Image of Luclin in New Tunaria The SOE summit is over, the Community Influencers have been told what the next EQ2 expansion is, shown the concept art, and they’re ready to influence us, but they can’t tell us… yet… The news that Rise of Kunark would be EQ2’s fourth expansion came out about a year ago next month, so we’re just weeks away from finding out where we will be playing next fall. ...
Just saw this on F13.net: In a strategic move to closely align itself with the strong growth of the worldwide online gaming market, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) announced today that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) will report to Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, SCEI, effective April 1, 2008. SOE is moving from the movie side of the business to the side that makes the Playstation 3 and its games. It really does make sense. I think we can expect, though, that any future SOE game for domestic release will come out for both the PC and the PS3. We know DC Universe Online and The Agency are both coming out for the PS3. I imagine Free Realms is as well, though I wonder how many children have PS3s available vs the ubiquity of PCs. LittleBig World is PS3 only, as is @Home (though I don’t think those last two had anything to do with SOE). ...
The site is loaded right now, so it may be hard to get in, but check it out – EQ2Flame’s LFG was just kicked from the Community Influencer’s program, and is raising hell over it. Community Influencers are just that – people whose opinions of SOE games are influential within the community. EQ2Flames is one of the best places on the web for getting to know the EQ2 community, and is generally full of information you won’t find anywhere else. When I started on my recent guild search and (thought) I had exhausted the possibilities on my home server, EQ2Flames was the first and only place I went. And I got results I could never have gotten on the official forums. EQ2Flames is the community site everyone should read. ...
There’s nothing special about this picture… except that it shows why EQ2 is so great. After last night’s raid, I’d logged in my jeweler, Dorah, to make a mirror for a guildie. And then, what the heck, as long as I am on, I’ll make some new combat arts for my long-ignored brigand, Donna (if it’s a halfling, and an evil-only class, and name begins with ‘D’ and ends with ‘ah’ – it’s probably one of mine… Dina, Dera, Donna, Dorah…). I sent them off, logged Donna in after a bit and picked them up, scribed them, and just for the heck of it as I was arranging my “tank” and “rogue” hot bars (one for each of a brigand’s roles), I said “29 brigand LFG!” in 20s chat and IMMEDIATELY got a group invite. ...
That’s Mayong dead there. He already had given me some new armor, but I wanted just a little more from him. I wanted his teeth. Nick yourself with one of his teeth, and you become a vampire yourself. That’s kind of neat, isn’t it? Einhorn commented that there’s a song about lining up to kill Mistmoore and then taking him down with a good kick to a sensitive area, but I couldn’t find that song anywhere (too bad!). I did find a lot of Youtube videos showing people in EQ1 and EQ2 taking him down set to bad, loud music, though. ...
Aside from a couple of T1 raids, we’ve been working on Venril Sathir every night since we killed the Overking. Last night, we finally got him. He isn’t a HARD kill, but it’s the kind of raid where you have to pay attention – you have to keep your power around 50%; you can’t do anything but autoattack when a certain debuff is placed on you; and you have to keep the helper statues stunned with an item you get from Pawbuster. It’s not easy to keep track of everything and do the kind of dps needed to kill him; last night it all came together and he died. ...
EQ1 wasn’t always the raiding powerhouse game it is today. In fact, the game had very humble roots, with little in its first implementation to suggest the game it would become. Still, it was fun and even at the beginning, was totally addicting. Screenshots after the jump. So shoot me :P Just came across it while looking for old raid screenshots for another article. I made this when I was bored one day and didn’t feel like posting yet another screenshot of us dying to grubs in Inktu’ta…
As I was talking to the lady who starts the raid portion of my epic, I turned and saw… this. EQ2 is such a beautiful game.
From a comment on Tobold’s excellent post about the tank shortage in the World of Warcraft (or more accurately, the Protection-spec’d Warrior shortage): I’ve been playing WOW for 2+ years now and everytime I see pvp hurt pve, it makes me wish there was a viable pve alternative to WOW. I happen to think there are plenty of viable PvE alternatives to WoW. Not least among them EQ2, but also LotRO (the breakout MMO of 2007, by anyone’s definition viable), Pirates of the Burning Sea, FFXI Online and literally hundreds of smaller MMOs, most of them free to play, most of them with very dedicated and helpful player bases. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Vanguard these days. ...
I had only an hour left on my Maidens instance. If I couldn’t get it done in that hour, I’d have to start Maidens from scratch, and it would have to wait another day. Sunday, I was incredibly excited about getting my epic, the Ayonian Axe. I had the absolutely most perfect Maiden’s group imaginable – a guardian, a coercer (Wrapye, who has always been there to help for YEARS now…), me, a ranger for dps, two healers… and we owned the zone. But a couple of deaths on the Sisters and the tank and one of the healers, who belonged to the same guild… ported out. The others soon followed. I was standing alone in Maiden’s, and I wasn’t going to get my epic that day. ...