10 Years of Everquest: The Old Guy & the n00b

Continuing our celebration of Everquest's one-tenth anniversary, WarCry is pleased to present "The Old Guy and the n00b", a matched interview with environment artist Kevin Burns and senior programmer Jennifer Chan. Now's installment features systemic questions aimed at both Chan and Burns. Monday will sport questions specifically for Burns, the "old guy" and Wednesday's installment will feature Chan, the 'n00b'.

Please introduce yourself and gift readers a bit of your background in game growth and with SOE/EverQuest.

Burns: Hi, I'm Kevin George Burns, an Environment Artist on EverQuest. As an Environment Artist I create alfresco zones, dungeons, objects, and decor, as cured equally weapons and items for players. I mainly work with 3DSMax, for modeling zones operating room objects, arsenic well atomic number 3 Photoshop to create textures or rough out some construct ideas, and finally I use some custom in-house tools to place the objects, particle effects, and sounds into the back zones.

Chan: I'm Jennifer Chan, a senior programmer connected EverQuest. Before joining SOE, I wasn't working in the play diligence. Right before, I was actually working connected calculus and reporting systems.

How long-lived have you worked at SOE and along EverQuest?

Burns: I've been with SOE since the very beginning. I in the first place got my foot in the threshold at SCEA/989 Studios as a Lead QA along 2Xtreme and NHL Faceoff '97, both for the original PlayStation. Then I jumped onto Combining weight when information technology started up, and I've been with SOE of all time since. I worked on the first EQ every bit well as the first cardinal expansions (Ruins of Kunark and Scars of Velious). After that, I worked on EverQuest Online Adventures and EQOA: Frontiers (both for the PlayStation 2), followed away Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade and UL: The Warrior's Code (both for the PSP), and so UL: Dark Kingdom (PS3), and last, back home to Combining weight once again for the up-to-the-minute expansions of Secrets of Faydwer and Seeds of Destruction.

Chan: I started with SOE on EverQuest in Whitethorn of 2008.

What is the best part about working at SOE generally and on EverQuest specifically?

George Burns: The primo part well-nig working at SOE is that I puzzle out to do something I love for a living. I get to cost fanciful and artistic. The best part about working with the EQ team is the team itself. They'atomic number 75 a great bunch of people to work with. Information technology's a focused and friendly environment of artists, designers, and programmers who engage really fit together.

Chan: SOE's a outstanding company to knead for so it pretty hard to pick just one. The food's uppercase, the people are diverting to work with, and we're all dedicated to putting out a great and fun to represent product. On EverQuest specifically, the best depart has to be working on a pun that has brought joy to so many players. Thither's definitely a congratulate point when I see someone playing Equivalent weight and I can say, "I was a set out of that."

What is your favorite course and race? Why?

Burns: Dwarven Warrior was my favorite race/class to play. How can you not love the Irontoe way of life? Slaying monsters and ales, pints and barrels… if it all goes wrong, which it often does, at least you'll have a good storey and a generous corpse.

Chan: I harbour't gotten a chance to play complete of them yet, but if I were to pick, it'd birth to represent unrivaled of the classes that hindquarters solo but also play a part in grouping.

What is your favorite in-game area? Wherefore?

Burns: Really? Pick unrivalled out of 375+ zones? I would say my favorite zones that I've played in, were the ones I've had the most memorable experiences with friends. I had the virtually fun playing with flyspeck groups of coworkers after the establish of the original Combining weight. Playing with some of the originative dev team, actually acting the game that we all had created, was a fantastic experience. Some of my personal favorites were assaulting Crushbone from Kaladim, hanging around Freeport and showing friends around Befallen, and of course making several corpse runs to the bottom of Blackburrow.

Chan: Hands down, the Plane of Noesis because of the portals and existence able to fulfill such riveting people passing through Eastern Samoa a solution.

What is your favourite expansion? Why?

Burns: My favorite expansion was Ruins of Kunark. Straight off the winner of launch Combining weight, it was a identical exciting picture to work along. I really enjoyed the theme of the expansion, particularly the jungles and the addition of the lizardmen, the Iksar.

Chan: Seeds of Destruction. The mercenaries feature that was introduced in that expanding upon actually made the alone game possible. When I don't have time to get a wide-cut group going I bathroom just pop out my merc and I'm ready to go!

What have got been your most pleasing experiences functioning along EverQuest?

Burns: Decidedly, the feeling of acquirement when you create a good partition. I taste to make up zones that are sport to play and interesting to explore. When I get fortunate feedback from designers and players about how they enjoyed a zone or dungeon I worked happening, that's when I know I've done a good job.

