Landmark 
Daybreak Game Company unveiled its new logo and website last week, giving a fresh face as it looks toward the future. We chatted with Daybreak President John Smedley and the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing Laura Naviaux yesterday evening about the origins of the company's new name and logo, Columbus Nova, the future of its fan convention, and more.
Landmark has been in closed beta for quite some time now, and recently developer Daybreak Games announced several changes to the game that they hope will improve the new user experience. We chatted with Senior Producer Terry Michaels and Lead Game Designer Darrin McPherson about these modifications and how they will impact the game.
For purists, the joy of the sandbox is having no path laid before you, to know that any goal we may set for ourselves is as good as any other, and that whatever mountaintop we aim for is achievable if we have what it takes. This level of freedom doesn’t work for others, being able to track our success with shorter term and layered milestones keeps us motivated to achieve our overall goal. There’s often a certain snobbery attached when this is discussed amongst MMO enthusiasts, but I see it as just another example of how diverse we are as players and people.
In a game like Landmark, we’re presented with what is essentially a blank canvas and the offer to fill it. Some players will relish being let off the leash, but judging by reactions to other games it’s safe to assume they will be the minority.
So far, the various competitions and the Workshop in particular have offered effective shorter term goals, at least for those who have already mastered the game. This cycle has been invaluable for player motivation and retention, while creating a focal point for the community and a platform for players to to show off their skills and creativity. The results are incredible and continue to improve, I really can’t say enough good things about it.
Daybreak Games will perform a general maintenance beginning at 7:00AM PDT on Monday, April 27th. The current estimated downtime for this maintenance is three to five hours, depending on the service.
This maintenance may impact the following Daybreak services across all games:
Here's our handy Time Zone Conversion Tool to help you plan.
If you’ve read this column before, you probably know I prefer to be optimistic, to look on the bright side when it comes to the future and deal with problems as they arise. I’d rather not waste energy worrying about things I can’t change. You may have even worked out this column is meant to be about EverQuest Next and Landmark, though I hide it well sometimes.
So it takes a lot for me to say that for my personal relationship with Landmark as a player, this is a low point, and I can’t see it swinging back in the near future.
As people who write about these things are so fond of saying—Big Changes are coming to Landmark. If you haven’t heard, you can catch up with the official forum post.
The changes have been presented as dialing back the overlap with EverQuest Next to make room for something that works better for Landmark. Personally, I don’t buy this at all; these changes show a marked change in direction when it comes to how Landmark operates as a multiplayer experience.
Here’s a quick list of what I’m specifically referring to:
The way I see it, this is a change designed to bring in those people interested in the building aspects of the game when the game soft launches into open beta, they are currently the game’s core audience, so it makes sense to build on that foundation (puns everywhere). However, this is at the expense of any feature that ‘gets in the way’ of the building systems.
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