Making faces in EverQuest 2

How many of you still play "EverQuest 2?" Honestly, I was unaware that it still had a population until the Vault went to E3 and the Sony Online Entertainment booth had several stations devoted to it. It's nice to see that the child of a historic game like "EverQuest" is still around and it definitely means that the community is keeping it alive. Well done, everyone.

What was more surprising to us all was that they're still developing new technology for the game over there at SOE.

Introducing the SOEmote technology. This tech allows the player to make their in game character's facial expressions match their own. Neat huh? Take a look.

Slippy the Frog looks happy.

Maybe he's angry about that hairstyle.

I think he's a little too impressed with the SOEmote tech.

Yes, they all look a little silly and even staged. We know that it does seem as if the characters are making these faces and the people could just be mimicking them (the Frog guy is a little suspect), but honestly and truly we saw this work at E3, so this is a real thing.

Of course, this is a huge leap forward for facial recognition technology in games, but outside of MMOs there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of practical use. Social games are really where the expression of emotion shines. First we had text conversation, then voice, now you can even video chat while you play online.

This level of communication and expression is the kind of thing that multipalyer games strive to achieve. How hilarious would it be to see someone in "Call of Duty" sticking their tongue out in deep concentration as they fire off round after round at the enemy? If you used the SOEmote tech along with programs like Ventrillo or Skype, you could have the person's voice along with their character's facial movement right in front of you to even make it look like the character itself is talking to you. Of course, the in-game Voice Fonts that accompany SOEmote will even change the voice of your in-game character to make it sound like you're from the world if you don't want your everyday voice over Skype or Vent.

What we saw at E3 doesn't necessarily mean that the program will work perfectly all the time. What does? It's almost a guarantee that people's camera's will not be compatible with this tech and that some of the recognition software will have a hard time keeping up with speed of facial change. These bugs are to be expected.

There are tons of possibilities that this tech brings to the table and we are pretty impressed with SOEmote and SOE's work with it. Well done, folks. Now to wait for the criticism from the "EQ2" fans to really hear how it works all the time, and not just a showfloor model.