August 15, 2008
I was out and about earlier today, checking out the latest live event quest that came with Game Update 47, when suddenly I saw a very snappy looking Qeynosian strut by on his equally decked out horse. His name was Commander Vincent Angellicor, and he sauntered from the South Qeynos Gates to the Lighthouse, where he proceeded to check in with Karn Rockhopper, and Brieanna Soph, who are heading up the construction of a fortress offshore.
Commander Angellicor checks in with both of them to see how things are going with the construction of the “fortress.” He explains that the Queen is preoccupied with the threats from Kunark, and, more urgently, with the threats from the energy storms.
Karn Rockhopper does admit that there were cracks in the foundation, which led to them using more stone than they had planned. Brieanna Soph says she has adjusted her plans a bit to account for the increased need for stone, but Commander Angellicor tells her not to adjust so much that they don’t create a fortress that is strong enough. She also reports that there is a mysterious stranger that has been watching the progress of construction. He disappears before anyone can get close enough, but he is wearing a Freethinker’s Amulet.
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Now, that “fortress” being discussed is referring to the upcoming launch of guild halls. So what can we speculate about its launch?
Here are a few of my thoughts. Some are probably a wish more than a prediction.
First, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that guild halls will require a guild to be at a certain level (I’m hoping it’s 60!), and also have a certain enormous amount of status. But based on Master Rockhopper’s comments, it looks like guilds will need to contribute some raw materials as well – namely, stone.
The urgency of the construction is very curious. The fortress has to be strong, but it needs to be completed quickly, due to threats from the void incursions. It sounds like these fortresses are meant to be protection in the event that Qeynos itself comes under attack.
Which leads me to my next hope – that Qeynos (and Freeport) are destroyed by the invasion of the Void. This would satisfy two hopes of mine, because I want guild halls to really have a purpose, and I want to see the Void invasion really feel like an invasion. With all the PvP and RvR that’s being injected into our MMO veins, wouldn’t it be refreshing for us PvE carebears to face a little shake up of the status quo? A little sense of danger can go a long way.
How cool would it be if the general population needed to use guild halls as the base of operations for their daily endeavors, like crafting, mending, banking, and brokering…
I don’t know anything about the League of the Freethinkers, so I’m curious as to why they are distant observers of the constuction site. Apparently, if you go to one of the nearby islands near the guild hall, you can occasionally spot this Freethinker spy on a nearby hill. He uses a magic potion to disappear in a cloud of smoke, though, so you won’t have much of an opportunity to engage in pleasantries.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (5)
August 14, 2008
I was putting together the “Fall Goals” for the guild today, and it gave me a nice opportunity to step back and look at the big picture for a moment.
Above: RnH on our first trip to Shard of Hate.
We started up as a guild back in January, about 8 months ago. In that time, we have successfully raided almost all content up to T8. We also worked together to complete several heritage quests and some of the larger questlines, like the class hat quest. Several members have dinged level 80 in adventuring, or tradeskilling (or both!), and many of those have completed their fabled adventuring epics and tradeskill epics. Our guild has reached level 60 now, and this past week, we ventured into our first Tier 8 raid zone – Shard of Hate, to try our luck on scooping up loot from the trash and to play around with Demetrius Crane.
Above: Ah, memories. Guild pose on the pyramid in the “Spirits of the Lost” raid zone, after taking down Venekor.
The part that I think is the coolest, though, is that we did it on a very laid back, casual playstyle. We only raid two nights a week, and raiding isn’t mandatory. Any guild events we do run from 8:30 EST to 11 EST, and I think we’ve gone over that 11 PM time only once. Our motto is, “Focused progress, but not at the expense of a good night’s sleep.” For me, it sunk in last week that we actually have been able to do exactly that.
Above: Celebration after taking down Harla Dar in Temple of Scale.
Funny thing is, that moment has come and gone. I’m always uneasy about the direction of the guild, and I’d love to know if that’s a common feeling among guild leaders, or if it’s just me. I find that leading a guild can be a lot harder than other leadership positions, like coaching or teaching, primarily because it’s impossible to know whether everyone in the guild is “on board,” with your philosophy. When you’re facing a team or a class, you can instantly tell how your words are being received. That’s impossible with a guild, because of the distance between you and everyone else. That can make things very frustrating at times, but it also makes guild accomplishments that much more enjoyable.
