Tobold's Blog
Saturday, July 12, 2014
 
EQ Lego

I have played EQ Landmark for 7 hours and don't plan to play any more at this point. I've claimed a patch of land, built a house (including a slanted roof), explored islands and mines, and crafted better picks and axes. Except doing more of all this, there currently isn't much to do in Landmark. It isn't a game yet, it is just a toy, like Lego. Now I have seen really awesome castles and building made by other players. But that isn't something I am all that interested in. I'd rather have a house with some functionality. Unfortunately I would need to mine 210,000 stone for a tier 1 crafting station (stone forge). As I only got up to about 12,000 in 7 hours, I don't think I have the patience for that sort of grind.

Having said that, I see the potential in EQ Landmark. The "prettier Minecraft" approach is going to attract a lot of people. But for me the question is in how far they are going to add an actual game to that concept, and how good the integration between toy and game will work. The possibilities are endless. You could actually build a tunnel through a mountain, although that probably would give a whole new meaning to the term carpal tunnel syndrome. I guess I will have to wait quite a while before Landmark is ready and integrated with EQ Next. But now that I've seen it, I'm quite looking forward to that.

Comments:
You only need 2000 stone for the forge. It's poorly laid out in the interface but 2000 Stone will get you 2100 Piles of Worked Stone.

I started to play 3 days ago. Similar feedback as yours. Potential but a bit disappointed. Somehow it isn't make as engaging as it could be.
 
I just read this post & the comment, and briefly contemplated asking you two whether there's any way you can dole out closed beta access codes to others. Amusingly, 2 minutes later I open my email, and the first thing I see is "Your Access to the Landmark Closed Beta is Ready!" I guess I'll have a peek myself. It's been said they're hoping to have combat in by August, i.e. pretty soon. That should go a long way to making it more gamey. I'm just not sure how well my ancient rig can render something this new & presumably not very optimized.
 
I certainly understand and will probably do the same.

There is nothing as hopeful as reading about upcoming MMOs.

In my rich fantasy life, I will enjoy Landmark 2015 because it has all the fun parts of an MMO (exploring, crafting, etc.) and none of the not-fun, mandatory-on-forums MMO features like raids, progressions, dailies, rep grinds, dps meters.

Thought Experiment: How would you design a MMO to get 15 million worldwide users?I.e. mass market. My answer it is far more down the Landmark axis than the Wildstar 1%er axis. (say 60% Landmark-like, 30% WoW-like, 10% EVE crafting) (OK the crafting is just my bias)

I despair that MMOs are being designed by and for console players e.g. Action combat and twitch-out-of-the-fire. What a waste all the Wildstar personality is trapped in Twitchville. But I was listening to Larry Everett on a stream and he talked about what his kids who play Minecraft will expect in an MMO and that it will be more creative and less twitchy.


 
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