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Wings Over Atreia: Happy Newb Year!
Oh, that feeling when a game is new and everything is an adventure! Say what you will, but I cherish those moments of still being a newb and getting to experience things for the first time while exploring a new world (mind you, that is newb as in "new person," not n00b meaning "hopelessly moronic"). The problem is, once you have been in a game for a while, that whole aura dissipates and you lose that feeling of wonder. I envy those just now coming to Aion, as those of us who have been here for the past two plus years have lost that initial excitement. And when you've lost that newbie feeling, then it's gone, gone, gone, whoa whoa whoa... Or is it? When you have played the game for a long period of time, you tend to settle into a rut that is hard to break out of. Log in, do dailies, do arenas, do dredge. Toss in a siege. Rinse and repeat. In the past, Wings Over Atreia has delved into some of the reasons to stay in game when things become a bit monotonous and we sludge through some of the more difficult times. But why should we sludge? Why not find ways to make Aion more interesting when you hit that plateau? Some players have done just that. A little creativity (and sometimes some really insane friends) can really make a difference and bring back that newbie feeling -- or at least make things interesting while adding some variety to gaming.
Brenlo talks EverQuest II's future
Alan 'Brenlo' Crosby, Sony Online Entertainment's Senior Producer for EverQuest II, has dropped an epic forum post on the official boards detailing the future of the long-running MMORPG. For starters, he talks about the game's technical issues, specifically the recent server performance concerns. "Some servers are struggling a bit with the new load created by returning players, Battlegrounds, more items in the database, etc and are not reacting well. This is our engineering team's number one priority<," he said. He also touches on the much anticipated New Halas zone, indicating that it will finally see the light of day in the next patch and will be well worth the wait in terms of extended content, housing, and art design. Tweaks to the traveling system and itemization will also be made, and, though no specifics were given, feedback was solicited on both accounts. Battleground updates and tweaking are also in the pipeline, as is a new Storyteller UI system that promises to tie together Norrath's many quests in service of a larger, more meaningful story. Finally, Brenlo hinted at alternate rule set servers, mentioning PvP, permadeath, and progression as possibilities. He also dropped a few hints at the upcoming development cycle for this fiscal year. <"You should see at least one raid each update, of which there are four major updates planned for the next fiscal year. Details of those to follow but I can say they will be a mix of reworked content e.g. Lavastorm revamp, and all new content. Through the next year, we plan to bolster our events as well, eventually having one event each calendar month, providing more entertainment for you,"he said.
