EverQuest Next sounds marvelous. Maybe, finally, it will be the fountain of youthful innovation that this creaky, stuck-in-its-ways genre so desperately needs. A lot of jaded players are pinning their hopes on it, so fingers crossed. Here’s the thing, though: SOE’s EverQuest Next is actually only a very small part of the bigger picture. EverQuest Next: Landmark is the game that SOE thinks should *really* have everybody talking. It’s a tool that, in theory, will allow anyone to construct their own MMO world. EverQuest, SOE hopes, is done being a single game. Instead, it’s destined to become a player-generated universe, a rainbow sea of crisscrossing themes, settings, and goals. I spoke with director of development David Georgeson about specifics of things like classes, emergent AI, and combat, as well as trolling and why SOE is actually happy that player created content could entirely overshadow their own. It’s all below.
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