We Fly Spitfires – MMORPG Blog

Everquest 2 is a great game. In fact, I think it’s one of the best MMOs currently available. I played it pretty much solid for 3.5 years, from the day it was released to about May this year. I took a few small breaks to try out other games but I always came back to EQ2 because it had everything I was looking for. Even now I don’t really play it but I still have an active subscription and a couple of low level alts to mess around with.

The reason I stopped playing was just because I’d literally ran out of new things to do – 3.5 years is a loooong time to play a game. I was also pretty disappointed at the latest expansion as it didn’t introduce a whole lot of new stuff. EoF and RoK in comparison were fantastic and added lots of content, high and low level, to keep existing players happy but also encourage new players to join the game.

Anyway, I digress. What I want to talk about is how Everquest 2 has adapted and evolved over the years, turning it from a pretty ropey and incomplete game to a fantastically balanced and polished one.

When EQ2 was first released, it didn’t get a whole lot of praise. Most critics gave it about 7/10 which, while not terrible, isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement. And they were pretty justified in the review. The game lacked content and polish and it was absolutely full of bugs. Not only that but WoW came out just 2 weeks after it and it completely overshadowed EQ2 and compounded it’s problems by being so well polished in comparison. I think the EQ2 development team realised this and spent the next few years working their asses off to refine and redevelop EQ2 into something amazing. I honestly believe that WoW was crippling towards EQ2 and if it hadn’t been for the strong Everquest lore and fan base, EQ2 wouldn’t have survived.

Let’s look at some of the more sweeping changes and larger additions to hit EQ2 over the past few years.

2005 – 2006

• A lot of bug fixes and tweaks to try and make the game more playable and balanced.
• New epic raid zones added.
• Mentor system added (amazing feature – WoW seriously needs this).
• Bloodline Chronicles booster added.
• New level 50 zone, Nektropos, added.
• Trade-skill and crafting improvements.
• Guild management and writ improvements.
• New instances added.
• Frogloks released!
• Splitpaw Saga booster released.
• Travel made easier.
• Desert of Flames expansion!
• Halloween event.
• Veteran rewards added.

2006 – 2007

• Complete new character progression system added. One of the biggest and most successful changes.
• Kingdom of Sky expansion.
• PvP servers added.
• City barbers added.
• Fallen Dynasty booster.
• Guild level and management changes.
• Huge amount of PvP tweaks.
• Echoes of Faydwer expansion.

2007 – 2008

• Estate of Unrest opens.
• Sword of Destiny quest line created.
• New mounts added.
• City of Neriak added!
• Arasai added!
• New Gods added.
• Shard of Fear released.
• Rise of Kunark expansion released.

2008 – 2009

• Epic weapon quests added.
• New loot methods added.
• Shard of Hate released.
• Station Voice added.
• Guild system changes.
• Guild Halls added.
• Shadow Odyssey released.

Yep, that’s a lot of stuff and a lot of changes. I’ve got to take my hat off to the EQ2 team for not only adding a lot of new content, a lot of it free at the time and now all of it free when you buy the latest expansion, but also for continually adapting the gameplay system to make it more refined, user-friendly and balanced.

One of the biggest changes to Everquest 2 was the character progression change. In EQ2, everyone used to have to start with a generic class like a Fighter or Scout and then, after level 10, pick a sub-class like Warrior or Predator. Eventually after level 20 you would then be able to pick your final class like Guardian or Brigand. I absolutely hated this system and I was extremely happy when it was removed. It was like the developers breathed a breath of fresh air into the game and made it far more streamlined and enjoyable, removing unnecessary bulk.

EQ2 isn’t perfect but then no MMO is. However, it’s always been a very innovate and original game and I think SoE  learnt a lot from Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies and used their experience to subtly adapt and enhance the game without changing the fundamentals that attracted people to it in the first place.

So what’s in stock for the future of EQ2? Well, they’ve just released news about some changes to the aggro system which will revamp the fighter classes. You can read about it here. Just another example of EQ2 adapting to make the game better – I have absolute faith in the developers.

Anyway, if you’re feeling burnt out with WoW I’d recommend giving EQ2 a shot. You won’t regret it.

After putting it off for weeks I finally got round to buying Red Alert 3. I was a big fan of the series and I thought that this would be a really safe bet – a guaranteed good game that will keep me going through the cold month of January.

So, you can probably tell from the title of this blog that it didn’t go too well. I’m not saying Red Alert 3 is a bad game (in many ways it’s awesome) but it’s just…. kind of pish.

I could go into a review of it here but thats not really what I wanted to talk about. Why is it that soooo often the anticipation of the game is FAR better than the finished product?

