eq2 online

The Official SOE Podcast #6

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:22:45 +0200

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby hosts this episode with Aimee “Ashlanne” Rekoske and Joel “Raijinn” Sasaki with Jason “Pex” Ryan reading the initial news segment.

They interview Tracy Seamster (Owlchick) “Design Goddess” of EQ2 and Coyote Sharptongue of Tentonhammer.

They also schlep for the PS3, discuss the whole “Are forums valuable?” thing, read “top ten signs you are in a bad raid,” and go into “What are you playing?” with the team and beyond. (Several people say WoW or EVE-Online.)

Echoes of Faydwer dominates the show. If you are not into that, you may want to echo the first poster on the show announcement thread in the Planetside forums.

“Enough EQ crap”

The show duration is 1 hour exactly, which smacks of some strict toilet training. It is available from the SOE PlanetSide site here as well as from iTunes.

(Thanks to the Planetside community relations people who actually pointed to the elusive show notes that are oft referred to but rarely linked.)

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The Small Group Adventure Path?

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:10:18 +0200

The fact that a couple of friends are headed back to EQ2 got me thinking about the small group instance experience that I and some other friends are doing right now in World of Warcraft.

WoW makes it pretty easy to have a dungeon crawl with a group (call it 4-5 people) at about any point from level 15 up to level 60. Blizzard leads you by the hand and points you in the right direction throughout your levels.

My question is, could you plan out a similar group progression in other MMORPGs? With enough knowledge, could you plan such a path in EQ, EQ2, GuildWars, Lineage II, Ryzom, or any of the other major MMORPGs in a way appropriate for a group of 4-5 people with about 4 hours of group play time a week and, say, another 2-4 hours of time in smaller numbers to take care of prerequisites or other side tasks?

Or is this something that is really a WoW exclusive? Is WoW the leader not only in solo-friendly level advancement, but also small group dungeon crawls as well?

I think in EQ2 you could follow the path of the heritage quests. There is some dungeon crawling in there and a couple of instances, but a lot of it is open zone competition for mobs.

Of course, I would not expect to find the exact same experience, nor would I necessarily preclude some group exp grinding as part of the experience. Group exp grinding is much less profitable in WoW than in EQ2 for example, so with EQ2 you might spend some time exp’ing as a group in interesting places.

Anyway, I am wondering if anybody has given this some thought or has a recommendation.

Two Friends Head Back to Norrath
Posted by Wilhelm2451 in EverQuest II, World of Warcraft. add a comment
Two friends in World or Warcraft have decided to head back to EverQuest II, which is where we played from the time EQII launched until last January, when we jumped over to WoW.

Both of them are more hardcore than I am and concentrated on getting a single character each to level 60 (unlike me and my 6 40-ish characters). Then they joined up with a raiding guild and proceeded to hit the big instances for the last couple of months.

However, the wear of regular raids into the same few places in hopes of getting this or that epic item finally began to tell. One of them writes the blog Trot Line, which I have in my links. He wrote a piece about the drain of regular raiding a few days back titled “End of Raiding?”

I am going to start pestering him to write about how EQII has changed in the 10 months or so since we last played there.

A lot has happened since then. Servers have been consolidated (our server, Crushbone, had the highest population last I checked), tradeskills have changed, an expansion has come out and another one is due soon, and a number of Live Updates have happened. I am curious to hear how things have progressed.

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Two Friends Head Back to Norrath

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:35:38 +0200

Two friends in World or Warcraft have decided to head back to EverQuest II, which is where we played from the time EQII launched until last January, when we jumped over to WoW.

I am going to start pestering him to write about how EQII has changed in the 10 months or so since we last played there.

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In Defense of Instancing

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 23:21:08 +0200

I have read and heard a bit over the last couple of months about instancing and how it is not the way things should be. And there are some legitimate complaints about instancing. The primary one I have seen runs along the lines of, “You’re not part of the world experience if you can have your own private instance of something like a dungeon.” Richard Bartle, in his 2004 article “Why Virtual Worlds are Designed By Newbies - No, Really!” goes further and makes the specific assertion that instancing leads to “boredom and disenchantment.”

I represent a fairly casual player demographic these days. The seemingly endless hours of youth are now just a memory. From this point of view, instancing is actually saving me from boredom and disenchantment in addition to enhancing the immersive nature of the game.

