Already Home : EverQuest

To no-one's surprise more than my own, my leveling adventure on EverQuest's Vox server continues apace. I've logged in every day since I fortuitously rediscovered my then-Level 6 Necromancer three weeks ago. He's now Level 34.

Given that my average session lasts about an hour that's astonishingly fast progress by the traditional pace of EQ. When I finally settled on a Druid as my focus character sometime around January or February of the year 2000, I think it would have been May or June of that year before she reached the mid-30s - and I played her for maybe twenty hours every week.

The Druid is a good solo class but the Necromancer is supreme so it seems odd that I never really stuck with playing one. It would seem on paper to be a perfect fit for me, plus I played with several truly amazing necros, who showed me the incredible versatility of the class. Mrs Bhagpuss also played a necro with great skill and success for some time but even that didn't prompt me to give it a fair run.
 
It may have something to do with the way my necromantic career was brutally cut short by the infamous Test Server Wipe in June 2000. I've alluded to this extreme low point in SOE's checkered history before so I won't go over it again. Suffice to say it cost SOE three-quarters of their active testing community and it was years before anything like trust was re-established.

I was one of the 75% who took SOE up on their abashed and apologetic offer of a free transfer from Test to Live but my Necro, transplanted, never really flourished. Over the years I've dabbled in the necromantic arts many times. I even played a Necro as my main for five years on EQ2's Test server - a nervous return that worked out well - but in the elder game I settled for the Necro's boorish cousin, the Shadowknight.

This time things may just be different. The necromantic moons may finally be in alignment. It's not so much that I'm planning to level this one all the way. It's more that I already have a boosted Level 85 necro sitting unplayed on my All Access account and the main reason he's unplayed is that I don't know how to play him.

I'm figuring that by the time my Vox necro gets to, say, Crypt of Decay or even Dragonscale Hills I should have the class down well enough to jump ten or even twenty levels and carry on. I could even dual-box the Necro with my 92 Magician (For those keeping score, she hasn't suffered a horrible de-leveling accident. You can't do that any more. I was wishfully exaggerating last time, when I claimed she was 94).

Meanwhile, it's been truly fascinating to observe the culture - especially the leveling culture - on Vox. I've been mixing things up between nostalgia (Qeynos Hills, Blackburrow, Lake Rathetear, South Karana), hot zones featuring Teek's Tasks (Paludal Caverns, Nedaria's Landing, Dalnir) and my need to make some quick Platinum.

Having a Mercenary makes leveling up both easy and relaxing. I absolutely wouldn't be without one. I think they are the single best addition to EQ in the game's 19 year history. They do begin to get expensive around the mid-20s, though, if you don't take care where you hunt.

What with my Merc charging me several plat an hour and spells starting to edge towards double figures, hunting mobs that give great xp but no coin or valuable vendor drops became a luxury I couldn't really afford. I've been making liberal use of my discovery that you can /barter from anywhere and it is indeed as game-changing as I thought it would be, but low-level drops that people want to buy are fairly rare so I can't yet live off that alone.

For one brief moment there was someone buying High Quality Bear Pelts for 150pp each. I rushed to the bear caves in Nedaria's Landing, a spot I know of old to be the best at lowish levels for farming HQ bear. It was there that I came to appreciate just how very powerful a solo class the Necro is - especially when backed by a Cleric who never complains about bad pulls.

The bears turned out to be deep red cons. I tried to single pull one with the pet but two came and then two more added. Four red cons in a confined space - certain death, xp loss and a long run back if I was foolish enough to want to try again.

Only...I won. It was very close and involved a lot of swearing and bears being feared in all directions but in the end they died and I didn't. A couple more chaotic scenes on respawn and eventually I got a pattern worked out, found a way to single pull to the tunnel and kept the spawn broken and the room cleared until I had plenty of pelts to sell.

By which time, naturally, the guy who was buying them wasn't buying any more and hasn't been since, so I have a load of HQ bear pelts clogging up my packs. Much more valuably, I had the glimmering of an understanding just how powerful my character was becoming.

From there I went on to hunt deeper red cons further in Nedaria's Landing. I got in over my head with a horde of sleek panthers and timber griffawns, which gave me good practice in how to make distance from spawn before feigning death. I also discovered that, left alone, a Cleric merc will chain heal herself for what seems like hours while taking no offensive action whatsoever, which means it's a very bad idea to FD at 2% health and zero mana because it's along wait before you can reset the encounter.

All good learning experience. As were my first and second attempts to break a room in Dalnir. It's a very long run to Dalnir from pretty much anywhere so I didn't want to Gate when things went south, which they did remarkably quickly as red con roamers started to pile on. Fortunately I was the only one in the dungeon so my frantic sprint to the zone line didn't require me to fat finger the traditional /yell of "Trsain to Zojne!"

