- Good Aligned
- Mithaniel Marr
- Quellious
- Rodcent Nife
- Tunare
- Neutral
- Brell Serilis
- Bristlebane
- Karana
- Solusek Ro
- The Tribunal
- Evil Aligned
- Bertoxxulous
- Cazic-Thule
- Innoruuk
- Rallos Zek
- Anashti Sul
Everquest II
Azeroth Needs Gods
- Good Aligned
- Mithaniel Marr
- Quellious
- Rodcent Nife
- Tunare
- Neutral
- Brell Serilis
- Bristlebane
- Karana
- Solusek Ro
- The Tribunal
- Evil Aligned
- Bertoxxulous
- Cazic-Thule
- Innoruuk
- Rallos Zek
- Anashti Sul
Bag Bloat
Overflowing
Last night I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about MMORPGs and she mentioned that she had logged into a game recently and had a visceral reaction. Â Upon logging in she saw what a state of disarray her bags were, and when she tried to go to the bank to simply just stuff it all in there… was confronted with the same thing going on there. Â She ultimately just logged out and went on to play something else. Â This exact sequence has happened to me time and time again and is the biggest obstacle for me playing certain games. Â A big game on that list is Rift. Â Right now every single corner of my bank is full, and most of my bags as well. Â Every so often I have the desire to play the game, but when I log in and see a few hours worth of sorting ahead of me to get my bags into a state where I can feel comfortable playing… Â I just log back out frustrated. Â In my case the bags are full of non-critical items like dimension stuff and crafting materials… Â but it isn’t stuff I am willing to part with either. Â So instead of playing the game like I originally wanted, I just lament how I don’t have a good solution to fix the problem.
I am in a similar place right now with World of Warcraft. Â My bags, bank, and void storage are completely full with cosmetic gear for transmogrification. Â I know that with Legion they are putting in a system that will allow me to save the graphic and not have to keep the item. Â However in the mean time I am stuck juggling all of this loot with no real end in sight. Â Sure I could get marginally larger bags, but that would only buy me a few slots worth of reprieve rather than being a permanent solution. Â So with World of Warcraft, I honestly doubt I will be seriously playing that game until the pre-legion patch launches… that hopefully gives us the transmog solution. Â This is a situation I am very familiar with because I have struggled with it for years in Everquest II, but in that case it is simply because the inventory maintenance systems they have are pretty horrible and I can’t remember what half of the items I have looted actually do. Â I wish games would have tool tips that clearly identified what an item is used for, because in the past I have accidentally sold that one important item that I could never get back to complete a quest, and I am in constant paralysis when it comes to potentially doing the same thing again.
Bulk Storage
Since Rift is the king of adding in new and interesting systems to solve problems. Â I would like to humbly suggest two more be added to the pile. Â Basically for me personally I need bulk storage for Dimension items and Crafting materials. Â So what I propose is an account wide bulk storage system. Â For the dimensions some sort of toolbox that you can dump items into and then place them directly from a panel that collects and shows you how many of each item you have. Â In order to remove items from the economy and not allow players to just horde items that they might later sell, I would suggest that adding a dimension item binds it to you so that it can only be used in dimensions attached to your account. Â There would probably need to be a limit to the number of a single item you are storing, but in theory it just goes into the void and then is summoned inside of your dimension via the toolbox panel. Â This solves a bunch of problems other than storage, namely that the toolbox interface would allow you to see just what you had to place, and even more so what you were lacking so you could go off and acquire those items in particular. Â Wildstar has a system very similar to this, and it works amazingly well. Â Having something in place similar would allow me at least to tame my bag bloat.
From the crafting side of the equation I suggest a similar system. Â When you dump your crafting materials into bulk storage they again go into the void and are only extracted through crafting. Â Once again this keeps players from stockpiling materials that could then be used to flood the market at a later date. Â Putting them into bulk storage would essentially remove them from the economy. Â Once again it would be best to have this system be account wide, so that you could farm materials on any of your characters and share them for the purpose of crafting. Â I would absolutely love something like this because I obsessively harvest nodes… Â but often times have nothing I really need to do with them. Â I simply stockpile them for that moment I will eventually need them. Â If I were smart I would simply sell them on the open market, knowing that I could buy them once more if I actually needed them for a project. Â Instead I dump them in my bank and they take up space. Â What I envision for an interface is a pretty minimal on, with just each of the crafting materials listed out by category… and a number beside each indicating how many you have in bulk storage. Â Guild Wars 2 has a similar system that works amazingly well, and seeing something like that in Rift would make my day. Â Basically having these two systems, combined with the “appearance saving” systems that Rift and Wildstar already have… and World of Warcraft is about to get… would fix almost all of my bag woes.