On the boredom and disenchantment side of things I could go on for a while. There is nothing more boring or disenchanting than having some free time on a Saturday night to get together with some friends in-game and finding a dozen or more other people working the same quests as you, or having a party of higher level players step right over you and blow away every mob you were working your way towards, or finally getting through a dungeon only to find that there are three groups waiting for the mob you want. That leads to a lot more boredom and disenchantment on my part.

And all of that is immersion breaking as well. In fact, the breaking of the immersive nature of MMOs seems to me to be a bigger issue. Having that immersive dungeon crawl experience is next to impossible without instancing. I do not want something like Deadmines in WoW to be a competition between my group of friends with appropriate level characters trying to have a real dungeon experience and a seemingly endless train of level 60’s rushing their low level friends through to VanCleef so they can get some spiffy piece of rare equipment which they probably will barely use in their headlong rush to level 60.

A traffic jam in a dungeon is not immersive.

In fact, if you think back to the pen and paper days, adventurers were a rare breed, an exception to the general populace. Long lines of groups seeking an armed audience with the man-hydra VanCleef and his ever regrowing head are totally out of character with the adventurer spirit. That spirit should be more Lewis & Clark and less Disneyland’s Jungle Safari ride.

The lonely dungeon crawl with just you and your friends represents how things ought to be, to me at least, rather than the crowd scenes I recall at popular dungeons in EverQuest and EverQuest II.

Of course, I do miss the random, positive social interaction in such places: The person who drops an un-asked-for buff on you just to be nice, the other group you join forces with to accomplish a great deed, the poor guy all by himself on whom you have pity and let join your group and who ends up in your guild and becomes a good friend. I experienced all of those situations and more in EverQuest and EverQuest II. But are they worth the price of giving up instancing? I do not think so. There is time and opportunity for that in the rest of the predominately un-instance world, which is where I spend most of my time anyway.

A natural rebuttal to my thoughts is, “Go play NeverWinter Nights” or some similar game. That would certainly give the immersive experience and would be cheaper to boot!

The problem is, I sold my copy of NeverWinter Nights (with all of the expansions) to a kid up the street at our last garage sale for the grand sum of $5. Why? Because being in a world that is live, vibrant, and full of people who are kind, annoying, helpful, obnoxious, dull, wise, clueless, witty, and every combination in between is the real addictive part of MMOs. It is why people live in cities. We want to be around people, even if we might not want to interact with them at any given moment.

So let there be instancing in the proper measure!

Of course, this might brand me as a noob… but I never claimed to anything else!

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The Official SOE Podcast #5

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:57:07 +0200

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby hosts this episode which features a slightly new format that has some quick news up front and then more in depth game discussion after. Featured in the episode are EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, Matrix Online, and StarWars Galaxies along with some words about ESRB ratings and the dynamics of beer and bananas.

The show duration is 50 minutes. It is available from the SOE PlanetSide site here as well as from iTunes.

[I do wish that the SOE Podcast had a real “home.” It came up on iTunes about an hour before I could find a link to it on any SOE site. I guess that is a topic to send to feedback@soe.sony.com!]
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The Official SOE Podcast #4

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 02:30:35 +0200

Alan “Brenlo” Crosby and Ryan “Blackguard” Shwayder open up the podcast. They briefly cover the Austin Game Conference, Ryan’s departure from SOE, the EQ Serpent’s Spine expansion, the EQ2 Echo’s of Faydwer expansion, and that the SOE Podcast is moving to an every other week schedule.

Following that there is:

-A long Planetside segment (roughly 1/3 of the podcast) that includes questions from players.

-An EverQuest Online Adventures segment that is all questions from the player community

-An EverQuest II segment covering expansions in general and upcoming Echoes of Faydwer expansion specifically and which ends with a “song.”

And the show wraps up with out takes.

There is no EQ segment as the Serpent’s Spine expansion is in the process of launching this week so the EQ team was all way too busy.

The show duration is 58 minutes. It is available on the EQ2 Players site here as well as on iTunes.

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Blackguard and the SOE Podcast

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:27:07 +0200

This morning I read the announcement that Ryan Shwayder, known as Blackguard on the SOE forums, was leaving his position as the community relations manager for EverQuest 2. This will no doubt be a blow to Sony. No person is irreplaceable, but he has a passion for games in general and EQ2 in particular that he is able to communicate when speaking or writing. This can be difficult in a large corporate environment. (My own company just issued its 36th “soulless press release from the undead” this year, so my test for passion is to compare it against those, which are… what is the opposite of passion? Well, whatever it is, these are in the same ZIP code.)

