The summoner pets introduces in Rise of Kunark, like from previous expansions, draws from the expansion itself. The robe our conjurer and necromancer wear is the tier 8 handcrafted robe. Conjurer Mage Pet: More after the jump. Conjurer Tank Pet: Conjurer Scout Pet: Necromancer Tank Pet: Necromancer Mage Pet: Necromancer Scout Pet: ...
RoK introduces many new armor styles. Following are some pictures of Tier 8 mastercrafted (the plate) and handcrafted (everything else) armor for all five types (plate, chain, brawler, leather and cloth). Mastercrafted Plate: Even yet more after the jump :) Handcrafted chain: Handcrafted brawler armor: Handcrafted leather armor:
Ya know, I’m not even going to try to explain. It’s late, I’m tired, just leave me alone. More after the jump.
The original continent of Kunark in EverQuest was really big. The centuries since then haven’t made it any smaller. In my days of exploration, I doubt I’ve seen more than a tenth of the expansion, and only been in one dungeon. Two, if you count Chardok. But at least I got my Sokokar :) And you can, too! This is going to be a pretty heavy load, so you can read more about Kunark… after the jump. ...
Keen made a post decrying the “dumbing down” of MMOs – people head for easy mode at every opportunity, and seeing that, more, even easier, games are made. A vicious spiral that ends in “Hello Kitty Adventure Island”. I thought I rather reasonably suggested that there were hard(er) MMOs out there – FFXI Online, EverQuest, and Lineage 2 among them – and that they weren’t exactly burning up the charts. Keen replied that the whole point of his post was that games are getting easier, not that old games were harder (and in fact, that tended to support his point). ...
They dealt with the terror in their homes and in their hearts… but could they deal with the TERROR FROM BEYOND THE PORTAL? Gah… I have to remember not to post while listening to X Minus One… (Time and Time Again by H. Beam Piper ftw). I started getting these odd tells from officers when we were in Freethinkers Hideout. “Are you scout specced?” I’m a troubador. I spent 100 AAs to make mages into finely tuned death machines. Scout specced… what, they think I woke up as a dirge? ...
Games never die. We bought an Xbox 360 over the weekend and I had a little WTF moment when I saw they wanted to sell me Pacman. Pacman! That game is twenty five years old! I’m sure they’ve got Asteroids and Defender in there somewhere if I look for them. Maybe Tetris! I could be just that lucky. You know what I would love to see on the thing. EverQuest, the original, as a single player game. The art exists, the code’s all there, all the quests have been written, the moss snakes taught to kick, wood elves smoothed and halflings filled with pie. Yes, Everquest Online Adventures was available for the PS2, but that was the same game – online play, join groups and raids and stuff – and that’s not what I’m talking about. ...
Those who write on Freeport walls, roll their… I’m in a little bit of a funk regarding EQ2 at the moment. Not the game – no, the game is great. It’s me. And it’s other people. These sorts of games are social games, and if the social isn’t working, the game isn’t working. The guild I’m in is having problems. It has been having problems for awhile. There is room for only so many raiding guilds on any particular server, and we were number one, once; now we’re number ten, maybe lower. ...
Shut Up, We’re Talking! #12 is up. I had the pleasure of being part of it, along with Grimwell (SOE EQ2 Community Manager) and Tom-Tom from Gamer’s Mind. Thanks, Darren, for being such an awesome host! Darren really knows how to keep the discussion going and moving to interesting places. I was positive I’d have nothing to say :P
Syncaine over at Hardcore Casual thinks EQ2 is “flat, boring and lifeless”, and as examples, puts up some rather poor EQ2 screenshots (which he got from the official site so you’d expect better, though I suspect he got at least one of them from a player-submitted shot). Sure enough, in comparison, EQ2 suffers. Well, comparing Lord of the Rings Online’s graphics to those of EverQuest 2’s is legit… but at least use screenshots of similar quality. I went to the exact same spot of Syncaine’s screenshot in the satyr area of New Tunaria (and thanks to having to come there a hundred times for the Sword of Destiny quest, I knew where that was), and snapped this shot: ...