Fixing Everquest 2
Tale of Two Games
Last week we had the somewhat bittersweet news that Everquest Next was officially being cancelled.  For those who were utterly confused about what Landmark,  Next and the rest of the EQ games actually are… here is a quick rundown.  Everquest of course is the granddaddy of the big hit MMOs.  Then mere days before the launch of World of Warcraft…. Everquest II came out as an attempt at rebooting the world.  Everything in that setting happened after a huge calamity that saw Luclin the moon shattering and sending shards to earth.  The world was changed, the land fractured, and in many ways it allowed for a much larger scale game world than the original.  Everquest Next was the concept for what was ultimately going to be the third Everquest MMO… so in truth you can just think of it as Everquest III.  Landmark on the other hand is ultimately the tool that they were using to build the world of Everquest Next.  After playing around with it the folks decided that this was actually a really fun thing to play with in itself, in the Minecraft style.  Landmark was really never a fully fleshed out game, but more of a sandbox toy that players could fiddle with.  Since its launch they have made it more “game-like” but it still is missing a lot of the core features folks expect in an MMO.
Now in the above paragraph I mentioned a key fact… that Everquest II launched on November 8th of 2004… and then was completely overshadowed by the launch of World of Warcraft on November 24th of that same year. Â The two games took significantly different paths, and produced really different results. Â Everquest II was this rich tapestry of cultures and game systems that provided a really deep game play experience that worked on so many levels. Â World of Warcraft was a much more streamlined experience that asked less of the player, but ultimately became easier to pick up and play without an excessive amount of research. Â We all know how the tales goes… that WoW becomes the juggernaut of MMO gaming and EQ2 becomes this sheltered garden with an excellent community and lots of great content… Â but always treated as a second tier experience. Â Right now Everquest II feels extremely dated, like an artifact of a different era whereas World of Warcraft feels somewhat evergreen. Â The major difference there is that each time WoW releases an expansion they do significant systems overhauls that cause some sweeping changes to not only the fidelity of the game client itself, but also the back end systems. Â Everquest II on the other hand has been this “Weasley House” of MMOs with content constantly being tacked on top of the older foundation. Â The new content feels like modern content, but you experience a sort of whiplash as you shift between the different layers of the content and see just how drastic and inequitable the improvements have been.
Renovation Is Due
The above image has been floating around for a few weeks now and represents some work that the Everquest II team is doing to update the orc model. Â It seems that the newest expansion content that they are working on heavily focus on orcs, and as a result they are just updating the base model to bring them up to modern standards. Â Seeing this however made me realize just how bad the old models look. Â I mean it has always been one of those things in the back of my mind, but when you see what the team is capable of producing today… placed against something that has existed since 2004 it is staggering. Â Now that Everquest Next is no longer a thing… I would love to see them pour some of those resources into producing a graphical upgrade to Everquest II. Â The big problem with the game are just how dated the models and the animations look, and going back there is always an adjustment period and largely just hand waving off a bunch of details that get under my skin because the content itself is so amazingly rich. Â I realize this is a massive undertaking, and it is the sort of thing that could be rolled in over time. Â If you remember the original Everquest went through the same problems and with the release of Luclin they released new and updated character models. Â Unfortunately in the case of EQ2… we need a lot more than just characters. Â I would love to see this great game get a second life, because for so many of my friends that I have tried to get to play this game… Â the ugliness of the assets was a barrier they simply could not get past.
Now fixing the graphics isn’t going to fix the game entirely… but it would go a long way into making it feel more playable. Â Next up however we really need to talk about the user interface, that has always felt a bit cludgy. Â I’ve not played the game in the last decade without first installing some sort of third party addon user interface. Â For years I played with Fetish Nightfall, and within the last six years or so I switched over to being a Drums UI guy. Â With these UI extensions the game becomes rather good, but the whole process of acquiring a UI and keeping it updated… feels needlessly arcane in a manner I have not experience in any other game save for maybe Dark Age of Camelot where they had no official support for addons. Â So the entire User Interface could use a bit of a facelift. Â Finally we have to talk about the way combat works in this game. Â I feel like this is the step that would actually cause rioting in the streets by diehard Everquest II fans… Â but I also feel like it is the point that is the most needed. Â The game really really needs to simplify combat in a way that does not require me to use 30+ abilities in a combat rotation. Â The above picture is of my Shadowknight, and at least 30 of this abilities are ones that I pretty much used in every single round of combat. Â It was even worse on my Dirge and I had these super complex patterns memorized… that even today I can sit down at the keyboard and automatically cycle through them.
The problem is… Â it doesn’t really feel fun. Â I feel like I am playing some sort of a musical instrument instead of actually experience reactive combat in a video game. Â Now I am not saying water it down to the level that single hotbar games have done… or simplify it to the point of an action MMO. Â I just would love to be able to have one primary hotbar of abilities that get used every round… and then a bunch of optional abilities that throw in for flavor or when special conditions are met. Â The cooldown of EQ2 abilities is so long that you need something… anything… to fill in the gaps so you quite often are simply mashing the next button that is off cool down. Â Please understand that I am a huge fan of Everquest II… but every time I leave it is the cludgy combat system that eventually drives me away. Â For several months I can overlook it and just blend back into the rich and vast game world… but I always reach this point where I need to play combat that simply “works better”. Â I think maybe this is a ship that has already sailed, and after doing several combat passes early in the game… Â I am not sure if they have the intestinal fortitude to attempt another. Â All of this aid… simply making the game look better would go a long way into making this a more attractive experience to new players, but in doing this post I am talking about all of the things that I wish were different. Â Combat will always be a huge part of that.