In a relatively short while I had a room nicely broken in Dalnir. XP was good but loot wasn't. It was at that point that I decided to swallow my pride and go hunt Sand Giants. At 30 I thought I might be a tad low but I seemed to be consistently underestimating what I could kill and there's only one way to know for sure.

I headed to South Ro, where, in the revamped version, there's a handy spawn of Sand Giant Elites up in a quiet corner. I have camped them before on other characters and other servers when I've needed some quick cash and I've always had the place to myself. Not on Vox.

First time there was a 38 Druid camping them. He'd killed most of them and he was medding up when I scampered in on my Worg. I debated whether to be super-polite and cede the camp immediately but I really wanted to know if the SGs were doable for me at 30 or not. So I pulled the one still standing.

And killed it. Quite easily, although giants do have a lot of hit points. The druid was probably preparing his /petition to customer service over abuse of the Play Nice Policy but he never had to send it because I looted my giant and moved on. I had to stop anyway and I knew what I needed to know.

Next evening I came back and the giants were camped again - by a level 84 Shaman. Outrageous! Not like I've ever done it... So I moved to Rathe Mountains, where the Hill Giants live. It's further to travel and not so convenient because the HGs roam whereas the SGs stand still but this time I had the place to myself.

I stayed there until I'd made 500 plat or so. I spawned the Tainted Hill Giant, a named mob for some Epic weapon quest or other. I killed him and the Corrupted Hill Giant immediately spawned in his place. I'd just read the tainted up on Allakhazam, though, so I was standing well back.

When I dinged I gated to Plane of Knowledge, went to buy my new spells, and promptly made more money in two minutes re-buying crafting mats off the spell vendor and selling them on /barter than I'd made on giants in an hour. So it goes.

Lat night at Level 33 I took Franklin Teek's task for Level 35s. It sent me to Stone Hive, where, for the very first time since Level 6, I finally died. Not because the bixies were too tough. Oh no, they were just fine, even the red cons and even when I overpulled.

What got me was the mob that spawned when I killed a drone. I'd made the mistake, while passing through Plane of Knowledge, of taking a random quest: Skal's Waking Nightmare. I should have remembered this opt-in death sentence from the last time I did it but that was so long ago...

Suffice it to say that when a red con Enchanter mob spawns instantly on top of you after a long fight that's left you low on mana, then proceeds to chain-stun you with a stun that lasts 48 seconds, things do not go well, even if you have a Mercenary to chain heal. If you then decide to accept your Merc's offer of an in-combat 50% rez on the spurious grounds that you'll be able to sprint a few yards then FD, well more fool you.

Even then, it might have worked, had another player not arrived to help just as I stood up. Before I could do anything the Walking Nightmare charmed me and set me on the new player. As I said to him, while I watched my necro (fortunately flat out of mana and therefore completely harmless) flailing away "I haven't had this happen to me since about 2002".

In fact, I thought they'd put a stop to mobs charming players long ago but apparently not. After a long fight in which I took no part other than observer and during which the Nightmare also charmed the other player and both our Mercs, although not all at once, my new acquaintance finally got the better of the situation. We congratulated ourselves on surviving and I retired to a quiet corner to finish my level. I must remember to delete that quest.

The reason there was another player there in the first place is that Stone Hive, like all the zones in The Serpent's Spine expansion, now forms part of the Golden Path, a preferred leveling plan that, at least on Vox, is well-attended.

There were a dozen people in Blightfire Moors, the previous zone and ten in Stone Hive. Most were an appropriate level although there were some high levels there on buffbot duties. People were even grouping.

Whereas old lags like myself, Wilhelm and Keen mostly bang on about the very old days and suggest hunting in places like The Karanas, Crushbone, Blackburrow or Unrest, the real meat of the low-mid level game these days is in the Serpent's Spine. If you want to start playing EQ and have an experience that's recognizable as something from the post-WoW world, that's where you should go.

Luckily for me, I was playing EQ when TSS launched. Or, to be more accurate, Mrs Bhagpuss and I made one of our periodic returns to EQ specifically because SOE decided to sell an expansion with a new race, new starting area and new set of leveling zones. We made new characters on a fresh server and levelled up in TSS all the way to the 60s or 70s, which means I can go there now and get a moderate nostalgia hit as well as great xp and decent loot. Try doing that in Unrest and see how far it gets you!

Every session I play I remember something, learn something and realize how very much there is I still don't know about EQ, both past and present. Right now I feel like I want to play EverQuest more than I want to play any other MMO and I have more ideas for things I'd like to do than I can come up with for any other game.

We'll see if that lasts. At the moment I can knock off a level in an hour like shelling peas. When that goes to a bubble an hour - 20% of a level - as it will all too soon, we'll see if the whole process still seems so satisfying. Should have another good twenty or even thirty levels before that happens, though.

However long my interest and enthusiasm lasts this go round, it's astonishing to see how much life there is in the old game yet. Long may it continue.

