MMORPG

Tipa at 26 I’ve played Neverwinter for a couple of weeks, now, casually – and I still don’t feel I understand the game. It’s not that I don’t know how to play the game; there’s no big trick to that, it isn’t vastly different from the MMO norm. You see mobs, you use abilities against mobs, you collect loot and gain experience. Stripped of all its flair, it scratches the solo dungeon crawl itch, quite well. The battles – at least for my rogue – are somewhat tactical. I like that. But, the “molo” play-style – soloing with a mercenary – is nearly identical to play in both of the EverQuests. So that’s not it. ...

Taking on an Otyugh Over on Neverwinter, they’re spotlighting the various D&D critters who have made their way into that D&D-based game. But, EverQuest 2 is no slouch in the classic monster imagining, either – rust monsters and displacer beasts just two examples, and then there’s this Otyugh as one of the minions of Kira the Beastmaster in the Tavalan Abyss. It was awesome to finally see this beast in the flesh, and then to kill it. ...

The Digibit Disco Globe in STAR Labs “My greatest failure will become my greatest triumph!” Dr. Tomek O. Morah, Oolong Island Those were the wise words of T. O. Morrow, just moments before we finally destroyed his Tornado Tyrant android after weeks of our own failures. More wise words from Morrow. Ya know, these pictures of famous people, often quoting them saying things they didn’t actually say, are such a meme that there’s now a counter-meme where famous people are apparently saying the most possible wrong thing the artist could think of… ...

Siren's Grotto: Tavalan Abyss Oh, so those mindflayer guys were Tavalan! Gotcha. They were called something different in EverQuest. But every single player knows that those are mind flayers. EverQuest and EverQuest 2 make some really amazing versions of standard D&D monsters, every ability implemented exactly, the art totally spot-on, but then tacks on some random name. Last night’s adventures really showed EQ2’s monsters at their finest. I swear I battled an Otyugh at one point. ...

Tipa, Trickster Rogue With the Neverwinter Gateway, Cryptic has improved upon World of Warcraft’s Armory. Like the Armory, you can check out a player’s gear and stats, but then it takes it another step further. Correct me if I’m wrong, but does WoW’s Armory allow you to do crafting from your web browser? Gateway does. Can Play the auction house? EverQuest II did something like this years ago, but they charged money to access the service, and as a result, almost nobody used it. SOE eventually made it free, but nobody has even thought about it for years and I wonder if it even still exists. ...

Frog Wars It’s an issue whenever the EQ2 team brings back one of EverQuest’s classic zones: how close have they come to the original experience? And, secondly, does it mesh well with the “shattered lands” lore that backs EverQuest II? Game Update 66, AKA “Scars of the Awakened”, bring back Cobalt Scar and Siren’s Grotto. The original Cobalt Scar was the final outpost on the discovery tour all characters had to make through Velious before they earned full use of the druid rings. It opened up the Claws of Veeshan-faction areas, the third faction of Velious’ three-way war between the giants, dwarves and dragons. The completion of the gnomish expedition plotline – the gnomes who rediscovered Velious the FIRST time – awaited the crossing of the deadly open dungeon of Siren’s Grotto. ...

Passive Aggression in action Sure, EQ2 has its holidays and celebrations. But the events that REALLY bring Norrathians together are the Double XP Weekends. 72 hours (or so) of people finishing up old chores, dusting off alts, exploring dungeons off the beaten path… Anything can happen in a double xp weekend. What’d I do on mine? Tipa's Epic When I last posted about EQ2, I’d started a halfling swashbuckler to fill the empty space in my heart where a scout should be. I had Tipa, of course, but I really wanted someone more DPS-oriented than a troubadour. Of course, I could just betray to a dirge…. ...

Oa Sciencells There’s just something about the Guardians that I don’t understand. These are the blue, gnomish creatures who, in the DC mythology, were among the first beings in the universe, and the ones tasked with keeping order in the cosmos from their planet in the center of everything. The instruments of their will are the Green Lanterns, each of whom are assigned one of the 3,600 sectors of the universe to patrol. Given that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, meaning each single Lantern is responsible for millions of galaxies, it’s odd, isn’t it, that Earth alone gets FIVE Lanterns? ...

This is NOT EQ Next. Obviously. Soooooo…. after a lot of hinting that something great was on the Storybricks horizon by Namaste’s Brian “Psychochild” Green, the news broke last night that Namaste is partnering with Sony Online Entertainment to bring their AI technology to EverQuest Next. We saw last year how this tech worked in Namaste’s “Kingdom of Default” demo, where players could interactively create NPCs with complex, rules-based logic that could dynamically change NPC behavior based on any number of factors – and changeable in game. After an unsuccessful Kickstarter, Storybricks’ fate was uncertain. But, now it’s going to be part of my next gaming obsession. ...

Return to Oolong Island I haven’t played DCUO all week. All my gaming time has been spent on EverQuest II and other, single player games that I’ll talk about this week. The DCUO grind is just getting to me. I need a change of scenery… but that just might be in the cards, pretty soon. Last night’s Tier 2 daily double was Oolong Island, hard mode. The “easy” mode version wasn’t one of our favorites; it took us three sessions to get past the Tornado Tyrant the first time around, and we only beat it in the end because we pretty much leveled out of it. The follow-up encounter with the supposed boss of the instance, Chang Tzu, was relatively painless in comparison. ...