A Little Something On Account

Between us, Mrs Bhagpuss and I have seven Daybreak accounts. I made the first when I bought EverQuest in 1999. As soon as Mrs Bhagpuss watched me playing she wanted a go so we shared that account for a couple of months, in flagrant breach of the EULA.

We didn't really need Sony Online Entertainment's contract enforcement team to tell us that was a bad idea. As our desire to play expanded to fill most of the available hours it soon became clear we didn't just need separate accounts, we needed separate PCs.

An account each was fine for the first few years. Our shared origins made for a few problems now and then but mostly we settled down to me using the original and Mrs Bhagpuss using the newer one.

That arrangement didn't last as long as you might imagine. Somewhere along the line, for reasons I can no longer remember, we swapped. In short order each of us ended up with yet more characters on both accounts. Don't ask me why. I'm sure it made sense at the time.

The 66-slot backpack as it looks from the outside.

Fortunately for both of us, all of that only ever really applied to EverQuest. We managed, by and large, to keep our characters and accounts seperate in EverQuest II and only I ever played any of the other All Access titles.

We'd probably still have just the two accounts if it hadn't been for one of John "Smed" Smedley's brilliant wheezes. He experienced a damascene conversion to the free to play model and, despite a determined rearguard action by a substantial cadre of veteran players, managed to drag the entire business around to his "free to play - your way" of thinking.

The transition began cautiously with a new f2p server, Freeport. I can't now recall exactly how the whole thing worked but I seem to remember that to play there you needed a new account unsullied by subscription payments. Or possibly we just thought it would be tidier that way. Better late than never, I guess.

Whatever the reason, Mrs Bhagpuss and I made new accounts and  started over. Freeport was a great success and we were very happy there for several years. It remains one of my favorite servers in any game although sadly, like most of the really good ones, it no longer exists. It was merged and merged again until all that remains is a legacy title that I proudly display above the heads of my Old Freeportians.

We'd have stopped at four accounts if it hadn't been for another of SOE's half-baked fancies. EQII had muddled along perfectly happily for many years with the best housing offer in MMORPGs. It could have gone on like that indefinitely but there always has to be someone who thinks they can do better, doesn't there?

Apparently what decorators had been missing all these years was competition! Cut-throat competition. A whole set of league tables was created, with awards and prizes and titles and guess what? All hell broke loose.

Smed's always been strong on PvP, even when it's seemed a bad fit for some of the games under his watch but I don't think even he could have imagined the mayhem his little sideshow would unleash. Housemakers couldn't actually beat each other to death with ulthork's foot umbrella stands but they found plenty of ways to turn what had been a polite mutual appreciation society into a self-declared celebrity death match.

No-one cares about the mechanics any more so I won't attempt to recount them. Suffice to say we made another three accounts because if you want to win a popularity contest the more votes you can keep in your pocket the better.

Born too late.

All of which is a very long preamble to explain how it was that I came to be logging in seven accounts this morning, five of which haven't seen daylight for several years. My goal was to secure for each of them the very excellent Great Escape Crate that I mentioned a couple of days ago. I'm not sure if the offer is time-limited but better safe than sorry. Wouldn't want to miss out on something I'm never going to use on characters I'm never going to play. Forget the irony, just give me the stuff!

It's not as though it was the first time, after all. All the accounts have Heroic characters on them from previous giveaways, including Mrs. Bhagpuss's. She hasn't even logged in to EQII since before Heroic characters existed but I always log in her accounts to grab a free Heroic if there's one going.

Across my own accounts and the "neutral" ones I appear to have boosted have no fewer than three Ratonga shadowknights as well as an Iksar warlock and a Ratonga bruiser, who even has the same name as the one I'm playing on my regular account. I don't remember making any of them, although a couple seem to have been played, at least a little. I still have plenty of Heroic tokens left, too, if I feel like making some more.

Why, yes, thank you. I would like another ratonga.

As I was searching through the Claim window for the current promotion I noticed a number of other freebies I seem to have missed. One of Mrs Bhagpuss's accounts had something that particularly struck my eye, an unlock for the Freeblood vampire race, normally available only through the cash shop.

That unlock came with something called the Velious Winter Rewards, which I vaguely remember. It was part of a promotion back in the winter of 2010/11. It happened back before my current account even existed, which explains why I don't have one. Or at least not on that account. I checked my old main account, though, and not only do I have the unlock there, I've already claimed it!

So I could have made a Freeblood any time in the last decade. Why didn't I? I have no explanation. I even have a free character slot on that account. Maybe I'll go make one now.

In fact, if I wanted, I could go on a character-making spree. I discovered this morning all the free accounts and one of the formerly-subbed ones had something called the EverQuest II Adventurer's Pack waiting to be claimed. It contains a couple of two-hour 100% xp potions and a character slot unlock.

Where did that come from? Google couldn't tell me and neither could the forums, although I did find this useful link that gives you a complete list of every flag on your account. You can also use the in-game command /show_account_features although it only gives you the highlights.

From that I can see that my main account doesn't own the Adventurer's Pack and never did.Why? No clue. It's a pity, though. I could have done with another character slot on the account I actually play rather than on all the ones I don't. I guess I could start multi-boxing...

I was so sure I'd used all of these...

There are so many more things waiting in Claim for me to either get around to using or deciding who should have them. Every account gets Veteran Rewards these days and even the free accounts are up to Year 10. There's only one more to come after that before Daybreak stopped counting. They went to loyalty points from Year Twelve onwards. You get those from doing dailies. I have about twelve hundred of them.

I also used all my Legends of Norrath packs just as the card game was about to sunset so I have a bunch of prizes from there, scattered across several accounts. Some of those are very nice. The only problem is I can't decide who should get them so they just sit there in /claim. I look at them once in awhile and it makes me happy.