You can find his farewell on the SOE forums here and a similar but not identical note on his own blog here.

While I have never interacted with Blackguard in person, I find I own him a debt.

As I understand it, he was a driving force in getting the official SOE podcast going.

And the SOE podcast was the first podcast to which I ever bothered to listen.

A lot of people criticized the first SOE podcast, and with good reason. It was heavily scripted and pretty lifeless, but there was enough there to show me that podcasts were a viable information source for the MMO world. Even though I do not play EQ or EQ2 currently, I still remain interested in what is going on with the game, and with a podcast I can avoid the various forums which I find physically painful to read most days.

I began looking for other podcasts covering gaming in general and MMOs in particular and have found a couple to which I now listen regularly. They in turn have expanded the amount of news I get about the MMO world and blah blah blah. I will write more about other podcasts at another time.

Anyway, thank you Blackguard! Good luck on your new path!

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Blackguard and the SOE Podcast

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:21:29 +0200

You can find his farewell on the SOE forums here and a similar but not identical note on his own blog here.

While I have never interacted with Blackguard in person, I find I own him a debt.

As I understand it, he was a driving force in getting the official SOE podcast going.

And the SOE podcast was the first podcast to which I ever bothered to listen.

Anyway, thank you Blackguard! Good luck on your new path!

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An Apology ~

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:10:04 +0200

I’ve fallen into a trap of trying to provide expertise on MMO theory and reporting on things I probably know nothing about nor should really feel like I am qualified about. I guess I just see others doing the same thing, and it’s not really something I should be involved with. So if you’ve been reading the blogs and really feel like I’ve kinda strayed away from what my intentions were at the beginning of these blogs, really sorry, not sure why I changed my posting subjects, so I’m really trying to refocus back to what the blogs were about, my gaming experiences.

So, if you were getting frustrated or annoyed at my entries, I’ll really work on trying to move them back over to the original intent.

Thanks for reading and appreciate all the wonderful feeback and positive motivation! I’m having a blast blogging!

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title-2738285

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:04:26 +0200

I?ve fallen into a trap of trying to provide expertise on MMO theory and reporting on things I probably know nothing about nor should really feel like I am qualified about. I guess I just see others doing the same thing, and it?s not really something I should be involved with. So if you?ve been reading the blogs and really feel like I?ve kinda strayed away from what my intentions were at the beginning of these blogs, really sorry, not sure why I changed my posting subjects, so I?m really trying to refocus back to what the blogs were about, my gaming experiences. So, if you were getting frustrated or annoyed at my entries, I?ll really work on trying to move them back over to the original intent. Thanks for reading and appreciate all the wonderful feeback and positive motivation! I?m having a blast blogging!

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Do Subscriptions = Profits?

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 16:20:44 +0200

Statistically speaking, Everquest is a very small fry compared to the Super-sized game of World of Warcraft. However, just because a large number of players are playing a game, does that alone make a company profitable? Sony’s Everquest 2, this by assumption only, has roughly 250K (at max) subscribers that play the game, whereas Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (in documented articles) has as many as 8 million players. That’s exponentially larger revenue than Everquest 2. But does that mean that Blizzard is eating steak and potatoes while the people over and SoE is eating bread and water? Not necessarily, in my opinion.

People can rant and rave about how great WoW is compared to EQ2, and how EQ2 should do this and that, and that WoW is the back breaker to SOE and it’s future, but let’s look at it from a business standpoint. The following numbers are all hypothetical and hold no real value only to proove the case at hand. These are only my assumptions and opinions and should not be used or taken out of context.

This is only assuming that players are paying by the month, which is completely not the case in most situations ( I know this), but for base numbers only, we’ll assume they are:

Everquest 2 Number of Players: 250,000 max
Average Subscription Rate: $14.99 EA/month

Total Revenue: $3,747,500.00 max /month

World of Warcraft Number of Players: 8,000,000 max
Average Subscription Rate: $14.99 EA/month

Total Revenue: $119,920,000.00 max/month

Blizzard has 32 times more monthly revenue that SOE does for the games we have listed. That’s not a small amount of difference, it’s a huge amount of difference. Overhead is substantial obviously with constant R&D, maintanence, marketing, etc… I can only assume that Blizzard has a much higher overhead and SOE studios does. However, does that mean that SOE is a flop here? Not exactly, in fact, not at all if planned correctly.

