The Differences between EverQuest Next and Landmark |
EverQuest Next |
Landmark |
Is a free-to-play MMO meant to be played by thousands of players simultaneously. |
Is also a free-to-play MMO meant to be played by thousands of players simultaneously. |
A high fantasy game that, although thoroughly innovative in a lot of ways, uses a more familiar MMO setup with classes, races, combat and quests. |
Focuses on exploration, discovery and creativity. Players will roam the wilds finding resources with which to construct everything from buildings to battle mechs to space ships to giant spiders made of stone. (Think of a highly advanced version of Minecraft with a simple-yet-sophisticated toolset.) Check out SOE's What is Landmark video for details. |
Uses a multi-classing system in which players collect and independently progress as many as 40 individual classes. |
Has one class - the Adventurer - which switches roles by switching weapons. A player might choose a sword and board to melee, and swap out to a staff for ranged DPS. |
Has multiple EverQuest-lore-based races. They haven't all been announced yet, but they currently include humans, elves, dark elves, dwarves, kerran (cat people), and ogres. |
Will launch with one race - human. SOE is exploring the idea of possibly bringing in additional playable races later, but may choose to stick with humans only. |
EverQuest Next takes place in Norrath, the high fantasy land of its predecessors, EverQuest and EverQuest II. Although the lore will be different, there will be familiar places and people. |
Players can build anything they like (as long as customer service allows it) in multiple uniquely themed locations called biomes (desert, seaside, mountains, swamp, etc.) Creations can range from fantasy to sci-fi to modern and everything in between. SOE will regularly host challenges inviting players to submit creations based on the EverQuest art style, and those may be used in EverQuest Next. |
Uses an active heads-up sort of combat (which has been compared to MOBA-style combat) with an 8-button hotkey configuration. Each class will have two weapon sets, and the weapon choice affects which combat abilities are available. NPCs will use highly intelligent "emergent AI" and will adapt to your combat tactics in order to keep you on your toes. |
Will have combat, but possibly not at launch. Combat will serve more as a means of defense while gathering resources. |
Has a parkour-style movement system called Heroic Movement. Characters will be able to leap, flip, slide, glide, vault and so on. |
Ditto. Makes exploration that much more fun! |
Will have player housing. |
Is all about creating houses (castles, keeps, rocket ships, giant stone spidersand more. |
Will have crafting, although little is known about it at this point. |
Is all about crafting. Players will discover materials and recipes to use in creating things like buildings, housing props, and tools. |
Will have questing, although EQNext turns it on its ear. Gone are the days of linear questlines where players run from hub to hub collecting quests from NPCs with exclamation points over their heads. Instead, a player may encounter a village besieged by orcs and have to decide how he wants to engage - kill the orcs, ask the villagers what they need help with, or seek out the orcs' nearby lair and remedy the problem at the source. (Or maybe all of the above.) |
It's unknown whether Landmark will have much in the way of questing because questing is not its focus. However, eventually Landmark players will have the tools to script their own scenarios. As SOE develops the tools for creating EverQuest Next, they will put them in the hands of Landmark players. When that happens, Landmark literally becomes a build-your-own-MMO experience. |
Takes place in a voxel-based, destructible virtual world. Players will be able to destroy buildings and terrain. (Unless SOE wants it permanently destroyed, the world will "heal" after a period of time.) Destruction will lead to new adventures, opening up things such as caverns and hidden ruins in which to explore. |
Is all about the voxels, baby! The world is also destructible, but in a way that leads to discovery and the collection of building and crafting resources. In Landmark, the purpose of destroying something is so that you can constructanother thing. (The world also "heals" after a period of time, so that mountain you virtually tore down will not stay strip mined forever.) |
A launch date is as yet unannounced. It's safe to say that EverQuest Next is in the early stages of pre-alpha development. You can apply for beta at theofficial site. |
Players will be able to gain access to alpha and closed beta testing by purchasing Founder's Packs. Time-limited (7-day) beta keys for closed-beta will also be available from many sources. Alpha is scheduled to launch on or before February 28, 2014. Closed beta is scheduled to begin on or before March 31, 2014. Apply for beta at the official site. |