The Grind

I haven’t played to much EQ2 lately. It is just the solo grind that is getting to me. From what I am reading the Kunark expansion was very heavily geared to solo play. Then there is all the time sinks that I am hitting. I was going to play a little Saturday night but when I sat down and thought about how many zones I would have to go through just to get to Fens I decided to watch a movie instead.

 I tend to log out on the Butcher Block dock that seems to be the best place to me. I can use my “Call of Ro” and sell faction items in the Court of Blades. Then pop down and over to Butcher Block and hit the mender, broker and banker. So when I log in I am on the docks and can check the broker and my mail. So to get to Fens I have to go through SS, NQ, Ant… (Wait on the boat), Kylong and then Fens. SO that is 5 zones with a boat wait and a bird ride to get to the area I need to quest in to level. That is around 20 min of just zoning, waiting and flying.

So I log in Sunday going to work on trying to get half a level before the raid. I spend my 20 mins getting to Fens. Pull up my journal and head to do a quest turn in. Then to my surprise bam I have to have a high enough faction to complete the quest. Ok so lets get to some faction grinding but wait I don’t speek the language of the quest giver. So at this point I am pushing 45 min of game time just to find out I need to go back and get some language quest done.  So I call to Kelethin and head to Steamfont. Once there I get the quest which is a level 35 quest so ne exp for this one.  I spend 2hrs killing gray mobs getting updates just so I can go get more grinding quests.

After that I logged and thought what a waste of a Sunday morning.  With this slump it could take me a while to get to 80.

I didn’t make it

Well I didn’t manage to get into DDO Tuesday like I had planed. But I have decided to take Tayln and Ustice’s advice and play the game for a few months. So having this weekend off I should be able to get in and do some group action. I have also been trying to talk the guys from my old table top days into giving the game a go.

 

I do have a good reason for not making it though I decided to get level 75 on Amirah my Illusionist in EQ2. Only 5 more long levels. Once I do get to 80 I will have all kinds of things to do at that point. Most of if involves working on my epic weapon quest line. I did get a new hat in the Tuesday night raid. It was a nice upgrade for me but the graphic is just awful.  So don’t plan on seeing me run around game with it displayed.

DDO

Well over the past week I took advantage of the DDO 10 day free trial. I still have 2 day left on the trial and I am still deciding if I want to buy the game or not. Now the game is only $15 but the question is “is there enough there for the $15 a month fee”. I guess I will keep thinking it over tomorrow and then decide Wednesday.

Tomorrow I plan on put my lfg tag and see what the group action looks like. The dungeons are really nice and the traps are great. I don’t know how many times I jumped when I would suddenly see fire shooting out of the wall.  I guess the deciding factor for me will be how looking for a group goes.

SWG the Great Things

 Kill Ten Rats was the only blogger to post the other day recognizing SWG’s 5^th birthday.  It suppresses me a little that no one else bothered to mention it. It seems to me that SWG is the only game out that at release was truly a 3^rd generation MMO. SWG was a game that was really ahead of its time. I can not think of a single game that has even tried to implement some of the original components of SWG. I wanted to take a moment to look back and think of some of the things that where in SWG that I would like to see implemented in MMO’s to come.

                 Can you say NO levels. Now SWG was the first MMO I ever played and EQ2 was the second. So after 2 years of playing SWG (I left before the infamies NGE patch) and going in to EQ2 at launch. Image my surprise when I had levels and needed to run back to town every level just to get my spells upgraded. So why after 5 years do we still see games following in the same old path?  I for one loved the skill tree system. Was it perfect NO but there sure is a lot of potential in a system without levels. The community interaction of just people training other people was great.

                Everything in the game was player made. There was no camping mobs’ waiting for a drop. There where was no questing for an item.  You ran missions those missions paid you credits and you took those credits and bought your gear. So imagine my surprise when in EQ2 I had to accept the fact that I wasn’t high enough level for a mace. Not that I couldn’t use maces I just wasn’t high enough to use that mace yet.

