Tag: EQ2

Thoughts on Staying Power #MMORPG #EQ2 #SWTOR #WoW

 

This post may come off a little negative, but that’s not how it’s intended. I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to why SWTOR didn’t grab me, or rather, it did, but couldn’t keep me. One of the major issues I had wasn’t really an issue at all, but is just how gamers perceive things. There are a lot of ‘things’ that I’m used to having in games, thanks to those who have been around for 5+ years. I realize it’s incredibly unfair to judge a game that releases today against a game that has been around for many years because after all that game has had time to grow – but – as a gamer, we are not interested in how things were 5 years ago, or how they will be 5 years from now. What we are interested in (and I use the term ‘we’ loosely here before someone throws a fit) is what is available NOW. At this exact moment that we are playing. If I can play a game that offers me 5 things that I really want from my video game, as opposed to a game that offers me 9 things that I really want from my video game, which game do you think I’m going to play? It doesn’t matter how old or how new a game is – in order to KEEP me playing, it’s going to have to appeal to those things on my list, and lets face it, the older games have had more time to work out what those ‘things’ are and to add them.

I feel very strongly that in order to actually compete with games that are 5-10 years old, games that are being released today need to take that progress into account. Dusty made a very good point yesterday regarding SWTOR – if you are leveling alts you can’t simply say “well, I leveled in Balmorra last time, so this time I’ll go to planet X instead.” There’s no alternate rout for you to bring your characters, where as (as an example) in EQ2 if you leveled in Thundering steppes last time, you’re more than welcome to head to Nektulos Forest. Or Butcherblock Mountains. Or do dungeons. In WoW you also have the choice of where to spend your time. In Rift? Not so much. SWTOR? Also not so much. Again this is an unfair comparison and I know it is, because the two later games are much newer, and thus haven’t had the time to add new content – but that’s simply how it is. In order to compete with games that are 5-10 years old, you must think of yourself as one of those games. I realize that there’s only so much manpower a company can dedicate to a game, and I also realize that this is pretty much an impossible task – but for us selfish gamers, that’s how we’re thinking. We’re going to constantly compare any new game to those we have played previously. Those older games have already gotten their hands on us, we’ve already got ties to them – new games need a way to get those hands on us in a MUCH faster way, so that we’ll stay.

When it comes down to it, that’s why SWTOR didn’t have the staying power required for me to keep playing. Were the stories amazing? Sure they were, I loved them. I loved having choices for my characters to make. I experienced very few bugs (personally, I know others have a long list of bugs), and datacrons and exploration were fun. The problem is (aside from the story lines and character choices) I can get those things in any other game on my list, plus more sandbox features which is key to me sticking around in any game. I play alts, they need choices that will be different from my mains. Sure, I can choose a different *story* for them, but they’re basically doing the exact same things (as long as we’re the same factions) as my main, minus the class quests. They’re visiting the same zones, collecting the same datacrons, and when I dislike a zone like Balmorra (those lifts.. that map.. OUCH) I have no alternate rout. Now, maybe game companies have given up on trying to retain players and instead are working to build up their first-time sales, which is completely fine if that’s the way they’re trying to operate. Obviously that’s not how I’d prefer things done but hey I’m not a gaming company trying to make money, I’m just a player.

Anyhow, those were just some of my thoughts on player retention. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

 

Holiday Events In Our Games of Choice #MMORPG #EQ2 #WoW #Rift #W101 #GW

Hard to believe that today is already December 15th – where does the time go! My apologies for those who may have been trying to access MmoQuests these past few days. My host was hacked and so the site has been less-than-stable while they resolved issues. It looks like everything is a-go now, so I should be able to get back to posting here on a regular basis, so long as something shiny doesn’t come along and distract me along the way.

There are numerous holiday festivals taking place in MMOs this time of year, and I love hearing about them all. A few of my favorites happen in Guild Wars, Wizard 101, EverQuest 2, Rift, and of course World of Warcraft. That by no means lists all of the events out there though, so make sure you take a peek into your GoC (game of choice) and take part in the yearly events (if there are any, not all games have these).

Dragon Flight (my Argent Dawn alliance based guild) managed to take down a few more encounters in some Outlands raids last week. This was quite a feat for us because we’re still only three people (actually, now we’re five, but two of them are too small to participate in these raids). We’ve been doing them for appearance gear and my shaman won herself a pair of neat shoulders that have a graphic of glowing broken up molten infused rocks.

Aside from that I’ve been working on leveling both a DeathKnight and a Druid. The druid managed to grasp on to level 62 tonight, and the DK is 61. I do have a recruit a friend account, so they’ve only got a few hours played if that. While getting to ‘end game’ is not everything, I’ve taken my time and enjoyed the ride on a handful of alts and this time I just wanted to get to Cataclysm content.

In true nomadic gamer style I haven’t really settled on a ‘main’ although I tend to play my shaman more than my other characters. I also spent some time playing Plants vs. Zombie, and Skyrim. The majority of my friends are all playing SWTOR – and it’s been really hard to hold out and not just pre-order the game for myself. In fact, there is a copy in the house, belongs to my other half. He’ll be playing and I can make a character on his account and play while he’s at work to see if the story actually does suck me in as everyone says it will. A few friends have pointed out that Star Wars has very little to do with ‘space’ and has far more to do with fantasy and magic, which is a big point in its favor (for me at least). I even sat down to try to watch the Star Wars movies today, so who knows, give it some time and perhaps that will be my GoC.

