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E3 2012: Hands-on with SOEmote
There's aging gracefully, and then there's EverQuest II. Sony Online Entertainment's eight-year old fantasy flagship is pretty much the benchmark for MMO feature sets and functionality at this point. There's so much to do in the game that it's overwhelming at times, and that was before the introduction of the roleplayer's dream known as SOEmote. SOEmote is one of those things that you'll either love or hate. In a nutshell, it's facial scanning technology that takes webcam input and outputs it to your avatar. EQII's toons already boasted some of the most visually expressive animations in the genre, complete with a laundry list of /emote commands that's longer than this article. SOEmote takes that to the next level (and it also adds voice-modulating capabilities, though these weren't exactly listenable due to the din of noise that is the E3 demo floor). The tech is scheduled to hit the game's live servers toward the end of this month, and it'll be met with both huzzahs (from the roleplayers and the immersion enthusiasts) and WTFs (from the raiders and progression fiends).