Then there's all the Goblin Games tickets. That was a quasi-cash shop thing that got discontinued years ago. I thought I'd used all mine but at some point there must have been a giveaway because all the accounts have stacks of fifteen.

I did a few goblin games this morning. The prizes are pretty good but because SOE was trying to get around the lottery laws you have to play an actual game to make it "game of skill" not a "lottery", even though it's a game a blindfolded monkey would win every time.

Plus some bright spark thought it would be nifty to have an actual goblin that spawns and invites you to an actual goblin cave, meaning you have to have a conversation and zone in and out every time you use a ticket. I run out of patience after about five goes.

None of this would be a problem if EQII hadn't always been so extraordinarily generous with the free gifts. It's not just a load of old tat. It's quality stuff. Stuff you want to have. And there's a lot of it.

Maybe I'll take this opportunity to go through the whole shebang and hand things out to whoever needs, wants, will use. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Only I'd probably need to be on lockdown until this time next year to get through it all.

Best not tempt fate. I guess it's safe enough where it is.

A Casual Affair : EverQuest

When Daybreak announced a few weeks ago that they were planning a "casual" progression server for EverQuest's twentieth birthday I got quite excited. I've been playing EQ, on and off, for the whole of those twenty years but it's been a long time since I last had a character at the level cap.

Building on yesterday's theme of expansions, there are few things that change the playing field so much as an increase in the Level Cap. If you came to MMORPGs via  World of Warcraft, as so many did, you might well believe that an increase in levels is a given when a new expansion drops. With the exception of Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, which each added just five, WoW expansions come with ten levels included.

Had EverQuest followed that pattern, the level cap in old Norrath would now be somewhere close to three hundred. Despite being five years older and having released more than three times as many expansions, it's actually lower than WoW's. Battle for Azeroth took the cap to 120. EQ's last level increase, coming with the Ring of Scale expansion in 2017, went to 110.

Looking at the list of cap increases on Wikipedia, Sony Online Entertainment was surprisingly conservative from the start, especially when you consider that in those early days leveling up your character was the beating heart of the game. There were fifty levels at launch.That jumped to sixty with the first expansion, Ruins of Kunark, then held steady for two and a half years, two more expansions, until Planes of Power arrived in late 2002, bringing an increase of just five levels, making 65 in all.

That set the pattern for a while. There were four more expansions before Omens of War moved the bar to 70. Although no-one knew it at the time, that wasn't how it was supposed to go: one of the reasons the preceding expansion, Gates of Discord, was such a disaster was that the content had been tuned in the expectation that everyone would be Level 70 when they got past the opening zones. Someone forgot to put the extra five levels in the box.

My original Firiona Vie ranger, born Oct 9 2001.

EQ's endgame sat at Level 70 for four more expansions, until the semi-reboot of 2006's The Serpent's Spine took it to 75. At that point something changed. The next three expansions arrived with five levels apiece and since then it's been a comparative sprint to 110.

Raising the cap brings a lot of problems for any MMORPG still looking to attract new players or bring prodigals back into the fold. That's how we ended up with Heroic Characters and expansions that come with a Level Boost as part of the deal.

For some reason that I can't quite fathom, while Daybreak has been perfectly happy for EQ2 to put max level boosts in the imaginary box and hand out free gear to bring anyone and everyone up to the required starting spec, they don't offer anything similar for the elder game. The best you can do in EverQuest is to pay $35 for a "Heroic Character", which takes you to the giddy heights of Level 85, twenty-five levels below the cap.

There's a seven page thread about this on the forums, in which even the hardcore veterans, usually so dismissive of anything that smacks of EZMode, generally agree that 85 is ridiculous and should be raised, probably to either 100 or 105. As someone comments on the final page of the thread, though, "7 pages and not one word from a DBG person. I guess we know how seriously they take this request."

This is where I was hoping the upcoming "Casual" server would save us. I imagined a ruleset with accelerated XP, faster than currently available on Live, and very possibly a bunch of other adjustments to make leveling quicker and easier, such as more frequent spawns and faster travel. The current plan is very much not that.

It seems that both Daybreak's and the current playerbase's idea of "casual" is radically different from mine. DBG have interpreted it as involving slower xp than a regular Live server, although faster than the slowed-down Progression servers. About the only other difference from Live is the sequential unlocking of expansions at one a month. Since the plan is to open the server at Shadows of Luclin, the third expansion, that would bring the "Casual" server, Selos, to parity with Live in just two years.

The reaction to this has been vitriolic. Almost no-one likes it. The other new Progression server, the supposedly Hardcore Mangler, which has even slower xp and longer unlocks, is being seen as more casual because apparently "casual" means "very, very slow" to a lot of people. Who knew? Selos, with its fast unlocks, is reckoned by many to be ideal for the Hardcore because it means more raids opening sooner.

Firiona Vie's Plane of Knowledge: pop. "too many to count"

DBG have gone away to think about this for a while, acknowledging that they may have misjudged their audience. They are getting a lot better at doing that these days (aknowledging their mistakes, that is - they were always good at making them).

I took the trouble to post my own thoughts about what I would want from a "casual" server but I think I'm shouting into a bucket. There will be an announcement later this week to say what, if anything, they are going to change but I don't anticipate getting the faster xp and easier conditions I was hoping for. I think Selos is out.

I would still like to get a character closer to the cap without having to go uphill in the snow both ways to do it. And there are options.

The Test server has always had permanent double XP running. I even have characters there, although not on the All Access account. I could make a Heroic Character there and start at 85 with decent gear but there are enough disadvantages to playing on Test to offset that somewhat.

Not quite capped. You can have 500 traders. Pretty darn close though.

Test comes with extra resets and brand new bugs as it does what it's there to do - test content. There's no economy so you can't buy anything in The Bazaar, something I rely on for gearing up. What's more, if I ever did hit the cap and wanted to do some actual grouping, that's not going to happen: Test has a population in the single figures during my normal play hours.

