MMORPG

Depths of Darkhollow, EverQuest’s tenth expansion was set in the vast underground series of caverns of Underdark Darkhollow, a vast series of caverns beneath Norrath inhabited by the remains of the Illithid Illisin empire and the upstart, warring factions of the Wurine (werewolves). It continued the previous Dragons of Norrath expansion’s effort to reposition EverQuest back to its Norrath-centered fantasy roots after two large expansions, Gates of Discord and its follow-up, Omens of War, took players off Norrath and into the middle of an alien invasion. After all, where could you go when you’d just killed off all the gods of Norrath in Planes of Power? ...

Actually in an EverQuest group right now so can’t write this up fully, but briefly, next month, Druzzil Ro (Tarew Marr) will merge with progression server The Combine to become Druzzil Ro (Tarew Marr, The Combine). But more excitedly, EverQuest will be adding its first new server since the progression servers. Full details below. New Worlds of Adventure On January 21, 2009, EQ will be consolidating “The Combine” server and “Druzzil Ro (Tarew Marr)” server into one server to be titled “Druzzil Ro (Tarew Marr, Combine).” The merge will begin at 3 a.m. PST and will last approximately five hours. ...

First, it looks like Acclaim has responsibility for a much larger swath of Europe than we’d thought before, which can’t be making many people back in the Old World happy: First, the countries Acclaim has publishing rights to. North America, South America, United Kingdom, Albania, Andorra, Australia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia & Montenegro, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey. ...

Dream of Mirror Online got rolled back to yesterday evening. Everything I wrote about in my last post – gone, like it never happened. I suppose I shouldn’t be upset, because I still had the fun and the memory hasn’t faded, but now it means I have to level my alchemy again, do that trash quest again, make my level again, do all that gathering again… UGH. I HATE THAT. ...

They say you can’t polish a turd, but I beg to differ. Placid Plains is full of Premier Pupu, so, yum for that. After spending a good hour doing alchemy (now level 8 from making level 0 recipes; today I will make level 8 recipes to 10 and beyond, hopefully), I thought I’d track down the fairy that supposedly gives a quest to upgrade my flying speed in Collingwood City. Which is smack-dab in the middle of high level zones, so it was with some care that I flew there. ...

Computer on, online, but AFK while at work today. Today, while I am converting bond letters at work, my DOMO character will be doing a LOT of harvesting – this is designed in to DOMO, it’s not an exploit. In fact, DOMO will even log you out when you’ve harvested as much as you can, which is nice of them. I’m ALSO downloading a very large MMO that I can’t talk about yet. So, busy day for me, busy day for my computer… ...

I was trying to get a decent screen shot of my new Frostfell quest armor when Buddy brutally attacked! One of Dora’s final tasks when she betrayed to Freeport was to befriend Buddy, and then take evil delight in killing him. But Dora used her new necromantic powers to bring him back. Somehow she brought him back ‘wrong’ and he grew to enormous size. He’s now the guardian of the guild hall… ...

Given a games company founded by the developers of the PvP-centric MMO Shadowbane, and the fragfest shooters DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D, making a game centered around a bloodless card game where kids could battle monsters with funny monsters of their own must have been a little tough. Stingite over at The Friendly Necromancer says that that’s all about to change. Just in time for Christmas, the small dueling arena (picture on top) is being entirely revamped. There will be leader boards, ladder, arena ranking, matches, betting, special PvP loot… This is all sounding so incredibly familiar. ...

The obviously misnamed Eversun City at sunset, outside the Planetarium. I just can’t get it out of my head that Dream of Mirror Online is the real successor to EverQuest. Not the game as it is today – a high level game where raiding is king – but the old, old, pre-expansion, social game. They have open dungeons here! That just blows me away. The usual trend these days is toward instancing. I haven’t found an instanced dungeon yet. I’ve also become used to having quests lead me from place to place. Again, unlike EverQuest, and unlike DOMO. There’s lots of interesting little spots here and there, and while they all have some quests associated with them, you won’t find many of them by running around looking for question marks on people’s heads. Oh yeah. There’s no way of telling by looking at an NPC if it has a quest for you. You have to click on them and see if they’ll talk, and if they do, they might have a quest… but come back another time. ...

The Icy Keep is EQ2’s new addition to their winter wonderland of Frostfell fun, a nicely laid-out retooling of Permafrost that not only provides an hour’s group fun, but also moves the ongoing EQ2 plot ahead slightly. Long ago, the ice goblins of Permafrost were in thrall to the villainous Lady Vox, an ice dragon whose control over the northern reaches of Norrath was merciless and absolute. Her continual death at the hands of adventurers and, finally, at the claws of the prismatic dragon Kerafrym, left her a shadow of her former self, and set the goblins free. ...