Two In A Tower

It took me a while but this morning I finally got around to trying out EverQuest's 25th Anniversary Tower. It does have a more impressive, less lore-breaking name inside the game itself but "Anniversary Tower" is what the press release called it back in January and that's the name I have stuck in my mind.

I went to take a look at it just about as soon as it appeared but there was an access quest I didn't want to get involved with just then and what with Palworld, Nightingale and everything else it's taken me this long to find the right moment to do something about it. Ever the way with EverQuest. Even when we're talking about something as low-key as an anniversary event, you don't just pile in. Bad things happen when you do that.

So, anyway, after my second death this morning...

Tell you what. Why don't we begin at the beginning? 

When I went to log in right after breakfast, the first thing I had to decide was which character was going to be my guinea-pig for the day. I'd done a little reading in advance and it seemed the rewards might be worth having for a casual solo player like myself. Sure, the raiders were all complaining there was nothing in it for them but there were some "Thank-you, Darkpaw" notes from F2P players too.

The event scales to level so I could have called on any of my three dozen or so characters but it seemed like it might be best to take what passes for my "main" character these days, my level 115 Magician. I logged her in but even before I got started I ran into the usual problem I encounter every time I go to play her - her buffs.

For about the past two years she's been standing in the Guild Lobby, right in the middle of The Pile. The Pile is the spot where everyone leaves their characters so they can soak up the Mass Group Buffs generous players often cast before they log out for the day. 

As a result, Magmia, my Mage, is raid-buffed to an alarming degree and I daren't take her out of the Guild Lobby,  Plane of Knowledge or The Bazaar, zones where time stands still and buffs never run out, unless I know I'm going to do some serious leveling. Since she can't gain any more XP until I buy the most recent expansion and unlock ten more levels, that means she's pretty much grounded.

I thought about it for a while, then I said "Sod it! Cassis is already there. She can do it!" And that, I guess, is how she comes to have 116 hours played.

Knowing the event scales to level, I wasn't expecting too much trouble. I'd read that behind each tower door lay nothing more than a single room with five mobs, each of which could be fought separately. Most of the comments I'd read were complaining about how unchallenging it was and speculating about how it must have been put together an intern on their first day.

I also knew the access quest was a scavenger hunt, another reason I picked Cassis for the job. If you're going to go zone-hopping around Norrath, a Druid is your first choice. Well, unless you have a Wizard, maybe, but I'd still go Druid for the speed.

As it turns out, the scavenger hunt for each floor takes place in a single zone so there wasn't all that much porting required. Still more than you'd think, though, albeit for reasons more related to my own lack of preparedness than anything to do with quest design.

Playing EverQuest is like riding a bike... so long as you were riding a bike last Tuesday. It does all come back to you, eventually. It's just that there's a lot of it to come back and it might take a while. In my case today it took about an hour and a half and a couple of deaths.

Fortunately, death isn't what it was in Norrath. The days of corpse runs are long gone and even significant  XP loss seems to be a thing of the past. I'm not saying there is none - just that I died twice in a session and still came out half a level ahead.

In EQ you always expect to die but both Cassis' deaths were very unexpected. And entirely my fault for making several newbie mistakes, the worst of which was starting off thinking it was going to be straightforward. It's never straightforward. Nothing in EverQuest is.

I logged Cassis in, ran down the sands to the tower and took the teleport inside I spoke to the Merchant to get the quest and realized she didn't give it. There was no-one else to ask so I figured it might trigger when you click the door. I went up the ramp to the first entrance, where I spotted a blue ball of light on the floor. I clicked on that only to find I couldn't pick it up because my bags were full.

Absolutely typical first day back. Also why I picked a Druid for the job. I found something in my bags I could live without, got rid of it to make space, picked up the ball of light and watched it turn into a "Broken Key of Sands". I had two bag slots with single items blocking them so stashed one in the only other space left and put the Broken Key in the bag slot where I wouldn't lose it. 