Got Live If You Want It (I'm Not Sure I Do) : Shroud of the Avatar

It's been almost a year since I last paid a visit to Shroud of the Avatar. Since then I certainly haven't been chammering at the bit, waiting for Richard Garriott to throw wide the gates, cut the red ribbon and declare SotA officially "launched". If I'm honest, I can't remember all that much about it. I was just left with the vague impression that I rather enjoyed myself.

Of course, "Lord British", supremely unaware of my existence as he gazes down from his orbital weapons platform, doesn't set his calendar by my interest (or lack thereof) in his earthly works. On the 27th of March he gave his formal nod of assent for SotA - finally - to drop the fig-leaf of Early Access and step proudly onto the stage as a Finished Game. Well, kind of.

As we all know, MMORPGs are never finished, nor meant to be. Not to mention that as soon as you start selling "Packs" and charging money your game is de facto "launched", regardless of what euphemisms you care to employ so you can sleep at night.

I always seem to be in my own shade. Maybe if I lit this torch...

Anyway, it's out there for real now. You can buy it and play it and if it doesn't work Portalarium can't hand-wave your complaints away by playing the "still in development" card. What practical difference that makes is less clear. No MMO ever worked flawlessly and having a purchase receipt and a subscription agreement never guaranteed anyone a refund beyond what might have been required by law.

No-one in this corner of the blogosphere seems to have been paying much attention, anyway. The only post-launch posts I noticed were Wilhelm formally recording the fact and Syp giving it a quick once-over.

Wilhelm opined that he couldn't see when he'd find the time, which sums up how I feel about any number of current and forthcoming MMOs. Syp, who did at least make the effort to log in, sounded like he wished he hadn't bothered. He summed up a frustrating and lacklustre session with one of those 'I'm not angry - I'm just disappointed' anti-rants so beloved by dads the world over:

"Shroud of the Avatar isn’t as engrossing or connected as it should be. And it really should be, which is the shame here."

I did manage to patch the thing up on launch day but that's as far as I got until this morning, when I decided to give SotA another run. For science. Or at least for a blog post.

That's a feature you don't often see.

A week and more having passed there was, naturally, more patching to do. The SotA patcher is swift so that passed painlessly enough. I logged in using my free trial details and my character was there, waiting, just as I'd left him. That was the easy part. From there onwards things went downhill - slowly, like a glacier.

It wasn't anything to do with the game itself. I didn't get as far as playing the game. Last time, when the thing was supposedly in "pre-alpha", I don't recall having any particular issues with performance. There's plenty in the couple of posts I wrote that echoes Syp's confusion over SotA's idiosyncratic systems and design choices but nothing about stuttering, frame-rate lag, buildings popping in out of nowhere or every new zone taking literally minutes to load.

Today I found SotA all but unplayable. My PC was constantly grinding away on 100% disk access. I checked to see if something else was going on but it seemed to be entirely down to the game itself. I would have googled to see if it was a known issue but tabbing out to look anything up was impossible. I could move about in the world, provided I didn't want to open any doors, interact with any NPCs, check my inventory or basically do anything more than peer cautiously around me. Making no sudden turns.

I'm going to jump...I think...

I put up with it for about an hour, in which time I achieved absolutely nothing other than to take some screenshots. The game has taken a considerable amount of criticism for its supposedly old-fashioned graphics but it looks quite good to me. It may not be cutting-edge but it's certainly not 'EverQuest with a new coat of paint' like Project: Gorgon. Then again, I can play P:G.

If the scenery seemed fine, the animations were less satisfactory. My character knocks his ankles together as he runs and one time, when he was sliding down a rocky riverbank, it looked as if his leading foot was going to come off altogether. On the other hand (or foot), when he ended up in the river itself, the swimming animations were pretty spiffy, so it's a mixed bag.

Yep. I jumped.

Syp complained about the absence of a zone or mini-map. That puzzled me because I had both. Hitting "M" brought up a map of the city I was in. It wasn't a great map but it worked. There was also an overview map of the connections between zones but that only appeared in the peculiar "Overland Travel" area that serves as SotA's nod to fast travel.

I also had one of the collectible maps Syp mentions, which I imagine I must have bought from an NPC or found somehow last time I played. That seemed to function like a mini map, although it kept disappearing while I was trying to read it. It was also annotated in some made-up language, which is probably very immersive if you commit to the game but quite annoying if you're just trying to get your bearings at the start.

Who wrote this? Elves?

I had a quest tracker up on screen. I would have used it to complete something I'd started a year ago, if I could have found my way back to where I'd been, but I couldn't work out where to go, even with all the maps.

It'd sure be nice to accomplish something.

The quest journal itself is attractively designed and the quests are well-written but with the frame-rate issues and the extraordinarily lengthy zoning times there was no chance I'd be able to navigate my way to where I needed to be before my increasingly frayed patience wore out.

Red light means danger.

