EverQuest 2 Beta Confirmed, Producer Quizzed

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."

Comments

translation

[Hythlodaeus]

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.

Translation: the EQ2 client/server chokes on large number of people in the same place at the same time.

They are lying through their teeth

[linzeal]

These specs will never run the game at a decent enough level to participate in raids and the like. Currently 1 GB of ram is being prescribed for most latancy issues. If SWG is using a lesser engine and they are having problems than I could not imagine that Everquest 2 will run on anything less than that.

Yet another MMORPG

[obeythefist]

The MMORPG is here to stay! And here's another one. This one of course is a biggie.

But what will happen in the market?

Will all the EQ players upgrade to EQ2?

Will nobody upgrade to EQ2?

Or will all the players feel rich and buy time on both EQ and EQ2?

What about all the other MMORPG's coming out? Will they steal time off EQ? Is the MMORPG market saturated yet?

And, here's the one I really want to know about, will the open source community make their own sleek, efficient and free MMORPG that runs efficiently on a 286?

Re:Yet another MMORPG

[Xenkar]

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.

Fan Faire Demo

[Fiz Ocelot]

At the recent Fan Faire demonstration in Las Vegas they were running it on a system with a geforce 5950, 1gb ram, and I believe a 3.2 ghz P4.

It looked awsome, and no choppiness with quite a few people all together fighting.

They also accidentally ran it on a 512 mb system, on which is was a little choppy. But looks isn't everything.

Re:bah never go my minimum

[Babbster]

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).