Chan: IT's all close to the players. I love it when I can do something that's simple to put through and makes the swordplay experience healthier.

What give been your biggest challenges working on EverQuest?

Robert Burns: I think the biggest challenge is time and scheduling. We want to commence as much content as we dismiss into to each one level. It's really easy to over stretch out yourself when building a new dungeon from scratch out by adding too many rooms, features, etc. Then guardianship your schedule in mind, and having to scale your zone creation to match, throne make up challenging.

Chan: Existence that it's a 10+ year old code base, sometimes fundamental systems aren't coded every bit you'd expect them to be. Back when Equivalent was first built, software architecture wasn't as industrial atomic number 3 information technology is today and they were stressful to clear many problems that we take for granted today. What seems comparable a simple task give notice sometimes take much thirster than people expect.

Has World of Warcraft mannered how you intent games?

George Burns: Maybe the designers would have a more interesting answer, but as an environment artist, it really hasn't affected how I create zones and objects for EQ. I unmoving produce everything with the Equivalent weight style and traditional knowledge in thinker. But certainly Scream has had a huge impact on the MMO industry as a whole.

Chan: IT has in the same way that any other game prohibited there affects the way I design games. You play otherwise games (both internally and outwardly) and you see what they did, what didn't work and what did work. Designing games is a cooperative treat, you can't only do your thing and you're cooked… I suspect that many opposite developers feel the said likewise.

Do you chance that player expectations entrance Equivalent are different now than they used to be?

Burns: Yes. I imagine originally EQ was the hot spic-and-span MMO game when IT launched, and everyone wanted to hear IT out. MMO's were newborn to a lot of players at that clock time, so they may non stimulate expected the large scale of the game and it's residential area. Today, about players have experienced a few contrastive MMO's and have sex what to anticipate in general. I think players entering EQ now, or reverting to play again, really love the Equivalent traditional knowledge, the massive amount content we've created over the last 10 age, and, most importantly, the Combining weight profession of players they play with.

Chan: I imagine so, when EQ first came out machines were little stiff and people were excited to be in a 3-D world (instead of the 2.5D). Now for a MMORPG to non embody 3-D is pretty scarce. I think that same idea also applies to many other parts of the game.

What awesome franchise that isn't yet an MMO would you love to work on?

Burns: I think a G.I. Joe MMO could be great. There's a lot of potential there with a built-in fan base, character classes, and storylines to draw from. Definitely some secure PvP with the Joes vs. Cobra, then bestow some motion-picture show and toy tie-in's, sounds care a hit to me. Personally, I'd love to study on that because I've been a huge G.I. Joe devotee since I was a minor. I loved the toys, watched the cartoons, and collected the comic books.

A couple of others I'd like to put to work on, that mightiness not cost mass appeal MMO's, but just because I think they are so sang-froid, would be a Firefly MMO, a Mad Max MMO, a Deadlands MMO, OR a killer apocalyptic zombie MMO. I've ever been a mech fan too, soh maybe a BattleTech or Robotech MMO would be entertaining!

Chan: That's a tough ane, there are and then many MMO's in ontogeny right wing now and so many of them look like they would be playfulness to work on.

What is going to define the next generation MMO?

Burns: I think the next big skip for MMO's would be in accessibility. The same spirited, accessible through a phone, laptop, place PC, or Playstation 3, whatever you have along you at the clip, much like how we access our electronic mail and the internet and societal networking sites now. There would be a lot of variation connected gameplay styles inside the synoptic plot, to reach the widest audience possible.

Chan: The next gen MMO is going to have to take MMO's even more mainstream than they already are by finding a way to wee gaming more accessible to a broader audience and creating storylines and quests that are interesting to bigger audiences.

Is the future of MMOs a "WOW Killer" or is it something we buns't even think?

Nathan Birnbaum: I don't intend there leave be a Thigh-slapper killer. I believe games like Belly laugh, EverQuest, and Ultima Online have cemented their place in story. Their numbers Crataegus oxycantha flinch, as more and more MMO's found, merely I think over they'll have people playing them as aware equally the servers are up and running.

Future MMO's will continue to inflate the MMO genre, and make over games that appeal to all types of gamers from kids and casual weekend warriors to hardcore power gamers.

Chan: I think it's something that we haven't thought of yet. There are so many an more ideas that we haven't explored OR different styles and ways of gameplay that birth yet to be broached into.

https://www.escapistmagazine.com/10-years-of-everquest-the-old-guy-the-n00b/

Source: https://www.escapistmagazine.com/10-years-of-everquest-the-old-guy-the-n00b/

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