Looks - Fantastic! I like cartoons, always have. I like flat, bright colors, too. Animations looked phenomenal, detail looked intense. I loved that we saw Combine Spires in the background. It really is Norrath. On Haribo!
Destructability - That's not a word. A lot of what we got was roughly what I expected but not this. Contrary to what Dave Georgeson seems to believe, a desire to wreck one's environment is not a universal constant of human nature. I wouldn't have asked for this nor even thought of asking for it, but since we're getting it, wahoo!. The idea of sieges where entire castles are destroyed is very attractive indeed. There better be some darn good checks and balances, though, or we'll be lucky to see a building left standing anywhere.
Emergent AI - Ah, that's what you wanted Storybricks for. Possibly the most interesting idea in the whole cart-load. Not that it's new - off the top of my head UO and Ryzom both use something of the sort. I don't think anyone's ever done it very effectively or consistently, though. If this works we could have something much nearer to a virtual world than we've had for a while. A long while.
Movement - Bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy... Who doesn't like to bounce? Looked like a whole lotta fun. I hope there's climbing as well as bouncing. And flying.
Dynamic Popular Quest Events - Horizons called - they want their USP back. Not that they ever did much with it. This is going to be an interesting one. Will they hold their nerve and do the one thing no-one else has managed so far, namely allow players to miss out on Really Good Stuff as a matter of course? ArenaNet threw in the towel at the end of round one. Let's hope SOE can go the distance because I really, really want to play a "you had to be there" MMO and both Rift and GW2 have been deeply disappointing on that front.
Collectable Classes - Weird. I get the "your weapon is your class" - that's FFXIV. I get the "your weapon is your skills" - that's GW2. I get the "gotta find 'em all" - that's
Fighting - We saw nothing! Half the mobs just stood there waiting to be whirled at by Snagglepuss. I didn't see them move or react, other than to be knocked up in the air. The set-pieces were more like firework displays than fights. Couldn't tell anything from it at all. I did spot the depressing red circles on the ground so I am guessing we dodge somehow. Bleh.
Landmark - This is the big surprise, obviously. As someone who has never tried Minecraft because of a total and complete absence of nostalgia for anything 8-bit, this looks like the world-builder I've been waiting for. The combination of these tools with the real-money royalty system could be literally life-changing. Not sure yet how Landmark links into EQNext other than in the competitions mentioned - I'm guessing either the final game will incorporate the tools or there'll be an import function. It must mean housing, too, of course, possibly on a scale not yet seen in MMOs.
There's plenty more but that'll do for now. Overall I was more impressed once I'd slept on it than immediately after the presentation. I went to sleep thinking about it, woke up thinking about it, thought about it all day at work and came home and started writing about it. Not had that feeling about an MMO I've not played for a very long while, if ever.
I'm in.
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