There's one more possibility and it's something I hadn't even considered until I started fact-checking for this post. The "role-playing" server, Firiona Vie, has apparently had a permanent 50% xp boost running since 2010. No wonder it almost always shows "High" on the Server Status page!

I do, in fact, have a character on Firiona Vie, although once again it's not on my current paid account. Mrs Bhagpuss and I started characters there back when the server launched, when it did, briefly, have an actual roleplaying ruleset, including the hilarious mechanic that made everyone speak only in their own racial language until they could get someone to teach them the Common tongue.

Whether it's worth starting over, even from level 85, just to get a 50% leveling boost I'm not sure. It might be. I think I might at least go over to FV and have a wander around to get a feel for the place. I hear it's... different.

Much better would be if DBG would decide to bundle a Level 100 or 110 Boost with the next expansion, assuming there is one. I'd get my wallet out for that.

Remind Me Why I don't Live Here Again? : EQ2

Even though it happened today, I can't quite bring to mind the exact sequence of events that led to my creating a level 100 Fury on the Test Server. I think it started with the latest announcement about Everquest 2's upcoming expansion, Chaos Descending, which popped up in my Feedly this morning.

I've managed to fix it so I get the official PR puffs as they're released, rather than having to rely on spotting them on EQ2Traders or waiting until Wilhelm posts something. I've also worked out why I was getting my EQ2 news in French and put a stop to that. As it happens I can read French pretty well but that doesn't mean I want to.

There wasn't a lot in the latest post. Just the time and date for the now-inevitable Livestream, when a handful of self-conscious game developers will take an hour or so to deliver forty-five seconds of detail about the expansion. If you want to sit through it all you'll need to be on Facebook Live at 10am Pacific on Tuesday, October 9th.

Around about then I plan to be sitting on the balcony of a hotel somewhere in the Sierra de Grazalema, drinking a cold beer. I guess I could watch it on my tablet but I'm not going to.

It did make me think about what I might miss while I'm away, though. Mrs Bhagpuss and I generally go away for a week or ten days in October and sometimes we miss out on the start of Halloween in this game or that. We missed the very first Halloween in GW2 as I recall, which was a shame.

I think that's what made me go to the EQ2 Forums to see when the Nights of the Dead event begins in Norrath. I was also wondering whether there'd be anything new this year. I was guessing not. With its limited resources these days, Daybreak seems to be rowing back on the creation of a new quest for every holiday, every year - and honestly, there already more quests for the big holidays than most people are going to get through anyway.

It occured to me that NotD might already be up on Test and indeed it is! There's also a feedback thread right at the top of the first page of the In Testing section of the forum. And at the top of that there's the full running order for the event itself.

I was right about there being no new quest but there will be new stuff:

New Features for '18!

• TLE Server
  • Fallen Gate - All of the event is active, except a lost necklace cannot be looted from A Gleaming Chest in The Hedge Hollow!
• New Collection!
  • Grave Memories (added to Wake the Dead content)
• New costume illusions available from holiday merchants!
  • Hobgoblin
  • Aviak Stormrider
• The Nights of the Dead merchants have new things to sell!
  • Celebrations of the Dead XI
  • New mount!
  • New house items!
  • New equipment!
  • New Petamorph Wands!

I read the whole thread, which mentions a couple of other new bits and pieces and exemplifies the long-running, collaborative relationship between EQ2's developers and players - well, some of them. It's a wonderful antidote the negativity so prevalent in the Live threads.

As I was there, I happened to notice another thread, by Wilhelmina, Europe's answer to America's Niami Denmother and yet another player who was creating content before the term content creator was... um... created. The thread was entitled Free Level 100 Heroic On Test. That got my attention alright.

Wilhelmina has a clear and concise explanation of how to get your near-max level character for nothing, so rather than go over the same ground I'll quote her word for word:

• choose level 100 heroic on the launcher

• Once in game, proceed to Qeynos Harbor (on the docks, between the two gates leading to chronomages and loyalty) or East Freeport (on the docks, next to the door to South FP) and speak to Finch

• Buy the level 100 adventure bauble and use it

• Your char is now an unlocked heroic character, congrats!

As I've mentioned often, Mrs Bhagpuss and I played on Test for the best part of five years. We had some right old adventures there. Dramas, too. I have a whole load of characters on Test for whom I feel a great affection.

Before we moved to Freeport when it launched - and never came back (not planned, just happened) - several of our Test characters were max level, which was 90 at the time. They still are. I wondered whether I could use the free boost to level them up some.

Well, obviously I couldn't. Had I read Wilhelmina's notes properly I would have known that. She clearly and correctly states that you have to make a new character using the appropriate "Instant Level 100" button on the launcher. Reading comprehension for, as they say, the win.

I logged my 90 Ratonga Bruiser out and made a Ratonga Fury instead. I wasn't going to go ratonga at first. I spotted that on Test you can make a free Freeblood, EQ2's vampire race, something that has always required a cash shop purchase on Live.

I tried. I flipped through a dozen or so random variations in character creation. They were all unmitigatedly hideous. More Nosferatu than Count Dracula. Knowing I was getting something for nothing wasn't enough to persuade me to make one, even just to run around for a few minutes to get screenshots for this post.

In the end I decided on (yet) another Ratonga, why not? Can't have too many ratongas. At least the class was something new. I don't have a Fury on Test and I've never successfully played one for long on Live. Always thought it was a class I'd enjoy but somehow it never quite seems to happen.

I followed Wilhelmina's instructions and in a few minutes I had a permanent Level 100 Fury. It was very straightforward but there are just a few things to be aware of, should anyone decide to try it for themselves:

There's the usual astonishingly loud DING! when you log into the world for the first time, followed by a flurry of opening windows and flashing achievements. Don't be scared! It's quite safe!