Above: RnH taking on Cthulu, one of the Guild Raids. This was one of our first raids, “back in the day.” (about 4 months ago).
We’re definitely not a uber guild, but we’re also not trying to be one. Given our limited playtimes and flaky schedules, I think we’re doing pretty darned good.
Above: The RnH carpet brigade, back in March, taking on Rahotep for the Scepter Heritage Quest.
…and now I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop…..
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August 11, 2008
One feature that often gets overlooked in Everquest 2 is the betrayal system. “Back in the day,” when being good or being evil actually had some semblance of importance, you could choose to betray sides early on in your toon’s existence (I think it was level 17). So, if you played an evil class, you would become the good aligned equivalent, and vice versa.
Above: Shard of Fear. Why the heck am I running *toward* the wall of fire?!
The whole “good vs evil” thing in EQ2 has been watered down a lot in the years that followed, but the betrayal system not only remains in place, but has been revamped to allow you to betray at basically any level. So if you played a templar (the good aligned cleric class), you could switch over and play an inquisitor. If you got tired of playing an evil dirge, you would betray and become a troubador, or good bard. You still might be playing the same basic class (bard, cleric, enchanter, warrior), but there are some noticeable differences between each good and evil pairing. The betrayal system is great, because it offers a chance for someone to freshen up their gaming without having to reroll. It also offers flexibility for those that might be looking to raid with a particular guild that has closed recruiting to their particular class. Maybe the guild of your dreams is no longer seeking mystics (the good aligned shaman), but wants defilers. Betray and you are in!
There is a penalty, of course. When you betray, all your spells and abilities are gone, and you no longer can live in your original city. You are exiled to Haven until you do enough faction work to earn the right to live in your new city of choice. Also, if you have class specific armor, you’ll need to replace it. Honestly, it’s the perfect penalty – not too timesinky, but severe enough to prevent people from making betrayal a nightly ritual.
So why stop there? Why can’t I switch classes within my archetype, so if I am a monk, I could betray and become a guardian? If I’m a fury, I can betray and become a templar. Heck, why stop at archetypes, why can’t someone retrain as an entirely new class? (Lemme interject here and toss out the disclaimer that I’m only thinking about this for a PvE environment. This idea might create huge problems in a PvP game) Obviously, the first argument against it is that the bigger the jump in class, the harder it would be to properly learn that class. True enough, so why not make the process of betrayal contain a series of challenges that force someone to study their class, and only allow them to “graduate” if they have passed the challenges? Much better than slaughtering newbmobs for faction, I’d say.
Above: RnH on a recent Harla Dar kill in Temple of Scale.
You might argue that it would lead to rampant betrayals, and the population would always be lopsided in favor of a certain small number of classes. First, the current betrayal system in EQ2 proves that it would not be rampant. Some do betray, but of the 100 different individuals in my guild, to use a small example, only one has betrayed. As for it leading to population imbalance, the law of supply and demand will always smooth it out. Even if, suddenly, every single healer decides to betray and become a fury, some will settle back into the other classes, simply because it’s no fun to be druid #400 that’s sitting lfg, or fury #15 that’s waiting to get on a raid.
I’ll admit, I have a bit of a bias here, because I believe that leveling is archaic. So the standard argument of “don’t like your class? Reroll and play an alt!” doesn’t fly with me. There is no good reason that someone should have to redo every level, and re-grind all the content, to play another class. If there was one, WoW and all the other MMOGs wouldn’t be making it faster to reach the level cap as their respective games grow long in the tooth, and larger in levels. I’m also on my soapbox because I’m so totally done with the concept of raid limits, especially in EQ2. 24 classes, and 6 are tanks. The math doesn’t work, and it never will.
The only drawbacks I suppose are that A) low level areas would be a lot more sparsely populated, since there might be fewer twinks running around and B) there might be less of a demand for lower level items on the broker. The broker issue could be easily solved, if you reset a newly betrayed player’s skills to zero, and then went with a skill based requirement on items, rather than level based. As for the low level areas possibly losing population, it’s not ideal, but let’s face it, the longer a game is out, the lower the population in low level zones anyway. And more often than not, most are soloing through the low level content anyway, simply because it’s faster and easier.