Since I knew I was about to do a scavenger hunt, I thought I'd better make some more space for whatever I was going to have to bring back. I memmed Ring of Knowledge, ported back, turned myself into a wolf for the run-speed, loped over to the Tinkering vendor, bought two ten-slot Toolboxes and then couldn't find them. No error message saying I didn't have space, nothing on my cursor... turned out the "Key" I'd picked up was actually a three-slot box and both the new Toolboxes had gone in there because in EQ you can put a container inside a container.

With that sorted out, I went to the bank and stashed a bunch of stuff I have no idea what to do with in my vault alongside all the rest of the stuff I have no idea what to do with and then I had plenty of space. I memmed Ring of Ro and ported back down to the desert. 

The quest told me to check the orc camps in the south-east so I ran up there. Porting had wiped my wolf illusion so I cast good old Spirit of Wolf instead, plus Levitate for good measure. I could see the orc camps on the map (EQMaps add-on. Essential.) although I knew from memory where they were anyway. I figured they'd be about level 9 so I'd be able to stroll into their camp, pick up whatever it was I needed for the scavenger hunt and be on my way without a fight.

Yeah. This is EQ. Have you played before?

I trotted into the first camp and an Orc Oracle started casting some dumb orc spell at me. One Starfire and he'd be cinders. Except he wasn't. He shrugged it off and landed Malosi on me, followed by some heavy DoT. I was half health before I realized I was in trouble. 

I dotted him back and he resisted. I tried to root him and he resisted. By this time I was back-pedalling and he was chasing me. I tried to snare him and got a message saying he was immune. I tried to heal myself but Druids don't get good heals for a long time, certainly not at 48. By the time I decided I'd better run away for real it was too late.

Back at my bind in the Guild Lobby I checked to see what damage had been done. Not much, actually. All my stuff - still with me. All my spells - still memmed. All my buffs - still on, not that there were many because I hadn't bothered to buff myself. 

Okay, I know what to expect now, I thought. Let's go again.

Round two went much the same. Well, it did after I pulled an Orc Shaman thinking it was the Oracle and killed it in seconds because that one really was about Level 9. There was no sign of my real target. I wondered if I'd bugged the quest somehow but no, I just needed to go into the camp again to respawn him.

I did better in the rematch but I'd forgotten that they'd fixed DoT stacking a few years back so spells of different levels in the same line no longer add. Higher versions block lower ones so there's no point having both Drones of Doom and Drifting Death memmed. I couldn't stack enough damage to put the Orc down but he had no such issues with me.

Back in the Guild Lobby, I remembered my Merc. I also remembered I had buffs. I got the merc out, buffed him, buffed myself, went back and did it properly. Third time's the charm. With the mercenary tanking and the right spells loaded, I was able to stack fire and magic DoTs, nuke and heal from a safe distance. When I overdid it, which was pretty quickly because I'm out of practice at playing a Druid, I got the Orc rooted and we carried on from there.

The Orc went down and I got his part of the key. Drops, not ground spawns for the scavenger quest, then. Never thought of that.

The quest updated and told me to go look in the Sand Giant camp next. I was apprehensive but the giant was pure melee, which made holding him up with the Merc and Root much safer and easier. He dropped the second piece of the key and the quest moved on to Spectre Isle.

Either the Spectre was the easiest of the three or I was getting my groove back. The Merc and I disposed of the scythe-wielding psychopath with no problems. I put the final part of the key into the container, hit Combine and presto! Completed quest, completed key.

Back in the tower I clicked on the door and nothing happened. I clicked on the key instead and got another quest. Then the door opened. Inside, as promised, I found a single room with five mobs just standing there, glaring at me: two crocodiles, two skeletons and another Spectre.

I thought I'd start with the Spectre so I tried to root him, only to get a message telling me I couldn't attack him at all. Then I noticed my quest had updated. It was telling me to kill the crocs first.

