SOE Celebrates EQ's Birthday with Roundtable Q&A
This article originally appeared on ZAM on March 16, 2011.
Happy 12th anniversary, EverQuest! To mark the occasion, Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff was invited to participate in a roundtable interview with SOE President John Smedley and members of the game's team.
In celebration of EverQuest's 12th anniversary, members of the press had the opportunity to attend a roundtable interview with Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, Assistant Lead Designer Alan VanCouvering and Associate Producer Harvey Burgess. Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff participated on behalf of ZAM, and it certainly turned out to be an interesting discussion.
We talked about a wide variety of topics, ranging from the history of EverQuest to the game's community. The team also fielded a series of questions on the progression servers, and Smedley gave us some hints on what we can expect to see in EverQuest Next.
You'll find a transcript of all of the team's answers sorted by topic below. Happy anniversary, EverQuest!
EverQuest
What events do you have planned for EverQuest's 12th anniversary?
Burgess: As far as our anniversary events go, of course we're re-enabling everything from the past years, all of the quests and raids that we've had before. This year we're actually including some new quests, as well as a raid that will be kind of like a throwback to the old style open area raids. This time around we've learned from mistakes about having open area raids. Multiple raid groups should now be able to participate in it easily.
What is the hardest challenge you had with the development of the game throughout all of these years?
Smedley: From our perspective, probably the most challenging thing is keeping the players happy on a consistent basis. The players typically go through the new content pretty quickly, so we have to constantly keep the game fresh in-between with live updates. I think keeping the player base happy and motivated and feeling like there's always something new to do is probably the biggest challenge.
Which feature do you feel has resonated with players the most over the lifespan of EverQuest?
VanCouvering: Recently it's the mercenaries, in part due to that fact that it helps people play by themselves. You can log in with a friend and play with a mercenary and have a full group. In recent memory, that's the one that triggers for me the most.
Burgess: That was the one I was planning to say as well. Throughout the years we've added so many different mechanics to EQ that have seemed to really greatly benefit the player base. When we added the leadership AA experience, players were able to better group with other people by selecting individual targets and seeing targets of targets. We've got so many, it's really difficult to narrow it down to just one.
Will you ever view the original EverQuest as complete?
Smedley: That's a very good question. I can't honestly say I have an answer for it. We just did a 3-year plan. We do that ever year. We assume that EverQuest is going to continue on for three more years without any problem. We also assume that we're going to be making expansions during that time as well.
Have you considered implementing a free-to-play model for the original EverQuest?
Smedley: We've looked at free-to-play for EverQuest I and decided that we don't think it's something we're going to do. It's not a guarantee that we'll never do it, but it doesn't appear that we're going to do that at this time.
When EverQuest first came out, the term EverCrack was tossed around. Looking back at those types of addiction-based stories, what's your take on it now?
Smedley: As time goes on, you'll see different stories for different games. I think what's happened is that we've evolved to become more mainstream. I don't want to say we're mainstream yet, but we're a much more mainstream phenomenon in the form of entertainment. What that means is any form of entertainment can be overplayed. We always tell people to go out into your real life, don't just sit online all of the time. What's happened is people have realized this is just like watching too much TV or obsessing about football nonstop. Everything in moderation. We've seen that the inflammatory stories have kind of died down.
Do you think the negative stories brought more attention and players to the game?
Smedley: I don't believe it brought new players to the game. I can't necessarily say I was thrilled about the stories, and certainly around some of the tragic events that happened. It was hard. I talked to Shawn Woolley's mom and that was a difficult thing. It's very hard to hear that somebody has lost someone. But over time we've seen that this form of entertainment is no different than any other. People need to realize that moderation is important. Look at what's happening now with Facebook. I check my Facebook five times a day. It's sort of the world we live in and learning to deal with that takes work.
How concerned are you about system requirements for EverQuest? Are you planning to implement any graphical updates?
Burgess: Every couple of years we definitely go through, and we actually did talk about that this year. We do go out and see how the other games look compared to EQ, and one thing we definitely keep in mind is that we do have lots of players that have been with us since the beginning and we want to make sure they don't have to go out and buy new systems to play our game to contiue playing what they enjoy. It has been very difficult trying to keep up technology-wise, but our team has done a great job of visually keeping EQ what it's supposed to be as well as making it good enough for the masses to still want to play.