My willingness to struggle on was further undermined by the D&D style random encounters that dragged me into a private instance every time I tried to travel from one Adventure area to another. Not to mention the fact that my weapon was broken and I couldn't remember how the combat system worked anyway.

Grey light means dead.

My unfortunate encounters with packs of wolves and gangs of skeletons did at least mean I got to see what happens when you die. I don't remember it from my last excursion. You have to go find an Ankh, which revives you, or wait five minutes if you can't be arsed.

There's probably more to it than that. I'm sure there's more to it than that. Shroud of the Avatar is one of those MMORPGs where there's always more to it than that. That's a good thing, or at least I think it is, in theory, but as I said last time, I may just be getting too old for this level of "realism".

This map suggests a lot of content - content I will never see.

I'm definitely too old to deal with three to five minute zone transitions and appalling performance issues. A little lag I can handle but this is way too much. Now it's finally "gone live", SotA might be an  MMO worth exploring but until I can actually play it I'm never going to know for sure.

Perhaps I'll give it another run if I hear the performance issues have improved but until then there are less frustrating places to be.

Honey Trap : Ashes of Creation

When I opened my inbox this morning, I was surprised to find not one but three emails from Intrepid Studios, developers of Ashes of Creation.  All identical, all headed "Want to help us test Alpha Zero?".

There's no easy answer to that question. Wilhelm and I had a brief discussion on the subject of alphas and betas in the comments section at TAGN just yesterday. He'd received an invitation to alpha test the upcoming WoW expansion, Battle for Azeroth, an invitation he intended to decline, saying "I long ago discovered my own problems with alpha and beta access.  Nothing diminishes my desire to play a game once it goes live than playing it before it goes live".

He also observed that pre-launch testing by definition means that what you experience at launch isn't new, leading in turn to the oft-expressed complaint that "it was better in beta". I've been known to make that claim myself and I completely agree that unwrapping the present before the birthday can lead to disillusionment and ennui.

That's why I'm much more circumspect about seeking or accepting alpha and beta offers than I would have been a few years ago. Other than a swift visit to get a few screenshots and a blog post, I'm no longer interested in the least part in testing expansions for MMOs I'm already playing. That does seem to be something almost guaranteed to lead to disappointment.

I'm also not particularly keen on testing new MMOs at an extremely early stage of development, even though I have had some very good experiences doing so in the past. It's always interesting, because most MMOs undergo enormous changes in development, to the point where different builds seem almost like different games, but it can weigh heavily against your appreciation of the final product.

I wrote a good deal about City of Steam, which I played in all its various stages from the Sneak Peak through alphas and betas into release and eventual sunset. It was scarcely the same game twice and, much as I enjoyed what it eventually became, I would unreservedly claim that it was at its very best in the early days.

Rift, famously, was considered by many to have been at its best in late beta. I had fun in every iteration of Landmark, another "MMO" that went through some very significant revamps without ever finding either a true direction or an audience, but I had the most fun in the first few months of "pre-alpha".

In all those cases my preference for the earlier versions rests on the gameplay rather than the novelty. All those MMOs changed in development in ways I'd have preferred they hadn't. I enjoyed them after launch but it was always with the knowledge that, had they not changed direction, I would have enjoyed them more.


Vanguard, on the contrary, kept improving throughout. Of course, I only saw it from late beta onwards. I'm sure there are plenty of veterans of the earlier stages who could make a case for the game having been better back then.

My Vanguard beta experience was much more similar to my time in the late beta weekends for The Secret World and Guild Wars 2. I came to those at a point when what was changing was more a matter of detail and emphasis than ethos or philosophy.

Those experiences, with what was almost a finished product, at a time close to launch, had the effect of stimulating my appetite for more. I found myself waiting impatiently for the day when I could throw all my energy and enthusiasm behind a permanent character. When the time came, far from feeling jaded from having seen it all before I was thrilled to see the gates flung open and the world revealed for me to explore.

Then there were the betas that acted as a warning. Testing the original FFXIV was a surreal experience. There was a strict NDA, so it felt like watching a huge juggernaut heading towards a cliff edge, with no way to warn anyone of the impending disaster. The Horizons beta had something of the same atmosphere.

With all that in mind, whether or not to try an MMO before launch is a tricky decision. Over the past few years that decision has often been taken out of my hands by the increasing willingness of developers to let anyone and everyone "play" the game while they're making it.

With so many flavors of pre-alpha, alpha, beta, open beta and early access available either for free or at a price the decision on when to start "playing" is problematic. It certainly seems unlikely that I would still have the same enthusiasm for an MMO at "launch" that I might have had when I first began "testing" it anything up to three years earlier.

As a blogger I also have the issue of whether to poke my head through the curtain at various stages so I can take a few pictures, make a few notes and get a blog out of it. I have to try to balance quasi-journalistic curiosity with not spoiling my own fun.

