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The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: Your journeys
I have to say, this month's been everything I'd hoped it would be for EverQuest. As with many of these older MMOs, my working knowledge of EQ was spotty and anecdotal at best, and I'm personally glad to rectify that. EverQuest's always felt like a "You had to have been there" club to me, one that stopped accepting members a long, long time ago. It's great, therefore, to see that there's a thriving community, a rich history and an uplifting future in store for the game. Above everything else, I've come to realize just how crucial EverQuest was -- for better or worse, depending on your perspective -- to the development of the MMO genre for the past decade or so. If SOE never created EQ, just how different would our games be today? It's incredibly hard to imagine. As we continue our EQ month here at The Game Archaeologist, we have two things on the immediate agenda. The first is to share a few of your personal journeys that you emailed my way, and the second is a look at how you can plug in with EverQuest if you've never done so in the past. It turns out, quite fortuitously, that this is looking to be one of the best times to do so. Read on, courageous gamer!
The Game Archaeologist and the NeverEnding Quest: The vets
We just had to start 2011 in style, didn't we? I knew that by invoking the sacred name of EverQuest, I'd be opening the door for thousands of collective years' worth of memories, opinions, frustrations, nostalgia, gushing and blocky screenshots. But the Game Archaeologist fears not even the greatest mountain in MMO legend; it had to be climbed sooner or later. And of course, who better to guide you up the mountain than a few EQ Sherpas who know the way? Sure, they might try to steal the idol and not throw me the whip in the end, but that was a very real risk I was willing to take to get the full story. So today I'd like to introduce you to three EverQuest veterans who are all now world-famous bloggers. If you sense a connection between these two facts, I will only hint at the possibility of a secret society in SOE's headquarters that bestows great blessings upon its faithful fans. Hit the jump to meet this EQ trio and hear what they had to say about the MMO that profoundly affected their playing careers!
Free for All: How much for a ten-spot?
In this week's Free for All, I decided to check out some cash-shop games to see what I might get for 10 U.S. dollars. For the record, some games can be subscription-based and still have cash shops, and some games can have cash shops that have been redesigned and tweaked so that they do not fit into the same old "cash-shop" model. For clarity, I stuck to cash shops that normally pop up while you're in-game -- usually inside their own window. Sometimes, though, the cash shops might be accessed or found on the games' main websites, as well. It was hard to choose, being that I generally don't buy from cash shops any more. It takes a very special product (like Wurm Online's currency) to get me to pay, namely because I do not spend as much time in a single game as I used to. Actually, let me rephrase that before someone starts to write a comment based on that statement: I still spend a lot of time in certain games, like anyone else, but my pace has slowed. Most of the cash-shop items out there are convenience items -- simply time-travel devices that allow the player to speed up his experience. Since I have all the time in the world because of the free nature of these games, speeding up is not something I am interested in. So, let's look at a few cash shops to see what piqued my interest!
The Game Archaeologist and the Ultima Prize: My journey
The Game Archaeologist is your spunky Tuesday column devoted to exploring the MMORPGs of yesterday. Enough is enough! No more looking back at history, talking to the players who have been there, or even chatting up the creator of the game -- it was time for the Game Archaeologist to man up and play Ultima Online himself. And so it was with trembling fingers and steely eyes that I downloaded the trial client and entered the game for the very first time. I will be honest and admit to a degree of nervousness. It's one thing to talk about a great MMO legend; it's another entirely to experience it first-hand. I didn't really know what to expect -- would it be so hardcore that I'd die before I finished? Would it be so ancient, so creaky that I wouldn't be able to figure it out without a degree in assembly code? Would it... be fun? Fortunately, I was not alone in this journey, as Tipa from West Karana graciously agreed to accompany me for an evening full of Ultimas and Onlines. Oh, the spellchecker simply did not like that one. Tough noogies. Ultima Online has a nice 14-day unlimited trial that doesn't even require a credit card to access, so after a few minutes of patching (UO is tiny compared to many modern MMOs), we were in. And completely, utterly lost.
