EverQuest’ll be taking a bit of a detour today from our regularly scheduled updates of Landmark to discuss the future of Everquest Next. It’s not a real future for Everquest Next, but an imagined future where Everquest Next launches with some features thrown in there adapted from other games.
If you’ve had a look at Landmark, or know of Landmark and Everquest Next, then you probably know that you can build like crazy and have fighting and all those normal thingamajigs that make an MMORPG a game to play in this day and age.
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If you’ve had a look at Landmark, or know of Landmark and Everquest Next, then you probably know that you can build like crazy and have fighting and all those normal thingamajigs that make an MMORPG a game to play in this day and age.
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After Launch: Monthly Meaningful Quests, from Warframe
Imagine you have a working game and it’s sound. How do you keep people playing, especially if it’s a free-to-play sandbox-themepark hybrid? Normally, you’d let people create their own adventures and add new content incrementally… but that’s not what cuts it with most people these days.
People want constant newness to try and explore, but the development process can be very long and honestly, that’s going to be a constant pain in Sony’s butt to handle an entire quest set or quest pack or whatever on a constant cycle.
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So don’t. Instead, try something similar to Warframe’s approach where every 4-8 weeks in their current development cycle (by my calculatrions), they add a quest that fits into their existing gameplay systems and adds lore. Each update also adds new weapons a player can either earn the resources to acquire or pay real money (via Platinum for Warframe, Station Cash for SOE) to get.
Granted, Warframe doesn’t have a ton of lore baked into it, so they can cover a lot of ground by making stuff up that fits the general overview of what they’ve made. That said, the premise of having a storyline quest that weaves through this new Norrath every month would make people come back every couple of weeks to savor it, if the quest is rewarding in terms of time invested.
Two challenges here. One challenge for SOE is developing new, varied toys, weapons, gadgets, or systems for people to play with, earn, or pay for in the Station Cash store but without making the grind to get these things insurmountable as to compel people to think forcibly paying for it is the best option.
The second challenge? Creating a storyline that is satisfying to complete, such that you can expect many people to keep coming back monthly to continue the tale every month. Either make multiple storylines that weave like a tapestry, or have one unbroken thread: your epic tale.
Evident Over Time: Irreversible Choices, from EVE/Ultima Online
We likely unknowingly understand that games tend to have irreversible choices, though developers have made concessions to mitigate the mental anguish of having an irreversible choice.
For example, Trion’s ArcheAge softened the blow of trade run PVP piracy by making stolen trade goods have an 80-20 split between the pirate and the creator of the trade pack (This may be inaccurate now, so please correct me if this has been altered, folks!)
That said, Everquest Next should consider not “softening the blow,” so to speak, when it comes to players making personal choices.
Let’s make a hypothetical here. If part of EQNext’s gameplay is designed to allow people to quest and earn favor with others at the peril of making other groups angry, make that choice understandable to the player and tag it as an irreversible decision that alters who they can talk to or what quests they can undertake.
Consequently, if someone likes player-killing, make that choice irreversible as well (within reason, like the first year or two of launch). Treat it as a badge of shame that a player has a decidedly vicious streak in the game. At the same time, package it as an alternative gameplay life that, once chosen, locks you into that sort of gameplay with that character until you find a storyline conceit in your epic story that unlocks a path of redemption or damnation for a player’s character.
In the same way that an order of paladins would strip a knight of his rank and abilities and render him persona non grata in a given region for killing an innocent, make that same fellow find his own path among an order of sellswords or assassins, but never to reclaim his righteousness – UNLESS that’s a planned “Damned and Redeemed” content update after two years!
With a sufficiently complex emergent gameplay mechanic, I’m hoping it can be done while providing everyone with enough content to play the game the way they want to..
The obvious features are not that sort of thing we’ll be discussing today. Instead, I want Everquest Next to interact its systems – whether it’s the building, or the fighting, or even the Storybricks emergent gameplay mechanics – with features that are decidedly from other games to make it a better overall game over time.
In other words, below is the first three features or systems from rival games – MMOs or not – that I think EQNext should adopt, listed in the order of immediacy they should be adopted. Take note folks: these are things specific to other games that I wish SOE would add onto EQNext over time, in the order I feel they should be added into it.
Beta Onwards: Investigation Missions, from The Secret World
The Secret World, as much as I love it and wish it well, isn’t blipping too strongly on the radar of many people these days, which is a shame because Investigation Missions from this MMO are some of the most thought-provoking and rewarding gaming experiences you can have from a story-driven MMO.
Obviously, this wouldn’t completely work with EQNext as Sony’s game is meant to be more sandboxy than TSW, but imagine if EQNext had some hidden quests that could only be gotten by thinking outside the box and using your personal investigative skills (or some Google-Fu) to complete them.
The most basic type of these would include learning hieroglyphics or obscure facts about the game world that can only be gleaned from the pages of the EQNext digital novellas. If you’re making a lore-rich game set in its own universe, and you already have written material, might as well use it inventively, right?
