There was never really much of a chance I'd be able to post anything
meaningful about the launch of EverQuest II's eighteenth expansion,
Visions of Vetrovia on the day it hapened. Wednesday is one of my two
regular workdays (The other being Sunday) so I'd have been pushing my luck to
get home, get patched up, get in, get some screenshots and get them posted, even if all I'd
been planning was a "Postcards from Vetrovia" post. (That is all
I was planning.)
Even for something as perfunctory as that, I hadn't taken into account the length of time it takes the old game to power up for a new expansion. It's no Final Fantasy XIV with its twenty-four hour layoff but EQII usually takes a good few hours to get ready before throwing open the doors to the latest continent or planet or alternate dimension.
When I got home this evening they'd not long taken the servers down and as I type this they're still locked. It's scheduled to be a six-hour downtime so there's ninety minutes yet to go and that's if there's no overrun. There's usually some overrun.
Wilhelm has already posted the salient details, including a rather spiffy new launch video, which I'll also include just for the heck of it. I have to say that since the EG7 takeover (Or the assimilation of EG7 by Daybreak, whichever way you prefer to look at it.) something seems to have happened to the marketing department. Everything looks that little bit more polished and professional. Obviously not compared to a real game company but still...
That's not going to keep anyone entertained for long, though,is it? It only lasts a minute. Let's have something a bit meatier to pass the time while we wait for the doors to open.
Remember Wet Leg? When I posted their first video it was the only song they had and no-one knew who they were. Now Chaise Longue is closing in on two milion views on YouTube, they've released two more singles, they're about to release their first album, they've been marked as a band to watch by every music platform you care to mention, they've been on Jools Holland's Later and they've just done their first NPR Tiny Desk concert.
Let's have all of that, why don't we, because it's all well worth having.
That was the second single, Wet Dream. I thought the video tried a little too hard to be the follow-up video to that video but the song itself is wonderful, particularly the magnificent couplet"You said, "Baby, do you want to comе home with me? I got Buffalo '66 on DVD." Possibly the most disturbing chat-up line you'll ever hear. The Tiny Desk version is even better, too.
The video for third single, Too Late Now, is unsettling. I love it. The song doesn't seem like very much until about half way through, when it suddenly kicks up a gear and turns into something not unlike 88 Lines About 44 Women by The Nails, a tune I have loved always and then into something else that I keep thinking I'm about to put a name to but never do. I love songs that do that.
That's a lot of loving for one paragraph. This might calm things down.
The "Later" version of Chaise Longue is a bit mannered. I don't think any of them look one hundred per cent comfortable. I imagine there are a bunch of cameramen and technicians crawling around just inches away, which could be very offputting if you weren't used to it, I imagine. I'd much rather have seen them doing it in the TV studio with all the other bands watching, the way I'm used to with Later performances. It's always interesting to see who applauds and how energetically.
And finally the truly excellent Tiny Desk set. I recommend watching this all the way through. It's a joy not only to listen to but also to watch. The band seem far more relaxed and the setting is gorgeous. Whoever did the lighting is a genius. Apparently some of it was shot on VHS which might explain the oversaturated tone.
The set features the three singles plus one new song, "Oh No", from which the line "You're so woke/Diet Coke" leaps out. It also reveals a dangerous prog-folk edge to the band that I'm sure will surprise absolutely no-one.
Can't wait for the album.
<EDIT> While I was finishing this post the servers came up... and then they came down again. "All EverQuest II servers have been taken down to address a database issue. No ETA at this time." Quel surprise. I'll see how things stand tomorrow but I'm not counting any chickens. I don't, in fact, have any chickens but if I did I would be leaving them uncounted for the foreseeable future. I think that would be wisest.
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