Anybody looking forward to this?
The great unveiling is on August 1st.

Any information yet?

Also, odds on F2P?

What we think we know: based on the Planetside 2 engine, or mostly. Very sandboxy - a lot of player created stuff. Eq2 also has a lot of this going on with housing and guild halls and dungeon creator, and even in game items, but not quite to the level we should expect with eq3. It's supposed to be the biggest mmorpg ever made, or something, I may be paraphrasing in my fanboy hype slightly. They did say a long time ago that they were going to use some variant of the freerealms game engine, but recently (in the last year) scrapped that and started to rework it from the ground up. The only thing that concerns me is that they say this is going to be the biggest MMO ever made, and they're going to do it in less than a year? Hehe.

Already awarded as 'best in show' even before being unveiled..
Apparently it stands head and shoulders above any other game shown at E3 (though I don't know what was shown at E3 so this is relative)

http://eq2wire.com/2013/06/17/curse-mmo ... t-sandbox/

Still this is really interesting and hypealicious

Also I would say.. Odds are it will be a free to play 'freemium' model used by pretty much every SOE game now.

Also, I think this might even appear on the PS4.

I think this "Freemium" thing is pretty much the way to go now... MMO aren't as big bucks as they used to be...

STO has done a good job with there set up, buying ingame credits is literally just a shortcut to getting that stuff anyway. If you are die hard enough you can buy pretty much anything you want by playing a lot.

And the official name is now EverQuest Next. Not EQ3 or anything like that

This was unveiled yesterday at 8pm, and it looks good.

tl;dr for those that don't want to watch 1 hour of a guy doing sand art and Dave Georgeson flicking through slides:

• Minecraft meets EverQuest - you can create, modify, and destroy the world. There is a heavy focus on subterranean content, of which a lot will be generated procedurally as players explore it. Some areas automatically respawn/regenerate over time, but some areas you have control.
• Dynamic spawns - no spawn point will ever be the same. Each area in the game is 'tagged' with details about what it is, and creatures in the world are tagged with the things they like and don't like. An example was Orcs - they don't like civilisation, so if a city border encroaches their limits, they will pack up and move away. But also if they don't satisfy their quota of lonely adventurers to bash over the head, similarly, they will move. Dave said -- we just release things in to the world and let them find their way.
• GW2 style combat - Weapons and armour choices affect combat abilities. Can't help but think this was made to ease playing on a console (speculation at this point). The combat is very stylised with lots of effects. I actually very much dislike this, but we'll see how this works out! To me, this seemed to be the least complete feature, but them I'm used to 120 hot-button abilities so maybe this is just how it is.
• 40 classes - of which 8 are 'base' classes you choose when you start your character. You go out in to the world and acquire classes through means that are not yet clear. But if you wish, you can combine any abilities from any class you have, at any time, and choose to focus and improve on certain class abilities to tailor it to how you want it.
• No levels - Simple - there are no levels in EQN. You focus on skills and abilities. Massively posted that a 3 year veteran could sensibly join forces with a fresh player and still explore challenging content together - the player with longer time might just decide to use abilities they haven't used before. This reminds me of EVE.
• Quests? - Still not sure how this works but, it's not clear if there are quests in the traditional sense. You basically do things and then there are consequences. If you decide to kill some goblins in the forest, you might anger the forests goblin king, and wiping out their forces may grant quest-like rewards, but whether there are static quests as such? We actually don't know this! It sounds like basically... you do whatever you want whenever you want, and if you're lucky it might actually be a 'quest' lol.
• Based on Forgelight - the game looks incredible. Graphics are sweet. Gameplay from the live dev play session looked smooth and fun and mega destructive. There is a lovely day/night cycle, and the lighting is incredible - the jungle area called Feerrott has a real life-like humidity and darkness about it. They say the engine has been heavily modified. Let's hope it is playable on AMD processors (unlike Planetside 2) and not an Intel-only title
• Pretty awesome character models - quite similar to WOW, but for the new generation, clearly defined features, slightly exaggerated eyes and lips (this I think is mainly to make /emote stuff and SOEmote more awesome) and very detailed clothing. Totally different from EQ1 and EQ2.
• Good music - EQ games always have had good music anyway. But this time, they have Jeremy Soule (Skyrim etc.)
• Parkour style movement - Vault small objects without any extra buttons, slide down slopes, there's a double-jumping element too, and certain classes have different movement abilities

There's some other stuff too but well, if you're interested I'm sure you'll check it out.

Here are some pics from Massively:



Other stuff:

You can sign up for beta right now at http://www.everquestnext.com as well as get a lot more information about the game. - Note that you are required to register through European publisher PSS1 even if you already have a US based SOE account.

And this is what SOE say are the core features of EQN:

• Full Destructibility — Everything in EverQuest Next can be destroyed. Destroy the ground beneath your enemy's feet — or crush him under an avalanche you created. The possibilities are endless!
• Permanent Change — The land of Norrath changes every day, based on the actions of all players... including you. Cities rise and fall, kings live and die, even the gods may change. You won't want to miss a moment of it!
• A Life of Consequence — Your choices will rule your destiny. Do you save a villager's burning farm or choose to do nothing? Do you clear orc camps away from Qeynos or help them destroy the city? You will make your own story — and shape the story for those who follow you.
• A Class Revolution — Our character classes are streamlined and designed to be mixed. Want to be a teleporting rogue or a backstabbing barbarian? The choice is yours!

That actually sounds really good. Any news on the monetisation model yet? I'm guessing they'll got PS2 style F2P.

EDIT: Well I applied for the beta. Also found these RPS articles, though haven't read yet:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08 ... uest-next/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08 ... -landmark/

Nice articles, they are hype-a-rific!

This seems to be a copy of the livestream:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/08 ... uest-next/

Haven't watched that, but did read the articles. Does sound very cool, though gotta hope it isn't one of those overhyped things (like Molyneux, Spore etc).

https://www.facebook.com/everquestnext/ ... 5052203507

SOE have a good sense of humour.

Wow!


Watch this video on Youtube.