Everquest – Page 8

Perforated Week

This week was a strange one, because it essentially consisted of two Mondays and two Fridays since I was off Wednesday due to Veterans day. This week also pretty much was completely lost to Fallout 4. So I contemplated just doing another post about that and skipping the MWP feature for a week. That said I decided to fall back on an “oldie but goodie” that I could write about without much prep work. Once again the MMOs Worth Playing section by intent is to highlight some of the awesome games out there, that maybe don’t get as much love as I feel they should. This has been the pattern other than last week when I did a special BlizzCon edition, and this week we are continuing that pattern with some talk about Everquest 2.

Launching Against a Juggernaut

When it comes to underdog games… it would be near impossible to find one that more fits that title than Everquest II. Back in 2004 there were two games vying for everyone’s attention… the sequel of sorts to the wildly popular Everquest and the newcomer with a strong pedigree World of Warcraft. By the time we got to November of that year… there was quite literally one game on everyone’s minds… and it wasn’t the return to a calamity stricken Norrath. EQ2 had the misfortunate of launching sixteen days before the game that would for the most part change the landscape of MMOs. I was pretty torn as to which game I would end up playing, and I even pre-ordered Everquest II and spent a good deal of time in the alpha and beta processes. However when it came time to launch… there were a few people from my EQ1 days that were going to be playing… but the vast majority of my friends were simply waiting for World of Warcraft. So since money was very much a thing back then… I simply didn’t pick up my EQ2 pre-order and waited for the coming of Azeroth.

Roughly six months into that experience however I got a patch of wanderlust like I always do and drug a group of friends over into Norrath and found that I really liked the game. Just as I know eventually I will be playing World of Warcraft again, I will also be doing the same for Everquest II. The sort of experience it provides is just different than you would find in most games. For me at least the magic is the setting. Norrath is world I am deeply nostalgic of, and with it comes little references to the good times I had in Everquest. I realize for many at launch this was a huge problem… because instead of continuing where Everquest left off they chose to reboot the world of sorts and bringing the players in after the moon Luclin had exploded raining down shards around the world. This event sundered the world causing it to break apart into small islands, and much of the theme of Everquest 2 has been one of exploration and rediscovery.

Unearthing Greatness

The players are helping to recover the lost grandeur of the past, and with that we are uncovering locations that I remember extremely well in the original Everquest. The big thing that spoke to me about the game however was the epic scale. These zones are huge… so huge that often times they are made up of several distinct sub zones that all exist together in one seamless area. What makes them work so well is the fact that they are really content dense, with all sorts of hidden treasures and events stowed in between what would normally be something you simply rode past. One of the things that made EQ interesting was their construct called a “Ring Event”, which involved fighting certain mobs… which would spawn other mobs… which would ultimately culminate in a boss. So as you wander the world, you never quite know what thing you are killing might lead to something far more interesting spawning. I remember one of these particular in Nektulos Forest, that ultimately lead to a rare named boss that was used for a quest.

Another aspect of the game that I have always loved that follows this exploration and recovery feeling, is the Heritage quest. These are truly epic quest chains that tend to require twenty or so discreet steps to complete and often involve you spending a considerably about of time crawling through dungeons and catacombs to find bits. Each of them represents the attempt to uncover an item of fabled power from the old world, and as a former Everquest player… I know almost every single item referenced by heart. What makes them even cooler is that they function dual fold when you complete one. For starters you get a really nice piece of gear that at the level you can get it serves to be some of quite literally the best gear you can get. However when you out level it, you can turn it into a trophy item that you can then put in your player housing to remember your journey. So it feels really cool to walk into your house and see all of these past accomplishments displayed in physical form. Each item you hang on your wall or stash on a shelf is a memory of an event that you did in game, which makes the whole thing feel more important than simply earning points or titles.

Rich Systems

Everquest II is this impossible game, because quite literally I don’t think it could have ever been created in today’s climate. So much time was spent on systems that feel casual and exploratory gameplay, that enrich the player… but don’t really make up much of an “endgame” in the traditional sense. I just mentioned housing and that is absolutely a crucial one. Dark Age of Camelot was the first time I had experienced player housing, and I knew that I was absolutely hooked. The problem there is it took up large tracts of physical real estate in the world. That meant a limited number of players could ever have housing, because there were a limited number of deeds available. EQ2 went in a completely different direction, and at first I was not terribly certain of it… and later I have come to realize it was a stroke of genius. Instead of making housing exclusive… they simply made it part of the base gameplay experience by giving you an Inn Room that serves as your first house while going through the early levels. From there the player gets used to the notion of checking into their room periodically and quests giving them items that they might want to display there.

