If the world is only what you make of it, then it’s only fitting that we should be granted the right tools to make our mark. I greatly admire Minecraft, but I’m ready for something that serves as a graduation ceremony. I’m ready to leave behind blocks. I’m ready to round out the edges. My mark cannot be made up of cubes alone.
In a recent hands-on preview with EverQuest Next Landmark, EverQuest director of development Dave Georgeson was careful not to use the “M” word, at least until I brought it up. When it comes to world-creation games, Minecraft is the elephant in the room, but I can’t let this particular elephant frighten me away, so I shall say what I think after my limited time with Sony Online Entertainment’s upcoming world-building game: it’s like Minecraft, but smoother. Landmark entrusts you with tools that let you sculpt architecture to an impressively detailed degree.
In case you missed the initial announcement, EverQuest Next Landmark is a massively multiplayer sandbox in which you get to use voxel brushes, smoothing brushes, and other vital tools to shape, sculpt, and sand the world as you like. These are the same tools the Everquest Next Team is using to build the next-generation Norrath. As for me, I’m no game designer. I had an hour with a high-powered laptop to make something nice. And when that hour was up, what I made wasn’t all that nice. But I still made something, and that was, well, that was something, all right. I certainly can’t claim to not have had all the proper instruments for the job, however. At the start, I looked out onto the rolling green hills from a third-person view and imagined what buildings might be at home in such a place. I then completely dismissed the grand notions that danced in my head, and instead figured I’d start simply: with a rectangular house. Surely some walls, some doors, and a roof wouldn’t be too tough to pull off.
As it happens, they weren’t. To start with, I wasn’t limited to placing the foundation block by block. Instead, I could choose the selection tool and drag out a rectangular box of any size I wanted. Once a box was placed, I could paint it with whichever texture I wanted, and I wanted an ice home… so ice it became. I also could extend the walls, floors, and other geometry I placed by grabbing the corners and dragging them outwards, and with a simple keypress, I would even drag selections through the ground or other obstacles so that I could eliminate inappropriate empty spaces. You say you want stairs? No problem! Just create a series of boxes of increasing heights. A rooftop? Easy peasy! You can create a ramp at almost any angle you please. And sure, if you’re dead set on doing it all cube by cube, well, knock yourself out.
I wasn’t alone in my construction project, however: one of EverQuest Next Landmark’s designers was there to prove what could be done when you actually have a burgeoning talent and familiarity with the tools. Nor was my edifice in progress the only architecture around. Sony Online Entertainment’s designers had fleshed out the region with numerous structures, including a nearby castle that dwarfed my little icy hut. So I doubled down on my effort and carved out some doorways, hoping to arch them so that my new digital home wasn’t a rectangular monstrosity. As it turns out, doing so wasn’t difficult at all: just select the smoothing tool, and 90-degree edges morphed into attractive arches. I admit, though, that I got a little carried away with the tool and rounded out a few too many edges, only to discover that this early build of EverQuest Next Landmark didn’t have a multi-step “undo” command, but could only eliminate my last action. Not to worry: Georgeson says this won’t be a concern once you get your hands on Landmark, but sadly, my castle away from home was starting to look a little lopsided.
The castle wasn’t just a two-story dream home, however, but a stunning example of one-upsmanship.
The clock was ticking, so I left my building partner to work his magic, and I decided to see if I could do something interesting with the neighboring castle. Coincidentally, the rooftop of my own building was almost at the same height as the other castle’s patio, so I tweaked the height of my roof and extended it so that the two surfaces would meet. Then, I used the easy painting tool to spread a stone texture across the single surface that resulted, creating a superstructure that caused me to think of my own sad little structure as an architectural feature of a finer construct.
There’s a reason Georgeson is a game designer, of course. His castle put my little flophouse to shame, and I couldn’t resist exploring it in detail. Several flaming fires in his kitchen made the room feel homey, while his basement looked like a recreation room where I could put up my feet and stay a while. The castle wasn’t just a two-story dream home, however, but a stunning example of one-upsmanship with a subterranean tunnel that winded it way into more structures and underground gardens. I’ve now begun my advance planning of an intricate enclave created specifically to make Georgeson jealous. Let’s see if I can succeed.
You will soon have a chance to put your own imagination to the test. EverQuest Next Landmark will hit alpha status on February 28, 2014 (hooray for leap year!) or sooner, and will reach closed beta status on March 31, 2014 or sooner. Starting today, you can buy Landmark Founder’s Packs for $19.99, $59.99, or $99.99, each of which nets you some nice goodies. (I wouldn’t mind traipsing about the world with the Trailblazer title, personally.) And of course, Sony Online Entertainment is using a number of avenues for communicating consistently with its community, including its YouTube channel and community round table.
One thing I didn’t get to do was experience Landmark’s resource collection, which starts with the simplest of tools: a copper pick. And then there’s EverQuest Next proper, the upcoming online role-playing game that aims to shake up the genre and may very well succeed. Soon enough, however, we will be starting the first leg of an extended EverQuest journey, and I’m excited to add my own creative expressions to it. Even if that expression is a lopsided house made up of ice and cobblestones.