For some arcane reason (actually because it was the main Level 100 content at the time this boost was added) you appear on the dock in Phantom Sea. Don't be scared! It's quite safe! So long as you don't move.

Luckily you spawn within arm's reach of a World Bell. Use that to go to either Qeynos (if you're a goodie) or Freeport (if you're bad).

After you speak to Finch and get your Level 100 Adventurer Bauble and use it, as well as losing your temp flag and becoming Level 100 for the duration, you'll also get a mount and a box of gear. DO NOT USE EITHER OF THEM!

Okay, you can use them. As in you can equip the mount in the appearance slot if you want. I wouldn't. I did and I regretted it. It looks great but it moves like a boat in a force 9 gale. You will feel seasick riding it. 

Also you probably do want to open the pack, if only to to get the extremely large stacks of potions - they go to 900 where the ones you got as a try-out character only go to 10. The gear itself, though, is without exception much worse than what you already have on.   

Not that it matters much because if you carry on then the first thing on your agenda is to do Yun Zi's 2017 questline, which will render even the better of your two free sets completely obsolete. Someone really ought to do a logic pass on this stuff once in a while...

If you decide to carry on playing, don't try to level up. You can't. Not unless you buy the Planes of Prophecy expansion. Maybe that will get added to Test as a freebie when Chaos Descending, er, descends...

And finally, don't forget your free Level 100 Tradeskill boost. It would cost you 3,500 DBC on Live - that's like $30! And this one does work on existing characters!

I just bumped my Level 90 Sage to Level 100 and I'm going to get myself a full set of all the trade skills at Level 100. There are nine of them and I have ten characters. Why not?


When we used to duo on Test, Mrs Bhagpuss and I covered all the crafts between us. You need to be self-sufficient because you can't rely on buying what you need (Test has no economy to speak of) and while everyone is astoundingly helpful, sometimes there's just no-one around when you need a spell or a potion made.


Test is actually a fantastic place to play EQ2 if you're a self-reliant individualist. It has a permanent 100% bonus to xp, you can buy things from NPC vendors that aren't sold on Live (like all the Advanced spell books) and now you even get to start at Level 100 if you want.

Maybe I should play there...

Never Enough : Free Heroic Characters For EQ2 (Again!)

There may come a time when I find myself thinking "You know what? I really have too many characters already. I think I'm going to give this free Level 100 thing a pass". That time is not now.

I knew, the moment I read about DBG's latest EQ2 offer, I wouldn't be able to resist. Even though I already have a clutch of bumped-up characters from previous giveaways I'll never have time to play.

It's not just free stuff (although... free stuff!). It's an excuse to fiddle around with the character creator, add a new gnome or ratonga to the roster. That's pushing at an open door. And there are so many classes I've never even tried yet. Granted, most of them are scouts, but still...

Oh, why even pretend there was ever any doubt? I just spent the best part of an hour creating two new Level 100 Heroic characters in EQ2 because of course I did.

I had to buy a new character slot on my All Access account but that wasn't going to stop me. With the 25% holiday discount it was only 750DBC and I have over 20k saved up on that account. I was glad of the chance to spend some of it.

Oh, go on then!

Running through the many options of races and classes I just about managed to avoid the rats and gnomes for once. I remembered how surprised I'd been to find myself enjoying playing a Fae for one of DBG's many Progression Server outings a while back. I don't have a winged wonder on Skyfire, my regular server.

Well now I do. And she's a Wizard, a class I don't believe I have ever played. I ummed and aahed over trying a Ranger (did that back at launch - didn't end well) or a Defiler (my original EQ2 class, long since retired) but in the end it was the knowledge that I have (or will have, when I get around to doing the Tradeskill Signature line from the latest expansion on my Sage) a character on the account who can craft upgrades for spellcasters.

Which would totally be a valid reason - if I was ever likely to need spell upgrades. For that, I'd have to play this new high-level character. That's not going to happen, is it? I already have an Inquisitor waiting to finish the last three or four levels and the aforementioned Sage, who also needs to do the final ten levels as a Warlock. Then there's the Necromancer impatiently tapping her claws...

And that's just on Skyfire - on this account. I don't want to think about all the characters on other accounts and/or other servers, some of whom got bumped up to 90 or 95 back when that was top end. Let alone the ones still trying to level up the hard way.

That's just a month and a half of the stipend you get for All Access. Bargain!

That'll be why I parked the Wizard as soon as I'd grabbed her free familiar and her mercenary so I could log in a second account and make a fresh, free Level 100 Dirge. A dirge is a scout. Which explains why I have never played one.

I have, however, seen Dirges played. A lot. Mrs Bhagpuss, who has a history of playing scout/rogue classes stretching from early EverQuest to this minute, played both a Dirge and a Troubadour in EQ2 (also all the other scouts but those are the two I most remember duoing alongside). The Dirge seemed particularly powerful, I always thought.

I have also used  Dirge Mercenaries quite extensively with several characters, to very good effect. If there's a scout class I might be able to tolerate, I think Dirge could be the one. If I ever find time to play the one I just made I guess I'll find out.

Before that can happen I have to log in the other four free to play accounts and make Heroic characters there, too. Because of course I do. I almost did it before writing this post but I gave myself a smart slap instead. The Free Level 100 Offer runs until June 7th. There's no rush. Just so I get them all before I go away or the offer does.

I'd have to log him in to be certain but I think my Level 110 plate-armored Berserker now has fewer
hit points than my new Level 100 cloth-armored Wizard. 
[EDIT] - Actually the zerker has double the HPs! Also all my augs were returned to bne refitted so maybe they also upgraded all the armor with the update?

Heroic characters come fully equipped with gear, of course. They'd be more of a punishment than a prize if they didn't, after all. While I was on I took a quick look to see how good the gifted gear was and... it's too good.

