Aradune

It struck me last night, as I was pulling Unrest for our fireplace room group, that it was the experience of taking a camp and pulling mobs to it for the group to kill – probably EverQuest’s core gameplay – is precisely the gameplay feature that no other MMO has valued enough to include in their game. Group content in other MMOs seems to be highly curated; you start at the beginning of the ride, are taken past visually stunning wonders and carefully choreographed boss encounters, and then are delivered to the end, given some gifts, and are set free to go on your way. Certainly World of Warcraft was that way when I played, and Final Fantasy XIV is definitely that way. Significantly, Final Fantasy XI Online was not that way. It leaned into the EverQuest model of finding a camp and pulling to it. ...

Again, my huge advantage over Kasul is that I still am forced to work from home, but on the plus side, I get to get in the Aradune queue early and am usually able to play by the time I am done work and have supper cooking. The question of what to do during the time when I’m playing alone, since I don’t want to outlevel Kasul, was easily answered with tradeskills. I can do all the tradeskilling I like. ...

Aradune has returned to the endless queue strategy, which is a huge upgrade, I guess, from the “let everyone in and watch the server die” strategy they’d been trying for a couple weeks prior. This actually isn’t a big deal, for me. I work at home due to the pandemic, so about three or four hours before I think I’ll be ready to play EverQuest, I just get in the queue and go back to work. Several hours later, as easy as that, I’m in EverQuest. ...

We absolutely, 100%, gave it our all. We braved the long log in queues, trying to log in as soon as we got home from work and waiting the two-three hours to play an hour or two before bed. When Darkpaw decided to vastly expand the number of people who could be logged in at once, we patiently waited the ten or fifteen minutes it would take to simply zone. Running to an experience zone could take awhile, but we did it. ...

It’s a week since Aradune opened. Raid guilds have the planes of Hate and Fear on lockdown. Naggy died last night; probably Vox has died, too, when I wasn’t on to see it. Groups have level 50 alts to sit outside the group and buff and heal. I was not prepared for the pace of a Time-Locked Progression Server. Kunark doesn’t open for another eleven weeks! I guess it does take time to farm a full set of planar. I’m hoping people will still want to raid when Kasul and I get there. ...

I haven’t written much about our adventures on the Aradune server in EverQuest largely because we haven’t had very much time to adventure on the Aradune server in EverQuest. Our experience has been the same as everyone else who wants to sit down and play a video game for a little while. You start up the game and then find out how many hours it will be before you can play that game. Usually it’s two to three. Then when that magic moment comes and you can log in – and you have no warning that it’s coming – you have some small amount of time to choose a character and enter the game before you’re tossed out into the login queue once more. For another several hours, probably more of them now. ...

I’d really wanted to talk about playing in the new EverQuest server today. I took a day off from work to play EverQuest and watch the SpaceX rocket take off with two American astronauts from American soil. Neither happened. I guess the weather just wasn’t quite right for either. It wasn’t a total loss. It was still nice to spend an unexpected day with my boyfriend. We went to the local game store, which opened early for us. We were the only ones there. I bought a very small paint brush and a couple vials of paint; Kasul bought a couple of discount games. The person working there didn’t know when they’d be running Friday Night Magic again. We were all of us wearing masks. I bought an Ikoria bundle just for fun. ...

Hey, don’t blame me – blame the incomparable Jeff Rimer… And you already have the title: 5 MORE Ways You’re Playing EQ Wrong. — Jeff Rimer (@Jeff_Rimer) May 23, 2020 The newbie zones on Mangler, the previous “True Box” TLP server, are as full as they have been since the server went online a year ago; filled with people getting ready for Aradune’s launch this coming Wednesday. They’re setting up their guilds, rolling their new mains, and getting up to the start of the race, toes on the starting line, waiting for the gun. I know the feeling – I’ve been doing the same for a week now. ...

Is this a bad post title? I’m really working on making engaging content, and I’m told it all begins with a great thumbnail and a killer title. I heard that the best way to get a response on the internet is to tell someone they’re doing something wrong, so… This post isn’t about clickbait headlines, I promise! Our ramp up to the new Time Limited Progression (TLP) servers continue. Kasul and I both downloaded the latest maps, so those are ready. Kasul also made a new troll shaman and ran him over to Nektulos Forest, where we plan to meet up and XP as a shadow knight/shaman duo. ...

Kasul and I spent a good few hours yesterday on our Mangler characters, getting ourselves and our computers ready for restarting on Aradune in a couple of weeks. It was classic EverQuest. In FFXIV, you could be kicked out of a group for not pressing enough buttons, fast enough. It’s a frenetic experience. If you’re not pressing a button, you are not contributing in FFXIV. I haven’t played WoW in a very long time, but one of the common complaints from WoW folks restarting on FFXIV is that the FFXIV button pushing isn’t as fast as they’re used to. ...