Multiple comments on several forums had led me to believe the fights inside the tower would be almost insultingly easy. They are not. Not if you're an averagely-geared Druid played by an out-of-practice player, anyway.

I won't go through the whole play-by-play but it was tense. Druids tend to like large, open areas with plenty of kiting room. They don't shine in closed rooms with very little space to move around. Even less so when they have to fight mobs that can't be snared.

Still, the crocs weren't too bad. They came one at a time and the Merc had no trouble taunting them. I needed to med after each of them and the Merc needed a heal or two but it was fine.

The skeletons were harder and the whole thing almost fell apart when the second aggroed before the first was done. Luckily the one we were fighting was down to about 10% health so I nuked him hard and we got the other one under control. At the end of that fight, though, Cassis and the Merc both needed a good sit down.

That just left the Spectre, who worryingly conned yellow, meaning he was a level or two higher than us. And he was a bloody handful, let me tell you! 

The fight came down to Cassis frantically chain-healing the Merc with her only halfway-decent heal, Greater Healing, which only gave the Merc back about 5%  health a cast. I tried to keep my two good DoTs on but it was a risk dropping a heal to recast. In the end, it came down to the wire, with the Merc falling when the Specter was at about 5% itself and Cassis was not much better herself.

The scythe was swinging my way and I was casting what looked like it would be my final nuke when the Spectre just up and imploded. The combat log mysteriously reads "a withered memory hits a withered memory for 409 points of magic damage from Sweeping Scythe Slash" so maybe the spook clumsily cut his own head off.

Whatever, I won! I collected my winnings (More event currency.), looked out of the window (Sand.) checked the half-buried treasure chest (A prop.) and zoned out. I did go up a floor to collect the starter for the next access quest but I haven't done anything with it yet. All I know is it's in Lavastorm and they gave me a shovel.

I look forward to seeing what kind of trouble Cassis can dig up for herself next.

The Catbird Seat : GW2

The main reason I pushed forward to the end of Path of Fire's story so quickly was to get my griffon mount. That's not to suggest the griffon is a reward for finishing the storyline. It's not. Would that it were so simple.

No, completion of the main story is merely the prerequisite to open the first Collection that begins a sequence of what any other MMO would call "quests". And they are quests; of course they are.

Seriously, at this point in GW2's development the insistence on avoiding the Q word is nothing less than a fetish. The "Achievement" list is the quest journal, the events window in the upper right corner of the screen is the quest tracker, anyone asking questions in map or guild chat talks about "quests". Only Anet themselves cling to the tattered fig-leaf that supposedly hides the all too plain fact that in this respect at least their game did not break any molds or shatter any paradigms. Rather, after a brief and huffy bid for individuality, it turned around and meekly followed the herd, pretending it wanted to go that way all along.

The Griffon is the fifth of four Mounts in the expansion. Its existence was kept under wraps throughout the short beta and never mentioned in the PR blitz leading up to launch. Once the expansion went Live the existence of the Griffon mount remained a secret for, oh, nearly a day. Inside a week twenty-five thousand players owned one.

I had to wait a little longer than that but I have one now. In theory my quest (yes, I'm going to call it that) should have begun when I came across one of the clues that only begin to appear when your account gets flagged as Story Complete. The appearance of mysterious items in your loot, things like "A Strange Feather" or "A Strange Pellet of Bones and Fur" is supposed to lead you to Beastmaster Ghazal in the Garden of Sebhorin in Vabbi and thence to the Remains of the Last Spearmarshall, a talking corpse on a plateau, where the whole thing really kicks off.

In practice, since I already knew about the mount and the quest from numerous discussions in both guild and map chat, I didn't wait for the feather to drop. Instead I called up Dulfy's truly excellent guide and went straight to the fallen spearmarshal.

I didn't think to note down exactly how long the whole questline took to finish but I did it in several sessions across most of the week so it must have lasted several hours. I imagine it would have taken a lot longer without the guide to follow but the in-game instructions are reasonably clear and once you get the feel for the kind of places the eggs are hidden it's not exceptionally difficult to predict where you're likely to find them.