These days I try to limit any intense involvement to the period directly before launch. If I can achieve the anticipatory escape velocity I experienced before Vanguard or GW2 then I know launch-day will be joyous.


In the case of Ashes of Creation, I bought into the Kickstarter at the level that guarantees access to the final, closed beta. By then the game should be close to its finished form. If it's going to be my next Big MMO, I'll be able to tell.

Having made that choice, should I throw away all caution and restraint and jump into the AoC pre-alpha just because I can? Well, fortunately that's a decision I don't have to make. On close inspection, the whole thing turns out to be a tease:

We are introducing a new opportunity for our Glorious Ashes Community to gain additional entries into our Alpha Zero raffles! From this point forward, all social media followers will gain added entries into our raffles.

For each social media account you subscribe or follow, you will gain an additional chance to help us test our Pre-Alpha builds!  All you need to do is subscribe or follow our official YouTube, Twitch, Twitter or Facebook.

It's just a marketing gimmick. Good. That means I can forget about it. Which is just as well, because I don't know whether I'd have had the willpower to resist, had the email contained an actual pre-alpha key.

Do Rabbits Lay Eggs? : EverQuest

Yesterday saw the uncomfortable elision of  a couple of notable dates on the calendar - Easter Sunday and April Fools Day. It's hard to think of of two "holidays" that share less common ground; one the most grave and serious date in the Christian calendar, the other the epitome of idiocy.

I suspected the outcome for MMOs would be the least silly silly day on record and so it proved. Wilhelm, who keeps an annual tally of Blizzard's efforts, could barely find anything to post about. Reading the comments, I found it instructive that Blizzard took a lot more trouble coming up with gags and pranks for their Korean fanbase than they were willing to expend on their largely Christian North American and European markets.

GW2, which has in the past made a Big Deal of All Fool's Day, not always to everyone's amusement, ignored it completely this year. We did get the return of Super Adventure Box but that's now a  month-long event that's long outgrown its origins as an April Fool's surprise.

A shining eggsample.

Easter, of course, also has a strong, non-religious presence in the West. The moveable feast co-incides - approximately - with the coming of Spring. I guess that's where all those rabbits and eggs come in.

Telwyn reminded me that EQ2, unofficial cheerleader for the concept of MMO Holidays, added an egg-themed event last year. The awkwardly-named Beast'r is running again right now with some new content and I was planning to pop in to grab some fresh eggs for my houses but somehow I ended up in EverQuest instead.

EverQuest's main condescension to All Fool's Day seemed to be the forcible conversion of the in-game text font to the supposedly hysterical Comic Sans. I thought I'd accidentally changed something in my settings and it was only when someone mentioned it in General Chat that I realised it was supposed to be a joke.

I have no idea who these guys are but, to quote Velma Dinkley, "I smell a mystery".

Something that turned out to be far more exciting, entertaining and enjoyable was my serendipitous discovery of a brightly colored painted egg, lying on the ground in Plane of Knowledge. In the original version of Norrath you could drop anything you carried on the ground and it would lie there, waiting to be picked up. That changed long ago but there are still "ground spawns", items that appear as obsevable, interactable "physical" presences in the world.

Naturally, if I ever see one of these ground spawns, I grab it. I snatched up the egg and examined it. It was a quest item. I looked at it and puzzled for a moment. Then I stuffed it in my packs and forgot about it. If you play EQ for five minutes you'll likely find five quest items you don't have quests for. I tend to hang on to them until I need space, then sell or destroy them.

My plan was to hunt Aviaks in South Karana. I took the Stone to Arena, zoned into Lake Rathetear and started swimming. I killed a Gnoll Embalmer on my way through the gnoll camp. That got me the Skull of Jhen'Tra, a magic item people camped for back in the distant past, and an Achievement. EQ has a full Achievement system these days, which is yet another thing I have to read up.

EQ's treant is a rare case of the updated model strongly improving on the original. These guys are huge and scary.

I was happily killing Rooks and Harriers beneath the Birdhouse in SK when I noticed something shining in the darkness. I picked it up. It was another egg, painted with a different design. I carried on hunting.

I pulled a Rook just as a roaming Avocet appeared out of the gloom. Red to me. It added. I feared the Avo but couldn't land darkness to snare it. It took off like a rocket. As I was chasing it through the black, rainy Karana night, my pet beating on the Rook as I tried to get the Avo snared, I spotted yet another egg, glowing under a tree.

When the Avo and the Rook were finally dead and I was out of mana, I rode my worg back to the spot where I remembered seeing the egg. It was there. I picked it up. It was painted in yet another, different design

Now I was excited. I began to think I might be able to find them all. I wondered whether the ones I'd already found would count. Did I need the quest in my journal before I picked them up for it to update? It would be so annoying to have them all and then get the quest and have to go find them all a second time!

Centaurs don't have indoor lighting, apparently.

