June 24, 2010
Adam and I were back at it again, this time judging all the entries for the Fallen Earth contest that Adam hosted at Epic Slant. After that, we dove back into the mailbag, answering over a dozen great questions from listeners about a variety of guild issues.
A View From the Top – Episode 13
Questions included:
- How do you find a guild that fits your playstyle on a lower populated server?
- How do you deal with the stress of leading a guild, especially during guild formation?
- What do you do when you, as a leader, take a hiatus, and return to find that your officers did too good of a job? Is there a way to graciously step back into your old role?
- How should guild leaders, particularly of a hardcore guild, handle the issue sharing personal info? (phone numbers, acct info)
- How do you revamp a guild’s culture if it’s undesirable? (too many cliques, too much drama)
- What do you do when a key officer in your guild goes MIA?
- How should a guild handle low morale from members joining and then leaving after getting big upgrades. How do you deal with the added frustration of being left out of the larger alliance raids as a result?
Got a guild issue that’s driving you up a wall? We welcome any of your guild-related questions. You can contact us at viewfromthetop@vagary.tv.
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June 22, 2010
THIS IS AN ENTRY TO A SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED CONTEST.
This is a true story (true story!) of a ranger.
Who started a guild with a few friends.
To work together and have their lives screenshotted.
To find out what happens
When people stop playing solo
and start getting virtual.
About 10 years ago, on a little hill in Lesser Faydark, I decided I wanted to do more than just run around lost and kill orcs by myself. Along with Troval, I started up a guild, called Revelry and Honor. Little did I know, I had chosen a path that would connect me with hundreds of people from around the world, and take us all on adventures through several worlds.
I’ve met moms, dads, and their kids. I’ve met truck drivers, military heroes, doctors, lawyers, and even belly dancers. I’ve seen children grow to be adults, I’ve celebrated friendships that turned to marriage, and I mourned two who were gone way before their time. From New York to Denmark, people came to play in Revelry and Honor, and we had fun.
Along the way, I’ve played Everquest, Everquest II, Vanguard, and Free Realms, and have reached the level cap in all of them. I’ve seen and done a lot in these games, but what I’ve never done is attend a Fan Faire. This year will be my first, and I’ll be meeting several guildmates, bloggers, and podcasters that I’ve met along the way. I would love to share my experiences with others, and hope to be selected as a Backstage Blogger.
THIS IS AN ENTRY TO A SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED CONTEST.
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June 15, 2010
It took me a while, but I finally cinched up my sword belt, tightened the chin strap on my helmet, and waged war in Everquest 2′s Battlegrounds. It was time to teach those gankers and griefers a lesson!
Above: Battlefield of Ganak, fighting off an invasion.
Ok, I’m not exactly what you’d call a hardcore PvPr. Lucky for me, the RnHrs overlook that, and we’ve had a few nights of guild groups in the 6 and 12 man instances. Not too many in the guild are really gung ho PvPrs, but that’s not surprising considering we’re on a blue server. What’s interesting, though, is that almost everyone who’s tried BGs on our guild nights has seemed to really enjoy it, and we’ve run with BG vets and complete greenies like me. I figured I’d share a few impressions of Battlegrounds, now that I’ve finally had a real taste of what it’s like.
First off, I have to admit that I almost walked away from Battlegrounds completely after the first one. The reason was because the first time you zone in, you have to select your UI, since the BG zones are on a different server. You only have a few seconds to do this though, and since I wasn’t ready for it, I ended up choosing a different UI setting than my custom Profit UI settings that I am used to. Just like that, all keys were borked. I couldn’t move, couldn’t target, couldn’t attack, and worst of all, couldn’t talk. When I tried getting the UI load window up, I still couldn’t get the right setting that I use on Guk. So I spent the entire time sifting through options and manually fixing them. The cherry on top of this craptastic sundae is that we ran the 6 man with one PUGger, and when he noticed that I wasn’t moving or talking, he started lobbying my group to vote me /afk, which is the in game feature to punish botters. At that point, it was actually a good thing that I couldn’t speak in group.