Who doesn’t love that feeling of buying something that you’re really into, taking it home, unwrapping it, installing, intro cinematic, menu then…. meh.

Am I expecting too much? These things have to be made for a whole range of people so it’s not likely that I’m going to like everything but… you’d think there would be a solid foundation at least.

Maybe I get too wrapped up in the hype, I often do. I bought Spore because of all the hype, took it home and discovered it wasn’t revolutionary at all, just a collection of boring mini-games (that’s really all it is).

Maybe its the licence? I will buy the Ghostbusters game but a wee voice in the back of my mind is telling me it wont be great. I bought the Lich King and I’m still nowhere near seeing any of its new content.

Maybe its the gimmicks – the cast in Red Alert sounded good. The executions in Age of Conan were cool.

I think as the games market gets bigger and bigger the games themselves will get more generic to appeal to a mass audience (not necessarily bad games but just… generic). In the future I think it’ll take more effort to find a properly satisfying good game.

And that’s kind of interesting – the games market is now so big it’s like the film industry; there’s a lot of (sometimes entertaining) pish but if you want a really good experience you have to go out of your comfort zone and find a weird little indie film that works for you.

guaka’s dissapointing games – Red Alert 3, Spore, Warhammer Online

guaka’s list of awesome – Sins of a Solar Empire, BIOSHOCK!, Fallout 3

I played Everquest for approximately 5 years starting just after it was released in 1999. In that time I did exactly 3 quests (OK, fine, if you include the “fetch me 6 fire beetle eyes” and the “hand in 20 bone chips for Kunark faction” quests then it’s probably about 5). The 3 quests I did are listed below:

• Stein of Moggok
• Enchanter: Iksar Illusion
• Rogue Epic

3 quests. 5 years. Everquest. Irony central to the max.

Thing is, Everquest wasn’t about questing. It was about grouping, grinding and struggling all the way to the top. When it first came out it there was no such thing as quest journals, large, yellow exclamation marks hanging over NPC’s heads or quest location indicators on maps. Heck, there wasn’t even any such thing as maps (I used to have to keep a folder full of print outs from the EQAtlas website). Undertaking a quest resulted in having to research it on the Internet, print out 15 pages of information, spend 2 hours travelling and then a further 18 hours camping mobs only to accidentally hand in the components to the NPC in the wrong order and lose everything. Ah, the good ol’ days.

The next few batches of MMOs didn’t really do much to improve questing or change the way we look at it. Even second generation games like SWG and EQ2 initially didn’t bother much with questing. However change was just around the corner in the form a pencil-necked geek called Warcraft, World of Warcraft.

WoW was packed with quests and it revolutionised everything. It made EQ2 look half finished in comparison and practically killed it off even though it had only been released two weeks before WoW and had a large, loyal fan base. Everything had changed and now people wanted soloable quest content.

While other games, like EQ2, fought hard to keep up and add new content, WoW grew like a juicy maggot. It changed the MMO experience from being a time consuming group orientated one to a slick and easy solo one. Now people could log in, spend 30 minutes doing a few quests, and log off a happy camper.

The result of all of this is now that every MMO has to come briming with quests or it’s considered ‘empty’ and lacking depth and content even if the core game is good (Age of Conan is a perfect example of this). 5 years ago these games would have thrived but now people just want to quest grind alone and only group occasionally until they hit the level cap.

Seems like questing is a double edged sword. On one hand it’s introduced a more user-friendly style of gameplay with greater allowances for storytelling and immersion. On the other hand it’s removed a lot of the social experiences we used to take for granted. There’s a fine line between enjoying doing quests and just ‘quest grinding’ mindlessly to level up quickly which I feel is where we’re heading now in a lot of MMOs.

Ultimately, I want the best of both worlds. I want to quest but I don’t want it just being another tool for grinding, a metric that people use to determine if a game has ‘depth’ or not. Questing should mean something and be an intricate part of the game and it’s evolution certainly shouldn’t result in the extinction of grouping or sociability. I eagerly await the same revolutionary focus being applied to the group experience that was applied to the solo quest one four years ago.

I don’t know about Ultima Online but Everquest was one of the original MMOs and it certainly had a fair amount of humour in it, often little nods towards obscure geeky references designed to give us a smirk if we noticed. You can find a full list of them here.

Everquest 2 was a lot more serious and I remember reading an interview with a developer a few years ago who talked about how they they felt humour and Easter eggs removed people from the immersive world and made it feel like too much of a ‘game’. The EQ2 team seemed to have lightened up over the years though and now have a few in-game jokes, none more obvious than a legendary scythe called ‘Dawnfear, the Reaper’ (\aITEM -1115320850 1219695296:Dawnfear, the Reaper\/a ) which drops in the Plane of Fear. It even procs an effect called ‘Bos Bovis Carillon’ – carillon being a musical instrument, bovis sounding similar to bovine and bos… well, I have no idea what that means but it sounds German.

