Life of Consequence - Finally, each character in EQN will have
a unique story; they will not follow a predetermined path.
Instead, they will seek out adventure, fame and fortune in a
constantly changing sandbox world. The game will remember every
choice and action that players make and will organically deliver
increasing opportunities to do more of the things players like
to do ... from crafting armor and exploring the wilderness to
purging goblins from the forests.
"We believe that the bold choices the team is making with EQN
will result in a product that provides players with an
absolutely new kind of game experience," said Laura Naviaux,
Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Sony Online
Entertainment. "However, there is something even more important
to us. As an organization, we are dedicated to partnering with
our community to give them a voice in the games we create. With
EQN, we are taking this idea even further and offering our
players the opportunity to actively build EQN with us."
INTRODUCING EVERQUEST NEXT LANDMARK
This winter, SOE will introduce EverQuest Next Landmark™
(Landmark). Essentially, Landmark will combine the powerful and
intuitive building tools SOE is using to create the fully
destructible world of EQN with all of the social functionality
expected from a modern MMO.
The game will feature huge persistent worlds that each support
thousands of other players and varied terrain inspired by the
environments of EQN. Most importantly, Landmark will provide
anyone who wants to participate with the opportunity to actually
build structures, and eventually create other types of content,
to be considered for inclusion in EQN. Landmark will enable
players to:
Create Amazing Things
Build highly detailed structures with powerful and intuitive
tools.
Quickly design complex projects or collaborate with friends to
undertake massive shared builds.
Lay claim to and control specific areas of huge persistent
worlds.
Share Your Imagination with Friends
Landmark's persistent servers will enable players to interact
with and experience the collective imagination of thousands of
players in a unique shared world.
Players will have compelling reasons to explore and interact
with others. They will congregate at crafting hubs, build design
templates to share and trade, and journey across the world to
collect the resources required to build and craft.
Build EQN with SOE -- Using the Same Tools
Landmark players will gain increasing access to many of the same
tools that SOE is using to construct the game world of EQN.
Not only will Landmark give players access to these world
building tools, SOE will provide specific guidance on what we
want help building.
Through this collaborative approach, EQN may eventually
represent the largest overall collaborative development effort
in the history of online games. For anyone who has ever thought
about becoming a game developer, here is your chance. Together
we will build extraordinary things
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
Landmark will launch this winter as a "Free To Play. Your Way.®"
offering and the first step in a multi-phase release strategy.
It will serve as the gateway to EQN and as the collaborative
building hub where SOE will guide the development of selected
structures and environments for inclusion in EQN.