I have previously described the Path of Fire expansion as one giant jumping puzzle, which is kind of true and kind of not. It would probably be more accurate to describe the entirety of the open world covered by the five new maps as one giant Vista. There's little need for the kind of precision, dexterity or nerve sometimes required to complete GW2's official Jumping Puzzles but doing almost anything, anywhere, requires the kind of loose scramble previously confined to filling out those little map flags.

It turns out that suits me fine. I always loved Vistas. I've loved climbing in MMOs since the days early in the century when I discovered you could scramble across the roofs of Felwithe. There used indeed to be almost a cult of climbers within MMOs, people who would spend hours trying to find ways to reach places the developers never intended them to find, just so they could take screenshots and post them on forums to prove they'd done it.

That kind of organic, geographical, architectural exploration seems to me to be fully in tune with both the spirit and the history of the genre in a way designated Jumping Puzzles are not. Incorporating climbing into a quest seems fair and proper, whereas insisting on completion of an actual JP very much would go very much against the grain.

The many eggs you need to collect for the Griffon quest are placed atop pillars and cliffs that require some thought and ingenuity to reach. I loved it. Even with the guide to follow it necessitated a deal of creative thinking and puzzle-solving. Perfect explorer content in other words. Just as I enjoyed the Ascended Weapon quests in Heart of Thorns a lot more than I appreciated the main story quest, so I had a deal more fun getting my Griffon than following the plot that led to my being able to begin the quest in the first place. It was also in quest of my Griffon that I began, grudgingly, to learn to rely on my lesser mounts.

Path of Fire is an expansion designed around a single feature: Mounts. They are required in a much more intense and sustained manner than its predecessor Heart of Thorns ever required Gliding. It's not only that some areas are literally impossible to access without a Mount (specifically those that are accessible only via Jackal portals); it's more that although you can get to most places by clambering or gliding, it's so much easier to bounce on a bunny or glide on a skimmer; you feel you're wasting your time trying to do it any other way.

I'm getting used to the mounts but I still dislike them. I don't suffer from motion sickness using them so that's not an issue for me. I just find them annoying, clunky and badly designed. They are, however, unavoidable. It's not just the otherwise difficult to access locations: it's becoming increasingly apparent that any activity that isn't undertaken entirely alone is going to demand a mount for the simple reason that mounts move at twice the speed of a player on foot. If you don't crack out a mount you simply can't keep up. Given the size of the maps, if you try to go it on foot, by the time you arrive at an event it's likely to have ended.

I finally had to admit that to myself last night, when I joined a Bounty Train for the first time. Bounties are PoF's answer to Core Tyria's World Bosses,  legendary monsters that drop decent loot and take what would in other games be described as a pick-up raid to kill. Unlike World Bosses, Bounties spawn when players take the bounty from a board in various settlements. This makes them ideal for one of GW2's favorite activities - the zerg train.

I was criss-crossing the Elon Riverlands searching for Mastery Points when someone announced they were tagging up and starting a train to do all the bounties on the map. It took about an hour and it made for a pleasant, entertaining and profitable session. It occurred to me that what Anet have effectively done here is to refine and institutionalize a player invention, which they previously disapproved of so heartily the nerfed it into the ground, the old Champ Train. I guess that's what they mean when they say they improve the game by "iteration".

After I missed a kill because I couldn't keep up with the zerg I caved and mounted up. For general overland travel I'm leaning towards using the Jackal. It's small, it doesn't lurch about and the triple-portal zips it forward at incredible speed. The Raptor yaws and sways like a yacht in a gale, the Springer is useless for anything but going straight up and the Skimmer gets stuck on hip-height ledges. The jackal it is.

