After a few week long hiatus, the MMORPG Journals are back in full force, with a new edition no doubt. EverQuest 2 has temporarily replaced City of Heroes and Dark Age of Camelot in the Journals. EverQuest 2 is currently in its beta, so early experiences in the game will be chronicled. While you can't yet go out and pick it up, use this Journal as a way to see if EverQuest 2 is something that would appeal to you. Please note that the screenshots used for EverQuest 2 this week are not from my actual gameplay, but they are new shots released by Sony showing off the Frogloks and rideable Griffins within the game.
Week #4: "I Hate-Love You, S-E!"
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My relationship with Square-Enix is a love-hate one. Actually, it’s a love-hate with this game. More love than hate, but it can really grind into my nerves. I love the classic leveling and I love fantastic spells. I love a lot, but this issue isn’t about how much I love the game. It’s about what really gets on my nerves.
Leveling, oh how wonderful you are! Actually, I’ve heard that FFXI is actually one of the best and easiest with leveling compared to other MMORPGs on the market right now. I really hope not. I don’t mind the insanely slow leveling. In fact, it’d be just great if S-E hadn’t decided to punish a player so severely for dying. Yes, it’s a stupid thing to do, but we all die at some point, and they decided to implement probably the most irritating punishment known to a gamer: taking massive chunks of your experience points. You can even lose a level if you die after leveling up. I’m talking a loss of about a half an hour of fast monster-hunting down the drain. Not only does this threaten some “accidental” mouse malfunctions that leaves the peripheral in pieces with chunks still buried in the wall, but it leaves one weeping at lost gaming time. Now, this is actually pure genius on S-E’s end. Think of it. Each player pays $12.95+ a month to play. Then factor in the massive amounts of extra time he has to replay because of lost experience and you’ve got at least $500 extra from each person by the time they’ve finished playing all they are going to play. Wow, I wish I had a portion of those profits.
Speaking of profits, Square-Enix just released the “second” expansion pack for the game. I haven’t picked it up or tried it yet because I have yet to get remotely close to the new areas that have been opened up in the new pack. They are going to have to wait another ten years before I finally get high enough to travel that far. Why would I leave the absolutely gorgeous gray, rocky landscape of Gustaberg? I’m currently leveling and doing quests in this area and I pray for the day that I get the guts to go out beyond the plain, bland, newbie area. I’m sure it’s just me, since I haven’t put in the time (read: at least 5 hours a day) to get further. I can’t even say I’m too lazy to play, because I really do like playing the game. That and it really requires little physical activity beyond furiously typing “np” in reply to the newbie that just gained the status of Protect from my fabulous do-it-all RDM (red mage).
So, I actually DID do something over this large break (of which we had good reasons to take). I’ve finally reached level 10 (woohoo) and I donned some Scale armor that looks like something samurai of the old days would wear. I also purchased a bed for my moghouse, as well as a workbench. The bed allows me to lose less experience when I die, and the workbench will eventually be where I grow fire crystals for making some extra gil. Nonetheless, I have some much better armor and my moghouse is no longer empty. Now my moogle can sleep snuggly by the fire while I continue to curse S-E for punishing my innate ability to die frequently.
Written By: Chad Phillips
Week #1: A Whole New World (Not The Disney Song Mind You)
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As you can see, City of Heroes and Dark Age of Camelot are missing from this week’s edition. We have been on a pretty long hiatus, for quite a few reasons, but mainly because I have begun a new journey in the genre of online gaming. EverQuest was largely considered the true birth of MMORPGs. It introduced the world to servers with thousands of players, endless lore, teamwork, battling and roleplaying. Now, it’s the year 2004, and the world of EverQuest is starting to show its age. Its enviroments are static, graphics often chunky, and players who are very set in the way they do things. EverQuest 2 is set to change all of that in November. In the coming weeks, I will highlight the beginnings of my journey into the world of Norrath, but don’t take it too lightly; this isn’t the Norrath most would remember. Time has passed, and life as players know it, has changed drastically.
The first thing that I noticed when booting up the game was the intricate character creation system. In the original EQ, you were given the choice of your race, class and some basic generic facial features. In its sequel, the choices are a little more robust. Now let me tell you, this isn’t The Sims 2, but it gets the job done. I picked the Kerra race (formerly the Vah Shir), which most non-eq players will recognize as the “tiger things”. Another change for me would be the fact that I chose the evil alignment. Most of my reasoning for this was because in the original, I loved the city of Freeport, but absolutely despised Queynos. Initially I wished that it would have been Queynos as the evil city and Freeport for good, but, I’m starting to enjoy my evil surroundings and find that the experience is very gratifying. You must be thinking “Oh no, he’s going to start setting kittens on fire with his mind and convince husbands to cheat on their wives”. While that would make a good episode for a primetime television drama, that’s not me, so shush. Expecting a familiar MMO setup, I chose my character, a generic name, and sat watching the loading screen (which features excellent artwork by the way). I was quite surprised when I loaded up on a sail ship, with some old raggedy Jack Sparrow type yapping random things to me. It seems I had landed in a tutorial. At first, I tried hard to ignore what he was saying since hey “I know everything there is to know about EverQuest, what could you possibly teach me?”. Yet again, another profoundly stupid question was shot down in my mind. It seems a lot had changed, and it would be in my best interest to listen.