In sadder news, Beckett MOG shut its doors today. For those who don’t know I’ve been writing MMO related articles for them for a number of years now, as well as moderating their forums and writing news articles for the web site. They just weren’t pulling in enough money (or so I assume) and in this age of digital media, it’s not a big surprise. I hope that everyone who is now searching for new work (I’m looking at you, Jason) finds the job of their dreams, and I personally am incredibly thankful for the experience I’ve gained while working there.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

 

What Are YOU Excited About? #EQ2 #WoW #Skyrim #SWTOR #MMORPG

It’s a pretty exciting time to be a gamer. There are a whole lot of games and expansions all releasing around the same time. I don’t keep as up to date as I should on the non-mmo gaming front, so my list is probably a bit more sparse then some others out there. What am I looking forward to? Well, there’s the EQ expansion, Veil of Alaris that releases in November. I’m really excited about this expansion, it’s just beautiful. EQ2 is also putting out their ‘expansion’ (I use the term loosely) Age of Discovery. I’m a lot less excited about this update then I am about the EQ expansion. There’s not a lot of actual content coming with it, although with mercenary and a new class I will say that casual players should be pretty happy. I’m holding off on any other comments until I can actually get my feet into it because until then it’s just speculation. I’d be much happier if this was coming as a free update rather then a paid expansion. World of Warcraft has their 4.3 patch coming out (supposedly) some time in November, which I am also pretty excited about. I’m looking forward to new dungeons, new gear sets, and I’m really looking forward to appearance gear for once. I’m even looking forward to the raid finder tool, which I think will be fantastic for casual players who don’t have the time to devote to finding a raid guild – or those of us who are in tiny little 3-people guilds who haven’t been able to raid yet.

I did decide to sign up for a year of WoW in order to get Diablo 3 for free, along with the mount that will be released in 4.3. The game has enough casual aspects to it that I find it quite relaxing along with my adventuring in EVE Online. SWTOR release date is just around the corner, but not being a fan of sci-fi I haven’t pr-ordered and I’m not really sure if I’ll play. I know my other half will be picking up the game and I’ll probably just live vicariously through him and his adventures. Until the peer pressure becomes too great, of course.

Skyrim is one of those non-mmo games that are certainly on my radar, and I do plan on picking up once it releases. The game just looks beautiful and it’s been a while since I’ve played a single player. I don’t really think the sims 3 counts. Speaking of, I’ve been having loads of fun with their latest ‘pets’ expansion that released this month. It’s a great game when I’m not in the mood for anything multi-player.

So what are you most excited about? Perhaps nothing coming out tickles your fancy at all? Let me know in comments below!

 

2,000th Post

Where does the time go – I started this blog back in 2006 and have been posting fairly frequently ever since. I’ve met some wonderful people and some not so wonderful people. I’ve shared my experiences with numerous games over that period and I’ve had fun writing ‘my way’ which is typically drama free (and results in less comments but is true to my nature). Back in 2006 EQ2 was my game of choice, and while my desire to play it has faded over time I always look at it with fond memories. These days I bounce between a handful of games, at the moment the list includes EQ1, Vanguard, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Rift, and The Lord of the Rings Online, Sims 3, and whatever else happens to strike my fancy.

On the game ‘news’ front this week is pretty exciting. There were test patch notes released for 4.3 (World of Warcraft) and today 1.5 is going live in Rift which is bringing about all sorts of goodies. We’re counting down to the Sims 3 Pets release, and SW:TOR was also given a release date. I’m excited about Skyrim, which is supposed to release November 11th if all goes well. There’s a handful of other notable games releasing over the next few months that I’m sure have people pretty excited. It’s a great time to be a gamer (and a writer of said games).

I just want to thank everyone who continues to read this site, and any newcomers. While I write for myself (and always will) it’s incredibly heartwarming to know there are others out there reading about my adventures and sharing in my virtual travels. As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself. Hugs!

Seeing Red #EQ2 #EverQuestII

Today game update 60 was implemented, and with it a lot of pretty neat things. I do, however, have one major concern. Pictured above is what I see when I mouse over a piece of gear, and those two icons you see under the “attuned heirloom lore-equip” text are the new graphic they’ve added for adornments. Adornments are slots that you can use to add extra stats to your gear and they come in a few types including white, yellow, and red. White is a basic adornment, they’re player crafted and pretty simple and cost effective. Yellow adornments are vendor sold, they’re of a ‘legendary’ quality. Red adornments are fabled and typically come from raids although there other ways of obtaining them. My problem is the fact that when you looked at a piece of gear you could instantly tell what type of adornment your gear took based on the fact that there were words that told you [yellow adornment slot] and the like. Now they’ve switched to this weird graphic that is incredibly unfriendly to colour-blind players. I can see colours just fine and even I have issues telling that those two slots are white (it looks like grey) and yellow (looks more like tan).

Note the actual adornment itself (pictured above) – it says “slot type: white adornment slot” – that is perfect. It doesn’t matter what colour any of the text is, players can read right there that it’s for a white slot. I’m REALLY hoping SOE re-thinks their decision to use a colour based graphic in their armor pieces. It does nothing but create a hassle for those who may not be able to see it as well as they’d like.

I understand that it’s not an easy task to make sure that your game is accessible to every person out there when everyone is different, but I really do take a lot of pride in companies that go out of their way to make sure there are options for those who need them. For example, Rift uses sounds to trigger some events – but they also use text that scrolls across your screen. Great for those who may not be able to hear. When it comes to any sort of design decision it’s really important that you think above and beyond what the ‘average’ player may want – and look into those minorities. They’ll appreciate it, trust me.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.