VanCouvering: I would literally put our zone art up against any game right now. I'm pleased with the results.
There's been a big push for browser-based MMOs. If you're trying to keep EverQuest playable on most machines, has there been any discussion of making it browser-based?
Smedley: There hasn't been anything specific about EverQuest. At a technical level, it's trivial for us to do now. We've actually done some experimentation and have done it with a bunch of our games and looked at them running in the browser. The reality is unless it's been architected from day one with that in mind, it's not a great experience. There's all kinds of things you need to deal with. But it is an area we're heavily exploring. It's an area that we find extremely interesting. There's been a stigma placed on browser games, and the stigma is kind of that they're subclass citizens or something. The browser is just a place to play it. Nothing more than that. It's an interesting vehicle for us to explore and we are going to continue exploring it.
Where does EverQuest go from here? Where do you see the game in the next few years?
VanCouvering: I'd almost like to say more of the same. We're going to continue to put out awesome content with innovative new ideas in them. I expect us to be bigger and better!
Burgess: We are not at a loss of ideas. We constantly reevaluate the direction we're going and what we want to see in the game for years to come. We're definitely still going strong. Until we find something that we don't agree with, we'll still be providing content that players seem to like.
EverQuest II and EverQuest Next
How do you feel EverQuest and EverQuest II are currently coexisting?
Smedley: The politically correct answer to that is they're doing great. The actual answer is we probably made a mistake calling it EverQuest II. That was clearly a mistake. We didn't realize the lifespan. We're sitting here talking about the 12th anniversary of an online game. That's amazing in and of itself. Our original plan was that it was going to be like ever other kind of retail game; after a few years, it would go away and the next one would come out. That hasn't happened. If we could have one thing to do over again on that front, it would be to rename EverQuest II. The game's actually very different. They're set in different times and they appeal to different audiences. It's been an interesting ride trying to convince retailers that it's a good idea to have both EverQuest I and II on the shelf at the same time. I wish we could have a do-over there.
How much more content do you have for EverQuest II before you'll feel the need to bring out EverQuest Next?
Smedley: I would say we're not bringing EverQuest Next out until it's done. We assume both EverQuest I and II are going to have lives independent of EverQuest Next. There's no shortage of fresh and great ideas. I'm not terribly worried about our ability to keep players entertained. It's what we do for a living. As far as EverQuest Next, it will come out when it' ready and not before. I think it's going to surprise a lot of people because of the direction that we're choosing. We're hoping to bring both our past players and a whole bunch of people who have never seen the world of Norrath into it.
Do you see the MMO genre ever going back to the goal of making an online world as opposed to a game?
Smedley: I would say, without giving away to much, EverQuest Next is much truer to that vision. We feel really strongly about that. Players are going to be pretty surprised. They're not going to see us do EverQuest 2.5 or make a World of Warcraft clone or anything like that. We have an entirely new direction and we believe very strongly that the concept of it being a world is the way to go.
What will EverQuest Next have that no other game has?
Smedley: That would be telling! I will say that we're not trying to recreate the wheel. We're trying to do something revolutionary, not evolutionary. That's how we approached it form the day we started development on it. The game looks visually unbelievable. It has its own style. We're not trying to be super realistic with it. We have our own very unique style that I think people are really going to like. The features are going to be shrouded in secrecy for quite awhile.
Progression Servers
How are the progression servers going? Have you learned lessons from the wave of players that have been enjoying them?
Burgess: Basically what we wanted to do this time around was learn from the past server. We've done the progression server before. Last time we didn't enable all of the the same experiences people had before as far as the slower experience and the corpse runs. We decided not to do corpse runs this time. There's actually a poll going on right now where the players can actually see other people voting for and against doing corpse runs. Currently we've been focusing on the forums, seeing what players have liked and what they haven't liked and we went the extra mile to make sure that we incorporated all of those things with this progression server this time around.
VanCouvering: We spent quite a bit of time making sure this was much closer to the original than the first time we did it. Over the years we put a lot of stuff into the old world zones. We spent a lot of time removing that stuff so it would only show up once that expansion had launched. It seems to be going really well.
