"Landmark is the world builder. It will serve the purpose to EQ Next what the Starcraft Campaign Editor served to Starcraft, or a SDK serves to Team Fortress 2. It is a world building tool, that they are making to feel like and play similar to Minecraft, but with much greater detail. Once Landmark, as a tool, is complete, they will release it Free To Play for all people to play Landmark, and build stuff.
Then, they will use Landmark to sculpt a world map, and build Norrath. Once Norrath is built, they will work on the MMO design, classes, and the like. This will be released as a second game, EQ Next. This is a non-quest themepark based horizontal progression MMORPG that emphasizes emergent experiences, rather than scripted ones. Using the voxel based world that they build with EQN Landmark, they will have a destructible world, with AI programmed with sets of likes and dislikes that will guide their behavior around a world that is being constantly changed.
During development of Norrath, on their end, with the fully functional Landmark out, they will put up the ability for people to create themed structures for EverQuest Next. For example, they may say "We need an Unrest. So we need an underground ruined dungeon.", and so players can struggle and build. Whoever gets the most votes, for example, will get their content put into the main game, getting credited, so that their creation was a part of the game."
So they are getting people to design the game for them. And here I thought SOE had no vision! Why are people falling for this?
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