Landmark Closed Beta Adventures Begin
March 26 kicked off the launch of Closed beta for what was once “EverQuest Next Landmark,” and has ushered in a bunch of big changes. To start, the game’s name has been changed to simply “Landmark” now, which is nice, IMHO. Much easier to type for sure! 🙂
So what exactly has changed since alpha? When it comes to crafting progression, it seems like just about everything!
Making Your Claim
First, all players had to craft their first claim flag before they could find a home. This made a scrabble for iron and amethyst, but overall, the claim process last night was much less hectic than my alpha experience where everyone already had a flag on hand.
Not to mention soooooo many islands and many new servers (new tier included)! There was almost too much room (if that’s possible) with lots of unclaimed land floating around everywhere I looked. Of course, that could be because people were still downloading and gathering stuff for their claim flags. Also, new folks were just being introduced to the game as closed beta testers and were still learning the ropes.
I ended up with a lovely little old forest claim at the top of a hill near the Spring Spire on the Adventure server. I originally was trying to get back on the Courage server, which was my alpha home, but something odd happened when I logged in and I didn’t realize I was on Adventure until after I claimed. Ah well. Trying not to get too attached to it since I know there will be wipes.
Folks can also rate your claim now. Haven’t messed with that yet, but it’s in.
Claim Upkeep is In
Along with having to make a claim flag, players also discovered the joys of claim upkeep for the first time. In the future, this will cost in-game currency. For now, it costs 300 copper ore per day, per claim. Makes me wonder about the ease of earning coin in the future.
As of right now, you can place up to 5 days of upkeep for your claims. Some players have pointed out that this isn’t nearly long enough, and I’m sure there will be tweaks to the system in the future.
I plopped down a second claim last night and can confirm that upkeep costs doubled.
Crafting Progress is Totally Changed
Almost everything about crafting progression from alpha is different now. There’s different stations (only one kind of Forge, thankfully), a different way of gathering and refining wood (I like it), the new ax progression is in (I like this, too), and sickle harvesting for plants (unexpected).
I put my nose to the grindstone and was able to craft three of the major stations, a grappling hook, the select tool, an iron pick upgrade and still have some stuff left over to dabble with building my new tower on the hill. I felt that the progression made sense and wasn’t too tedious. In fact, it felt a lot faster than what I remembered. This will change, I’m sure, since it’s been indicated that in the future, we won’t start out with all these recipes — we’ll have to find some!
New Character Customizations
We also got crafting tables that allow for crafting clothing, which was unexpected. I saw screens of the clothing and like what I saw. Nice touch to that, along with the added face and hair styles during character creation. While there’s still only a small number to pick from (and still only human race), this shows they’re making progress here, too.
Travel
The new travel system is also in. You can now craft transportation stones that allow you to move to the hub or your claim once every so often (30 mins? Hour?). I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s certainly a welcome change.
Lots of exciting things coming for Landmark in the future. I’ll be here with the highlights!