Are time-locked progression servers popular enough right now that you can imagine adding more?
Burgess: It's definitely an idea we've tossed around. We just need to make sure that the players want it and we have the ability to support fully and as functional as we have with Fippy Darkpaw and Vulak'Aerr right now. It will also be interesting to see how both servers play out against each other since Fippy did get a six-hour head start.
Do you feel you've tapped into the full potential of the time-locked progression servers?
VanCouvering: From a design perspective, there are things we could have caught that we missed and they'll be caught the next time we do this, if there is a next time. Design-wise, when you're talking about bringing it back to the basics there's only so far you can go.
Community
How has the evolving community changed your approach to the design of the games?
VanCouvering: I can speak for EverQuest specifically. There's a trap you can fall into when you listen to the vocal minority. As experienced designers, we understand that you have to listen to more than just the vocal minority. For example, we let the polling system help us get a better feel for the majority's opinion rather than the minority's opinion. Other than that, having a community that has been with us for so long that it makes it more interesting work on a game like this. There's a sense that people enjoy the game, which you might not get on a new game. We know that these people enjoy what we've been doing for the past 12 years, and hopefully they'll keep enjoying it.
Burgess: As we continue to grow and gain more experience with it, we've just gone down different avenues of talking to players. It's either via the forums or the community leaders that we have internally from the players that help us, and we are able to ping feedback off of them with ideas that we have moving forward. There are a lot of avenues we've started exploring over the years to give the best content and features that we can to the players.
How have you seen the community itself change? Have you seen a lot of new players come in, or has it been mainly the same players that have stuck with the game throughout the years?
Smedley: It's been a combination of both. One aspect of this game that you don't think about at first, but we do now, is literally life cycles. We have a lot of players who, for example, may have started out when they were 20 and are now 30-32 with kids. You really start to think about the social groups that these people have formed and the guilds they've formed. They have personal friends that they've known for as long as anybody has known their friends. It's a pretty amazing sight to see.
VanCouvering: We definitely have a lot of people who have been with us for a long time. As a designer, it's hard not to listen to those players primarily, but we have to be very aware that there are new players who want to play our game. You see them speaking on the forums or in-game as well, and it's actually refreshing to hear their voices.
Burgess: On the new player aspect, I'd be lying if I didn't say I finally got one of my brother who's totally a sports jock to actually play EQ because he'd been hearing how the MMO industry had been growing. He finally listened to me one day and started playing EQ and now he's a diehard fan. We definitely get new people coming into the game as well.
Does a new player have a chance to catch up to older players? What advice do you have for a new player?
Burgess: That's something that I believe we're definitely trying to look at on the EQ team. With 12 years of content and features and mechanics, it can be a little overwhelming to a new player, but we do have methods in place to help those players along. A fellowship allows you to group with more than just the typical six people and helps you coordinate getting people out to you. We also have NPCs in the Plane of Knowledge that explain a lot of the newer mechanics, as well as telling players where they can go get their spells for X, Y and Z levels. As we continue on throughout the game, we definitely want to make sure we don't lose focus that with new players we need to have some kind of bridge to teach players what they may have missed throughout the 12 years.
VanCouvering: We focused a lot on moving a lot of the introductory content to the Plane of Knowledge so there's a central location where they can get all of that stuff.
How would you profile the modern EverQuest I player?
Smedley: It's evolved. I would say it's about 80% male. It is average age of about 38. It is somebody that's well educated and spends a lot of time in the game. The average play time right now is over 20 hours per week. It's definitely somebody that's very committed.
The MMO Market
What is your take on the current state of the MMO market? Who are your main competitors?
Smedley: Clearly, Blizzard has a pretty healthy lead over the rest of the industry. However, our main competitors from our perspective is the MMO industry in general. It's really blossomed and become this vibrant industry. We're trying to innovate and do new things. For example, with DC Universe Online we made an action MMO that's on both the PC and PlayStation 3. We're seeing real big success on the PS3. We started with EverQuest and keeping innovative is sort of the way we compete.
When it launched, EverQuest set expectations for traditional MMOs. Then World of Warcraft came along. How does EverQuest fit into the MMO space now? Are you trying to adapt the game?