For now but not for ever. The unmastered griffon is of limited use for ground travel, launching itself  in short hops then falling back to earth like one of those failed nineteenth-century attempts at powered flight. Once I have all those Masteries done, however, it will be tantamount to a fully functioning flying mount, as you can see in this lovely video.

Lest I give a false impression, I should emphasize there's a lot more to the Griffon quest than just collecting eggs. You have to visit all five maps, complete some specific Events, some of which can't be soloed, some of which have their own pre-reqs. You also need to complete two Hearts on each map to open the vendors, from each of whom you need to buy an item that costs 25 gold, giving the Griffon a monetary cost of 250 gold, which, in GW2, is not pocket change.

All that done you then have to complete an instance set in Kormir's Library, familiar from the main story but now overrun with demons seeking to reclaim it for Abaddon. Dauntingly, you need to kill ten Elites to get ten keys to open ten chests. There's a lot of angst about this on the forums because Elites can be a tough ask solo but I found it to be easy and enjoyable. I also found the chests easy to find. I only had to refer to Dulfy's guide once.

Finally, when you return to the fallen spearmarshal, a boss mob spawns and there's a big fight. To my considerable surprise it's fun and it lasts about as long as a fight should before wearing out its welcome.

All in all I found the Griffon quest to be just about ideally tuned for my personal tastes, preferences and abilities. There's a particular sweet spot for GW2 content that this exemplifies, along with the Caladbolg quest and the HoT Ascended Weapons collections. Curiously, this is also the content that comes with some of the rewards that I find most desirable. I wonder if the same team is behind the design of all of them?

The Griffon quest is definitely the most fun I've had in Path of Fire so far. Now it's back to the steady work of finding those Mastery points and filling out that experience bar. Which, if I'm honest, is pretty good fun too.

Onwards and, eventually, upwards!

Sad Gnemlin Girl, Why Don't You Smile Now? : EQ2

Frostfell is back! Over the years EQ2's midwinter celebration has become as much a part of my Christmas as any real-life tradition. This year surprised me in just how much I've been looking forward to it and even more in how the emotions kicked in when it finally arrived.

Stepping through the wardrobe outside the bank in West Freeport to the jingling music and sparkling lights across the snow of the Frostfell Wonderland Village sent an actual shiver down my spine. I remember when the zone was introduced back in 2006. We were playing on the Test server back then so we got to see it from its very earliest days, when nothing really worked and when the lack of instancing meant unseemly scrapping over gifts.

Over the years I've watched Frostfell change and grow from a fairly contained, managed experience to a wild, sprawling celebration that spans Norrath. A quick flip through the wiki gives an idea of the sheer scope of this magnificent sleigh ride of fun. There really is something for everyone.

At the beginning crafting was the big driver of activity and that emphasis has never slowed. New recipe books appear every year. Denmother Niami dutifully records the new additions at the invaluable EQ2Traders website and this year there are some fantastic, must-have additions. The frosted windows look amazing.

Over the years content was added hand over fist for just about every playstyle short of raiding. There are a whole bunch of quest chains, some of them quite lengthy, all of them a lot of fun. There's a dungeon, The Icy Keep, that comes in solo and Heroic versions. There are games and entertainments, dancing and snowball fights and, of course, plenty of presents.

Santa Glug, Gigglegibber goblin and winner of the Least Convincing Disguise competition seven years running, hands out gifts one per character per day. In the past I've had half a dozen or more representatives camped out next to him and the addition of some excellent new Snowglobes and pets this year is likely to lead to another set of cold characters complaining that it must be someone else's turn by now.

The whole zone received an extreme makeover two years ago.It looks much the better for it. It looks positively stunning in fact. The items Gerbi Frostfoot sells for the Frozen Tokens of E`Ci you get as quest rewards and as drops in the dungeon have improved out of all recognition as the years roll by.

The armor sets and weapons he sells for every appropriate level provide an absolutely invaluable once-a-year opportunity for returnees or fall-behinds to gear up to something very close to current at-level solo benchmarks. If anyone reading this has been dithering with an idea of coming back or even starting from scratch this is absolutely the time to do it.

