So, lately I’ve been getting back into WoW and a few other online games to spend time with some good friends. On the (distant) horizon, there is this game called Everquest Next. And the more I learn about it (And as a #Trailblazer) the more I consider the potential it has. So I thought I would write-up my thoughts about it and see where it takes me.

Progression: In most MMOs (WoW included) your characters and gear are somewhat predetermined. Example: As a warlock, I will alway want to stack X stat and pick X abilities if I am offered them if I want to maximize my potential. There are mathematical calculators out there that can easily determine what the best gear in the game is for me and that’s what I work toward. Eventually, the level cap rises and the treadmill to gear supremacy resumes.

EQN has the potential to break that cycle. My hope, as someone who has played these types of games since their inception, and as someone who hopes to design games himself some day, is that they stick to their word. No levels, no ‘best in slot’ gear. I think to my days of playing Magic: The Gathering. There were 5 basic colors to choose from for a deck but you could mix and match them however you wanted, and nearly every combination therein had an immense variety of ways they could be played. A black/red deck could be an extremely potent burn deck simply by dealing massive damage to monsters and opponents without ever having to worry about discard mechanics or life gain or anything. On the same coin, a red/black deck could focus solely on discard or life drain or land destruction or any number of things and still be equally as effective as the first. Apply this logic to the multi-classing system of EQN.

Sure, I have fighter class unlocked, and I can use only fighter abilities and be incredibly efficient at something like… countering spellcasters. Or, I can multi-class and grab abilities from rogue, this time focusing on backstab and mobility mechanics. Or maybe my fighter/rogue focuses on blind and stun abilities. Creating a system where each class has variety silhouetted by flavor means that multi-classing is more than just being a warrior who splashes in some rogue for extra DPS. It’s creating an entirely new class.

So this begs the question, “How does my character grow? If he’s as strong at the start as he is at the end, what’s the point of playing?” Lateral progression. The versatility, gameplay style, creativity and development of a character is not about numbers but about style. The point isn’t to get the highest numbered gear and top the DPS charts, it’s to create a class and gear it in a unique way specific to your playstyle that works. I see an archer and a wizard and I think, “how can I combine these to make an awesome long-range artillery class?” And then I start unlocking skills, trying different combinations and outfitting my character with different gear. I find that sweet bow with a range that’s %50 further than all the others. Sure, it’s only half as powerful, but I don’t care about the damage of the bow, I care that this sweet wizard spell I have does more damage the further it travels, and because it travels the distance my attacks do, that bow makes it hit like a truck. Neat gimmick, but there’s even more to it than that. Now maybe I want to try to find a ring that makes me fire even further or get and ability that can make my next ability crit 100% of the time. Now it hits like two trucks! Everyone else might see that bow and think, “1/5 the DPS? No thank you.” But I see a gold mine. And who knows, maybe in the next expansion they will introduce a bow that fires at two targets instead of one. It might not hit quite as hard, but now I can fire at two targets! Equally handy, for different purposes.

Gear: This is part of progression, but I think it’s important to separate it from the pack because most MMOs are all about phat loots. What do I mean? I mean the ‘best in slot’ gear. The number crunched ‘this is best for x class/spec’ mantra of the genre. Without traditional leveling systems, there runs the risk of a ‘leveless’ system like… Minecraft. What I mean is, sure there are no levels, but there is gear that’s just strictly BETTER than other gear. And there is still a BEST. In the example of Minecraft, diamond gear is the top of the list. Nothing beats it, period. Much like max level content in WoW (or any other MMO) there is the absolute best gear in the game. Why is this a problem? It erases originality, customization, strategy and life. Every destruction spec warlock (if they want to be good) is hoping and aiming for the exact same gear. They will all have the same optimum ability rotation and they will all suffer the same limitations. It’s homogenizing to the point of creating sterility.

How can EQN avoid this? Let’s look at Magic: The Gathering again. Yes, I know, I’m getting stuck on Magic, but stay with me here. Any deck in Magic is composed of at last 60 cards. Those cards all have value. A good deck does not have ‘the best cards for x color’ but instead has cards the work well together. On a rare occasion you might find a card that’s just better for the deck than another, but in many cases cards that would work hideously poorly in one deck can be a godsend to another. Two cards may have the same cost but radically different effects, and both of them might be equally helpful to the deck. This is important to think of because it has to do with how EQN -COULD- handle its equipment.

Say for example every item had a set value. All gear in EQN might have a score of 100. Meaning every single piece of equipment has no more of less points invested in it than 100. 5% increased attack speed might be worth 20 points while a base damage of 25 might be worth 50. Using these point values, every item has value. That copper sword you started off with is very balanced. it has 25 points worth of speed, power, balance and crit totalling 100 points. And there might be a build out there for a rogue/wizard that absolutely thrives with a balanced sword like that. On the other hand, an assassin/barbarian build might really want a dagger that has a whole lot of power but doesn’t care about attack speed or balance. So, you find a heavy iron dagger that has 60 points worth of power and 40 worth of crit and you’ve found your holy grail. Now say you find an ornate mithril dagger that has 40 points in power, 15 points in crit and a special effect on it that gives it a chance to rapidly initiate an ability twice. (That nasty assassinate ability you have can hit twice before the enemy realizes you exist and cuts you sneaky backstabbing tactics short? YES PLEASE!) Which weapon you would choose is up to the individual character. Perhaps some like the stable output of the heavy iron dagger or they have a ring that makes them assassinate for 4x damage, so they want the extra power more than the off chance to hit twice. In a system like this, items become cards in the deck that is your character, along with all the abilities of your class. You can mix, match, tweak and customize you builds. Just like watching a game of Magic, you might just keep seeing new and interesting builds pop up.