I got to relive this wonderful experience a few nights later, when my husband tried Battlegrounds and had the same thing happen to him. I’m happy to report, though, that both of us survived, and are well into our honeymoon phase of the BG relationship. My husband is even more into it than I am, and might be competing with Grandpop for the title of Biggest BGr in RnH.
Above: Defending the flag in Ganak. Don’t be fooled by the dimunitive gnome. That’s Grandpop, and he’s absolutely terrifying in combat. The green mushroom’d Sarnak is Orko. He updated his wardrobe from the pink bunny look.
Overall, I am having a lot of fun. I know there have been some enormous roadbumps along the way, but if you step back and look at the enormity of the task – fitting a block of PvP into a wall of PvE, it seems to be working out pretty well now.
There are a few things that I’d like to see. The first is some sort of mercy rule, to speed up the lopsided battles. You can usually tell in the first minute whether it’s going to be a real fight or not, and when it’s not, it becomes a sad sight to watch the other side getting steamrolled.
I’d also like to see Gears of Klak’anon go back to the way it was, where the relic drops at the spot where the carrier dies. Right now, it spawns in the center every time, so it just becomes a big scrum, where everyone plunks themselves down in the middle and camps the relic spot. I really enjoyed the hide and seek aspect of Gears, but that’s gone right now, and I’d like to see it return.
Lastly, I do hope the devs are watching class balance and gear very closely. There are still classes that are much stronger than others, and I think the problem is becoming exacerbated by the new gear sets. The difference between the geared up BG grinders and the more casual BGrs is very noticable, and in the past few weeks, it does seem like we’re facing fewer and fewer PUGs. Last week, it seemed we saw the same people over and over on our BG night, and I hope that doesn’t mean that the more casual BGrs are being driven away by gear imparity. It’s funny, because there’s always a ton of concern about making sure that battleground gear doesn’t outdo PvE gear, but people rarely consider the flip side. Shouldn’t hard earned raid gear provide a little more survivability in a BG than it does now? I’ll leave that migraine inducer to the devs!
If you’re someone that’s interested in some low key, fairly casual BG’ing on the Guk server, look us up! Revelry and Honor does Battlegrounds every Tuesday night, starting at 8:30 EST. We’ve usually had enough for the 12 man, but with a few more, we can queue ourselves up for Smuggler’s Den. Send a tell to Riske (me) or Orko for an invite!
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June 9, 2010
The show is up!
Show notes from the site:
On this episode of a View from the Top we were pleased to have Morgan Feldon of EQ2 Wire as our guest. He has a lot of insight into our favorite game, EverQuest 2. We tackle some great guild related issues and spend a lot of time discussing our MMORPG of choice. Come and listen to us speculate about the next expansion, itemization and even a little class balance!
Show Notes
- We take a moment to talk about what we’ve been playing while Adam rudely eats. I thought we were over that!
- Morgan has been spending time with both EQ2 and single player games. He is in Europe and according to Adam it is a weird place!
- Listener feedback: We hear from Citadelli on Guk and get onto the subject of Battlegrounds. How do we feel about the new armor sets and what is their effect on overall itemization?
- Podcast Spotlight: Check out 16 Bit Radio, a podcast from Tim “Youngblood” and company. If you’re interested in hearing honest opinions about games you’ll enjoy it!
- Interviewing Feldon! We put him on the hot seat!
- The ultimate question: What do you think about Sentinel’s Fate?
- What is the deal with raid progression?
- Nobody likes Icy Keep but Ferrel? That is a shame!
- Expansion rumors! Velious is the next expansion? It might even be out at Christmas? Is that enough time?! Velious is serious business and can’t be done poorly!
- Nobody wants to go to Odus. Nobody went to Odus in EverQuest! Adam is after random areas!
- Living up to the expectations of Velious. Was it the greatest EverQuest expansion ever made?
- Lets talk about large open dungeons. They haven’t been done right in a while and were previously a big portion of Velious. Will this be an issue?
- Are we going to get an incomplete Velious spread over a few years? That might not be such a great idea. What will be the Destiny of Velious?
- Erollisi Marr story line spoiler alert!
- What would we like to see in game down the road? Morgan is looking for something more than the usual progression methods.
- Creating a golden path for grouping and raiding. Lets revitalize that old content! We should also have another look at the experience penalty with mentoring.
