Glad to know I wasn't the only one who had Spore Creature Creator flashbacks from landmark.
That's the problem with emergent/player built content, there's a risk there that if you let people build the world, it won't be nearly as compelling. But therein lies it's secret opportunity as well: It's almost more for fans of Minecraft than it is for fans of Everquest. Much of what I have seen (and let's all agree, we haven't seen much) looks like if you took the elements that made minecraft such a killer success improved upon it. In many ways, I've been looking at it like a Minecraft 2, even though I know that it's definitely not. But what I mean is that it can attract that Minecraft audience who fell in love with that type of gameplay by offering a meatier, more story/community built experience.
It's certainly new stuff. And with new stuff comes caveats. Too much freedom in a world is overwhelming, and can ultimately become boring. This is why I've never minded instanced content all that much, because, if done well, it can be tight. My advice to the Everquest team would be to try not even think about MMO tropes and just make something awesome, which it does look like they're doing. If they can accomplish that, it'll thrive in that ecosystem. If they bank too hard on Everquest MMO nostalgia, people are going to get turned off when they realize it's not that.
I'm excited to see what Anet has in store for the future. It seems like they've been turning a massive ship; changing course from where they originally started. This isn't to say that they are disappointed with what they put out, but rather that they're approaching it in a highly iterative way. I really hope they get into more experimental content as we move forward, such as making massive changes to zones and dungeons, and wiping out content entirely, such as cleansing Orr or perhaps changing threats and adding new enemies. Imagine an arc where we gear up for a very large battle against the Centaur, and end up actually defeating one of the three tribes? That'd change the very nature of the war, and even those northern zones. I'm interested in that kind of stuff, although I understand that they'd have to change a lot of early game content to accommodate that. Either way, I want to see what they do with the new Living Story UI, because the living story is massively interesting to me, but I feel (and know) we've only seen a bit of the potential.
The reason I bring this up though, is that it's going to take the living story to keep GW alive when a lot of the next generation of MMO's start hitting. The fate of Wildstar is dubious; I think it's far too rooted in old school mechanics to hit anything other than a niche audience. I could be wrong, but we'll have to see. Everquest Next seems to have made a huge impact, so that's going to be a constant concern for them in the future, although I believe the games can co-exist as long as GW2 finds ways to stay relevant.
While we still haven't seen much, I have to say that I still find GW2 immensely more appealing in the style department. I applaud SOE for going with a cartoony route, I know it's not for everyone, but it has tremendous lasting power. But the lore, art, and overall style of GW2 seems so vastly unique in the fantasy realm, and that's a huge reason I was attracted to it. I don't know much about Everquest, but the whole series always gave me a 1980's fantasy book cover feel, and I've never been big on that. Never been a fan of elves and orcs. Sure, GW2 has all the tropes: Charr are beastmen/ogres, Asura are dwarves, and Sylvari are elves, but all are so fundamentally unique that the elements that tie them to their tropes are nearly non-existant at this point. Arena Net just has an interesting take on fantasy that I'm quite partial to. Even in GW1, I thought it was interesting that the starting zone started out as relatively standard fantasy fare, but after the searing it became this near-post apocalyptic wasteland with an extremely alien feeling. It's something about the fact that it's one degree off-kilter that makes it so much more appealing. The artists and writers definitely worked hard to make everything feel pretty unique, despite having work in a fantasy setting.
That's the problem with emergent/player built content, there's a risk there that if you let people build the world, it won't be nearly as compelling. But therein lies it's secret opportunity as well: It's almost more for fans of Minecraft than it is for fans of Everquest. Much of what I have seen (and let's all agree, we haven't seen much) looks like if you took the elements that made minecraft such a killer success improved upon it. In many ways, I've been looking at it like a Minecraft 2, even though I know that it's definitely not. But what I mean is that it can attract that Minecraft audience who fell in love with that type of gameplay by offering a meatier, more story/community built experience.
It's certainly new stuff. And with new stuff comes caveats. Too much freedom in a world is overwhelming, and can ultimately become boring. This is why I've never minded instanced content all that much, because, if done well, it can be tight. My advice to the Everquest team would be to try not even think about MMO tropes and just make something awesome, which it does look like they're doing. If they can accomplish that, it'll thrive in that ecosystem. If they bank too hard on Everquest MMO nostalgia, people are going to get turned off when they realize it's not that.
I'm excited to see what Anet has in store for the future. It seems like they've been turning a massive ship; changing course from where they originally started. This isn't to say that they are disappointed with what they put out, but rather that they're approaching it in a highly iterative way. I really hope they get into more experimental content as we move forward, such as making massive changes to zones and dungeons, and wiping out content entirely, such as cleansing Orr or perhaps changing threats and adding new enemies. Imagine an arc where we gear up for a very large battle against the Centaur, and end up actually defeating one of the three tribes? That'd change the very nature of the war, and even those northern zones. I'm interested in that kind of stuff, although I understand that they'd have to change a lot of early game content to accommodate that. Either way, I want to see what they do with the new Living Story UI, because the living story is massively interesting to me, but I feel (and know) we've only seen a bit of the potential.
The reason I bring this up though, is that it's going to take the living story to keep GW alive when a lot of the next generation of MMO's start hitting. The fate of Wildstar is dubious; I think it's far too rooted in old school mechanics to hit anything other than a niche audience. I could be wrong, but we'll have to see. Everquest Next seems to have made a huge impact, so that's going to be a constant concern for them in the future, although I believe the games can co-exist as long as GW2 finds ways to stay relevant.
While we still haven't seen much, I have to say that I still find GW2 immensely more appealing in the style department. I applaud SOE for going with a cartoony route, I know it's not for everyone, but it has tremendous lasting power. But the lore, art, and overall style of GW2 seems so vastly unique in the fantasy realm, and that's a huge reason I was attracted to it. I don't know much about Everquest, but the whole series always gave me a 1980's fantasy book cover feel, and I've never been big on that. Never been a fan of elves and orcs. Sure, GW2 has all the tropes: Charr are beastmen/ogres, Asura are dwarves, and Sylvari are elves, but all are so fundamentally unique that the elements that tie them to their tropes are nearly non-existant at this point. Arena Net just has an interesting take on fantasy that I'm quite partial to. Even in GW1, I thought it was interesting that the starting zone started out as relatively standard fantasy fare, but after the searing it became this near-post apocalyptic wasteland with an extremely alien feeling. It's something about the fact that it's one degree off-kilter that makes it so much more appealing. The artists and writers definitely worked hard to make everything feel pretty unique, despite having work in a fantasy setting.