World of Warcraft on the other hand is absolutely ripe with humour so obvious you just can’t miss it. In the Draenei starting lands alone there is the opportunity to meet Laando and do a delivery run in under 30 minutes for a chap called Kessel. And if you have no idea what those are about then please go punch yourself in the face.

Blizzard are even so much into their in-game humour that they can manage to pack two, count ‘em, two geek references into a single quest. Chasing A-Me 01 not only references the film of the same name but also Congo. My favourite comedy quest however has to be the one in Honour Hold in Hellfire Peninsula were you help a priest called Barada perform an exorcism. The power of Christ compels you!

The power of the Light compels you!

You can find a full listing of WoW Easter eggs here… all 12 pages of them.

So it seems some people dislike the idea of humour and Easter eggs in their MMOs but I’m not one of them. I love the jokes in WoW and personally I think it makes the game seem more personal and vibrant. I can’t see the argument for it breaking immersion and role play because, lets face it, no one bothers to RP in it anway. Now, I’m just waiting to bump into an NPC with a huge chin who goes by the name Druce Dampbell (you can have that one for free, Blizzard, but the next one will cost ya). BOOM.

World of Warcraft is not successful (defined: 11 million players) because it’s an amazing game. It’s not successful because it’s original or innovative. It’s not successful because it’s cheap or has low system requirements. It’s successful because the Managing Director of my company plays it.

You see, folks, the greatest tick WoW ever pulled was convincing the world it’s not a MMO and that is the secret to it’s success.

My boss has never heard of Everquest, EQ2, AoC or WAR and doesn’t care about hardcore guilds, class balance or being the first person to hit level 80. He plays because he simply enjoys a good computer game. He plays because it’s fun. He even got his son into it so they can play together.

I once asked him how he got into WoW and he told me that he met someone at a wedding who told him about it and recommended he gave it a shot. That doesn’t happen for other MMOs. Other MMOs have hardcore fans trauling forums and hyping up games and moving their entire guild when something new comes out. But they only account for a fraction of the WoW player base and have a lot less influence than they would like to think.

World of Warcraft is successful because the people who play it don’t know about other MMOs and don’t care. They just want to play a computer game and have some fun. Blizzard absolutely nailed it by creating a solid game and pushing it to transcend the traditional, limited MMO market. And that is why the Blizzard Executives can light their cigars with $10 bills.

I was checking out Jhet Bhlak’s blog and I saw a post he made in December with this following video from YouTube. It absolutely cracked me up so I just had to re-post it here.

Thanks, Jhet!

It’s 10:30pm and I just got home from work. I don’t have some super crazy lawyer job in the city (shucks, y’all) but I have been working harder than a Japanese beaver lately. It’s not the norm for me (oh God I hope it’s not the norm for me. Save me Baby Jesus, please!) so it’s fine but I find that even my normal working life, combined with my slightly-retarded social life, apply a lot of pressure to my gaming live. How the heck do other people manage to put in all of those crazy hours into MMOs and still hold down jobs?!

When I was a student on summer holidays I used to play a fair bit (y’know, 4-6 hours a day, nothing too… extreme…) but that was purely because I had absolutely nothing better to do. Eventually my hedonistic life of bliss came to an end and I had to go out and get a job. Since then, my gaming life has suffered.

My EQ2 guild was a ‘casual’ guild but even then I struggled to keep up with everyone else. They would all log on at 7pm and log off at 10pm during the week and then played a lot during the weekends. Now, compared to most MMO gamers, that’s very casual but it was still difficult for me to do – sometimes I had to work late, sometimes I wanted to go out and/or see friends and sometimes I just didn’t feel like sitting in front of a computer.

Keeping up with my casual guildies was hard enough so I have no idea how true hardcore players manage to hold down a job and put in their abundant hours of gaming. Sure, I can understand students (cause I certainly indulged myself when I was one) but that can’t account for all hardcore players. I saw a guild recruitment message in EQ2 once that stated that applicants needed to be able to raid every day of the week from 6-11pm. Huh?! How does anyone manage that? It boggles my mind.

I guess, thinking about it, I’m quite competitve in my MMOs and it annoys me that someone else can be ‘better’ than me just because they’ve got more time (I hate the way MMOs reward time and not skill). But then, thinking about it, I realise that they must be unemployed and live at home with their mum. It’s only thing that explains it. Either that or they must be exeedingly rich, lucky or run time management courses.