If they really wanted to push this sort of investigative process, they could even tie it into their Everquest Worlds App, and have that be a part of the entire EQNext experience. Just make sure non-smartphone users have a web version of the app to allow them equal access to content, and that’d be awesome.
Imagine you have a working game and it’s sound. How do you keep people playing, especially if it’s a free-to-play sandbox-themepark hybrid? Normally, you’d let people create their own adventures and add new content incrementally… but that’s not what cuts it with most people these days.
People want constant newness to try and explore, but the development process can be very long and honestly, that’s going to be a constant pain in Sony’s butt to handle an entire quest set or quest pack or whatever on a constant cycle.
advertisement
So don’t. Instead, try something similar to Warframe’s approach where every 4-8 weeks in their current development cycle (by my calculatrions), they add a quest that fits into their existing gameplay systems and adds lore. Each update also adds new weapons a player can either earn the resources to acquire or pay real money (via Platinum for Warframe, Station Cash for SOE) to get.
Granted, Warframe doesn’t have a ton of lore baked into it, so they can cover a lot of ground by making stuff up that fits the general overview of what they’ve made. That said, the premise of having a storyline quest that weaves through this new Norrath every month would make people come back every couple of weeks to savor it, if the quest is rewarding in terms of time invested.
Two challenges here. One challenge for SOE is developing new, varied toys, weapons, gadgets, or systems for people to play with, earn, or pay for in the Station Cash store but without making the grind to get these things insurmountable as to compel people to think forcibly paying for it is the best option.
The second challenge? Creating a storyline that is satisfying to complete, such that you can expect many people to keep coming back monthly to continue the tale every month. Either make multiple storylines that weave like a tapestry, or have one unbroken thread: your epic tale.
Evident Over Time: Irreversible Choices, from EVE/Ultima Online
We likely unknowingly understand that games tend to have irreversible choices, though developers have made concessions to mitigate the mental anguish of having an irreversible choice.
For example, Trion’s ArcheAge softened the blow of trade run PVP piracy by making stolen trade goods have an 80-20 split between the pirate and the creator of the trade pack (This may be inaccurate now, so please correct me if this has been altered, folks!)
That said, Everquest Next should consider not “softening the blow,” so to speak, when it comes to players making personal choices.
Let’s make a hypothetical here. If part of EQNext’s gameplay is designed to allow people to quest and earn favor with others at the peril of making other groups angry, make that choice understandable to the player and tag it as an irreversible decision that alters who they can talk to or what quests they can undertake.
Consequently, if someone likes player-killing, make that choice irreversible as well (within reason, like the first year or two of launch). Treat it as a badge of shame that a player has a decidedly vicious streak in the game. At the same time, package it as an alternative gameplay life that, once chosen, locks you into that sort of gameplay with that character until you find a storyline conceit in your epic story that unlocks a path of redemption or damnation for a player’s character.
In the same way that an order of paladins would strip a knight of his rank and abilities and render him persona non grata in a given region for killing an innocent, make that same fellow find his own path among an order of sellswords or assassins, but never to reclaim his righteousness – UNLESS that’s a planned “Damned and Redeemed” content update after two years!
With a sufficiently complex emergent gameplay mechanic, I’m hoping it can be done while providing everyone with enough content to play the game the way they want to..
The obvious features are not that sort of thing we’ll be discussing today. Instead, I want Everquest Next to interact its systems – whether it’s the building, or the fighting, or even the Storybricks emergent gameplay mechanics – with features that are decidedly from other games to make it a better overall game over time.
In other words, below is the first three features or systems from rival games – MMOs or not – that I think EQNext should adopt, listed in the order of immediacy they should be adopted. Take note folks: these are things specific to other games that I wish SOE would add onto EQNext over time, in the order I feel they should be added into it.
Beta Onwards: Investigation Missions, from The Secret World
The Secret World, as much as I love it and wish it well, isn’t blipping too strongly on the radar of many people these days, which is a shame because Investigation Missions from this MMO are some of the most thought-provoking and rewarding gaming experiences you can have from a story-driven MMO.
Obviously, this wouldn’t completely work with EQNext as Sony’s game is meant to be more sandboxy than TSW, but imagine if EQNext had some hidden quests that could only be gotten by thinking outside the box and using your personal investigative skills (or some Google-Fu) to complete them.
The most basic type of these would include learning hieroglyphics or obscure facts about the game world that can only be gleaned from the pages of the EQNext digital novellas. If you’re making a lore-rich game set in its own universe, and you already have written material, might as well use it inventively, right?
If they really wanted to push this sort of investigative process, they could even tie it into their Everquest Worlds App, and have that be a part of the entire EQNext experience. Just make sure non-smartphone users have a web version of the app to allow them equal access to content, and that’d be awesome.
Anyway, that’s the column for today! Check back in two weeks when I go into more detail about long-term features or systems from other games that should get into EQNext to make it better. You can also comment below with your own proposals and dream scenarios or interpretations of the above three proposed additions to EQNext. Till next time, cheers!