Seriously, I think some of it might be better than the gear my 110 Berserker is wearing. It's definitely better than the free Level 100 gear you get at the start of the Planes of Prophecy expansion because that's still available in the chest next to where you spawn in and I went and checked.

Another feature of GU106 (which the free Heroic is promoting) is a revamp to the way EQ2's ever more arcane and abstract stats are displayed. The new, simplified version reveals the stark difference between the latest free gear and the last lot. It's all better. Power Creep in EQ2 seems to be turning into Power Jog, if not Power Sprint.

Since the current offer requires you to make a brand new Heroic character not, as you might have assumed and as has been the case in the past, apply the boost to an existing one, there's no option to grab the new (No Trade) gear for an older character. I might have done that, looking at how good it is.

The mysterious free house item. Unique is a word for it, I guess.

Stats aside, there's a Pegasus mount, a familiar, a house item and a mercenary to consider. The merc is particularly desirable, being a "Personal Avatar" ("You can call me Peva"), an exact doppelganger of your own character. I wonder if that's obtainable separately? Indeed I wonder about the "unique armor variants" and "other unique items". EQ2 veterans are notoriously intolerant of exclusives that they feel are being denied to them - in this case they will be able to get the excusives for their accounts but not for their Mains, which should add a new level of controversy to the forums, Reddit and Discord

As well as the free heroic and UI revamp, the latest game update also has content. The revamped Shard of Hate, which features in - and is a direct result of  - the Tradeskill Signature line, is now open for business as a dungeon. It comes in Solo, Heroic and Raid flavors and when I finish this post I'm going to make a coffee and go take a look. I'm sure Innoruuk will be happy to see me. I did put him back on his Throne of Hate after all and he's not a god to forget his friends, is he?

Character creation and posing for screenshots: the only time you ever see your characte from the front.

There are also new Expert and Expert Event versions of the expansion dungeons, none of which I am ever likely to use but which I'm sure will be of great interest to someone. Then again, the update does add a new option - the Elixir of the Expert - a consumable under whose effects any player, however poorly prepared, will find "their stats increased to a level which will allow them to contribute effectively to their group".

That does mean that, if I were so inclined, I could join Heroic PUGs and supposedly pull my weight. Indeed, DBG seem to be going flat out to level every last bump in the playing field so that anyone can play with anyone in any content. It's a great design philosophy that I wish all MMOs would adopt. Even if the motivation behind it is almost certainly an ever-dwindling pool of players...

Last but certainly not least the update co-incides with the first wave of Summer Ethereals and there's a double XP event for the holiday weekend. Which is actually not a holiday where I am and I'm working Saturday and Sunday but never mind.

It's Your Birthday, Give Me Presents! : EverQuest

I had plans for today's post. I was going to write about something that occurred to me the other day while I was playing Lord of the Rings Online. I had all the screenshots ready and everything.

Then Wilhelm alerted me to EverQuest's 18th birthday celebrations, which include a free level 85 Heroic character for every account that has ever logged into EQ, even once, at any time in the last eighteen years. I have, I believe, seven of those.

Okay, more accurately, I know the log-in and password details to seven of them. Technically they aren't all mine but let's not get all lawyered up about it. However you  cut it, the opportunity is there for me to create seven new, free Heroic characters, just so long as I can be bothered to go through the process seven times.

My old Stromm enchanter, who just jumped forty levels.
And looks exactly the same.

What I would do with seven extra level 85s scattered across seven accounts is a question I prefer not to think about very hard. Certainly my previous plans of three-boxing a Heroic Magician, Necro and Shaman never got beyond an idle fantasy. Nevertheless, suffice it to say, free stuff is free stuff and I'm a lifelong believer in that philosophy which can be neatly summed up by the expression "it might come in handy someday".

Murf of Murf Versus asked Wilhelm on Twitter and myself in a comment which Heroic 85 he should choose, which is a question that just begs more questions. What do you want to do with the character, for example? Go exploring, solo casually, level up to the full cap, get groups, work towards full endgame dungeon play or even go for full raid viability?

He probably should have asked Kaozz, who, although she says she isn't playing much EQ these days, has certainly been playing it at a higher level and more recently than either Wilhelm or I. All the same, I do have some opinions on the matter, having already made and even played a level 85 Heroic character the last time they gave one away.

That was for the fifteenth anniversary in 2014. and at the time the level cap was exactly 100, so even then 85 was some way off an end game which has since drifted up to 105. Given the speed of leveling in EQ you might question the logic of luring former players back with the offer of a free high-level character only to strand them well short of the established active population. When EQ2 gives you a 95 that does put you, at least, in the current story arc.

EverQuest does have a very wide grouping range, though. A level 85 can certainly group with a level 105 and gain experience. There's also a truly insane amount of content available for a level 85 character to enjoy solo and I guess there's a good chance that, during this two-week window of opportunity (the offer ends on the 31st of March), there will be plenty of fresh 85s around to make up groups at level.

My Magician who got the treatment last time.
She's 92, you know.

Last time around I made two characters, a Magician and a Necromancer. The necro, a brand-new
creation, has mostly lived in the Guild Lobby ever since. The Magician, who was a longstanding character with whom I had much history, who I bumped up from the 60s to 85 with the boost, has been played a lot. Indeed, she hit her target of Level 90 before other projects intervened. That was very satisfying.

I spent a good while back in 2014 looking into what would be the best option, bearing in mind I would almost certainly be soloing for most of the time. In the "good" old days there were limited options for genuinely enjoyable solo play in EQ but even then the Magician was among them.

As time has gone on and design attitudes and development priorities have changed, the Magician has arguably taken on the mantle of best solo class that used to belong squarely to the Necromancer. Of course, the invaluable addition of Mercenaries to the game with 2008's Seeds of Destruction expansion means that quite literally every class can now "solo" - or "molo" as the neologism has it - with good efficiency.

