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EverQuest Next looks to players to improve the new play experience
Sometimes, existing players don't really know what new players need. But EverQuest Next Landmark is still very new, and everyone who's in the game is still very much learning what can be done. So the development team at Sony Online Entertainment has turned to the players to ask what can be done to make the new user experience for players that much easier. As the thread opener from lead designer Darrin McPherson explains, sometimes as a developer it's hard to see what a game is missing simply because you're too close to the game. You know how all the systems work; you built most of them, after all. Players, on the other hand, can find holes in explanations that might otherwise be unavailable. If you've been playing around in the test and want to add your thoughts, head over to the official thread and let the team know what's intuitive and what isn't.
Some Assembly Required: Community dictates development path of Neo's Land
Sandbox aficionados, are you ready for another contender in the fight to be your next virtual world? Well, ready or not, here one comes! And now that the cat (or Kickstarter, as it were) is officially out of the bag, we can take stroll through this new development project and see just how things are shaping up. The name of this virtual playground-to-be? Neo's Land. With the number of crowdfund-hopefuls coming and going, you might be wondering what -- if anything -- distinguishes this game from all the others also vying for your attention and support. What exactly makes this project different and worth a look? It's not the various sandbox features like skills, an open world, and building homes; you can find those in other games that are out there or in the works. No, what sets Neo's Land apart is the different approach to development it is taking. Instead of building a game using the studio's ideal features, NeoJac Entertainment is quite literally soliciting the feature set directly from the players before implementing. In this case, Some Assembly Required also refers to the game itself! Can it be done -- can a game truly be built to honest-to-goodness player specs? During an exclusive interview with CEO and President Jacques Rossouw, I got to walk along the development path of Neo's Land and see what the game is about.
