First of all, you may be wondering what Everquest Next Landmark is. I’ll provide Sony’s words:
EverQuest Next Landmark is a Free to Play, next-generation online sandbox game. Build and explore a world unlike anything you’ve seen before.
Bold claims and not much to go on you may be thinking, so I’ll provide more information from Sony:
- Build Anything — Create and build anything you can imagine. With Landmark’s state of the art tools, you have unprecedented control over your creations. A range of materials with realistic physics means how you build makes a difference.
- Explore — Explore massive Landmark worlds and claim territory, building materials and much more. Delve deep into the earth and discover procedurally—generated adventures that will never be the same twice!
- Make Your Mark — The best buildings players create will become part of Norrath — the EverQuest Next world — FOREVER! We’ll run exclusive contests to design parts of the world AND our designers will keep an eye out for the coolest fortresses, castles, caves, treehouses, fireplaces – anything awesome that fits within the world of Norrath.
- Collect — The rarest resources, objects, gear, character customizations and secrets are scattered across the worlds of Landmark! Can you find everything?
- Earn Money — Buy and sell items in Player Studio, SOE’s marketplace for player-created goods. Design, create and sell items and earn real world cash on every purchase! Click here for more details on Player Studio.
The last point may be the one that grabs the attention of Second Life content creators, although it should be pointed out that for now, Player Studio is only available for US players. The text I pasted doesn’t actually include a link for Player Studio, but one I made here does! Eligible creators can earn 40% of net sales, here’s a bit more info:
SOE’s Player Studio program invites players to download sample geometry files for actual in-game objects and through the use of standard third party art tools, learn how to develop, design and personalize items of their own – from re-coloring and re-texturing, to reshaping an item’s geometry. Once complete, players are encouraged to name and create a description for their item, describe how the item will fit into the game’s ongoing narrative storyline, and submit it to SOE for review and possible inclusion in the SOE Marketplace. If a player-created item is selected for inclusion in the SOE Marketplace, SOE will share 40% of the net amount it receives from the sale of the item with the player that created the item.
The link also has links to 3D modelling software, such as Maya and Blender as well as links to Adobe Photoshop, familiar tools for Second Life content creators, so there’s potential here.
One of the advantages of Second Life incorporating Mesh is that Mesh can be used across many platforms and the techniques people learn with tools such as Blender, can be applied to many different platforms too.
Now as for the specs, this is where it may be apparent your computer is a little out of date, because the specs for Everquest Next Landmark Alpha have been announced, and they are quite beefy:
Minimum System Requirements:
OS – Windows 7 64 bit
Processor – Intel i5 Quad Core or higher / AMD Phenom II X4 or higher
Memory – 4GB RAM
Hard Drive – 20GB Free
Video Memory – 1,024 MB RAM
Video Card – nVidia GeForce GTX 275 series or higher / AMD HD 4890 or higher
Sound Card – DirectX compatible
Internet – Broadband (3Mbit/sec or higher)
Recommended System Requirements:
OS – Windows 7 64 bit
Processor – Intel i5 Quad Core or higher / AMD Phenom II X6 or higher
Memory – 8GB RAM
Hard Drive – 20GB Free
Video Memory – 1,024 MB RAM
Video Card – nVidia GeForce GTX 560 series or higher / AMD HD 6870 or higher
Sound Card – DirectX compatible
Internet – Broadband (10Mbit/sec or higher)
Everquest Next Landmark is scheduled to be in full Alpha by February 28th and Closed Beta before March 31st this year, so if you have the specs and would like to take a look, you can apply for a beta signup now.
I’ll leave you with a video of the devs playing with some of the building tools, they look quite funky.