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EverQuest 2 Beta Confirmed, Producer Quizzed

Posted by simoniker on from the more-refined-crack dept.

Kemanorel writes "After a couple years of development, several months of hints and previews, and four weeks worth of drooling after a live demo in Vegas, Sony Online announced that EverQuest 2 Beta sign-ups begin next Monday. Minimum specs are 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM, and a DX9 compatible video card with at least 64 MB of memory - not too bad. Get in line now!" There's also an interview with EverQuest II producer John Blakely over at GameSpot in which he mentions: "Currently we have over 80 people working on the EQII development team", before arguing that the sequel shouldn't necessarily siphon players from the original: "EQII is being designed to complement EQ in terms of the gameplay experience. EQII is a game that will focus most of our content on the individual and smaller groups, while EQ's endgame encourages large raid forces to play the high-level content."

5 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They are lying through their teeth by Highrollr · · Score: 2, Insightful

    SWG is using a lesser engine

    Actually, that's precisely what I was thinking. Whether you love them or not, Sony is pretty good at what they do, plus they have EQ under their belts. I'm going to wait and see how tightly they can optimize it before I make up my mind on how it will run on my box.

  2. Re:Yet another MMORPG by Xenkar · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The problem with free MMORPGs is that MMORPGs require a lot of cash to keep running. Bandwidth, hardware, and colocation cost a lot of money. They also tend to attract annoying little kids who have nothing better to do than play 18 hours a day. These kids tend to harass newer players, leaving the game with a rude community filled with l337 d00dz.

    The problem with the concept of opensource MMORPGs is that it makes it extremely easy for players to write their own bots to play the game for them, or a trainer of some sorts (speed hack, teleporting, seeing players through walls). Script kiddies will definitely ruin the game for anyone who wants to play without having XsploitsX's latest trojan infected trainer.

    Combine these two and you'll have a game that no one will want to play because it's lagging because it is hosted on some guy's webserver that he is running on his cable connection.

  3. bah never go my minimum by cyrax777 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    that just means it will barely run ie lowest resulution looking like heres the true specs from the site recommended: Operating System: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP Processor: 2 Ghz or greater RAM: 1 GB 16x CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible. Pixel shader and Vertex shader compatible hardware with 128 MB of texture memory or greater Sound Card: DirectSound compatible audio hardware that sounds alot more belivable

    1. Re:bah never go my minimum by Babbster · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Yes, yes, and playing Half-Life/TFC on a 450-MHz K6-III with 128 MB of RAM and a 32MB TNT2 card isn't that pretty, either. Yet the game can still be fun on that configuration (or at least I had fun with it). I also had quite a good time with Unreal Tournament on that wimpy little thing.

      Fortunately, with a game like EQ[2], frame rates just aren't that big of a deal. It's not a twitch situation. So, if one is willing to put up with the duller graphics I'm sure that the minimum configuration will be fine (assuming one enjoys the gameplay, of course).

  4. EQ is an Online Community by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    3D graphics are icing on the cake for a game like EQ or EQ II.

    The most important aspect of a game like EQ or EQ II is the sense of "community" one gains while playing it. EQ has possibly the worst graphics of all the popular online role playing games, except for the oldest and largest of them which are completely text-based, so obviously cutting edge 3D graphics isn't as important a selling point as everyone here seems to think because EQ is still one of the most popular, if not the most popular, games in its sub-genre.

    If EQ's capabilities for communications and community building equal or surpass EQ, it will do just fine, providing SOE marketing doesn't fall flat on its face. If inter-personal interactions weren't given the highest priority by the designers, followed by sensible game design, it will fail.