Only posting here because this isn't really an RnF post . . .
Been following Landmark and EQnext closely.
The positive:
- Developers seem to be interacting with community heavily
- Community generally seems to want more challenge and EQ1 mechanics
- Art style, while cartoony for characters, is great for environments
- Possibility to create custom EQ server with Landmark game tools - including custom mobs, loot and zones (this will be huge peeps want to recreate a better EQ1)
- Zones in EQNext will be created by the community in Landmark, NOT SOE
- Crafting will be amazing - SOE has that shit down to an art form now
- Supposedly intelligent AI
- No quest hubs
- Porting in some form will be in
The Negative (what has been shown thus far)
- There will be a cash shop and pay to win in EQnext. Doesn't matter if you think that cosmetics aren't pay to win. You're wrong (see rubicite and crafted armors EQ1), how you look is "winning" the game for a ton of players. It's also extremely unlikely that cash shop will be limited to cosmetics. There is no subscription for thits game.
- Gameplay is absolutely terrible (20 mobs dying at once to soloing character that can seemingly do everything
- Parkour movement looks absolutely terrible and childish
- Everything in the game is "heroic". The way players look. Movement. Combat. SOE wants everyone to be a "hero" without having to earn anything in the game.
- Spell effects are so insane will give you epilepsy guaranteed 1st time
- Despite being told by community specifically to avoid the god damn hipogrif transport system they're going to do it anyway
- Everyone can be everything with regards to classes. Multi-classing with dozens of classes means less attention to each individual class and less specialization. Talk about dumbing things down, this is the ultimate way to cater to lazy/bad players who are too ADD to stick with one thing for more than an hour.
- Despite being told by the community specifically to create a significant death penalty, the developers dodged the response to their own poll as they clearly did not expect the result. Why did they dodge?
Just what I've seen from following. There's good and bad and everything is subject to change. EQnext is a long ways off though, that's for sure.