If I want to switch my class and turn my level capped whatever into a new class, and I pay a fairly steep penalty for it, along with a rigorous retraining and challenging tests (Trainer NPCs actually acting like trainers?! Get out!), how does that affect someone else’s game experience? And I’m asking out of all honesty, because I don’t see any serious issue other than the fact that “that’s not the way it’s done” in MMOGs.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II,Gaming Commentary | Comments (2)
July 14, 2008
If you’ve ever raided, I’m sure you’ve run into that one person that is an absolute ulcer-inducer. You know the one – they log in late, have all sorts of chaos going on behind them that is distracting them, and go linkdead over and over, at the worst possible times. These are the kind of people that can take a full raid and stand it on its head.
So imagine what it’s like when it’s the raid leader who is the ulcer-inducer!
Yep, I was an absolute nightmare last night. I had been out of town all day at a family get together, and by the time we got home and put the kids to bed, it was about 10 minutes till raid time. I logged in, hustled my butt over to Loping Plains for our Freethinker’s raid, and tried to form up the raid on the fly.
I got there, *almost* on time, we were pretty full (not bad for a casual guild in the middle of summer), and I was itching to zone in. Then I heard Mutz cursing upstairs. His computer was borked, and he was having major video issues when playing the game. Not good.
We finally zoned in, way later than we should have, with some still on the way, and Mutz trying to find a flashlight so he could pry open his computer and troubleshoot. I set everyone up to start the first pull. If you’re not familiar with Freethinkers, it’s set up so that there are 5 werewolves right at the zone in, all close together. But you can throw bones from the left and right sides of the entrance, and if timed right, you can distract some of them and single pull whatever’s left over. We’ve done it before cleanly, so it should have been easy peasy.
First pull, 4 freaking werewolves charged in on us. Messy, messy pull. We killed one and wiped. Second pull, we got one, and then two more came in shortly after. Messy pull part deux. We killed one, wiped, and *bam* I went linkdead. No vent, no EQ2, and I was angrily clicking the repair function on my wireless freaking crappy router. I was about to throw my headset across the room when I heard light footsteps coming down the stairs. From the corner of my eye, I saw my daughter stroll into the room, a half hour after I thought I had put her to bed! I was like the Grinch and she was Cindy Lou Hoo, only I couldn’t appease her with a mere cup of water. She plunked herself down in the chair next to me and began the negotiation process for going to bed, part two. Not. good.
I did a quick afk while we cleaned up from the wipe, and tried to tuck my daughter back in bed as fast as I respectfully could. By this time, I was just praying that we could clear to the update area for a quest that many in the guild had worked on, called the Blackwater Mask. I figured, if we can get that, and try the first named once or twice, it’ll be a miracle.
But we actually settled down and started to get into a groove. We cleared some more trash, jumped on adds quickly, and made it up to the wall that needed to be blown up for the Mask quest. I flopped my way to the barrel behind the first named and got it back down the hall in front of the update room. I ignited it…and….BOOM! A werewolf came charging out of the room. No problem!
Two seconds later, I heard Anda, one of our healers, say, “We have adds!” Then *blam* I got dropped from vent, my screen locked up, and all of a sudden I was reading the blue screen of death telling me that my driver got stuck in an infinite loop. Not. freaking. good.
I came back and we were able to clear the werewolves and get back to the room for the update! Yay us! Time for The Shredder.
We tried a couple of times, and made progress each time, but couldn’t finish him off. And of course, at some point in there, I went linkdead again. So we got down to “do or die” time. We set up, buffed up, gor ready to pull and *bam* there was the named, just a tad bit prematurely pulled! Eff it, let’s do this, I thought, so I called the raid in to assist. Amazingly enough, the fight was actually going well. It was going very well actually. We hit a little roadbump after Faunis and Zyph, our MT and ST died, but I was able to hold it in the corner long enough to get them back in the game. And finally, he died.
We got a paladin master that went to Lydraal, one of the nicest people we have in the guild, and some caster leggings that went to Elementor, who had just endured a ton of deaths as one of our chosen “sacrifices.”
I was totally off my game last night, but when things are going sour, it’s amazing how much you learn about those in the guild. I know who blew smoke up my arse, who was raiding for numero uno, who was a hair trigger away from leaving the raid, and who could buckle down and gracefully deal with challenge.
Cool moment of the day #1 – By the end of the night, we had a full raid, in the doldrums of July.
