EverQuest

Centuries ago, during the Age of Turmoil, the necromancers of the Tier’dal city of Neriak threw their undesirables into the outskirts of the city and shut themselves off from the world. Those undesirables – trolls, ogres, and dark elves deemed insufficiently pure by the Queen – found themselves under assault by brave, courageous, legendary, fabulous, and in all other ways the perfect paragons of pulchritude (thanks, Sanya), Halflings. Having battled the inkies in Nektulos, they invaded Neriak itself, killing and destroying what they could. The embattled Foreign Quarter of Neriak became Fallen Gate, haunted by the spirits of those who died there, betrayed by the Thexians. Now, seizing upon Lucan D’Lere’s apparent disinterest, they have returned from their centuries-long exile, and brought with them a new race, the living personifications of the darkest magics, the Arasai. ...

Between doing my epic run from Ered Luin to Rivendell tonight on LotRO, and giving a big HECK YEAH to Haley the Skank as she was booted from American Idol tonight, we kinda maybe destroyed Lord Vyemm AND his lab (“and I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddling adventurers!”). We’ve been able to do guild-only raids for awhile now, and the guild reached level 60 sometime while I was moving and we even got a new cloak that has something to do with Revolutions (a clenched fist against a Les Miserables-ish black-and-red field) instead of the Spiderman cloak we’d had. And we’re going to try Freethinkers this Friday, so I’m keeping my toes crossed that people have their listening caps on that night… it’s a tricky raid. ...

Kendricke at Warcry reports that Jason “Dymus” Roberts has left his position at SOE of EQ2 Lead Designer. It’s rumored that he may join the crowd at 38 Studios in their unannounced MMO. 38 Studios has some great talent. But if they come out with another generic fantasy MMO that tries to be everything for everyone, count me out. Here’s hoping all that high power gaming talent has the vision to try something NEW. The design of pick a class, grind to max level, start raiding used by all current fantasy MMOs has already been done. A lot. ...

EQ and its related games (pretty much every modern MMO) have long been dismissed as nothing but “DikuMUDs with a graphical interface slapped on top of them”. I’ve been playing with the DikuMUD code over the last few days to get a feel for world building and to add a feature (what I call “rally troops” but is really a way of multi-boxing several characters in a group)… and I had a thought (yes, just one. I treasure them, though). Why not make EQ… into a DikuMUD? ...

THIS TURNED OUT TO BE A JOKE. Sorry for falling for it. It really did sound to good to be true. – Take this with a generous helping of salt. Someone was claiming they had found a feature list for EQ2: Rise of Kunark, and it included these things: Beast lords New look for Iksar (closer to EQ1 models) New gnomish mounts Levitate for mages Mounts that can attack Sounds more like a wish list than a feature list, and I suppose we’ll see what the truth is in a few more months.

Last weekend was the last weekend I’ll be able to play EQ, as I am moving cross-country and it could be a few weeks for everything to arrive, Internet get hooked up, life to settle back to normal, fingers get unfrozen enough to type. But, it was a good weekend. * We have seized control of your computer… and your MIND.* The Estate of Unrest I returned to Unrest a couple of times this weekend, seeing more of it with every trip. Trip? This place IS trippy. Unrest will do anything to mess with you. From fogging up your screen, to giving you double vision, to suddenly make things go hazy and throwing cackling skulls at you… this is less an adventure zone than a trip through madness. What with devious puzzles (collect pages of music, try to play them, and infuriate the guiding spirit by your lack of ability – or try to prepare a meal for people long dead), playing with nostalgia and a wicked sense of humor. ...

It’s no easy thing saying goodbye to beloved characters. Losing Station Pass means that some characters have got to go. In this post, the characters that are staying, and where they are in the world. Minstrel Dina Tanglewood, Hunter of Vampires. With Dorah, she just completed the Bloodline Chronicles, and now knows Thexian (will finally find out what the Count in the Crypt of Valdoon is going on about) and can shape shift into Vampire form, which she wore throughout last night’s Deathtoll raid. It was our first Tarinax kill, and she got the scout gloves from him. Next up is completing the Desert of Flames epic quest up until, at least, the point where you can get the quest to learn Koada’dal, the language of the high elves. This is required to start the Echoes of Faydwer epic quest (for Soulfire), and is the only way for evil characters to learn that language. Luckily, Dina is already partway through that quest. Dina’s transmuting is around 110. I hate transmuting, but someone needs to do it. Leveling transmuting to keep ahead of Donna’s needs. Also finally making progress on her own Claymore quest, which has suddenly become important as the guild beings the long farming of the entirety of Deathtoll. ...

Because I would not stop for bots They kindly stopped for me The griffin-fields held just ourselves And some casters, three We slowly strove, they knew no haste And so I put away My harvest tools, my daggers too For their rapacity They passed the pass, where giants strode Across their bridge of oak They passed the tents where centaurs grazed They passed the bear-filled wood They paused before a named that seemed ...

On the news that SOE will be raising the price of their Station Access one-price-for-all-games pass from $25 to $30 per month, and since I currently only play one of their games (EverQuest 2) on a regular basis, and since I am paying for three accounts (my two and my son’s), there’s no compelling reason to pay all this extra for no reason. Like Cuppycake, The Ancient Gaming Noob and others, those of us who were thinking of getting heavily into Vanguard or were hoping to try out Gods and Heroes for free on Station Access are really out of luck. ...

After last night’s Labs raid, I got to go a little deeper into Unrest. But first, a little bit of patting-my-own-back-ism from the raid :) Not only did I get this dapper little hat I’ve been wanting ever since I saw it in the hatmaker’s window in East Freeport, but I got the kill shot on Lord Vyemm. So (ahem): WOOOHOO! HAFFER KILL! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA! Sorry about that. So anyway, after American Idol and Lost, a couple of us went to Unrest and poked around a little. Two of the people in the group took FOREVER to get there, like half an hour or something, so it was pretty late before we actually got going. ...