VanCouvering: I would say it would be sort of a mistake for us to try to follow what WoW's doing. It's a brilliant game, no doubt, and we've definitely learned things from them. But EverQuest is pretty much its own little entity and has its own feel, way of playing and lifespan. To try to change that to follow a game that came afterward would probably be a mistake. We try to make EverQuest even more EverQuest-y if at all possible. Changing the feel of the game would be a bit of a mistake.
Personal Questions
As developers, what are some of your favorite moments from the past 12 years of EverQuest?
VanCouvering: Probably my favorite was meeting my guild at a Fan Faire in Vegas. The people that I had grown to be friends with for a year and a half before I actually met them. It was a weird experience. The weirdest and best part to me was that I actually liked them in person. I had just assumed they were being nice to me. When I met them in person, they were all exactly like they seemed to be online. That was probably my favorite experience as a player and maybe even as a designer.
Burgess: A popular topic is epics in EverQuest. Mine would have to be creating some of those and seeing player reactions as they were going through and trying to figure out exactly where they were, coordinating with other players on finding clues, and then completing them and seeing the players' excitement. It made me happy. It made me feel like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, which is providing that kind of excitement for players. It was a good feeling.
Smedley: For me, it was was seeing it launch. It was very exciting. We didn't quite know what we had on our hands at that point. We knew it was going to be popular, we just didn't know how popular. I was there when we launched this thing and it was a really happy time. It was really fun to be a part of it.
What race and class did you pick for your main characters? Why did you choose them?
VanCouvering: I started out playing a bard and gravitated toward an enchanter. I like the panic factor, frankly. If you're party's going to fail, it's going to be because your enchanter failed. Or if you're going to succeed, it's going to be because your enchanter succeeded. I like the difficult, complicated and even at times frustrating classes to play, so I tend to stay away from the warriors and rogues. I enjoy figuring out how to make that work.
Burgess: I am still a human monk agnostic. But that wasn't my very first character. My first character was a necro that couldn't see in the dark, so I couldn't go that route.
Smedley: For me, it's the halfing rogue for sure. Good times. Very good times.
Happy 12th anniversary, EverQuest! To mark the occasion, Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff was invited to participate in a roundtable interview with SOE President John Smedley and members of the game's team.
In celebration of EverQuest's 12th anniversary, members of the press had the opportunity to attend a roundtable interview with Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley, Assistant Lead Designer Alan VanCouvering and Associate Producer Harvey Burgess. Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff participated on behalf of ZAM, and it certainly turned out to be an interesting discussion.
We talked about a wide variety of topics, ranging from the history of EverQuest to the game's community. The team also fielded a series of questions on the progression servers, and Smedley gave us some hints on what we can expect to see in EverQuest Next.
You'll find a transcript of all of the team's answers sorted by topic below. Happy anniversary, EverQuest!
EverQuest
What events do you have planned for EverQuest's 12th anniversary?
Burgess: As far as our anniversary events go, of course we're re-enabling everything from the past years, all of the quests and raids that we've had before. This year we're actually including some new quests, as well as a raid that will be kind of like a throwback to the old style open area raids. This time around we've learned from mistakes about having open area raids. Multiple raid groups should now be able to participate in it easily.
What is the hardest challenge you had with the development of the game throughout all of these years?
Smedley: From our perspective, probably the most challenging thing is keeping the players happy on a consistent basis. The players typically go through the new content pretty quickly, so we have to constantly keep the game fresh in-between with live updates. I think keeping the player base happy and motivated and feeling like there's always something new to do is probably the biggest challenge.
Which feature do you feel has resonated with players the most over the lifespan of EverQuest?
VanCouvering: Recently it's the mercenaries, in part due to that fact that it helps people play by themselves. You can log in with a friend and play with a mercenary and have a full group. In recent memory, that's the one that triggers for me the most.
Burgess: That was the one I was planning to say as well. Throughout the years we've added so many different mechanics to EQ that have seemed to really greatly benefit the player base. When we added the leadership AA experience, players were able to better group with other people by selecting individual targets and seeing targets of targets. We've got so many, it's really difficult to narrow it down to just one.