The Holy Trinity: This one always stirs up controversy. And people constantly cite failed games that tried to break it. The Tank/Healer/DPS combo has certainly proven it functions and functions well! Would it work in EQN? Absolutely! But does that mean it should be in EQN? If they want to make the game truly different? No. EQN has the potential with its new Emergent AI to create a kind of combat we’ve only seen the distant likeness of in a very different genre, MOBAs. That thought scares a lot of people, but I’ll try to calm some of those fears. First: The holy trinity CAN still exist, they just have to be done a little differently than we are used to. Think of it this way, what is each role?

A tank prevents the team from sustaining damage. Traditionally, this is done by soaking up that damage themselves thanks to a high health pool, dodging abilities and other defensive things, as well as the ability to force the enemy to target them. EQN may not have a means of FORCING an enemy to attack someone, but that might not mean the role is killed. There may be clever ways to create the same effect. For example: An ability that decrease the damage its target does to anyone but the caster by 1/2. The ‘tank’ uses this ability on a boss. Now that boss has a hard decision to make. Does it try to kill that evasive little jerk of a rogue at 1/2 speed, or does it turn and beat the tar out of that paladin at full speed? It’s certainly a lot more appealing to go for that paladin. Now, if the boss is really smart, if might realize the cleric can’t dodge to save its life and even at half speed it’d still kill him in no time, but let’s say that cleric was clever and picked up an illusion spell that swapped the appearance of itself and the paladin. Now the boss THINKS it’s cracking down on a squishy cleric, but really? It’s beat the shield of a shield-blocking paladin.

A healer’s job is to keep everyone alive, most especially the tank. How could EQN handle this? Well what if healing wasn’t even the key. Maybe a ‘healer’ in EQN is a CC specialist. Instead of healing the tank up to full with a spell or two, they shut down the opposition so that the tank and DPS can focus on one enemy at a time. A pacifism spell that stops every enemy save their target in their tracks for 10 seconds could give the team enough time to quickly eliminate a nasty spellcaster on the enemy team. A soul-link spell that binds one enemy and a friendly target’s health pools together, incentive to discourage enemies from pummeling your mage for fear they might be slaughtering their master in the process. Or a time warp spell that send an ally back in time to their state and location 6 seconds prior could mean taking a fallen foe from the floor (after being hit by a devastating blow) and put him on his feet, chuck full of mana and zeal. Or perhaps it could send that dragon back to before it ate its ally to gain power, now without the ally to consume. A healer’s role still exists, it might just be unconventional, or perhaps it will be the same old ‘by the light be healed’ you know and love.

DPS (damage per second) is the primary killing force of the team. Sure the tank and the heals keep the group alive, but these guys are the meat of it. And from a traditional point of view, they have a pretty simple role. Kill things, and kill them as fast as possible. But what if killing wasn’t the only way to eliminate threats? What if a ‘dps’ was built around the idea of preventing more enemies from joining the fray. Instead of allowing the Lich from calling in the aid of his undead army, a geomancer ran around the field erecting walls of stone to block off corridors and sinking giant golem abominations into the ground so they can’t move. What it an illusionist simply misdirected the enemy goblin squads into trying to kill their own orc lord? Or perhaps a crafty necromancer plays “what is yours is now mine” with the enemy’s fallen champion, turning a mini-boss into a useful ally, which he then focuses his efforts on keeping alive throughout a dungeon to assist in combat. While none of these classes might specifically kill enemies, they can still remove them from combat entirely, effectively doing their entire health pools in damage (or maybe even turning those would be corpses into an extra source of damage on the boss!).

Second: Maybe we even see some branching out. In some games (like DotA or LoL) an effective team might not have any healers or tanks at all. What if you had a team designed around stealth? It might be a little slower than your run and gun holy trinity, but if a team wanted to explore a dungeon, who is to stop them from sneaking their way to the cavern of the goblin chieftain, setting traps to eliminate his guards and then collectively pouncing on him in a single, coordinated assassination. Only the stragglers that survived the barrage of poison dart traps would be left to clean up, and without the aid of a tank or a healer, a group has achieved victory. Will this group work in every situation? Maybe, maybe not. But there it was fun and profitable in this one, and if the next adventure into a goblin’s lair calls for 5 wizards and a whole lot of scorched earth, that might just work too!

Now, what about combinations on teams? What makes the holy trinity so powerful is its synergy. Utilizing the abilities of the tank, healer and DPS, many challenges can be overcome, because they work well together. But, is it the only formula that works? In a game with as much variety as EQN might have, I hope not! What if the paladin who focused on powering up his allies teamed up with a demon summoner who specialized in summoning armies of imps. On their own the two might be powerful, but imagine what happens when the paladin creates an aura of unity. Where each ally becomes more powerful the more allies they have nearby. What was once a handy buff in a group of 5 becomes a savage combination in a brigade of 30 imps. And how would one counter such a crazy combo? Either blow up the imps and render the combo far less effective or do something even more insidious. Convert the imp army, make their magic feed off of their master. Corrupt the paladin’s aura, reversing its effect and trivializing the imps, use an ability the calls out the enemy paladin to enter a 1 on 1 duel that separates him from the back, or just plane assassinate that pesky necromancer. There are any number of unique was a clever player could approach their enemy, and sometimes the best coarse of action might just be to retreat and try a different tactic altogether.

Now, I know I’ve been raving about this game, but I really hope that the gamers out there and the devs can see this. Everquest does not have the potential to kill WoW. It can’t break the MMO rut and it can’t change the way we play MMOs.

EQNext has the potential to do something far… far greater. EQNext can create an entirely. new. genre.

Good luck SOE, I hope you manage to pull this off.