EQN: Landmark - Alpha

 [NOTE - This was originally meant to be posted almost a year ago (Mid Feb 2014) but was never actually finished. I am publishing it now with a few minor edits to clarify some things and will elaborate on things in another post where I discuss the more current version of closed beta that we are in at the moment. Please keep in mind that this was written during an early version of the Alpha and almost a year of development has passed since I originally wrote this. I am publishing this, in part, so that I can discuss things that may have changed in the course of that development. I will add a few notes in italics for clarity on a few points]

Well it's been about 6 months since I posted about EQNext and my thoughts on their big reveal at SOE Live. And I've been in EQNext Landmark's Alpha for almost 2 weeks (man it doesn't seem like it's been that long but I started downloading the client just after Midnight Feb 1st (2014) ... time flies when you're busy at work and having fun.)

Well ... SOE decided on Alpha day 01 to drop the NDA as it didn't fit with their 'open' method of game design I've posted a couple of screen caps on the facebook site (Scale of Pain Facebook) as well as links to their alpha (link is to the beta forums now, thought the alpha forums are archived there as well) forums which are open to read by anyone. As a result I've been gathering stuff for a article here on my impressions of the new and emerging game called Landmark.

First I want to start of with a bit of a 'What is Landmark' because that's a big question out there.

SOE says that Landmark is an "Online Social Building Game" ... but that's not completely accurate. Because it's not purely a building game. Building is certainly a focus as you can see by the shots of player built creations on the SOE landmark page but many people get the wrong idea when you simply say that it's a building game. It is NOT Minecraft creative mode where you have unlimited resources to build whatever you want.

It is a game that encourages exploration, resource gathering, and crafting and building ... including community building. While it's still in Alpha and many of the main systems are not yet in game I can say this, it's going to be a fun, and very very different idea of an MMO. The goal here is world that the players can make something, where a group, or guild, working together can focus their resources and talents to build something spectacular together. A game in which a dedicated community can come together and build a world around them in which they can tell their own story.

To a certain degree I disagree with this being called 'Everquest' because it isn't. Landmark does not take place on Norrath, nor does it take place at any specific time or even genre. It is being called Everquest Next: Landmark because it was developed as a result of the development of Everquest Next, that is to say it came about because when making EQN someone realized 'this is fun' and 'this could be a game itself.'

[NOTE - Apparently SOE agreed as the title of the game was officially changed to Landmark The Game shortly after I started writing this]

Next is the obvious - my impressions so far:

Simple - I am enjoying the game immensely. Even with only half or so of the content in, even in it's early stages I see promise. Servers are pretty stable, and aside from some database problems that the team sorted out in the first week things have been pretty smooth. There are bugs, and features that aren't in of course, but it's still early in the alpha stage so that's to be expected. They are applying several newer technologies to the game, and taking others that haven't really been used this way before. (One of the biggest problems of week one wasn't discovered until alpha started because they hadn't been using multiple servers until that point.)

Through all the trouble of the start of Alpha and the problems that have popped up here and there, the Dev team has done a great job communicating what they're working on and why things are happening. Posts on the forums are frequent, and the team is very active on Twitter. Tweeting members of the team often gets a response and by and large the testers have been a pretty good group looking for and reporting problems, giving feedback and suggestions, and pointing out potential flaws.

Now on to some of the complaints I've seen -

No other races - Yes, I would like to see them put in races other than Human, but at this stage, races don't matter, and in the end I don't think that should be a focus for Landmark. I would like to see them put in illusions or 'costumes' so that we as players could choose to look like different fantasy races or aliens, etc to help us build and populate that world or section of the world where we tell our story, but in terms of character creation I don't think different races should be a priority for the team.

Too much grind - way too early to judge something like that. Many systems aren't in and much of what IS in, is in a temporary state to jump start testing. Numbers and required resources are something that will likely be tuned through alpha and into late beta as new things are added and their effects on the system are evaluated. Having been through a few alphas and betas in the past this is normal.

(also a note on the 'grind' from my perspective at least - the 'grind' is a misplaced focus on the part of the player. That is to say that it means that the player has chosen to focus on 'getting X' instead of 'having fun' either due to the belief that 'X' is needed to have fun, or just because of the player's own personality. As a result any repetitive task that needs to be accomplished becomes a 'grind' that is keeping them from getting 'X' ... players that focus on things like 'having fun with some friends' or 'exploring to look for 'Y' often find themselves in possession of 'X' without having really thought about the 'grind' that it took to get it.)