To the point of the post we go. Blizzard is in a very sensitive situation at this time since it seems to have all its eggs in one basket. They obviously have other fish in the fryer, but they have the majority of it’s product in WoW. Sure SoE has games that are not as popular as Blizzard, but they have the fries/shakes to go with the burger. They have Vanguard, Matrix Online, SWG, Planetside… and more to come in the near future. So rather than being all revenue coming from the majority of one game, SoE has implemented a risk reducer by generating revenue throughout their entire gaming platforms, with intelligently offering the service of STATION PASS or individual subscription rates. It’s a very safe investment and will prevent from a massive fallout. Wheras with Blizzard, a fallout could be the end of a gaming giant.

It will be interesting to see how World of Warcraft does within the next 6 months. As they are now implementing “dummy down” patches to allow people to pass through obstacles in the game that were originally set for time sinked, high tiered players. These casual gamers can now access alot of the higher end content without much time invested as its original intent. Blizzard has a slower release model as does SOE, and it’s been a huge selling point as of recently that SOE releases a ton of very impressive free content, yearly expansions, and a ton of free addons. However, Blizzard has only release one expansion since it’s release in 2004. I will be watching with binoculars the movement of these MMO giants in the next couple of months.

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Fear not… things to come

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:46:56 +0200

I guess I gave a little misinformation concerning the reasons for disbanding wordpress, and in the works of expanding to new horizons on a mass scale.

I am currently in the works of trying to learn about my own website hosting, and ability for site arrangements, blog inserting, domains, and even PODCASTING ability. So stick around after the jump to find out where this is all going, it’s been a learning experience and just taking a little more time than I thought it would.

Till Then……………

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Vivox & Sony Online Entertainment Possible?

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 16:39:21 +0200

Besides finding out that the Apple TV can be hacked to play youtube videos, I haven’t really been doing too much more today.

We all know how key communication is a vital quality in real time massive multi-playing online role playing games. With the thousands of gamers using voice chat software like Teamspeak and Ventrillo, it was only a matter of time before a major corporation would step in and provide massive service on a large scale for profit.

Well Vivox is changing the way we communicate in the virtual online setting and taking it by the horns (us Texans would say). If you are not familar with Vivox or have heard of them, Vivox is the next generation online communication company that is shaping the future for online MMOs. Not only do they provide voice communication, but they also provide Instant Messaging, Video, and Audio in an online environment. I really think these guys are a company to watch in the coming months to years. I’d definetely buy stock if they went public.

In October of 2006, RPG Vault did a great interview with Vivox and then in Febuary, they made a very large major agreement with Linden Lab, creators of Second Life to implement Vivox services. This is a major step in the up position and it now gives them a major reference, and leverage for future contracts. I really feel there’s some things in the works and that these guys are going to explode very soon.

I’m really interested to know if SoE would be able to incorporate these guys into the game. No more holding a button and talking in the TS server. It’s all crisp and clear, no buttons to press or hold, I can just imagine how amazing this would be in Everquest 2. SoE is always looking for something to differentiate themselves from their ever-growing list of competitors in the MMO market and I think if they can jump on this, would be a pretty nice slash in the achilles tendon of it’s closest competitors.
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Help is here - Adornments and their use

Sat, 21 Jul 2007 16:15:27 +0200

Adornments, ah yes… Sony’s innovative approach to enhance the added ability to customize your character even more. It’s definetly a part of the equation to beef up the play of your character. From increasing base stats, proccing power drain, adding healing/damage points of spells and abilities, to even a safefall damage reducer, adornments have a multiple number of added incentives to the player to gain that advantage over the mobs in the game.

But how do you determine what adornments are the best choices for you? And who makes all these crazy adornments? Don’t be confused in assuming that one particular class makes adornments, because that’s not the case at all. Just about every tradeskill profession has some sort of adornment to offer, obviously some better than others, but every professions has a role.