I browsed the new armor last night and my Berserker will be taking four of the new level 100 pieces to fill the slots he has yet to replace with Thalumbran quest rewards. Each piece costs thirty tokens but he has sixty banked from last year so he's halfway there before he's even begun. Just as well because the Warlock at level 93 is going to be clamoring for a set of 95s. I foresee much token farming in my immediate future.

There's a whole new quest series this year that I worked through in two short sessions at the end of the evening over the last two nights. The storyline will be familiar to anyone who's played EQ2 for long. Another innocent in dire trouble, another rescue mission, another trip around the zone putting up decorations, another panel of interviews. I loved it. More of what we already know we like. Yes please.

The only slightly off-key note, I felt, was the Unfortunate Event that precipitated the rescue. I know orphans are synonymous with Christmas but I don't particularly want to meet them with their parents still lying dead on the ground. That's not exactly festive, is it?

You do have to own the new Terrors of Thalumbra expansion to do the questline since some of it takes place in Maldura. That has raised some very mild controversy but anyone with a long memory will recall that several previous Frostfell questlines have also required ownership of the then-current expansion so it's hardly unprecedented. It scales to level, too, so you can do it even if you don't have any high levels yet.

Any way up, it's a jolly good romp. It also reminded me I have that prestige house that I bought two years ago and never got around to decorating. Add that one to all the others. One of these days...

Next week Wintersday arrives in GW2. I like Wintersday a lot but, let's be honest, it's no Frostfell. Unlike Syp, though, I rate the Midwinter holidays in MMOs as second to none. Even an also-ran trumps any Halloween effort for my chocolate money.

I'm off to put up some deccies. And farm those tokens!

You Sold Me A Pup : ArcheAge

Klaus. Klaus! Where do we begin?

It's nice you're so impressed with my bravery.  What was it? The devil-may-care way I turned my horse onto your cart-track instead of carrying on along the paved highway to the great city of Marianople,  whose walls we can both see, right over there, on the other side of your cow-pasture?  Well, yes, I can see how some people might consider that must have taken some bravery. Although I imagine they'd think of some other word for it.

Dawnsliver, isn't that what you call this place? A romantic name for...well, let's not be unnecessarily cruel. You do the best you can with what you've got, I'm sure. Let's get back to the fields. What, exactly, is so dangerous about your fields, anyway, that it impresses you so much when someone dares to set foot in them?

There are some dangers, aren't there, Klaus? You wouldn't just be buttering me up in the hope of relieving me of some silver and getting one of those fat puppies off your hands at the same time , now, would you?

I might take your compliments more to heart if it wasn't for the fact that I passed through your village not two days ago and you didn't seem any too "impressed" with me back then. As I recall, that time you didn't want to speak to me at all. Didn't have anything to say about my bravery. No generous advice to offer on how I might better protect myself from the supposed risks lurking in your fields. Couldn't get a word out of you, could we?

Although, as I remember it, you were happy enough to take my money for one of those wolfhound pups. No tips on how to raise or train it, mind you. No checks on my suitability as an owner. You took the silver, I took the pup, not so much as a nod passed between us. And now here we are again, all smiles. That's a metaphor, Klaus. I've never seen you smile.

So, anyway, getting back to the "bravery" thing and the adventuring and all that, you wouldn't be working around to getting me to do some odd job for you, would you? Oh, it's alright, I know the drill. And it's not like I have anything better to do. Goblins, this time, is it? There's a surprise. Steal the wool, do they? Big knitters, then, are they, these goblins? You learn something new every day.

Well, I do. Not so much you, Klaus. I doubt you learn much new at all, sitting on your rump in the dirt all day here in the village square, if we may dignify it with the name. All day, every day. No wonder you're impressed. At least I move about.

No, Klaus, don't stir yourself. You wait there and I'll go see about these goblins...