Will you ever view the original EverQuest as complete?
Smedley: That's a very good question. I can't honestly say I have an answer for it. We just did a 3-year plan. We do that ever year. We assume that EverQuest is going to continue on for three more years without any problem. We also assume that we're going to be making expansions during that time as well.
Have you considered implementing a free-to-play model for the original EverQuest?
Smedley: We've looked at free-to-play for EverQuest I and decided that we don't think it's something we're going to do. It's not a guarantee that we'll never do it, but it doesn't appear that we're going to do that at this time.
When EverQuest first came out, the term EverCrack was tossed around. Looking back at those types of addiction-based stories, what's your take on it now?
Smedley: As time goes on, you'll see different stories for different games. I think what's happened is that we've evolved to become more mainstream. I don't want to say we're mainstream yet, but we're a much more mainstream phenomenon in the form of entertainment. What that means is any form of entertainment can be overplayed. We always tell people to go out into your real life, don't just sit online all of the time. What's happened is people have realized this is just like watching too much TV or obsessing about football nonstop. Everything in moderation. We've seen that the inflammatory stories have kind of died down.
Do you think the negative stories brought more attention and players to the game?
Smedley: I don't believe it brought new players to the game. I can't necessarily say I was thrilled about the stories, and certainly around some of the tragic events that happened. It was hard. I talked to Shawn Woolley's mom and that was a difficult thing. It's very hard to hear that somebody has lost someone. But over time we've seen that this form of entertainment is no different than any other. People need to realize that moderation is important. Look at what's happening now with Facebook. I check my Facebook five times a day. It's sort of the world we live in and learning to deal with that takes work.
How concerned are you about system requirements for EverQuest? Are you planning to implement any graphical updates?
Burgess: Every couple of years we definitely go through, and we actually did talk about that this year. We do go out and see how the other games look compared to EQ, and one thing we definitely keep in mind is that we do have lots of players that have been with us since the beginning and we want to make sure they don't have to go out and buy new systems to play our game to contiue playing what they enjoy. It has been very difficult trying to keep up technology-wise, but our team has done a great job of visually keeping EQ what it's supposed to be as well as making it good enough for the masses to still want to play.
VanCouvering: I would literally put our zone art up against any game right now. I'm pleased with the results.
There's been a big push for browser-based MMOs. If you're trying to keep EverQuest playable on most machines, has there been any discussion of making it browser-based?
Smedley: There hasn't been anything specific about EverQuest. At a technical level, it's trivial for us to do now. We've actually done some experimentation and have done it with a bunch of our games and looked at them running in the browser. The reality is unless it's been architected from day one with that in mind, it's not a great experience. There's all kinds of things you need to deal with. But it is an area we're heavily exploring. It's an area that we find extremely interesting. There's been a stigma placed on browser games, and the stigma is kind of that they're subclass citizens or something. The browser is just a place to play it. Nothing more than that. It's an interesting vehicle for us to explore and we are going to continue exploring it.
Where does EverQuest go from here? Where do you see the game in the next few years?
VanCouvering: I'd almost like to say more of the same. We're going to continue to put out awesome content with innovative new ideas in them. I expect us to be bigger and better!
Burgess: We are not at a loss of ideas. We constantly reevaluate the direction we're going and what we want to see in the game for years to come. We're definitely still going strong. Until we find something that we don't agree with, we'll still be providing content that players seem to like.
EverQuest II and EverQuest Next
How do you feel EverQuest and EverQuest II are currently coexisting?
Smedley: The politically correct answer to that is they're doing great. The actual answer is we probably made a mistake calling it EverQuest II. That was clearly a mistake. We didn't realize the lifespan. We're sitting here talking about the 12th anniversary of an online game. That's amazing in and of itself. Our original plan was that it was going to be like ever other kind of retail game; after a few years, it would go away and the next one would come out. That hasn't happened. If we could have one thing to do over again on that front, it would be to rename EverQuest II. The game's actually very different. They're set in different times and they appeal to different audiences. It's been an interesting ride trying to convince retailers that it's a good idea to have both EverQuest I and II on the shelf at the same time. I wish we could have a do-over there.