- Really looking at EQ2 Wire. Where did it come from? How did it get started?
- You make the Call: This week’s question comes from Mike Emeny . His question is about enforcing rules equally. It was a wonderful question! You’ll have to listen for it and the answers though!
- Don’t forget to submit your “ask a guild leader” questions. You can win some Fallen Earth goodies if you do. Check out the details in the acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
We would like to extend a huge thank you to Feldon and EQ2 Wire. The amount of secret information he brought to the show was great! We love to dish about EverQuest II and he really allowed us to do that.
Thank you to Tim “Youngblood” for being our partner in pod-casting! We appreciate your efforts!
Adam would like to express his great appreciation to Icarus Studios for supporting Epic Slant in the Fallen Earth Epic Contest. If you’d like a chance to win some Fallen Earth game time, a boxed game and/or some swag follow the link and submit a question!
We would like to shout out to the EQ2 team for all the good things they do.
Morgan would like to shout out to Deathdealer for doing work on EQ2 Wire! He would like to shout out to Thorian as well!
Karen thanks Citadelli and would like to hook up from some BGs! She also touched on shouting out to all of her BG buddies.
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June 8, 2010
When raiding, I often use the analogy that learning an encounter is like dancing, only with 24 people instead of 2. Learning the steps can be a migraine inducing experience, but once everyone finds their rhythm, the fight becomes several minutes of effortless bliss.
So far, raiding in Sentinel’s Fate has been a refreshing change from The Shadow Odyssey and Kunark. If I had to sum up the difference, I’d say that in many of those raid encounters, everyone’s main focus was to not be the goat. But in Sentinel’s Fate, everyone’s focused on being the hero. The way the fights reward and penalize you is very different, and from a raid leader’s perspective, I much prefer the latter.
Above: The only way I like to see Venril Sathir.
There are several examples of raid encounters that make raiders cower in fear, and turn raid leaders into bellicose tyrants. The best one, by far, is the pre-nerf Venril Sathir encounter. There were fail conditions upon fail conditions in that fight:
- If your power falls below a certain percentage, adds spawn and the raid wipes.
- If your power goes too high, you die.
- If you don’t cure yourself of the noxious AE in time, you get hit for a ton of damage and huge power drain. If you actually do live, you end up spawning adds and the raid wipes.
- If you don’t have someone clicking the statues in the back of his room, adds spawn and the raid wipes.
- If you don’t click the soulcube at 65% when he emotes, the raid wipes.
In addition, there’s the lovely fear proc, along with the random selection of people on the raid to be hit with a mana tap or power surge if they do so much as sneeze.
And just in case you weren’t sure who it was that screwed up, the person’s name would be plastered in big bright red letters across the screen to the entire raid.
This was a raid where I had to tell people that when in doubt, do nothing. This was a raid where I had to ask people to not rez back in if they died. There was nothing enjoyable about this encounter at all, and people had good reason to loathe it.
Venril Sathir was about not being the goat. People often held back out of fear of making a mistake, and costing the raid an important victory. I joke with the guild that we’re probably the only ones who got through that encounter without anyone raising their voices at each other (at least when the mic was open). But I don’t doubt that many guilds were strained to the breaking point over raiders losing trust in each other. It’s one thing to have a challenging raid encounter, but the Venril Sathir fight actually encouraged guildmates to resent each other.
What I like about the Sentinel’s Fate raid content is that it focuses on giving a few people the opportunity on the raid to be a hero. So instead of people raiding in fear of being the goat, everyone now is eager to push themselves more and be the one that really steps it up.
The very first fight in the Lair of the Dragon Queen is a great example of that. Wyvernlord Tuluun does the usual stuff to hamper a raid, but his trick is that he will randomly blind one person, causing them to absorb a lot of damage until they either cure themselves at a nearby pool, or die.
Another person on the raid can help them out though, by right clicking their name and leading them to the pool. It’s become almost a game within a game for our raid, as everyone tries to outclick each other in helping cure the blind people. And in contrast to the Venril Sathir “JoeRaider has screwed up, everyone hate on him” message, the person who successfully leads the blind gets to see their name in nice, bright red letters for all the raid to see. (For us it’s always “Draxer clicked the fastest, try again punks!”)