The biggest differences between the two games that I can tell off the top of my head are the interface and the way the story is presented to you. In EverQuest, the story was thrown at you in seemingly endless boxes of text, which if you weren’t the type of person into reading, would completely ignore. In EverQuest 2, every single line of text is expressed through live dialogue. While it sounds like I’m saying “Woohoo, text with sound!”, its actually a much bigger change. The dynamic of the game is very different from the first, because you actually begin to care about certain characters throughout the world and believe in their quests, purposes and even deaths. I can’t forget to mention that every single voice I have heard so far has fit each character perfectly. Sony Online isn’t shallow when it comes to knowing what they need to make their games fresh.
Now on to the interface, to put it lightly, the damn thing was completely overwhelming. But luckily, this was in a good way. From the second I started, everything felt right, things were as they should be and the menus were very clean, precise and didn’t mislead. Already it’s the best MMO interface I have seen, and I have only played it for a handful of hours so far.
There isn’t much to say about my experiences on the ship, aside from the fact that the water was stunning, the dragon was stunning (you wish id tell you) and the directions made me feel completely apart of the game much faster than any of the others had. My stay on the ship was short lived. I was thrown onto the Island of Refuge, where a mini war was being fought between the goblins and players. I had initially thought that like in EverQuest, I would simply be thrown in the middle of a city and told “You’re on your own, bye now”. Once again, we all know how this goes. No, instead, the Island of Refuge serves as a training ground for new players and its set up with a linear string of quests that attempt to get you used to the formula. My first quest was to skulk around and find a few goblins to kill, come back to the starting area and get a prize. The area’s purpose began to become even more obvious since I started getting generic armor pieces. After a few missions I had some boots and pants, and at that point I kind of wanted to leave. Its not that the area was bad, but I was really anxious to get into the city (we shall see later on if my early leave of the island has any lasting effects on my progression). At this point, I still had yet to group with anyone. I pretty much wasn’t looking for someone to hang with. Everyone on the island was pretty much doing their own things, with most likely the clear intent of getting to their respective city. I spoke to the ambassador, and then arranged with the captain of what I call the “tutorial ship” to have me sent to the city of Freeport. I traveled to the docks, and rang the bell, calling the ship to transport me (no more waiting forever to get from one continent to the other).
The city of Freeport was just as I imagined it would be, but nothing like I remembered it. The city has taken on a very dank and gloomy feel since its evil occupation and everyone around me seems as if they want to jump me as soon as I turn my head. I was told to meet a slummaster at the “inn”. The game features a new trail system that uses your waypoints and creates a visual trail of the directions in which you need to travel. It’s very useful, but I hope it’s not something that becomes too prominent later in the game, because finding where you have to go was always a big part of the game’s setup. I entered the inn, which serves as my house. The slummaster wasn’t all too happy to see me since he pretty much screamed at me from the moment I entered. He described the usages of the house and the fact that I could place items anywhere I wanted, as long as I had items of course. I received a table, and then I was promptly thrown out so that I could visit the bank where I would set up an account and get the official spiel. The banker greeted me in a way that would have made any follower of good turn around and take their money elsewhere. The system was described and I traveled on back to the inn. This time, the slummaster, acted quite differently, and wasn’t harsh at all. I was provided with a mirror and then told to find the sewers where I could do some good (evil) by ridding the town of vermin. Typical newbie quest if you ask me.
I moved to the center of my room and began to place the two items I had received. First, there was the mirror. I simply threw it up on the wall behind the door and placed the table under it. Yes, it’s quite plain, but since you always start out as poor beggars in these games, I can’t be too demanding.
I left the Inn and began to look for the sewers. I scrambled across a few streets and found nothing, but what I did find was an entrance to a graveyard. I began thinking to myself, asking what would I rather do. Kill rats in a sewer or go sneak around some obviously spooky graveyard. So of course I entered the graveyard. At this point I was level 5. I didn’t mention any of my previous levels, because I got them all on the Isle of Refuge and they came and went so fast, they didn’t seem too notable.
So far, the graveyard has turned out to be the most intriguing zone in the game (then again, I’ve been in about three of them). The trees move, the environment has great ambience and the land was littered, with skeletons, spiders and zombies. I started off small, fighting only what I could afford to, spiders. They weren’t too difficult, especially after I found out that I actually had skills I could use. Kick is by far my favorite, since on the weaker enemies it can cut their health sometimes in half. I eventually moved on to skeletons, which featured the same drunken sound effects from the first game. One time, I was faced with six of them attacking me, but they were so weak that all they were doing was feeding me more experience points until I finally reached Level 6. After trying some tougher enemies, I realized that I would be getting nowhere without a team, and that’s where my difficulties would surely begin.
Written By: Joseph Bennett