                Personal Vendors it is the only game that took the idea behind selling goods and made it into a class. You had your own personal NPC that would stand around and sell your wears. Later they added tents that you could set up around Player Cities to have your NPC merchants sell your goods. Now the vendors do not just stand there heck no if you where high enough up the merchant tree you could make them talk to passerbies. With everything in the game player made vendors where extremely important and if you where a good crafter and kept your vender stocked up people would travel a long way to buy from you. I made many runs across Rori just to get stem pack A’s.

                 Can you say dancers anyone. How about that a class based just on people standing around talking to people. One of my fondest memories is when BKB decided to have a party and Stryker paid a group of master entertainers 250k just to come at and play. What a great experience I just wish I still had that screenshot.

                To sum it all up lets not forget the creature handler. How many pet Rancors did you have? There where also player cities, player housing, dynamic based pvp, and PA halls aka guild halls. So while the SWG we have to day is far from the game it was at release we have to ask why things like this have not been tried in other games.  SWG didn’t fail because of its launch it failed because SOE didn’t want to listen to there player base.

                And it did teach the industry a on big lesson.  You have to listen to your player base.

I guess like your high school sweet hart, your first car and your first job you never forget your first MMO.

I Am A

Think you PotShot

I Am A: Lawful Good Human Paladin (4th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-11

Dexterity-12

Constitution-15

Intelligence-15

Wisdom-13

Charisma-12

Alignment:
Lawful Good A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. He combines a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. He tells the truth, keeps his word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished. Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion. However, lawful good can be a dangerous alignment because it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Paladins take their adventures seriously, and even a mundane mission is, in the heart of the paladin, a personal test an opportunity to demonstrate bravery, to learn tactics, and to find ways to do good. Divine power protects these warriors of virtue, warding off harm, protecting from disease, healing, and guarding against fear. The paladin can also direct this power to help others, healing wounds or curing diseases, and also use it to destroy evil. Experienced paladins can smite evil foes and turn away undead. A paladin’s Wisdom score should be high, as this determines the maximum spell level that they can cast. Many of the paladin’s special abilities also benefit from a high Charisma score.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

It has been a while

Wow where has all the time gone to.  For starters I am now ready to start college. That has really taken up a lot of my time. But with all the entrance exams and paper work out of the way it is just a matter of waiting for the first day of class to start.

So I took this morning to start getting back into the habit of reading some great blogs again. While going back and trying to read a months worth of post that would just be to much. So I just read the past couple of days, While some people read hundreds of blogs a day I try and keep mine around 20. Here are some links to post I really enjoyed.

Hardcore Casual 

When I think of user created content I am thinking of players writing quest and then those quest being implemented in game. But here he is talking more about 3D virtual worlds. Like second life and gia online I see things like this replacing MySpace and Facebook over time.

Tobold’s  talks about the number inflation that Mythic is using for Warhammer.

West Karana talks about the new raid zone in EQ2.  Also from West Karan a link to a new Wii game in Japan that will keep you laughing all day.

Gaming Week 5,6,7,8

I seem to really have fallen behind on my gaming updates. Not really too much has happened over the last month in gaming.  Not only have a fallen behind in my blog posting but also in my reading I am sure everyone has those time where it is just one thing after another in both real life and in gaming. So here goes a 1 month run down. 

I did reactivate my CoH/CoV account for my son to play and was really surprised at how many servers where showing yellow and red statues. I am not really sure what they have going on over there but it really seems to be bringing people back. He is doing really well in the game and is up to level 10. I did have to tell him it isn’t polite to just follow people around and heal. He was having fun just following people around and healing them out of group. So I guess it is goodbye ToonTown and hello CoH/CoV.

There just really isn’t a whole lot to report on in EQ2. The guild I am in Revelry and Honor is almost level 30. I have doing my HQ’s and building up my statues points. Cannot wait to get my 6 room acorn. Lets see my Illusionist Amirah is up to level 47 I should be 48 by the end of the week.  I also got her to level 24 as a tailor.

