EverQuest

Fippy Darkpaw isn’t quite live yet, but he’s in the server list. And as I scrolled – yes, this list is so long that it scrolls – through the list, it struck me how a near-twelve year old MMORPG has fifteen servers, one opening this very day, while far newer games like Vanguard and Warhammer Online are down to one or two far fewer. The game designers for every new MMO can probably recite page after page of EverQuest’s flaws. And yet EQ is still going strong while new games come and go. ...

Busybusybusy mandatory overtime, working at home each night, crunch time blahblahblah but you know what, I have a good job and I like what I do. It cuts into the game playing and into the game writing, though. But I couldn’t pass up today’s excitement! EverQuest today opens its new progression server, Fippy Darkpaw, and Trion sends their MMO, Rift, into Open Beta! I haven’t been playing in any of the recent Rift betas and I have been studiously ignoring any news about the game to preserve at least a little of the sense of wonder of experiencing a new game fresh. ...

Yeah, I’ve been MIA for a couple weeks now. Work time is creeping into home time. It’s so cold when I get home that I find myself cuddling up with blankets and a cat on the couch, watching Netflix (tonight: the Canadian comedy “Slings & Arrows”, season 1). I’m not wild about this “winter” thing in general. I haven’t been able to get on the bicycle for a few weeks now, and it’s really making me antsy. ...

I absolutely would love to know how many people people are REALLY playing World of Warcraft vs Lord of the Rings Online vs Warhammer Online vs Total Global Annihilation (Online) and so on. Heaven knows its not in the interest of gaming companies to tell us. To me, it means they have something to hide. Every company is all so excited to reveal their numbers when they are trending up. When they are silent, that can only be bad news. ...

Yeah, I like TV. I can say that now; for years I refused to watch it. Rotting my mind and all. But having just come off a marathon 30 Rock Season 2 bender, I find I really want to get back to playing MMOs because they are LESS addictive than television. With MMOs, you chat with people, group with them, make friends. With TV, it’s just sitting with the cat and a bowl of popcorn on a lonely couch. So, you know, on the scale of pathetic leisure time activities, MMOs are way above television. ...

BBBBAAAARRRRRKKKK!!!! You humans will pay for ruining our homeland!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!! Fippy Darkpaw of the Sabertooth Clan will slay you all! BARK! This is what YOU could be hearing in a few short months! Long before Hogger ever thought about terrorizing Elwynn Forest, Fippy Darkpaw was em-BARK-ing on his one gnoll crusade against the heavily armored, much higher level Qeynos guards in EverQuest. When I took this screenshot of him this morning, the zone was empty. It won’t be empty long. ...

A whole weekend lost in a Rift, but I think what I’ll remember most about this last weekend was this jerk in General chat – named, ironically, Karana – who was going on and on about how the quests and everything else about the game was a copy of WoW. Well, heck, I didn’t know Thomas Edison was resurrected just to offer his genius insights. But some people just can’t see past their own experiences with WoW. Like, the people complaining that every one of the classes will have a 50/16/0 point spec, as if the class-defining abilities of each ‘soul’ only happen once 50 points are spent on it, similar to WoW’s talent trees. ACTUALLY, the class-defining skill is usually given for free, at zero points. Smart players will have a synergistic three soul mix. Anyway, already went on about that, and though I’m loving Rift and have applied to a guild, I’m really tired of reading about it. ...

I was pretty darn excited when I read that SOE was starting up Fortune League, a Facebook game based on EverQuest 2, with rewards that would transfer back to your EQ2 characters. You could make just exactly the party you wanted, participate in raids and generally the best parts of your EQ2 experience would seamlessly translate to the social media. Blogfriend Eliot Lefebvre at Massively wrote that Fortune League was: ...

Even in a California summer, the icy blankness of Velious’ frozen wastes could make me feel chilly. EverQuest was always immersive for me in that way; the first time we raided the underwater dungeon of Kedge Keep, I thought I might drown, I was so short of breath. Every race had its own starting zone, with plenty of things to do up to around till around level 10 or so without ever having to encounter another race – which, in most cases, would mean braving some dangerous encounters. The total immersion was what I loved most about EQ. ...

I suck at predictions, but everyone else is doing them. Luckily, I have a Magic 8 Ball. I’m just gonna list some games, and ask the Magic 8 Ball what it thinks of them. Question to the 8 Ball for all of these games: Will this game have a good year in 2011? Age of Conan: “Outlook Not So Good”. AoC released its first expansion, “Ride of the Godslayer”, last summer, and that’s pretty much the last I’ve heard of the game. I don’t think the Magic 8 Ball is correct; I think Funcom is content to support their current player base without feeling the need to go F2P. Their massively hyped launch should have helped them recoup their development costs years ago. ...