How much more content do you have for EverQuest II before you'll feel the need to bring out EverQuest Next?
Smedley: I would say we're not bringing EverQuest Next out until it's done. We assume both EverQuest I and II are going to have lives independent of EverQuest Next. There's no shortage of fresh and great ideas. I'm not terribly worried about our ability to keep players entertained. It's what we do for a living. As far as EverQuest Next, it will come out when it' ready and not before. I think it's going to surprise a lot of people because of the direction that we're choosing. We're hoping to bring both our past players and a whole bunch of people who have never seen the world of Norrath into it.
Do you see the MMO genre ever going back to the goal of making an online world as opposed to a game?
Smedley: I would say, without giving away to much, EverQuest Next is much truer to that vision. We feel really strongly about that. Players are going to be pretty surprised. They're not going to see us do EverQuest 2.5 or make a World of Warcraft clone or anything like that. We have an entirely new direction and we believe very strongly that the concept of it being a world is the way to go.
What will EverQuest Next have that no other game has?
Smedley: That would be telling! I will say that we're not trying to recreate the wheel. We're trying to do something revolutionary, not evolutionary. That's how we approached it form the day we started development on it. The game looks visually unbelievable. It has its own style. We're not trying to be super realistic with it. We have our own very unique style that I think people are really going to like. The features are going to be shrouded in secrecy for quite awhile.
Progression Servers
How are the progression servers going? Have you learned lessons from the wave of players that have been enjoying them?
Burgess: Basically what we wanted to do this time around was learn from the past server. We've done the progression server before. Last time we didn't enable all of the the same experiences people had before as far as the slower experience and the corpse runs. We decided not to do corpse runs this time. There's actually a poll going on right now where the players can actually see other people voting for and against doing corpse runs. Currently we've been focusing on the forums, seeing what players have liked and what they haven't liked and we went the extra mile to make sure that we incorporated all of those things with this progression server this time around.
VanCouvering: We spent quite a bit of time making sure this was much closer to the original than the first time we did it. Over the years we put a lot of stuff into the old world zones. We spent a lot of time removing that stuff so it would only show up once that expansion had launched. It seems to be going really well.
Are time-locked progression servers popular enough right now that you can imagine adding more?
Burgess: It's definitely an idea we've tossed around. We just need to make sure that the players want it and we have the ability to support fully and as functional as we have with Fippy Darkpaw and Vulak'Aerr right now. It will also be interesting to see how both servers play out against each other since Fippy did get a six-hour head start.
Do you feel you've tapped into the full potential of the time-locked progression servers?
VanCouvering: From a design perspective, there are things we could have caught that we missed and they'll be caught the next time we do this, if there is a next time. Design-wise, when you're talking about bringing it back to the basics there's only so far you can go.
Community
How has the evolving community changed your approach to the design of the games?
VanCouvering: I can speak for EverQuest specifically. There's a trap you can fall into when you listen to the vocal minority. As experienced designers, we understand that you have to listen to more than just the vocal minority. For example, we let the polling system help us get a better feel for the majority's opinion rather than the minority's opinion. Other than that, having a community that has been with us for so long that it makes it more interesting work on a game like this. There's a sense that people enjoy the game, which you might not get on a new game. We know that these people enjoy what we've been doing for the past 12 years, and hopefully they'll keep enjoying it.
Burgess: As we continue to grow and gain more experience with it, we've just gone down different avenues of talking to players. It's either via the forums or the community leaders that we have internally from the players that help us, and we are able to ping feedback off of them with ideas that we have moving forward. There are a lot of avenues we've started exploring over the years to give the best content and features that we can to the players.
How have you seen the community itself change? Have you seen a lot of new players come in, or has it been mainly the same players that have stuck with the game throughout the years?
Smedley: It's been a combination of both. One aspect of this game that you don't think about at first, but we do now, is literally life cycles. We have a lot of players who, for example, may have started out when they were 20 and are now 30-32 with kids. You really start to think about the social groups that these people have formed and the guilds they've formed. They have personal friends that they've known for as long as anybody has known their friends. It's a pretty amazing sight to see.
VanCouvering: We definitely have a lot of people who have been with us for a long time. As a designer, it's hard not to listen to those players primarily, but we have to be very aware that there are new players who want to play our game. You see them speaking on the forums or in-game as well, and it's actually refreshing to hear their voices.