There. That wasn't so hard. They aren't very big, after all, are they, goblins? Kind of famous for it. Here's your wool. Knit yourself a scarf. Winter's coming.

Wait. You did what, Klaus? You "prepared a few pups" for me? What does that even mean? Pardon my skepticism if you will, Klaus, but aren't these the very same pups, sitting in the very same boxes, as when I arrived? What preparation did you give them? Taught them a few tricks, did you? Got the old dog shampoo out and smartened them up a bit, maybe?

Oh, never mind. Just hand one over. I'll have that one there, the black one. Yes, I know about the cow's milk. Had to work that out for myself last time, didn't I? Back when you were in a sulk or hungover or whatever it was that kept you so quiet.

I'll just be off to the "dangerous" fields again and get this one all trained up. You can spare a little milk I'm sure. Must be strong stuff, that milk. These dogs do grow fast. Is that natural, do you think? Probably best not to ask. It's strange how little these pups look like the full-grown dog, too, isn't it? Okay, definitely best not to ask.

Time for us to say our goodbyes, Klaus. I'll be taking your black dog along with me. No, that's not a metaphor this time. Although looking at your expression I'm not so sure. Back to the old silent treatment, is it? Have it your way.

Look after yourself, anyway, Klaus. And take care of those puppies. I might be back and pick up a brown one next time I'm passing. Be nice to have the set. Always assuming I feel brave enough to cross the fields.

Oh come on, man. Lighten up!

Show, Don't Tell: TSW

Yellow Is The New Red

The Secret World is an unusual MMO in many ways, not least in its emphasis on puzzle-solving. Someone at Funcom has thankfully remembered that while solving puzzles is fun indeed, running around aimlessly searching for puzzles to solve isn't. When you accept a Mission you can, usually, rely on a visual nudge to make sure you notice the things you should be noticing.

  
In the previous beta this came in the form of a dull red outline which some people found very hard to spot. This time we got a high-visibility yellow glow which I was surprised to find not just much easier to see but also more immersive. Why this should be I'm not sure. You'd think a more intrusive, brighter color would scream "game mechanics" but somehow it had precisely the opposite effect. We're all bee-eating paranormals after all. Who's to say we can't see auras?


Give It Some Thought

Recent discussions over GW2 brought some controversy over the willingness or otherwise of MMO players to accept new modes of play. If you thought GW2 required a few new tools, The Secret World sends you out to buy a whole new toolbox. Not only are you expected to read, listen and watch, you need to pay attention too. And on top of that you're expected to think. I know! They should be paying us, right?

There's a fine line between mystery and misery and TSW walks it with style. I did my best not to look up information on the web (except when I was meant to. There's an in-game browser for a reason and I don't think Funcom expects all MMO players to know Kings II by heart, just as a for instance). Even in beta the information is out there if you want it and once the game goes Live there will be ample opportunity to spoil your own fun, but I suspect that players who can't get by without looking up every step will soon lose interest and leave.


These Are The Stories You're Looking For

The blogosphere ripples with schadenfreude over the fall of the Fourth Pillar and I've already made my feelings plain on the poor fit of GW2's Personal Story. I'm not big on "story" in MMOs in the first place. Players make the story, that's the point.

If story there must be, however, TSW's way is the way to do it. One key factor makes it work: my character never speaks. Every cut scene finds her standing, looking pensive, attentive, keeping her own counsel. Sometimes the NPCs tease her for her taciturnity. "You must be a wow at parties", one said.

The huge benefit of this approach is that it leaves me in complete control of my character. In terms of action, the cut scenes don't commit me to anything. When they end I can choose to act on what I've heard and seen or ignore it. I can even squirrel away the information and wait until I learn more before I make a decision.

Most importantly, my characters thoughts and emotional reaction to what she's heard and seen remain my own. Her own. Ours. Nothing is imposed. I don't read that she "feels" this or "thinks" that. No emotional reaction is ascribed to her. This makes such an enormous difference to me it is hard to emphasize it enough. Story as well-written as this, presented as openly as this, allowing me full ownership in this way changes the whole paradigm.


