Everquest Next to feature Forgelight engine , and webcam for emotes

visage · #1 01-21-2012, 12:15 PM

EverQuest Next to use New Forge Light Engine

John Smedley, CEO of Sony Online Entertainment showed off the new engine that the Planetside 2 team has been working on and announced that it would be used as the platform of choice for all future MMO’s currently in development. The largest change brought forth by the engine that normal EQ players are now accustomed to, say goodbye to discrete zones and loading screens. The world of Norrath will finally be a persistant one. Here are some quotes from Smedley and creative director Dave Georgeson.

“What does all this mean?”. Smedley asked. “Think about this, EverQuest players, think about a physics engine that is built into every single aspect of your gameplay. We’ve partnered with Nvidia and their amazing PhysX platform. It means that we can bring you the most amazing characters and environments ever seen before in an MMO, or a single player game.”

For the creative director of the entire EverQuest line, Dave Georgeson, the real benefit of Forge Light will be in roleplaying your EQ toon. “For the people that love to roleplay, to stand around and talk to each other, the facial expressiveness [that Forge Light will provide] is huge,” he said. “It gives them almost everything that they want.”

When asked by The Escapists’ Greg Tito if the emote system for EQ Next will be revised to give tighter control over your toon’s face and expressions. “Oh yeah, there’s so much that I wish I could tell you right now [about that],” Georgeson said. He hinted at using some of the technology that was shown at E3 this year that could take images from a webcam and transfer them to a digital character. “Even if someone doesn’t want to sit there with a webcam watching your face, which people won’t want to do all the time, they can still set up these elaborate macros,” Georgeson said.

It definitely sounds like a pretty flexible platform and that they intend to do a lot of cool little things to make it a more immersive experience. Attached is a screenshot of the example used to show the detail in a characters face.

So now you people can make them O faces...