EverQuest Next: SOE invites players to build and destroy in its next-gen MMOG

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...xt-610x343.jpgOutlining the problem that EverQuest Next seeks to solve, director of development David Georgeson takes aim not only at the original game and its sequel, but also the genre they established: the 3D combat-focused RPGs that came to define the term MMOG. “We’ve been playing a sterile version of Dungeons & Dragons,” he tells us, “and it’s been that way because we couldn’t come up with a better solution.”This is an area of gaming in which slight tweaks to the template are enough to justify costly projects and tremendous risk, and that is what makes EverQuest Next’s extraordinary ambitions so notable.The entire game is rendered using voxels, for a start, which allow for fully destructible environments and for players’ actions to cause meaningful damage to the landscape. Dynamic combat AI will force rampaging monsters to react when, say, a mage creates an impassible barrier or blows out a bridge. Alterations will be slowly repaired over time, and players won’t be able to destroy everything – the key city of Qeynos, Georgeson points out, “would be a parking lot in a couple of hours” if players were allowed total freedom – but the system adds a sense of responsiveness that isn’t present in other RPGs of this type. We’re simply not used to the notion that a massive fireball presupposes the existence of a crater.The basic flow of combat takes cues from the Guild Wars series to allow players to mix and match class and weapon abilities that are unlocked as the world is explored. A parkour-style system has also been implemented, allowing player characters to more realistically vault, slide and tumble around the landscape.

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