Cool moment of the day #2 – 10 minutes after Mutz camped, he had ordered a new computer. Real men don’t play with wires and screw around with software updates!
Cool moment of the day #3 – Luper was in our vent channel! She was in one of the group channels with Faeran and a few others, and unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to hop in to say hi, but it was cool nonetheless.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II,Gaming Commentary | Comments (1)
December 22, 2007
I’ve only been back into EQ2 for a short time, but last weeks revelation about a guild, Unhallowed Triad/Unholy Trinity, on the Test Server being transferred to a live one was quite a surprise to return to.
Here is the background. Long story short, a guild that was closely tied to SoE development was given the privelege of moving from test to live, which is unprecedented and generally considered against transfer policy.
What’s the big deal? In an age of instanced zones, it’s not like it would affect anyone’s play or opportunity to progress. The only consequence, really, is that this guild will always have a symbolic asterisk next to their names any time someone evaluates their accomplishments in game. That’s not a big deal at all.
But it is a big deal, because if there’s one thing about MMOs, it’s that justice is often denied, and players as a result, have become very sensitive to any signs of unfair treatment or rules being broken. In MMOs, there are tons and tons of rules that have been coded and established. And the combination of learning from the past, and more sophisticated technology, has allowed for even more rules to be put in place. Anyone who thinks back to the early days of EQ, for example, would probably recoil in horror at some of the things that players were able to get away with. Kill stealing wizzies who were ganking mobs from entire groups, players who were able to loot items off corpses when given consent, and of course, who can forget Fansy the bard.
One of the best known threads among the Prexus community is one called “Twinks with dragon loot.” The original poster was bemoaning the fact that he saw a character with no last name, geared up in dragon loot, and he thought it was ridiculous that someone’s low level twink was able to get gear that most high level players hadn’t gotten yet. It became famous because the character actually was a high level player who just decided not to add a surname, but the point stands that players want to feel like they are in a virtual world that is generally fair and just.
Today, games do a much better job of keeping things social, but not to the point that the asshats of the world can ruin someone’s gaming experience. It’s not 100% foolproof though, and often, when we see an offense or an injustice, there is never any reckoning or atonement. How many times have you been trained by someone? How many times have you seen the perpetrator get punished for it? Even when someone is punished for breaking the rules, it’s usually long after, and you almost never actually learn that fact. When the guild Ebonlore, for example, got disbanded in Vanguard, with several banned accounts, the reaction from the players was more of “why did it take so long?!” rather than “good job!”
This particular issue with the EQ2 test guild is made more complicated by the fact that it involves developers. To some extent, when you look at the concept of a virtual world, those who create it are, for lack of a better description, virtual gods. They are the creators, they set things in motion, and from time to time, they tweak and interject to ensure that things run smoothly. We’ve grown accustomed to seeing fellow players break the rules, but we expect that those who actually make the rules will at least follow them.
Frankly, I think the reaction from Sony Management was lacking, given the issue. This response in particular was probably not the best choice of words:
There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about something we were doing to show kindness to some valued members of our testing community who have been working diligently to improve EverQuest II for the last three years.
What we did was take a group of characters from the test server, scrub them by hand of all test gear, and any ‘privileged’ equipment, titles, etc, and grant their wish to continue to play as a group of friends, on a live server.
Had we been aware that being a little extra kind to these folks would cause such an uproar, there is no doubt we would not have taken this step. However, due to the current situation, I find myself apologizing to you for allowing this situation to occur.
We are in the process now of removing the characters that we copied to the live servers. Obviously, we overstepped the bounds of kindness in attempting to thank these people for their efforts in testing, and we are working to rectify this situation before the end of the day today.
Thank you,
Bruce “Froech” Ferguson
Senior Producer, EverQuest II
The apology above reminds me, just a teenie bit, of Mattel apologizing to China for a recent toy recall. After all, how dare anyone point out that Chinese factories break rules, dunk kids toys in lead paint, sell poisoned dog food, and ship out recycled chop sticks! And how dare the players point out that copying over an entire guild from test to live is breaking the rules!
Bottom line is, this is a case where those in charge should have known better. If they wanted to copy a guild off the test server, fine. But be upfront about it, and be consistent. Offer a one time, limited opportunity to anyone on test, for example. Consider even a one time transfer to everyone, for a limited time, so that those who have been complaining about overcrowded, lagged out servers can have a more enjoyable experience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with developers wanting to show kindness to players, and in general, I think developers and community managers do a fantastic job of that. But this was an act of favoritism, done under the rug. That’s just not acceptable.