There's still a deal of difference in the speed and style in which classes can solo, even with a Merc alongside, though, and I would definitely recommend the Magician. The class has huge versatility, with massive single target and AE DPS, a vast range of utility options and the most powerful pets in the game.

The problem with the Mage used to be survivability and even now, if that's your top priority, there's nothing in the Magician's box of tricks to match the Necromancer's Feign Death reset button. With a cleric merc on standby, though, even the inevitable, occasional bad pull can be survived. And if not the Cleric can rez.

Back when I was trying to come to terms with the almost indescribable, overwhelming amount of new information that has to be processed and understood before a boosted player can begin to make use of the powerful character he or she has acquired, I found this thread to be of enormous help. I didn't follow all the recommendations but I found everything there to be both useful and accurate.

The one thing you really do need to do, whichever class you choose, is study all your AAs. There are hundreds of them and they make a huge, huge difference. Far more than your spells or abilities. Some of them are passives but many are Actives that need to be hot-keyed. Getting those right was probably the most thought-provoking and time-intensive part of the whole process.

Other than the Magician and the Necromancer, I'd say the Shaman would be a very solid choice. That's what I just made this morning. Speaking from experience, if you're thinking of taking up the offer of a free 85 this time round, the process isn't quite as straightforward as it could be.

The new shaman, before taking the blue pill.

 There are a couple of things to be aware of. For one, when you log into your account you won't see an option to make a free 85 at all. In typical SOE/DBG fashion there has to be a fiddly part. I had to check the forum before I started just to be sure I was doing it right.

The trick to it is this: you have to log into the world itself for the game to flag your account as eligible. Just going to character select won't do it. Once you have set foot on Norrath you can log back to character select and the option will appear - in very small letters, very easy to miss.

At this point you can either boost an existing character or create a new one. Whichever you do, when you log that character into the world for the first time after hitting the Upgrade Character button you will be greeted by an explosion of windows and a succession of "Rewards" to "choose". In fact the rewards are your gear and equipment and the choice is to take them. There is no other choice.

I can't remember exactly what we got three years ago but I think this time might be slightly more generous. I don't recall getting a Mercenary before. This morning I made a Vah`Shir shaman and she came with a Warrior merc. She also came with 15,000 platinum pieces pocket money, the annoying raptor mount that stands at an angle that makes you look like a prehistoric lone ranger and two 100% weight reducing, Giant capacity 24 slot bags, which for EQ is the equivalent of having a couple of pack mules trailing along behind you.

I still get excited over bag space

So, there we have it. Free 85s for everyone who ever played EQ. Also for anyone who has an All Access account for any other DBG game but never played EQ, which I guess means non-EQ playing EQ2, DCUO and Planetside 2 players. Is there anything else on AA any more? I don't think so.

After eighteen years EverQuest remains a wonderful MMORPG. I'm not absolutely sure that jumping in cold at level 85 is the best way to experience it but what I would heartily recommend for anyone thinking of giving the old warhorse (another) run around the field is to make the Heroic character first and then, if it's all too overwhelming to decode, make a normal character and play that for a bit.

Having the Heroic on the account gives you options for lower characters you would never otherwise have. It's like having a rich uncle or aunt without the pipe-smoking and sloppy kisses. Even if you don't imagine you'd call on them for help it's good to know they're there.

All that remains is for me to play the character I just made. I suspect that her role will be limited to standing in the Guild lobby and buffing my Magician. Shamans make the best buff bots.

EverQuest's 18th isn't just about free 85s either. There is new content to explore for the 18th anniversary. The Anniversary quest Tsaph's Day Off sounds good. Going to do that one. There are other quests too but I imagine they will be for real endgamers not noddy nineties like me.

I was also amazed to see the following in the patch notes (my highlighting).

I can only assume this incredibly overdue and eminently sensible change has finally made it in because of the upcoming Progression Server that was announced in Holly Longdale's latest Producer's Letter. The new server, Agnarr, will progress as far as the Lost Dungeons of Norrath expansion and lock there for good.

This makes it, effectively, the permanent "Classic" EQ server people have been asking for for years. There will be no end of argument, I'm sure, over what "Classic" means and DBG have very wisely chosen not to use the word at all, describing it only as the "Planes of Power" server, even though it goes a couple of stages beyond PoP.

Take it or leave it is still a choice.

For my money, the period they have chosen for the lock is the absolute peak EQ experience. They could not have judged it better. Much though I loved the original release, Kunark, Velious and, yes, Luclin, my own, personal Golden Age of EQ was the six months when Lost Dungeons of Norrath was the newest content. I learned more about playing MMORPGs in that half-year than at any time before or since. And I had more fun.

When Agnarr begins I will certainly make a character there but experience suggests I won't play him or her for long. Whether I'll find or make time to play there more regularly when the unlocks reach LDoN  - well, we will find that out when the time comes, I guess.

I wouldn't bet on it. There is just so much to do, all the time. Chronoportals landed in EQ2 this week and they only hang around until next Thursday. There's a new house item, the Ancient Melodic Gnomophone, that I have got to have and I don't say that very often about anything in any MMO.

It looks like I'll be spending more time than I expected in Norrath this weekend. Middle Earth, which was where I was thinking of heading, may have to wait a little longer.

A Horse Is A Horse : EQ2, WoW, GW2

This line in the latest patch notes for EQ2 confused me somewhat:

All characters who were upgraded to Heroic and did not receive Opegaz, Horde Bane have had it granted.

Opegaz the what? I made a bunch of free 95s and none of them got it, whatever "it" is. Or, at least, I assume they didn't. I didn't see it but then I wasn't looking. Not that I'd probably have recognized an "Opegaz" if I saw one.

