A Simple Morning

Picture taken by me this morning, watching the sun come up. Full view is better, of course. 

Yesterday and the day before was spent with family, enjoying the Thanksgiving Holiday. I didn’t get to do an enormous amount of things in game. I’m looking to transfer my 71 defiler from Antonia Bayle back over to Najena with the rest of my ‘crew’ but SOE’s automated transfer service is down. There is a work around to this, you can submit an email request and they’ll send you the form – however this can take up to two weeks to finish apparently. I sent one off this morning and we’ll see how it goes. 

I didn’t get to attend any of the events yesterday at the Festival of Discord, but I’ll be looking over their schedule today to plan out some events to attend for the rest of the week. I know Friday night and Saturday are probably going to be heavily populated with other roleplayers, so I’ll try to make a point to attend those days. 

The pre-order for TSO (The Shadow Odyssey) started today. You get a ‘special’ item for the retail version – a dire bear mount. The digital version also has a ‘unique’ item, a house item creature. I used to buy the retail versions of EQ2 but EBGames (where I do most of my game shopping here in Ottawa) started getting their shipments in late, and I would be unable to play the new content for a day or two after release. Silly that I want to be right in the thick of things right away? Not really. So I started purchasing the digital downloads every release instead and have never had an issue with them. 

Now I’m wondering if I’ll go with the retail box just so I can get this dire bear, apparently it levels and grows along with your character as you level and grow. I’m not sure if it can be claimed on all characters or just one (my gut goes with just one) so I guess we’ll see. 

Little big planet releases a week from today. Still very eager about that, though I won’t be able to play until that night, either. Ah well!

EQ2’s Festival of Discord – Simply Amazing

Gnobrin, hanging out in the center of one of the tented areas for the Festival of Discord. I took some time today to wander around the area before events start later on tonight. The opening ceremonies were yesterday, and unfortunately I had a thanksgiving dinner so I could not attend. 

I expected to see a few tents, as I did with the Festival of Unity. 

I did not expect this HUGE fair ground site that I encountered today. Wow. What an amazing time and effort put into this by the players who are hosting this. That’s right, this is a PLAYER run event, where GM’s have graciously come along and aided them in their yearly celebration on one of EQ2’s roleplay servers. Isn’t it amazing to see where creativity will take you?

Again, if you haven’t gone to visit the Festival grounds, I urge you to give it a shot. The roleplay is fantastic, the grounds look amazing, and people put a lot of hard work into running these events. These are the things that make EQ2 home.

Festival of Discord Returns to Antonia Bayle

I wrote last year about the Festival of Discord, a player run event that takes place on Antonia Bayle. Checking out the eq2players front page, I learned that it’s returning this year. 

You can find a map of the festivities here, as well as a calendar of events. 

Antonia Bayle is one of two roleplay servers, and has an amazing community. I’ve also got a level 30 guild over there (I moved to Najena to be with friends, but still have a small number of characters over there) not that we’ll be purchasing a guild any time soon. 

Discord and it’s counterpart the Festival of Unity, are two amazing player run events that GM’s have gotten involved in over the years, adding decorations and a fair-like set up to the grounds in both Commonlands and Antonica. If you’ve never gone before I would HIGHLY suggest you check it out, I’ve gone to the festival of Unity twice now, and I went to the festival of Discord last year also. The passion and heart that these people put into their events is astounding. With the release of guildhalls even more so, there’s a ball and taverns set up as decorators frantically finish their designs for the public. 

Be sure to check out the offical forums for the festival here, you can get a clear idea of all the work that gets put into this, the guilds involved, and the times / locations of each event every day from October 12th to the 18th. 

Remember what I said about community being key in any mmo? This is why I game. It may not be every ones cup of tea, but for me, it’s everything.

Edit: Happy Turkey day or Columbus day or whatever you’re celebrating today!

Since Mythic seems to be so good about fixing things….

I was reading Ogrebears site today (thank you google reader!) and came across this post which really didn’t surprise me, and it’s not the only post like this. One key aspect to ALL mmo’s is community. Some of us find that easier then others. Lets say you’re not a member of CoW (there are a few out there, right?) and you pick up WAR and start randomly playing. How interested are you going to be playing a game where no one talks. This means you can’t ask advice for your class. You can’t easily see guild recruitment messages, you can’t ask someone ‘hey have you seen so and so? I have no idea where I’m going here..’ — you COULD ask these things in says, tells, or in a group, or on the scenario channel, but not out wandering around. 

No one talks. Even in the scenarios I’ve been doing, I rarely see any messages at all except maybe ‘hold this place! Work some defense!’ or other brief messages along those lines. There’s just no public channels for people.

Since plenty of other sites talk about how Mythic is ‘on the ball’ about fixing any and all issues that come along (ie: experience boosts for PvE, for low population servers, bug fixes etc) how long will it be before they notice their game has no welcoming community for the new player. This WILL be a turn off for people. 

Put yourself in the place of someone completely new. It’s a lot different when you start the game in a prearranged guild, or are playing with friends. Not everyone plays the same and some times it takes a bit to get warmed up. The game is so dang lonely at times, you’re left wondering if you’re playing a different version of the game then everyone else and these characters running around are not characters at all but some form of elaborate bot. 

I’m a huge advocate of community being key to any mmo. How much better would it be if folks could put out a “hey I need some help at this PQ” or “Hey we’re getting our asses handed to us in keeping this keep, can we get some help” and actually being able to bond with people outside of their own guild. How are you even supposed to know what sort of player a person is unless you stumble into a group with them and give them more then a second glance as you’re doing a scenario or taking a keep?

Worried about the amount of spam? Well there’s already LOTS of spam out there already and we’ve all found ways to deal with it. Seeing general chatter spam is a lot better then seeing nothing at all.