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (4)
December 15, 2007
Popped into EQ2 last night, and Update 41 had the nice goodies from Frostfell.
I got my snow globe, and then picked a snowball fight with Mynervia, which I promptly regretted. I still think he had a snowhack program running in the background, there’s no way anyone could get off that many snowballs that quickly.
After dusting off my monkly attire, I entered the Narnia closet in Qeynos Harbor, and promptly got a face full of snow from Torradan. Happy frippin Frostfell to you too. I ran around stealing presents from everyone, and now I have a thousand little components to make cool holiday goodies. Only problem is, my crafting is….zero.
After a while of that, I did the little McScroogle quest to get my Frostfell hat and cape. Fun quest overall, except for that ridiculous maze. Then later on, I was face to face with him, and he pelted me with coins. More proof that gnomes are horrible.
Later on, I visited Torradan’s home and checked out all the neat goodies that he crafted. I wanted to get closer to the table, but the chicken and the bird vetoed the idea.
I love holiday events! Bling is good!
Posted by jayernh under Archive,Everquest II | Comments (0)
December 12, 2007
I could rattle off a dozen reasons why it took me almost a month to update my blog. It’s actually the longest dry spell I ever had, by far. Naptimes for the kids are going the way of the dinosaur lately, and naptime is blog time. The Wizziefinger household has endured a nice bout with a chest cold lately too. The holiday rush factors in as well – family get togethers, multiple visits to Santa, Christmas decorating, blah blah blah.
But this is a gaming blog. Long story short, the biggest reason I had such a dry spell was because I’ve recently made a transition from Vanguard back to Everquest II. I dont’ feel like I’m done with Vanguard, but at the same time, it’s been a lot of fun going back to EQII. I opened up a chapter of Revelry and Honor over on the Guk server, and I’m extremely grateful that many members have also made the transition. I can’t say enough how much I enjoy gaming these days, and a big part of that is the people I’m playing with every time I log in.
This is an unusual spot for me, because I’ve always been a one-game-at-a-time type of player. When I play a game, I invest in the long haul, and I settle in for the long journey that MMOs provide. So to be mentally divided between two games, and two guilds, is something I’m still adjusting to. EQ2 has taken most of my free time lately, but I still have things I’d like to do in Vanguard. Long term, I dont’ know what I’ll be doing, which is unusual for me, but whatever I do, I plan to keep blogging about it!
On another note, I’m doubly blessed now to be part of two really cool communities, with some really fun people. (link spam to follow) I got into the super secret blogger channel last night and talked to Tipa and Stargrace, and I was a little starstruck as we chatted it up and had a mutual admiration society moment. I’m looking forward to talking to them more, and picking their brains for their insight into EQ2 and gaming in general.
I’m also still podcasting with Troy, who still plans to do his Voyages of Vanguard show, although not quite as often. I’ll be switching over now, though, to co-host his show, Equal Perspectives, which will touch on both EQ and EQ2. I do want to add that our last show was my favorite so far. We interviewed Machail, who is a guild leader of Agony’s End, a staff writer for Ten Ton Hammer, and who has done an extensive amount of raid testing for Vanguard’s Ancient Port Warehouse (which went live today!). I really enjoyed talking with him, and I thought it was the best show we did to date, so if you haven’t checked it out, and are interested in hearing about the life of a raid tester, or about APW in particular, please tune in. It’s well worth it, especially if you are preparing to tackle APW, because he does offer some useful tips and exclusive insight into the zone!
Darren, of The Common Sense Gamer, and Shut up We’re Talking, has invited me back on to his next show as well, so I’m still a happy member of the podcast world, and having a blast doing it.
Lastly, I’m really excited to see that Mightydar has entered the world of blogging! He’s a fellow guildmate, and he’s always offered a lot of great insight into Vanguard and gaming in general. It’s really nice to see that he’s set up his own blog, so that others can see what he has to say.
Anyway, I’m still here, and I’ll be back in the groove after the holidays, if not sooner. In the meantime, if you are looking for a relaxed guild, with focused goals (but not at the expense of a good night’s sleep!), in *either* Vanguard or Everquest II, check us out at Revelry and Honor!
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