One Shots: Here be dragons
While EverQuest is 11 years old this year, the game is still getting love -- both in terms of new content and devoted players who continue to call Norrath home after all these years. However, if you haven't looked in on the world of EverQuest recently, you may be surprised to see just how the game looks compared to the old days. Thankfully, we have a great One Shots today to give you an idea! This great image was sent to us by our friend Tipa of the West Karana blog, who captured this foreboding image recently while playing. She writes in to explain the scene: "You'll have to do a lot of running to scale the Direwind Cliffs in EverQuest, but no matter how high you get, the dragons have gotten there first. The iconic symbol of Veeshan, the immense dragon that brought life to Norrath, marks the mountains of the Serpent's Spine much as Veeshan's claws marked the planet." If you'd like to send in a screenshot, we'd love to see them. All you have to do to take part is to email those screens in to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a brief description. We'll post it out here and give you the credit. %Gallery-85937%
One player's take on the Star Trek Online survey
Two days ago, Cryptic offered Star Trek Online players a chance to sound off. Sort of. The front page of the Star Trek Online site offered a survey asking things like "What's the one thing you'd change about Star Trek Online, if you could?" Players who completed the survey received 240 Cryptic Points as a little thank you gift. To the dismay of many players, however, it was strictly fill-in-the-blank, with no way to elaborate on the answers. Tipa over at West Karana was one of those players, and she had some very good ideas for improving Star Trek Online. Lacking the chance to present them directly to Cryptic, she turned back to West Karana and took the opportunity to get her thoughts out. The post is well worth a read for any STO player, offering suggestions in many areas of gameplay from a crafting system to expanding the "episode" concept, and much more. Take a look here, and add your thoughts!
Wizard101 brings housing with May patch
Wizard101 has introduced housing into the game today with their latest May patch. This housing feature has been highly anticipated by the community and allows for your character to have up to three houses, plus your dorm room. These "Castles & Lands", as they're called, are available for players level 10 and above.In addition, this patch brings even more voice-overs to characters in Marleybone, MooShu and Dragonspyre. A new Mark & Recall feature lets you easily teleport around any points in the game, when pinged with special marks that cost a small amount of mana. Be sure to read the complete patch notes on Wizard101's site for more information, and definitely check out Tipa's review of all houses available.
Are Wizard101's child protection measures too much?
As probably one of the most vocal supporters of KingsIsle Entertainment's Wizard101, Tipa over at West Karana certainly has shown us the beauty of this new free-to-play children's MMO. Her blog posts have covered several months of experiences progressing through the game, and have probably had a hand in getting many others into it as well.In a recent post, Tipa takes a retrospective look back at the game and what she thinks was done right or wrong in its development so far. One particularly interesting part is her analysis of the security measures taken to prevent children from talking to random strangers in the game. "W101 is a great game," she writes. "It's a fun game, it's an innovative game, but it's a game that has bought into the hysteria that every adult is a real or potential child abuser, completely disregarding that children are in considerably more danger from people they know in real life than from anyone they might meet playing a video game." It's certainly an interesting point on an innovation that has been showcased as a main family-friendly feature. Check out Tipa's complete blog for more of her thoughts on Wizard101.
Warhammer Online's secret hype formula
Calling the game a self-help program is an interesting take on EA Mythic's upcoming Warhammer Online, but West Karana makes a compelling argument. Over the last few years many quality MMOs have been mostly passed-up by World of Warcraft players -- which seems to be a sign that most of these players need more than a 500k subscriber MMO before they consider moving on to greener pastures. We can be sure that Electronic Arts and EA Mythic are gunning for their game to pull in over a million -- whether they consider themselves to be the Led Zepplin of massively games or not. A method of hype such as this is probably their best chance at pulling it off.So if Warhammer Online can hit that magical six-figures subscriber mark, can that be considered putting a sizable hole in the dam holding WoW players back? Well, it all depends on how many people get pulled into WAR and find that they like it more than WoW -- because the two games are very different under their "cartoon" cover.