I quickly googled "EverQuest Crosshatched Painted Egg". The top result took me to Allakhazam, still an excellent EQ resource, where I found full details of a quest called The Origin of the Cuniculus. Reading it up I found that not only was it a quest I could do it was a quest I very much wanted to do. I mean, who doesn't want a wand that turns you into a rabbit? ("Cuniculus", by the way, is "a small conduit or burrow, as an underground drain or rabbit hole". Don't let anyone ever tell you gaming isn't educational).

When I finished my level I gated back to PoK. It was getting late but Allakhazam had the quest flagged as "Seasonal" and I was worried about what that might mean. Usually holiday quests hang around for a week at least but Bristlebane Day, as April 1st is known in Norrath, has always featured quests that last no longer than the day itself.

I found Grundle Cogwelder and ran through his dialog to get the quest in my journal. The quest instantly updated to acknowledge the three eggs I'd already found.

Obvious question: who or what is Stomples?

EQ is so much more accomodating than it once was. Not only does it retro-fit quest drops, it even has an excellent on-screen quest tracker, just like a modern MMO. With that up in game and the Allakhazam walkthrough to guide me, I set off to Qeynos.

It took about an hour to find the rest of the eggs. Some were in Qeynos Hills around Blackburrow and Surefall Glade. There were plenty at the Barbarian Village in West Karana, where I had to Gather Shadows to conceal myself from red-con necrocidal barbarians. I also killed a roaming treant and a Wandering Spirit that I remembered hunting for some long -forgotten quest a decade ago.

It took the best part of twenty minutes to ride my Worg through West and North Karana. I found the last egg I needed - Sunburst Painted - at the Centaur Village in South Karana. I memmed Gate and ported back to Plane of Knowledge for the turn-in.

Tiny rabbits. Hard to see - even harder to catch.

Grundle, clearly beginning to lose his grasp on reality, handed me a wand called Madness of Stomples. It fits in the ammo slot, where I previously had a Bookworm that gives +2 to fishing. Now I have a wand that randomly either turns me into a rabbit or summons a horde of tiny rabbits that scurry madly in all directions. I call that one heck of an upgrade.

That quest has been in EverQuest for seven years but it's the first I knew of it. Probably because it's the first time I've played EQ on Bristlebane Day. It was one of those lucky happenstances that exemplify what's so wonderful about this hobby.

A real "you had to be there" moment, all the better for coming entirely unanticipated.

Swell Maps

Pete at Dragonchasers has a post up that goes straight to the heart of something that's been on my mind for quite a while. Talking about the different ways players approach both open-world games and MMOs he makes several astute observations, concluding that "one of the reasons MMOs don’t seem to be as ‘sticky’ any more is that they have so many convenience features that they no longer feel like virtual worlds".

This is a view clearly shared by the development teams of two of this year's MMORPG "newcomers", Project : Gorgon and Shroud of the Avatar. I touched on this aspect of P:G yesterday,  and Wilhelm observed in the comments that he was having similar feelings about SotA.

I have SotA patched and ready to play. It has a generous free trial system that will most likely cover any interest I have. Even so, I'm far from excited about stepping into another new world. As with Project: Gorgon I suspect that getting the best out of Shroud of the Avatar will demand more of my time than I'm willing to give.

Going back to the beginning of the 21st Century, virtual worlds, as we often called them then, required two commitments: time and money. You needed to buy the game and any expansions that appeared and you had to pay a monthly subscription. Just the right to log in whenever you wanted would run you a couple of hundred dollars a year.

If you wanted value for that spend you'd also need to commit blocks of time and plenty of them. You wouldn't get much done in less than a couple of hours and you'd need to make room in your schedule for several of those sessions every week. It was commonplace for MMO players to rack up 30 or more hours after work and at weekends. Plenty managed a lot more than that.

For a while the awe and wonder of the whole experience carried those commitments but new doesn't stay new forever. Novelty wears thin. There were plenty of complaints about timesinks and design flaws that cut into what many saw as the reason they were there in the first place - killing monsters and progressing their characters.

One of the regular targets for improvement was travel. Pete recalls heated discussions on the subject: "Most people felt like fast travel was a real convenience and not having it was disrespectful of a player’s time. I thought that forcing players to travel through the world was a good way to keep them immersed in the world...". 

Back then, and for a long time afterwards, I would have agreed. In a way I still do. But only in a way.

I think it's true that someone coming fresh to an open world MMO will find themselves becoming more invested if they explore it at a pace that equates with human scales of perception. It takes time to assimilate new information. The old school approach felt like moving to a new country and living there for a while until you learned the customs and the language.

Travel in modern MMOs feels more like ariving at the airport and getting a brief glimpse of the city before being whisked off to your luxury hotel. Once you settle in  you can select a new, fully catered trip to some scenic spot or activity of your choice: hop on the tour bus to destination Fun.