Burgess: On the new player aspect, I'd be lying if I didn't say I finally got one of my brother who's totally a sports jock to actually play EQ because he'd been hearing how the MMO industry had been growing. He finally listened to me one day and started playing EQ and now he's a diehard fan. We definitely get new people coming into the game as well.
Does a new player have a chance to catch up to older players? What advice do you have for a new player?
Burgess: That's something that I believe we're definitely trying to look at on the EQ team. With 12 years of content and features and mechanics, it can be a little overwhelming to a new player, but we do have methods in place to help those players along. A fellowship allows you to group with more than just the typical six people and helps you coordinate getting people out to you. We also have NPCs in the Plane of Knowledge that explain a lot of the newer mechanics, as well as telling players where they can go get their spells for X, Y and Z levels. As we continue on throughout the game, we definitely want to make sure we don't lose focus that with new players we need to have some kind of bridge to teach players what they may have missed throughout the 12 years.
VanCouvering: We focused a lot on moving a lot of the introductory content to the Plane of Knowledge so there's a central location where they can get all of that stuff.
How would you profile the modern EverQuest I player?
Smedley: It's evolved. I would say it's about 80% male. It is average age of about 38. It is somebody that's well educated and spends a lot of time in the game. The average play time right now is over 20 hours per week. It's definitely somebody that's very committed.
The MMO Market
What is your take on the current state of the MMO market? Who are your main competitors?
Smedley: Clearly, Blizzard has a pretty healthy lead over the rest of the industry. However, our main competitors from our perspective is the MMO industry in general. It's really blossomed and become this vibrant industry. We're trying to innovate and do new things. For example, with DC Universe Online we made an action MMO that's on both the PC and PlayStation 3. We're seeing real big success on the PS3. We started with EverQuest and keeping innovative is sort of the way we compete.
When it launched, EverQuest set expectations for traditional MMOs. Then World of Warcraft came along. How does EverQuest fit into the MMO space now? Are you trying to adapt the game?
VanCouvering: I would say it would be sort of a mistake for us to try to follow what WoW's doing. It's a brilliant game, no doubt, and we've definitely learned things from them. But EverQuest is pretty much its own little entity and has its own feel, way of playing and lifespan. To try to change that to follow a game that came afterward would probably be a mistake. We try to make EverQuest even more EverQuest-y if at all possible. Changing the feel of the game would be a bit of a mistake.
Personal Questions
As developers, what are some of your favorite moments from the past 12 years of EverQuest?
VanCouvering: Probably my favorite was meeting my guild at a Fan Faire in Vegas. The people that I had grown to be friends with for a year and a half before I actually met them. It was a weird experience. The weirdest and best part to me was that I actually liked them in person. I had just assumed they were being nice to me. When I met them in person, they were all exactly like they seemed to be online. That was probably my favorite experience as a player and maybe even as a designer.
Burgess: A popular topic is epics in EverQuest. Mine would have to be creating some of those and seeing player reactions as they were going through and trying to figure out exactly where they were, coordinating with other players on finding clues, and then completing them and seeing the players' excitement. It made me happy. It made me feel like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, which is providing that kind of excitement for players. It was a good feeling.
Smedley: For me, it was was seeing it launch. It was very exciting. We didn't quite know what we had on our hands at that point. We knew it was going to be popular, we just didn't know how popular. I was there when we launched this thing and it was a really happy time. It was really fun to be a part of it.
What race and class did you pick for your main characters? Why did you choose them?
VanCouvering: I started out playing a bard and gravitated toward an enchanter. I like the panic factor, frankly. If you're party's going to fail, it's going to be because your enchanter failed. Or if you're going to succeed, it's going to be because your enchanter succeeded. I like the difficult, complicated and even at times frustrating classes to play, so I tend to stay away from the warriors and rogues. I enjoy figuring out how to make that work.
Burgess: I am still a human monk agnostic. But that wasn't my very first character. My first character was a necro that couldn't see in the dark, so I couldn't go that route.
Smedley: For me, it's the halfing rogue for sure. Good times. Very good times.