I was reading Openedge’s comments about Lord of the Rings Online, and remembering claims by a Turbine exec that LotRO was destined to overtake and surpass WoW, which seems unlikely to me. A EA exec thinks WAR will be huge. Everyone thinks the magic formula is to copy WoW, then change something to make it different. People claim other MMOs don’t get a lot of traction unless they more or less copy WoW. ...
It’s already started on some of the larger MMO sites, but with the dropping of the WAR NDA, every WAR fan blog will fall all over themselves to provide, in great and explicit detail, everything you need to do, and in what order, locations provided, animated overlays to show you in what direction you should face, a comfy chair with wheels on it pushed by a kind old man with an English accent, lit signs floating in front of you saying “OKAY PRESS THAT BUTTON RIGHT NOW!”, and all so you won’t have to ever have to think you are experiencing Warhammer’s world with anything less than complete knowledge. ...
I’ve had my level 75 cleric on Luclin for about… four months now. The level cap on EverQuest is 80. There have been three expansions since I last played her, The Serpent’s Spine, The Buried Sea and Secrets of Faydwer (I played TSS just long enough to get to level 75). A new expansion, Seeds of Destruction is about to come out. And I don’t care. I haven’t even joined one group her level. Because I know what my job will be – sitting on my ass watching other people have fun while I press the heal button occasionally. Doesn’t matter what level or what expansion, my job was the same. Same as when I was a rogue. Druid was a little different; when the druid was my main, I could solo well, or be bad at stuff in a group. They’ve since made druids better in groups and given clerics the ability to solo somewhat, but really, my complete frustration at the mindless repetition of playing EverQuest, combined with the difficulty of finding a group, drove me to quit. I only came back for the Nostalgia group, but once again, I find I have zero interest in leveling, except insofar as I get to see areas of the game one last time. SoD may well raise the level cap to 100 and promise pie, but there is absolutely nothing that will get me to willingly join the grind again. ...
I have nothing against old MMOs. In fact, I spend most of my time in one of the oldest. But I know that EQ is old, and I play it now not to see new things, but just to reminisce about all the good times I had in it. People have been going off to World of Warcraft for years, and starting their adventures in Azeroth. I’ve even done it (and my gosh, has it been three years already?). But I’ve been reading the adventures of Cownose, who recently starting in WoW, and Ogrebears, who is just starting, any my first thought for them both was, why would they want to start out with that old game? ...
I just had a thought, while writing the Mythos article. We all know where Mythos came from. Diablo II game play with a Warcraft art style. Diablo II came from Diablo, and Diablo was heavily influenced by the rogue-likes Moria and Angband, I think? Both those games were inspired by Hack, which was inspired by Rogue, which was heavily influenced by Temple of Apshai (I’m guessing), which took its inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons. ...
Okay, get ready for some links. Most people are pretty content to just remember EverQuest as some game they played once, years back, before WoW came along. Many people tried the new games and went back to EQ. Some never left. Then there’s the odd sort of people who felt they couldn’t leave, even though they had absolutely zero interest in it any more. Such was the sad fate of Loral, the custodian of what was once the premier (only?) EverQuest blog, Mobhunter. From his writing, he seems to have wanted to quit the whole thing a couple years or more ago. Recently he started coving WoW instead. He recently quit to play D&D fourth edition instead of any MMO. Fantastic! ...
I don’t know how many people come looking for EverQuest blogs, but there are darn few in the blogosphere that actually cover events in EQ from a player’s perspective. Aside from those bloggers in Nostalgia, and the occasional EQ-oriented post from Loral at Mobhunter.com, I can’t find any. For that matter, where are the DAoC blogs? The Asheron’s Call blogs? The Ultima Online blogs? Come ON. I played DAoC but not those other games. I would LOVE to hear about current play in these older games, but never anything in blogs. It has been explained to me that “back in the day”, discussion of these games was done via official or community forums, cuz blogs did not exist. ...
I admit it. I was wrong about AoC. I said it would be a blip that would quickly fall to the high system requirements and the World of Warcraft juggernaut. I said that WoW would be entirely unchallenged by AoC, and was only mildly worried about Warhammer Online. I think I was wrong about every thing I said. Those people who called me clueless were right. AoC is having the most successful launch I think I have ever seen, maybe even better than WoW back in 2004. Back then, of course, the market was a lot smaller, and WoW’s launch turned then-MMO champ EverQuest into a niche game, something Asheron’s Call and Dark Age of Camelot had not been able to do. So I don’t see AoC booting WoW to the curb. ...
I feel a little like a relic at this moment. Everyone is talking about Age of Conan, Warhammer Online and Wrath of the Liche King, and I realized… I have no interest in any of them. I have a coworker in the AoC closed beta, but going around in gangs randomly ganking people wasn’t that fun in EQ2’s Nagafen from either end – seemed really pointless to me, though I did enjoy the feeling of danger and risk it brought to the game. ...
Today, the Age of Conan open beta opens. And people are fibrillating over it, slavering, EAGER to download a game most of them will have forgotten about in six months. But not today. Today, it brings meaning to their lives. Today the sun is shining right on them and the birds are singing because, today, they can play a new video game. People are not only accepting of marketing, they willingly dive right in. Even though each and every one of them knows that if they really wanted a quality game experience, they’d pick up the game a month or two after it launches, when the rush is off, the game is stable, and it’s clear if the game is really awesome or just meh. Something you can’t really tell when ten thousand people are lagging the beta servers. ...