After the end of Everquest Next, former employees are speaking out. They feel somewhat injured in their honor.
Imagine this: For years, you work on a project that you hold in high regard. Some see it as the revolution of the genre, a huge deal, the last hope of the genre. Then the company is sold, you are fired, and a year later you read from your former employer: “The project has been canceled. We overextended ourselves. It was never fun.”
This creates the impression, as fans also say, that the developers wasted their time and a lot of money, promised many things all the time, but in reality did nothing. This is not good for professional reputation either.
“Under Sony, we would have made it happen”
Two of the EQ-Next employees have now spoken out. First and foremost, Dave Georgeson, the former head of the project. He believes that Everquest Next could have definitely been realized under Sony as the vision once was. After all, they did that for 27 years without failing. All games were released, all made money. Well, except for this one, as can be gleaned from his Twitter account.
“Yes, it would have been tough,” he admits. But heavy tasks are usually handled most of the time in this job.
The studio behind Everquest Next was sold last year from Sony Online Entertainment to Daybreak Game Company.
Everquest Next: The artificial intelligence lives on
Artificial intelligence developer Dave Mark contradicts the reservations that the artificial intelligence in Everquest Next was just a nice illusion, it was just “vaporware”. Everything that was presented had substance, the AI specialist says.
In fact, Mark, after parting from EQ Next, went directly to ArenaNet and already incorporated some of the AI ideas into “Heart of Thorns”, the expansion for Guild Wars 2. The rest is kept as a prototype for future development. Because it would have been too big a deviation from the established Guild Wars 2 to bring it out immediately, he says.
Currently, Mark is working on “Hero’s Song”, the project of former SOE head John Smedley. Ideas of “Emergent AI” that were once celebrated in EQ Next are supposed to be used there.