First, let’s determine specifically what adornements are. Adornments are added permanent affects, that can be traded, but but only be used ONCE on an item. You can use an adornment on an item to upgrade it’s value, but you will lose the original adornment placed on the item. Items that are adorned will show the added effect either in yellow, or blue if it’s a base stat modifier.There’s some items that cannot be adorned, like items that are ORNATE or others. This very grey field is still being discussed on a daily basis, since it’s unclear if SOE did this intentionally, or left out the ability to adorn certain items. You’ll need to pay attention.

A great basic guide is located here:

http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=g108

As you can see, each tier specifies a different type of needed ingredients. From powders to fragments to Infusions… each tier will require it’s specific ingredient.

More specifically, this link will provide you with added information concerning the specific profession needed to make the appropriate adornment.

http://www.eq2ref.com/adornments/

Because it’s so difficult to determine what adornments are the best for your particular class, it’s best to just go through the supplied link above and contact the appropriate professions to make the adornment for you.

Generically speaking, the following guide will help you first in trying to determine the adornments by slots, but again like I said, probably best to visit the above link for specifics.

WRISTS- Wrists appear to be made by basically any profession class, this is the only adornment that that can be made by any class.

BOWS- WOODWORKER

-Talk with your local woodworker about Bow adornments. The ability to add slashing damage or piercing damage can be made from them.

CHESTS - ALCHEMISTS

-Alchemists make chest adornments. +base factor to STR/STA/AGI/WIS/INT is the most desired of the 3 that they can make, which will require a legendary transmuted piece.

CLOAKS - PROVISIONER/TAILOR

-Provisioner will make an increase in In combat health or power regen (3 max) and the tailor will make the infamour decrease same fall dmg adornment. Neither is a real factor. Don’t pay much for these,it’s not worth it.

EARS - JEWELER

-Base stat addition is the overall best adornment to be made here. +INT or +AGI is the most recommended adornment in this category slot.

FEET - ARMORER

-Another stat addition is the best adornment to be acquired here. +STA is usually a good choice here, but +AGI is also an option

FOREARMS - ARMORER

-Don’t forget to also ask your armor for the forearm adornment. For a tank class +SLA/CRU/PIE is a great adornment to pick, although some casters will argue that +WIS adornment would be a great choice here as well.

HANDS - TAILOR

-DD Casters would choose +DMG spell, while healers (including Paladins) would choose the +HEAL effects adornment here. This is an extremely important slot for casters. Pure tanks on the other hand may be interested in the +AGI adornment instead.

HEAD - TAILOR

-Tailors will make tons of money on this adornment slot. +pure power is the most sought after adornment. At level 70, it’s +100 power. For those that have too much power as it is (which is noone really ) +WIS is the secondary option.

LEGS - ARMORER

-Yet another base stat added adornment. Choose the best for your class based on +WIS or +STA or +STR

NECK - JEWELER / WEAPONSMITH

-There’s a fabled DOT Adornment made by Jewelers, but honestly, it’s not even worth mentioning. The Jeweler can make a couple of important ones here. Increase DPS/s Increase spell dmg or pure tanks will appreciate the increase attacked speed modified. Healers will be houding Weaponsmiths for the next effects of Increasing Healing effects.

RING - ALCHEMIST (ASSUME T6 RING)

-Skip all the hype here and find a T6 alchemist to make you a +HP pure ring. At this tier, they will add +70HP on each ring. And yes, you can have 2 of them.

SHIELD - WOODWORKER

-There’s 2 adornments that work here and to keep an eye out for. I think that most will get the +vs SLA/CRU/PIE adornement, but a portion may prefer the proc heal when damage is taken.

SHOULDERS - TAILOR

-The adornment here is really the +HP base. Again at level 70, it’s +100. For those with too much HP you have an option also of base stat +STA or +STR

SYMBOL - CARPENTER

-Thought I forgot about this slot huh? Depending on the type of caster, you may need to individually research the best adornment for you since it’s very specific to a type of caster you are. Again, see the above links for additional information concerning it.

WAIST - ARMORER

-Not much to choose from here +dis/sub(CASTERS), +1% ranged crit(SCOUTS) or +Attack Speed modifier(TANKS). Really it’s a preference on class to pick

I will not cover the weapon adornments in the particular guide because there’s so many to choose from. I have no opinion as it would basically depend on your class, your AA spec, etc… So you’ll need to research this yourselves.

Nonetheless, I hope this guide helps you in your next adornment business transaction, whether it’s bought or made for you. I hope this will assist ya.

/cheers
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