I would very much like to see this approach extended even to traditional MMO quests. I have never enjoyed those canned alternative responses that offer my character two or three smart, sassy or plain rude responses that supposedly imply a personality. I'd far rather the NPC just said his piece and left me decide how my character replied.

I have an imagination and I'm not afraid to use it.

Can't Judge a Book

Sometimes even Bo gets it wrong. Every novel has an author. There's the name on the spine. Movies have credits that seem to last longer than the film. Even journalists get a byline. Most of us pay at least some attention to who wrote, directed or performed what we read and watch. It helps us decide how to spend our time and money in the future.

I've done a lot of questing this week. Last weekend was double everything in EQ2 and I popped in to visit and ended up staying. I bought the Destiny of Velious expansion pack and asked the Othmirs to let me ride their giant turtle to the land of ice and snow.

We're going to need a bigger tureen!

 
I'm playing on EQ2X's Freeport server and my highest character there is a level 80 berserker. There is pretty much nothing you can do in Velious until your level hits 85, so after I'd looked around the docks and chatted to some more Othmirs I was stumped for a moment.

Then I remembered my Berserker was also a level 82 weaponsmith. And I recalled reading that there's a whole line of crafting quests in Velious that leads to you getting your very own flying griffin mount. And it's much, much faster to raise your crafting level in EQ2 than your adventure level. With double xp and full vitality it took me no time to make 85 and begin making myself useful to the Far Seas Supply Division and sundry indigenous othmir, coldain and snowfang gnolls.

Oh Ruffin, if only the other gnolls were as clever as you!

The quests came thick and fast and were a joy both to do and to read. The prose was crisp and clean, the dialog sharp and witty, the plots were amusing and engaging, the tasks were interesting and absorbing. Mrs Bhagpuss and I spent most of Sunday and Monday doing the entire flying mount quest-line, and the pack pony quest-line.  The whole experience was exemplary. Everything that's good about questing was here and there was little or nothing of the old nonsense that's given MMO questing such bad press of late.

With my young griffin trailing along behind, still growing to the size needed to carry the weight of a ratonga in full plate armor, I returned somewhat reluctantly to Paineel and the previous expansion to resume the long, slow journey to level 85 in adventuring. And trust me, on a silver account with the xp/aaxp pegged at 50/50 it really is a plod.

By last night I was halfway through 84th, my griffin was ready to fly and I really wanted a break from the perpetual yellow palette  of Odus. It occurred to me that I'd not yet done the newish beastlord prequel questline, so I took the spires back to The Commonlands and picked up the starter quest.

Does the marketing department know about this?

What a contrast. Everything I'd enjoyed about the griffin and pony quests, all vanished. Instead I plowed through speech after speech of overblown, overwritten, pompous twaddle. Terrible leaden prose, complete absence of any form of wit, elan, spark or interest. An incomprehensible "plot" utterly devoid of amusement or entertainment. Utter rubbish, in fact. The only saving grace of this horrible farrago of amateurish drivel was that it was soon over.

Don't know. Don't care.

Now I understand that people have different tastes. Some people probably like this sort of thing. I also understand that you can't have your best people on every part of every project all the time. I've read enough Gerry Conway fill-ins, after all. No, the problem with quests in MMOs is you have no way of knowing before you begin whether the new line was written by the person who wrote that great quest you did last week, the one that had you laughing so hard you snorted coffee all over your keyboard, or by the twerp who wrote that numbingly tedious, po-faced saga you ended up tabbing through the month before.

Credits. Let's have credits. I want to know who to follow and who to avoid. Whose work to look forward to and whose to dread. Mrs Bhagpuss had a great idea. Let's have an in-game review system for quests, like the new Housing Leaderboard. I'd give five stars to those Velious craft quests and half a star to the beastlord one. And really it doesn't deserve half.