The Daybreak EverQuest Next and Landmark team (above picture, left to right) of Rosie Rappaport, Michael Mann, Steve Klug, Terry Michaels, Darrin McPherson, Colette "Dexella" Murphy (community) and Emily "Pentapod" Taylor livestreamed a Q&A session this evening. Questions were taken from social media, the forums and leftovers from previous livestreams. Below are the notes we took, which are categorized for our sanity.
Highlights
There were a few important things mentioned during the livestream tonight:
- Terry Michaels is leading the team; there's still many people (not all-new people, either) working on the games (see the pic of them in the hallway further down)
- Daybreak is no longer working with Storybricks. They are utilizing the work that was already done, but the relationship between the two companies is now over.
- Landmark open beta will be "when we're ready", according to Emily. They don't want to commit to a date; development is always moving toward it. Once the team has a date, they will share it.
- Free-to-Play: There was an interesting response to whether or not Landmark and EverQuest Next will remain F2P. Terry stated that at the moment they think the games will keep that model, but they're unwilling to commit to saying that's how it will remain by the time it launches. Some more discussion ensued on the topic, basically saying that many monetization models could work for the game. (Personal opinion? Go with B2P, guys!)
Near the end of the stream, there was discussion over a question regarding a final plan for the game. Darrin pointed out that a lot of research and development constantly goes into a product like this, and the discussion was a bit unclear beyond that point from my end. My interpretation of this response, based on the earlier discussion of when Landmark will hit open beta, is that the team only plans the next several months at a time and may not have set in advance solid milestones to hit to say the games are ready to roll into the next phase.
Here's the rest!