Well that is about it. I am still having a good time in EQ2 but it looks like all the real excitement is with my son and CoH/CoV.

Top 5 Game Features

Someone sent in an Email to Troy at Equal Perspectives talking about their top game features. So I thought what the heck all list mine.

1.       The broker system from EQ2. I like the fact that the system incorporates your house. The bigger your house the more slots you have available to sell out of. You can shop all four brokers at the same time and search by tier, slot and state.

2.       Group harvesting from Vanguard. The more people you have on a resource the higher the yield.

3.       Skill system from CoH/CoV. The fact that you upgrade your skills the way you would like is a great thing. You really get you abilities to work the way you want them to.

4.       The encounter window from Vanguard. The fact that every mob is listed right there for you to see is awesome.

5.       Last but not least another Vanguard pick but I have to say it the LFG system. I have talked about it before so. Link  Now they have fixed the system and it does work now.

So that’s it in no special order just my top 5 features.

Norrath Update #1

Well I am up to level 15 on my Fae illusionist. I had a lot of surprises on my reentry in Norrath. It only took me once to remember that you can not move and cast in EQ2. Wow you talk about something that can really change your play style. That was they easy part though.

 

After about 20 min of trying to figure out why I couldn’t by any thing from the broker board in my house. It hit me I have to go to the actual broker to buy something. I was a little surprised that I can see all the brokers now not just the one. For being only level 15 I was also surprised to see items selling for 4 and 5 gold. I guess the game is off of the silver based economy. One must love mudflation.

 

I do miss the movement speed of my bard in Vanguard. It seems to take forever for me to get from one side of the zone to the next. But it is nice to see other players in the area around my level. The super fast horses that run you from one check point to the next are just funny. I now know where people where coming from when they talked about them being add to Vanguard. I thought it was a silly idea then and am sure it is now. But hey what ever works to save me the time.

 

It has been a while sense I played EQ2 so some of the changes that I am seeing have most likely been around for a while now. I stopped playing shortly after the Kingdom of Sky expansion. Not because of the game but the guild I was in kind of feel apart and I didn’t really feel like looking for a new one to start over with. The new guild I joined up with in Vanguard decided to take a break from Vanguard for a while so I figured what the hey I liked EQ2 before.

 

One thing is for sure Vanguard really did spoil me in a lot of ways. In some way EQ2 has taken the easy road. Death in EQ2 isn’t something to fear anymore. No more corps runs and experience lose. I remember when the game started you took a hit anytime some one in your group died now I didn’t even notice if there was a hit to my experience or not. I guess the days of fearing death in an MMO are all gone.

Vanguard LFG

I play a lot of Vanguard and really like the game. One thing that is just driving me crazy right now is the LFG system. There was a lot of discussion on the forums about this but I just don’t think the dev’s have given it the time it deserves.  For those that don’t play vanguard they have this great LFG system. You can flag yourself for what quest you would like to work on or what dungeon you would like to do. You can also flag you group as LFM and then people can see what groups are out there looking for players. There are a ton of filter you can put in place as to what class you are looking for and what level. It has to be the most advanced LFG tool in any game.

Here is the problem though. It doesn’t work you have to turn you LFG tag on and off manually. When you join a group you still show as LFG. If you log out and back in your LFG tag is still up.  You can be solo and show as a group leader LFM and LFG. It is to the point now that no one really uses it.  The players have asked about it and we seem to be getting a deaf ear from the dev’s. 

I understand that APW is the big project right now. I just hope that after that they will look into the LFG system. While raiding and endgame content is important to the game having well placed player support systems in game is just as important. Being able to group easily is a necessity in any game and should be the foundation of any MMO. LFG tools and player search filters need to be included in the initial design phase of any game.  Vanguard is not the only game to over look this they just seem to be taking the longest to address the issue.