When I logged in the same announcement was Message of the Day. Still nothing. And then, finally, when I changed accounts, a banner flashed across the top of the screen to let me know Opegaz had been added to my Mount tab.

Oh, so it's a mount! Why didn't you say that in the first place?

It turns out that all free 95s come with the flying skill already activated, thereby avoiding the simple, enjoyable but moderately time-consuming quest the rest of us had to do back in Velious, five expansions and an Adventure Pack ago. Naturally, if you have the flying skill you need a flying mount to go with it and Opegaz is it.

Apparently good ol' Orp first flew into our lives back in 2015, when the bar for Heroic Characters was raised from 85 to 90. I have to admit I totally missed that.

Of course, most of my characters have access to mounts that can fly, even if the characters themselves haven't yet reached the exalted level that permits them to take advantage of the extensive stable of /claim and event-related mounts all my accounts have acquired over the long years. Come to think of it, didn't I just do the hard levels on the Race to Trakanon server to earn a Patchwork Pegasus for everyone? Well, everyone on that account, anyway.

So, I wasn't that excited but a new mount is a new mount and free is free. The least I could do was open the stable door and take a look at him.

With an honorific like "Horde Bane" I was expecting some ferocious, drooling, snarling, smoldering hell-horse. (Which "Horde" would that be, anyway? The one from the Chains of Eternity/Tears of Veseshan storyline, I guess. Never really understood who they were supposed to be...) But no, he turns out to be slightly dopey, rather friendly-looking horse of the kind you might expect to find stretching his thick neck across the top of a five-bar gate in the vague expectation of an apple or a lump of sugar.

Apart, that is, from the wings. And the rather paw-like hooves. And the being blue.

Okay, he's not actually a horse, is he? Nor even a purebred pegasus. I'd say there's a bit of griffin in there somewhere. Doesn't matter! I'm not planing on showing him, just riding him through the sky and for that he's very, very good indeed.

EQ2 has something of a checkered history with mounts, flying or otherwise. From the plague of carpets that drove Wilhelm to WoW and me to the test server to the infamous anatomical anomaly that was the first cash shop mount to the proliferation of bizarre and unlikely rides regularly pimped in front of the South Freeport Bank, mounts in EQ2 have tended to be something of an eyesore.

Everquest has better mounts, strange though that seems. The Guild Lobby is a veritable showroom of weird and wonderful ways to get from A (Arx Mentis) to B (Burning Woods). I often swivel round as I wait for MGBs, doing a 360 goggle at the tamed and trained menagerie around me. In EQ2 I tend to avert my eyes and hope they'll all just go away.

My recent stint in WoW reminded me that Azeroth is most likely where the craze for crazy mounts began. The sheer insanity and variety there is almost certainly unmatched throughout the Virtual Universe. Blizzard's animators do a fine job of making most of them appear feasible, unlikely as that seems, which must be why, somehow, they don't seem to jar the eyeballs in the way EQ2's often can.

In latter years, quite probably since the arrival of animated animator and undisputed master of the forum one-liner Ttobey, EQ2's mounts have improved quite noticeably. There's still a major disconnect between what can be ridden and what should be ridden but at least now the proportions seem to be in order and all the limbs move in sequence.

In fact, perhaps the current leading contender for the Worst Mounts in an MMO Award is a game that doesn't even have mounts - GW2. Instead of mounts what ANet delight in supplying is an apparently endless barrel-scraping of "mounts" that you carry, rather than ones that carry you.

For far too long we've been subjected to a deluge of extremely badly animated back items, mostly some sort of "wing", for want of a better description. They connect to random points of the varied racial anatomies of Tyria, finding particularly poor traction on the shoulders of Charr and Asura. They lurch and shudder where they might be expected to unfurl and beat the air, giving all who wear them the air of buckshot pigeons in a death spiral. The wing analogs that don't come with feathers are even more hideous, hard though that is to credit.

Apart from gliders, about which the least said the better, the nearest GW2 comes to an actual mount are some of the "Toys", like the carpet, broom or sonic tunneler. These at least have the benefit of decent animations even if all they do, practically, is replace your running movement. I do have a soft spot for my Magic Carpet, even more so since it was tweaked to come back after combat without my having to ferret around in my bags to recast it.

Whether real mounts will ever come to Tyria we will have to wait and see. ANet did, I believe, say "never" but then they tried to say that about expansions and look where that got them.

Looking at the visual clutter in Azeroth and both Ages of Norrath I'm not sure I would vote for mounts to be added in GW2. On the other hand, though, couldn't we all use a horse like Opegaz, Horde Bane?

Or, as I think I'm going to call him from now on, Gazzer.

Are We There Yet? : WoW, GW2

Legion draws ever nearer and I still haven't bought in. It's looking very much now as though I won't. Not at the start, anyway.

This first month of re-subscription has been...odd. When I hit the payment button on a whim my main concern was whether I'd get any use out of the subscription at all. That's proved to be an unnecessary concern. I've played every day.

The quality and nature of that play, on the other hand, has been both enlightening and confounding. I've played no more, no longer, each day than I had already been playing on my free account but I've had less fun.

The pattern has been to log into WoW only after I've done all my dailies on all three GW2 accounts plus the Bloodfen dailies on the one that has Heart of Thorns enabled. (I still haven't allocated my half-price HoT to either of the others).

Even after I've done the dailies I tend to stay on in GW2, often running around in WvW at least until Mrs Bhagpuss calls it a night. There was also rather good new Current Event added with last Tuesday's update, although it stalled very quickly as we all waited for the NPC to move to a new location (which, apparently, she did yesterday!).

This way, guys!