On the topic of sheep in Warhammer Online
Over on West Karana you can find a very good post about her take on PvP in Warhammer Online. Whether or not you agree with it is beside the fact, because the read is just so absorbing. Of course we here at Massively have discussed the PvP subject once or twice. Still, Tipa's take is a very evocative way of expressing concern for people who may be going into WAR expecting an experience more akin to World of Warcraft -- only to complain later. There is something EA Mythic can do about this problem of sheep and wolves, but it won't be easy.
Last Week on Massively: WoW-related stories
This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.The Digital Continuum: Comparing core concepts of WAR and WoW Can Warhammer Online avoid the same design pitfalls that World of Warcraft has fallen into? Find out in Kyle Horner's Digital Continuum column.The stormy courtship of Blizzard/ActivisionThe Wall Street Journal unearthed the proxy statements behind the Activision/Blizzard deal to reveal who came out ahead in the merger. And it may not be who you think.Rumor: New Blizzard MMO to be Starcraft Online?More rumors surface about Blizzard's next MMO. This time, word comes from a Chinese newspaper that states the name of Blizzard's Asian partner for Starcraft Online.
West Karana on roleplaying in the World of Warcraft
For those of you longing for days past in your roleplaying adventures --or if you're just curious about what all this roleplaying stuff is about -- West Karana has a great post up about some past experiences on the Kirin Tor server. We're especially entertained by the story of a high-level troll who traveled into Alliance areas and let mass amounts of lowbies battle her down slowly but surely while putting up a valiant fight. Another intriguing character was a gnome who started a guild called, "Snacks for the Horde" a guild with a mission to bring peace to Azeroth by bringing lots of food to the Horde. It's stuff like this that make massively games so very interesting -- people in the communities who sometimes stop grinding and go looking for their own brand of fun. We certainly love it when people go out of their way to bring a bit more to their world of choice, whether it be through webcomics, machinima or straight-up roleplaying.
What if EVE was a fantasy MMO?
West Karana recently posted an article that speculates on how you might translate EVE Online to the fantasy genre. As Tipa says, all the elements are already there in the game, you just have to find them. I particularly liked the analogy of a ship being akin to a hero's group of cohorts. While the hero's companions may die around him, he can still survive to fight other battles. In the same way, a ship in EVE is separate from its pilot and while the ship may be destroyed, the character itself may live on.When you consider the basic elements that go into any good story, I think this analogy holds up pretty well. There is so much in a fantasy MMO that protects the hero from actual battle, in the same way that in EVE you are protected by your ship. A knight never goes into battle without his steed, his weapons, his armor, and more likely than not, his army. What do you think? How well would EVE work in a fantasy setting?
Mythos buzz and beta invites
Both Tobold and West Karana are buzzing about Mythos, the free-to-play hack and slash RPG from Flagship Studios subsidiary Flagship Seattle. It's supposed to be good, clean, monster-killing fun Diablo style, with random customizable dungeons (as in, ask for a solo dungeon and you got it, or ask for a group dungeon for your level, and you got it) and lots of fun spec choices and loot. I've played a bit of Dungeon Runners, and enjoyed it, but as fun as it is, it still sticks a little too closely to MMO conventions, and it seems like Mythos just might be the simple hack-and-slash refresher to the growing ever-more-complicated MMO genre.Unfortunately, the game is still in invite-only beta, but as we reported the other day, invites are getting spread around pretty fast, so your chance to check it out should be coming around soon. In the meantime, Flagship is accepting signups on their site. As we said before, it's not clear how the microtransactions they plan will work, but from everything we've heard about it, the free-to-play part of Mythos is more than worth a look.Update: Bildo claims in our comments that he's the one that turned everyone onto Mythos, and he's got a good writeup, too. Plus, he's apparently getting more beta invites soon, so we make nice!