On the face of it, the immersive experience should be superior in every respect. Only, all too often, it's not. It can be tedious, frustrating, dull, repetitive and boring.

I suspect that even those of us who heartily support the "stop and smell the roses" approach secretly - or not so secretly - appreciate modern conveniences like Waypoints and flying mounts. There are good reasons.

Going back to the vacation analogy, not too many people relish the set-up. The drive to the airport, parking the car, the shuttle bus, the wait in Departures, the flight itself, the taxi ride to the hotel... Yes, the first time you go away on your own those things all have their moments, as all new life experiences can, but once you know the routine it ceases to amuse or inform.

The first few days or weeks in a new MMO can be exhillarating, compelling, absorbing. Plenty of people are more than willing to stop, look around them, take some time to explore. If they stick around, though, what was once an exciting journey of discovery becomes just another commute.

Back in the day, those heated discussions over whether MMOs should have fast travel tended to favor veterans, who'd been there and done that, telling newcomers that they should eat their greens because it was good for them. The idea was that something ineffable would be lost if everyone could just get to where they needed to be the moment they wanted to be there.

Of course, by this stage the veterans knew all the shortcuts and had all the available perks and benefits that might hurry things along. Journeyman's Boots and the Worker Sledgemallet were de rigeur for a reason.

As Pete says, history has shown that fast travel was the more popular option. The same can be said of any number of other quality of life improvements, from exclamation points over questgivers' heads to the ability to sell anything from anywhere. Modern MMOs do indeed look like five star luxury hotels compared to the wilderness camping experience of classic EverQuest or the Youth Hostel basics of Vanilla WoW.

Of late there's been a curious revival of interest in doing things the hard way, both from players and developers. Every MMO with anything that could be called a legacy seems keen to bring back the glory days with some kind of Classic Server. Players vociferously demand developers make things as close as possible to the original while developers try to balance rose-tinted nostalgia with historical reality.

New entrants like the aforementioned Project: Gorgon and Shroud of the Avatar, as well as many more in development (Pantheon, Lucimia, Elyria et al) set out their stalls to attract players tired of having it all their own way. You won't appreciate it unless you have to work for it, or so the argument seems to go.

Even popular, established MMOs bend towards the trend. Blizzard decided it would be good for WoW players to get off their flying mounts and walk. Daybreak thought EQ2 players would appreciate the extra immersion of no longer being able to see quest destinations marked on their maps.

Is there any evidence that players appreciate the slight return? Not really. Blizzard had to retrench. EQ2 players have the wiki up on a second screen. Trion had to increase Prime xp then triple it.

Playing modern EverQuest on Vox, as I have been recently, has clarified my views on all of this. For years I've said one thing and done another. I've been a proponent of slow travel and of slow gameplay. Well, not any more.

Oh, I still strongly advocate taking your time, exploring, getting to know every nook and cranny of the world. I still prefer traditional MMO combat that takes a while and lets you look around and assess the situation rather than crash-bang, hit all the buttons action gaming. I'm still looking for an immersive experience in a virtual world.

I just don't believe that artificial obstacles and drag anchors encourage or enhance that experience. In fact, there's a simple rule-of-thumb I'd apply to check whether an in-game system genuinely improves my quality of life or not: if I could have it in the real world, would I want it?

I certainly wouldn't want to have to travel into town to order something from Amazon, then travel in again to collect it. If I can sit at home and have things delivered to my door in real life, surely I should be able to do the same in a video game - especially in a world rich in magic.

Or take the example of going on holiday - again. In June Mrs Bhagpuss and I are flying to Bilbao, hiring a car and driving across the top of Spain to explore north of the Portuguese border. If I could press a button and travel instantly from my home to the Hire Car depot, would I? Hell, yes!

Driving the car around Spain is The Holiday. Getting there isn't. It's a chore.

For other people, even exploring by road would be more trouble than they'd want to take and that's fine. If they just want to lie by the pool drinking cocktails, that's their business. Everyone has different lines when it comes to what they find entertaining. And video games are supposed to be entertainment.

I'm all for player choice. Opening your map and clicking Instant Travel shouldn't be the only option. You should always be able to walk to the dungeon entrance if that's what you want. There's even an argument for saying you should have to walk there once before you get the opt-out, although these days I'm not even sure that holds. Sure, I like doing it but that's no good reason to insist everyone else does.

Going back to what Pete posted, by confining himself to single-player open world games, he neatly sidesteps the issue. Those are generally games you play once. It absolutely makes sense to take your time, see everythng, go everywhere. It's all fresh. It's all new.

In an MMO it's very different. The first run from Qeynos to Freeport back in the day was an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride. The second, the third - still an adventure. By the time you came to do it the fifth or sixth time...well, that's how Druids and Wizards got rich.

If fast travel has its merits then most of the other post-WoW shortcuts have become so essential and accepted we never even think about what it would be like withouit them. Well, if you play P:G or SotA you're going to get a rude reminder.