There's also the mysterious cat thing, which I spent some time noodling at while speculating why someone might have been allocated time to add this apparently purposeless piece of fluff when supposedly time constraints at ANet are so rigorous on everything else. Either it's something to keep the interns occupied or someone is testing some mechanic, either for later in LS3 or for the mysterious second expansion, that would be my supposition. Enhanced housing, anyone?

Daybreak Games threw their spanner in the ring with a big update and free Level 95s for all, so that took up some more time. I also took advantage of their generous All Access sale to put my main account on twelve-months pre-paid for the first time ever. I have to decide today whether to do the same for Mrs Bhagpuss's account, which, ironically, we had just agreed to cancel, due to her not having logged in for four years.

With all that going on, nothing else has really gotten a look-in these last couple of weeks. I did find time to check whether I needed to migrate my Dragon Nest account in the face of the imminent transfer of Nexon's North American version. Fortunately it turns out mine's DN: Europe, which appears to be staying on Steam for the time being. I'm aware that I better get on and play some Dragon Nest soon, though, or there may not be any Dragon Nest left to play.

The upshot of all this activity is that for several weeks my entire paid-up membership activity in World of Warcraft has consisted of running demonic invasions and occasionally sorting my bags into the bank. Most evenings I give it about an hour. I managed a couple of slightly longer sessions over the weekends but how people like Stargrace have managed to stick at it for hour after hour, day after day to level up whole armies of characters defeats me.

Aw, heck...where did everyone go?

As time's gone on the structure of the invasions has become a lot clearer. They seem less chaotic because, well, they aren't. There's some randomization to create a small sense of variety but the same bosses and sub-bosses appear at each location every time and the phases and cadences within  the phases are always the same.

My difficulty doesn't come from the repetition, something that all MMORPGs share as a core value. Nor does it come from the ridiculous number of seemingly unavoidable instant deaths (I had to repair to full twice in an hour last night) although the ability of some of the bosses to insta-kill without warning is intensely annoying.

No, my difficulty comes with the combat itself. It's bloody awful. I have never had any major complaints about WoW's combat in general. I have always found the solo, duo and single-group mechanics to be perfectly fine. On the evidence of what is now many hours of large-scale eventing, however, I have to say the in-event combat is the single worst MMO experience of its kind I have encountered anywhere.

There is no feedback worth the name, neither visual nor aural nor textual nor tactile. Everything floats.

I have no lag whatsoever and excellent ping. Technically nothing is standing in the way of a smooth, streamlined experience. What I don't have is any sense whatsoever that the character I'm controlling is involved in the action.

Thanks, but I had a shower earlier.

People talk an awful lot about "rotations" in WoW. I have it in mind to write about that in some depth but for now I'll just say that as far as these invasions go any "rotation" is entirely superflous. Meaningless. Worthless.

You don't need to be able to play your character to do Invasions. Perhaps there's something you might do to die less that requires player skill or class knowledge but other than that all you need to do is hit one button. Any button will do.

I hit all of them as they come off cooldown so as to have something to do but I am painfully aware that I would be better off tagging each boss once then withdrawing well out of range so I don't get insta-gibbed by some invisible AE. Still, stubbornly, I fight and more than occasionally die.

The other required skill is flocking. After each boss dies there's a moment's hiatus as everyone finds whatever button they hit to mount up and then the entire zerg takes to the skies. If you happen to be looking the wrong way or, calamity, still waiting at the graveyard, you're stuffed.

There's some arcane logic to the order in which the bosses are killed that, I'm sure, becomes second nature if you're grinding them for hours and days and weeks. It's beginning to seep into my consciousness now, just as it reaches the point when it will never, ever matter again. Meanwhile, if I miss my place in the flock it's five minutes of aimlessly flying around, looking and hoping. This is when I realize what a truly under-appreciated innovation Commander Tags were.

You fellas carry on without me. I'm just going sit here and moonbathe for a while.

In any other MMO the general channel would be buzzing thorough all these events. There would be banter and chatter and jokes - mostly very bad jokes but still... In WoW there is radio silence. People speak just often enough to let me know my chat channels aren't actually broken - maybe someone says something once every five or ten minutes. Oh, and there's a flurry of "INV" now and again, the most pared-down jargon for "Can I get an invite?" I've ever seen anywhere.

WoW has changed a lot since I last played back in the WotLK era. Then the problem with chat was the never-ending squall of noise, much of it very offensive. Now it seems no-one has anything to say at all, which adds to the strange, alienating "alone in a crowd" feel of these massive public events.

Coming from GW2, where every day is a series of large-scale events, I'm used to a constant surf of chatter as I play. I'm also used to feeling a solid, responsive, physical connection between my fingers on the keys and mouse and the actions of my character on the screen. Demonic Invasions in WoW have none of that.

What they do have is incredibly fast leveling and very useful loot. Just one of those two factors, as is well known, would have most MMO players sitting in an empty room pushing one button for hour after hour. At least the invasions are visually spectacular. There's always something to goggle at.

Hey! I can almost tell what I'm doing here! Almost.

In the end, though, after the novelty of seeing gigantic demons drop from the sky wore off, which took no more than a couple of sessions, it's all about the rewards. That's why I've stuck at it. I wanted to get my Hunter to 90. He was 69 when I started and now he's 92.

I've moved the target to 95 by Legion's launch A couple more sessions. The Warlock went from the high forties to 61, where he's going to stop. He got flying and that will do him for now. As for buying Legion, I think the odds are now better that I'll cancel my sub.

Or I might do neither. I might take another month and go and play the game normally. Level up some characters the old-fashioned way. See the broken world. Flying over those Cataclysm-shattered zones I see a lot of very interesting-looking landscapes worth exploring.

One thing I am sure about: WoW's engine is not made for these big open-world extravaganzas. The utter weightlessness of everything is enervating. I feel tired just thinking about it.

I've never raided in WoW. Do raids feel like this too? Maybe I'll do some LFR and see for myself.