As you progress you can keep getting cooler homes with significantly more expensive weekly upkeep costs. While player housing is awesome… where the game really shines is the introduction of Guild Housing. In each guild I have been in, the house became a hub of activity for its members. Due to the ability to place crafting machines, bankers and brokers all in the hall… it means that there will be a constant flow of players coming in and out as they do their business around the game world. While it might seem silly… because we already have an always on guild chat… but seeing players in their physical avatar form just feels different and almost magical. There are tons of people in the game world that I might talk to on a nightly basis… but it could be weeks before I actually cross paths with their characters in game. Having this nexus meant that the guilds were actually more communicative that they might have been were it just left to text only conversation. There was also always the added benefit of having some shared goal that the guild as a whole could work towards. I remember doing all sorts of things that could grant “status” in the guild, which then could be spent as a currency to help pay the expenses of owning the guild hall. Contributing status made it feel like I was helping… even though what I was actually earning was just a drip in the bucket comparatively.

Overwhelming Content

I could literally write one of these posts a week, for the next few months and not have scratched the surface of talking about everything in this game. The game is nearing the launch of expansion number Twelve Terrors of Thalumbra. In the same time World of Warcraft has had six expansions, and this is not counting the mini adventure packs, which I believe there have been four or five of at this point. The amount of content of all types that is available is just completely mind boggling, and at any given level you usually have multiple paths that you can take to get to your goal. My favorite part about the game is that they still have public dungeons. This is the aspect that made the original Everquest feel so vibrant to me, was that you could go into these super dangerous areas with your friends… that were huge NPC warrens that felt like working areas. If you went into the kitchen, then you found a chef… if you went into the dungeon… then you found a jailer or a warden. It felt like we were actually raiding bases, rather than taking a theme park ride where at the end we got loot for our trouble.

These big public dungeons were places you could just go and hang out with your friends… where the difficulty level was enough to make bringing friends along for the fun worth while. All of which made it all the more enjoyable when you finally reached a level of gear where you could actually go into these places and survive by yourself. I remember the amazement the first time I saw a friend soloing Sebilis for example in Everquest… and then was shocked when I reached the point where I could solo tough mobs like the Sand Giants in the Oasis of Marr. Everquest even in its more modern version is really good at setting up these goals that you want to go back and achieve later. If you can’t take on this monster now… then you will likely go back later and get revenge on it when you can. I’ve talked before about how fear is missing from games… and wandering these public dungeons brought it back. That if you were able to keep up with the spawn rate, you could stay in there in a tentative state of safety… however if one thing went wrong… you were running back in after a death. That era in games seems to be all but extinct at this point.

Dated But Good

At this point Everquest 2 is feeling its age, and with recent Daybreak mess… it is unlikely that this is going to change at any point in the near future. The engine is old, and has not had the benefit of having frequent face lifts in the same fashion that World of Warcraft has. As a result the model detail is a little off, and the world building itself can feel a little cludgy in the early zones. There however is an amazing artistry as each time they release an expansion they push this old engine beyond its limits and find new ways to keep this game interesting. This is absolutely a game that I would suggest everyone play at least once, but in doing so you have to go into it knowing that you are essentially playing an artifact of a bygone era. They simply do not make games like this one any more, and to some extent I am regretful of this fact. The amount of detail that can be found between its cracks is enough to drive you completely mad if you try and assimilate it all. If you do start an new character I highly suggest you either roll in the Neriak/Darklight Woods starting zone or Kelethin/Greater Faydark… because as the game went on they got significantly better at doing the starter experience. If you do end up trying the game, I would love to hear your own impressions.

Loss of Nuance

I had this topic that I wanted to talk about this morning, and jotted it down so that I would not forget. Then last night I suffered from a bout of insomnia. So my hope is that even without much sleep I can still make this topic work, and devote the amount of attention it deserves. For years I have talked about my dislike of the faction wall system that was first popularized by Dark Age of Camelot, and then carried forth into the modern genre of MMOs thanks to World of Warcraft adopting it. For many players they know nothing different than picking a red versus blue faction and living their entire gaming life’s within the confines of it. I think I struggle against this concept because I remember a time when this wasn’t necessarily the case. Lately I have been spending a lot of time playing my smuggler in Star Wars the Old Republic, and yes I realize that game is a very faction locked experience. However if you think of the Smuggler itself in the Star Wars mythos, it has always been a character that skirted the lines trying to exist in Republic, Imperial and Hutt space at the same time, carving their own path balancing between them all.

