No, I don’t (to answer people on Twitter) actually know anything about EverQuest III. I don’t even know if it exists. And in this NDA-loving age, if I knew anything, I couldn’t write about it. Isn’t it grand that the only time someone can write about something these days is if they know nothing about it?

Some people think SOE should just abandon EverQuest, as if there was a taint on the brand. Wrong. Both the PC EverQuests are still going strong, and EverQuest’s ongoing influence over modern MMOs can’t be overstated. The next EverQuest may not be (probably won’t be) called EverQuest III. Maybe it will be called something like EverQuest: The Tunarian Age. EverQuest: Through the Sands of Time. EverQuest: The Higher Planes vs The Undershore. Whatever. You get the point.

But back to the point. Free Realms is under development for three years or so, it launches, does great, fantastic reaction, two million players already — and then Clint Worely, EverQuest producer, vanishes into a secret internal project. Two weeks later, Bruce Ferguson, EverQuest II producer, follows him.

It isn’t tough to connect the dots here. SOE launches a new MMO, and ramps up production on another. A MMO that requires the producers of EQ and EQII.

That doesn’t mean that this new game has anything more to do with Free Realms other than being the MMO they are doing after Free Realms. I think the connection is a little closer.

How many MMO engines does SOE own or license? There’s the original EQ engine, which is kinda old and by all accounts difficult to change. EQII had another original engine, but though it’s come a long way in four years, is still system intensive. Vanguard uses Unreal Engine 3.0. There are lots of other engines they could license, but when it came to Free Realms, they wrote yet another.

How could they justify writing a whole new engine instead of using or licensing one that already existed?

They wanted an engine with low system requirements, with a large, seamless world, able to support vast numbers of players without lag, could stream content in the background as players explored, integrated with the web (and potentially other targets we haven’t seen, like hand helds and smart phones), scalable, comes with a cash shop, is portable to the PlayStation 3 and perhaps the PSP… all this cool back-end stuff.

They wouldn’t have made this engine just for one game. They wrote the Free Realms engine to be the platform for any number of games that would be able to have all the good stuff above available from Day Zero.

That doesn’t mean EQIII would have to look or work at all like Free Realms — I doubt the art style is tied to the engine, except perhaps the lack of sophisticated shaders, but maybe not even that. Plus, an EQIII would have to have things like guilds, raids, crafting and so on to be called EverQuest.

This may seem a little like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin, but I believe EQ3 is out there, and now I am pretty sure it will be based on the FR engine. This is probably all really secret stuff, and if I ever suddenly go silent and the site goes dark and I’m never heard from again, it means I was right, and they got to me.

WK’s own Neriak correspondent, Nashuya N’Hamsha, interviews local residents about the new 51/50 server.

EverQuest dev (and write for the EQ Dev Blog) Clint Worely announced yesterday that all the votes were in — the new EverQuest server type has been chosen.

The original poll had several suggestions, including a new regular server, a PvP server, a special rules server and even another progression server similar to but improved over the previous progression servers, The Sleeper and The Combine. The most unexpected option was one for a new “51/50″ server, where all new characters would start off at level 51 with 50 AA and presumably some decent starting gear, probably the common Defiant armor that has been dropping since last summer’s “Living Legacy” event.

While the support on the forums and other discussion places seemed to favor a new progression server, the devs have been hinting at for quite awhile what they confirmed last week, that the in-game polls had been trending strongly toward the 51/50 server.

Forum participants questioned the wisdom of just asking current players their feelings, as they felt lapsed players would return for a progression server, but they could not offer their views unless they resubscribed.

Clint Worely also announced that he was leaving EverQuest, but wouldn’t be going far, “as the world of Norrath has plenty of adventuring left in it for generations to come, so I hope to see all of you in game again in the future!”. It’s almost certain he is talking about another title in the EverQuest franchise, but whether this means a port of EQ or EQ2 to a different platform or a potential EQ3 is anyone’s guess. I choose to believe EQ3, but the hints so far haven’t attached a “3″ to the “EQ” yet. It is only clear that a new product in the EverQuest lineup is being developed.

Will EverQuest 3 be going cartoony?

Free Realms looks great and I know I’ll be playing it for a long while, but I came into this genre playing EverQuest (if you don’t count Nexus: Kingdom of the Wind), and I’ll leave it playing EverQuest, so now that they have Free Realms out of their system, what’s next for our my favorite franchise?

One of the things I liked least about EverQuest 2 was that EverQuest still existed. Here I was in EverQuest with several high level characters, and I had to start all over? A lot of EverQuest players said, well, if I have to start over anyway, I might as well do it in World of Warcraft as EverQuest 2. Because they still had EverQuest, you see, for their Norrathian fix.

EverQuest 3 mustn’t divide the player base like that. SOE will likely manage that by not releasing EQ3 on the PC at all, instead making it a Playstation 3 exclusive title.

That’s a mistake. While EQ has had some success on alternate platforms — EverQuest Original Adventures for the Playstation 2, EverQuest Mac for the Macintosh — the heart of the EverQuest community is firmly on the PC.

I think Free Realms might hold the answer, here.

Not that EverQuest should become a collection of minigames. I don’t mean that AT ALL.

Well, actually… I totally DO.

EverQuest 2 got off on the wrong foot by competing with EverQuest, hurting both titles. EverQuest 3 should work WITH its predecessors, and not try to replace them.

SOE already has a game, by the way, that builds from and enhances both EverQuest and EverQuest 2. That game is Legends of Norrath, the themed collectible card game built into both games.

EQ+EQ2+Free Realms+Legends of Norrath = EverQuest 3.

While EQ3 should definitely be a complete and enjoyable experience on its own, it should tie closely in with the earlier games. Free Realms has unlockable, special jobs? EQ3 should do the same. Having a sufficiently leveled adventurer or crafter in EQ1 or EQ2 opens up special prestige classes in EQ3. You can open these special jobs by leveling up some other class in EQ3, but EQ1 and EQ2 players get them from the start. Special jobs could be things like Beastlord, Mount Breeder, etc.

Special items could be craftable only in EverQuest 3, but sent back to characters in EQ and EQ2, similar to the loot items in LoN.

New characters would still start in newbie lands. Fast travel wouldn’t get you to any other location until you had traveled there, on foot, from the start, after which you could travel easily, or more easily, between them.

EQ3 shouldn’t even start on Norrath. Norrath should be something you EARN. Players should start in the ruins of the dying Demiplanes — orc/ogre/troll characters in the remnants of the Plane of War, elves in the shreds of the Plane of Growth, and as part of the process, gain the ability to explore Norrath and see how it has evolved since the Gods returned and wiped all the player races from the planet to start over with new, BETTER races.

In EQ, the gods LEFT the world. In EQ2, they returned. In EQ3 — WE return.

Anyway, just some thoughts.