Raiding should be about being the hero. I still remember my favorite raiding moment in Everquest, during the 10th ring war. Up on that snow-capped, sharp edged, pixelated mountaintop, I was one of the lookouts for the legions of giants charging towards Thurgadin. At one point, a few giants had slipped past our raid’s defenses and were getting very close towards the little dwarves that we had to protect. I had to decide whether or not to abandon my scouting post, engage the giants, and risk missing a call of another wave of giants. I decided to take the gamble, and I was able to snare them long enough for the reinforcements to come in and finish them off. Luckily, I made it back to my post in time to scout my designated area and keep making calls to the raid.
The 10th ring war was one of the best encounters, because there were dozens of moments in the battle where individuals had to take risks, roll the dice, and possibly become a hero. I get that same feeling from Sentinel’s Fate raids so far, and it’s a refreshing change from Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey.
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June 1, 2010
As I played blog catch up today, I saw Darren’s entry regarding an interview with Bioware’s Daniel Erickson. In the article, Erickson, lead writer for Star Wars the Old Republic, was quoted as saying that MMOs have “no point.” My initial reaction was, huh? But I figured I should go directly to the source before proceeding with the typical reactionary blog post.
After further review, my reaction is…huh?
The big takeaway from the interview is the following:
“In the early days when they first announced that there were MMOs, like the existence of them, I knew in my head what that meant – because I played Role Playing Games. It was just giant Role Playing Games.
“And then MMO [games] showed up, and it wasn’t that. It was the ruleset to an RPG:
There was combat,
and there were areas,
but that was all.
Someone had left out the module. There was no story,
there was no point.
You just kind of wandered around.
And that hasn’t really changed all that much over the years.”
Obviously, I cannot disagree more with the above quote. I bristle any time I hear a comment that MMOs lack story or a point. One could argue about whether the current crop of MMOs contain quality story, but bottom line is that it’s in there.
That’s irrelevant though, because the best moments in MMO history are made by the people playing the game. The players are the story, whether it’s The Mittani explaining how Goonswarm infiltrated Band of Brothers in Eve (NSFW btw), or Altdorf prematurely falling in Warhammer Online (Years and years of development, 15 minutes for the actual siege!). It could be player protests of in game changes, or real life political issues. It could be a bank embezzlement of historic proportions, Dives having a meltdown during the Onyxia fight (NSFW too), or a player-organized memorial for a fallen friend. In short, MMOs are at their best during those unexpected moments, inspired by the human element.
Now, I know that Bioware knows this. They have to, with MMO sages like Gordon Walton and Damion Schubert on the payroll. So, despite the glaring absence of information about multiplayer gameplay in comparison to solo play, I still am confident that there will be iconic moments in the game that will rival the ones above.
But they won’t involve cutscenes.
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June 1, 2010
Because of the long weekend, and the calender sneaking up on me, I decided to extend the deadline for the contest to give my guildmate Perfect a surname. The deadline is now this Friday, June 4th. There are several clever entries so far, but still plenty of opportunity to come up with the Perfect surname. (I am partial to Perfect Strangers).
So far we have:
- Perfect Plunder by Psi’a Meese
- Perfect Walkerra
Perfect Shun’ainteasy
Perfect Just’perfect
Perfect T’Cefrep
Perfect Last’namelessone
Perfect Purrfection – by Necrotherian Facepalmer
- Perfect By’Nature
Perfect Naturally
Perfect Kitty – by Kinkle
- Perfect Awesome (I’m a fan of the show Chuck!
Perfect Pedigree
Perfect Purebred
Perfect Play – by Nazric
- Perfect Ten – by Caldawen
Common sense rule applies – don’t bother submitting something crude or inappropriate, it won’t show up and won’t be considered. The winner will receive a 30 day Universal SOE game card, which can be used on any SOE station game – EQ2, EQ, EQOA, Free Realms, Vanguard, Planetside, and Star Wars Galaxies. You don’t have to be an EQ2 player to enter the contest, although if you are, and you happen to be on Guk, you get the added benefit of being with Revelry and Honor!
Good luck!
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