The problem is, other than the original Everquest no game really supports this notion. You cannot live between the faction lines making your own choices, instead you are asked to choose an allegiance that is about the most impersonal experience imaginable. The problem is that I feel no personal responsibility for choosing Horde or Alliance or in many cases Red or Blue. They don’t represent me as a person, and as such I have no real loyalty tied to them. However in Everquest you were assigned essentially a default template of allegiances based on your racial choice… but from that point on you could blur the lines at will. I remember spending copious amounts of time hunting Kobolds in the Warrens off of Toxxulia Forest, for the purpose of gaining faction in the otherwise aggressive city of Paineel. Why did I do this? Honestly for no real reason other than I could, and that I thought the city of Paineel was extremely cool in its layout. Sure I could have simply banked and quested at the far end of Toxxulia Forest in the already friendly city of Erudin, but instead I made the conscious choice to hang out with the Necromancers.

Sapping Creative Expression

The problem with the faction wall system is that it forces all of the players to essentially be the same person. Later games started throwing in optional faction grinds, but those grinds are always connected to “things”. Gain this much reputation with this faction and you will get a nifty sword, or a pretty mount… but otherwise once the current expansion is over they will be utterly meaningless from that point on. The problem here is that these tertiary faction choices don’t actually effect the players game experience. They don’t unlock new areas of the world, or more so close off other areas that the player did have access to. Granted in the early days of World of Warcraft they did manage to create a few of these Factions that did actually do interesting things. Namely I am talking about the back and forth seesaw of the Bloodsail Buccaneers and the assorted Goblin factions. If you were truly insane you could skirt a thin line between gaining faction with the Bloodsails but also doing faction repair work with the Goblins to make sure you were not ever hitting “Kill On Sight” status.

The problem here is… this was an isolated example that granted players access to a handful of boats in the ass end of the world. This area was made immediately irrelevant as soon as the Burning Crusade and subsequent expansions released. Instead as an Alliance player I always wanted to figure out a way to gain factions with the Tauren. They were the only Horde race that seemed to cling to any ideals I could get behind, and I thought it would have been so interesting to be able to gain faction in a way that would allow you to enter the town and do commerce there. Things are never completely black and white, and even in the lore there are characters that skirt the lines managing to be friendly to two different groups at the same time. The entire World of Warcraft experience would have been so much richer if it allowed players through sheer will to grind out their own niche that lay somewhere between the predetermined choices. I think it would have been interesting to allow players to create the ultimate “diplomat” that was friendly to essentially ALL of the races.

Fear for the Future

The problem with games being iterative is that once a feature set becomes common, it essentially stays there forever. This past weekend when we talked about Tron 2.0 in our AggroChat Game Club show, one of the lines of discussion was how the cultural norms for shooters have changed over the years. What used to be representative of most of the shooters that were out in 2003, is no longer recognizable through the lens of the basic feature set that we now have come to expect. World of Warcraft borrowed heavily from the games that came before it, and since it chose to go with a walled off faction system, games that have borrowed from it have essentially followed that mold. Red and Blue factions with their own walled off areas of play have become the template for how to build a game, and right now the only real evolution has been a return to three factions instead of just two. Sure games like Rift have torn down the wall and made faction into “fiction” but they have not really gone anywhere in the struggle of making faction a personal choice.

Now going back to the original thing that spurred this topic, Star Wars the Old Republic. How much more rich would the smuggler have been if you quite literally could have been a freelancer in action and not just name. The game does a decent job of making you feel like you live somewhere between the red and blue lines, and then when the second chapter happens it essentially rips all of that forcing you to align to the Republic faction. Sure you can still play a dark side Smuggler, but these aren’t “real” decisions with any sense of “real” lasting consequences. You can’t decide to say screw the republic and opt to live entirely in Hutt space or Imperial space. You can’t decide to say on Alderaan or Balmorra and improve your faction with one of the leaders, opening up new questing opportunities that are unavailable to the average player. Everquest is a game that I could never really play again, because I just can’t handle the essentially “primative” game client. There however are still things that the game got right, that no other game that I have played have really tried to copy. The problem is… right now I cannot see a game adopting a more real world faction system, without somehow turning it into a marketing focus and losing sight of all of the other things that have to be in place to make a game enjoyable. Essentially I want real factions… but still be able to keep all of the things that I have come to expect from an MMO to this point. Unfortunately I fear that the era of MMO experimental-ism is over… and at this point our feature set is locked in place just like the feature set of shooter is locked as well. In the meantime however… I will still carry a rose colored torch for this features that I wish I could have in modern games.