And some people will love it, which is absolutely fine. Good for them. They should have MMOs that support and sustain the way they want to play. I may even join them once in a while, just for a bracing change of pace.

Mostly, though, I'll keep my conveniences, thanks. It's not just that I feel I've paid my dues, that I deserve some slack. It's that the older I get, the more I value my time and the less inclined I feel to fritter it away on tedium.

Which, I know, is terribly ironic coming from someone who finds extraordinary pleasure in spending most of Sunday putting imaginary bags in order, let alone leveling up yet another EQ character in the same zones and on the same mobs as two decades ago...

The key thing is whether or not it feels good. Is it fun? Am I being entertained? If the answer's yes, then it's time well spent. If not, then either it needs to stop or I'll stop playing. Smart MMO design should be able to offer acceptable options to meet a wide range of playstyles in the same game without anyone feeling short-changed.

That's where we were going a few years ago and that's still where the mainstream is today. Just about. I have a niggling feeling the direction of travel may be shifting. It would be typical. Just when I align with the norm the norm decides to move.

I guess we'll know for sure when WoW Classic finally appears. If it's genuinely old school and a massive hit, then buckle up your walking boots. There's going to be a whole lot of hiking in all our virtual futures.

All Steamed Up : Project: Gorgon

My Project Gorgon Steam key finally came through yesterday. My fault I didn't get one in the first place. Seems there was a "Survey"I didn't take any notice of right after the successful Kickstarter. A couple of reminders followed. Ignored those too.

Turns out, the survey doubled as the information-gathering process Elder Games used to build a record of who was entitled to keys. That's why I wasn't among the 90% of Kickstarter backers who got in on launch day.

After that, though, faultlines look a little less clear. I filled out the survey a couple of weeks ago. Emailed Support with full details of my Kickstarter eligibility. Got a reply in a day or two, saying I'd get a key in the next batch they sent out.

I waited until yesterday. Nothing came. I sent a follow-up email. Got a reply the same day, from Eric Heimburg himself, with my Steam Key. I was quite impressed by that part, particularly with it being a holiday.

I plugged the key into Steam, downloaded the game, synced the old account to the new. Tested it to check I could log in; I could. Thanks, Eric. My characters were both there ready to go but it was gone midnight. I logged out and went to bed.

This morning I went back to take a look around. I have to say they've done the old place up nicely. Everything seems much clearer and sharper than last time I played in alpha. The textures seem less gritty, the UI is much larger. Easier to follow. The font defaults to a point size I can easily read sitting back in my chair, which definitely wasn't the case before.

I took a while, went through all the interface elements - Persona, Inventory, Quest Journal, the rest. Every one had improved. The whole thing felt more user-friendly, more comfortable, better than any stage in that long, long alpha.

Much has been said about the graphics, most of it negative. My feelings are mixed. On the one hand it does have the feel of a game from the EverQuest era. On the other, I'm playing EQ at the moment and Project: Gorgon doesn't really look much like it. If anything it reminds me more of LotRO, with the rich fields of flowers and the relatively realistic late-medieaval buildings.

It's always puzzled me that P:G looked its best way back at the very start of pre-alpha. When I posted about it in 2013 I commented "the walled, medieval village is one of the best I've seen in a game". The screenshots I took back then are very plainly more visually sumptuous, not to say photo-realistic, than even the High Definition shots I took today. If they could have kept to that standard I doubt anyone would have been criticizing the game now for how it looked.

In alpha P:G tried on a number of appearances. The Steam version is better than any I remember. The mountains and clouds look a little off but the trees, fields, foliage and water all look perfect for a pleasant country stroll.

The character models and the animations are still barely functional by 2018 standards but they're better than they were. My female rakshasa's running animation has improved significantly - all the way from ludicrous to bearable. Mobs are still clunky. So is combat. None of that really detracts from the pleasure of playing.

Project: Gorgon is probably best-known for its wacky humor, its unconventional approach, its extensive, freewheeling skill system. That's not an unalloyed recommendation. I've commented before that a little of Eric's humor might go a long way. More than a sniff of the amateur dramatic society hangs over the whole enterprise and as a sandbox it's even less structured than most.

Despite all that, though, there's never any doubting the sheer personality evident in every aspect of the game. The enthusiasm and good-nature of the tiny development team sweeps all cynicism away. Project: Gorgon is an MMO to fall in love with, a game whose shortcomings many will be willing to overlook in favor of its manifold novelties and wonders.

To play it regularly you're going to need a lot of time. Time and patience. Not only are there all those skills to level up with no specific schedule or formula to follow, there are also plenty of old-school time-sinks, some not seen in mainstream MMOs for many a year.

Whether you find that refreshing or frustrating may depend on whether you've encountered such things before or how much you liked them last time if you did. Personally, I never enjoyed having to speak to every NPC to see if they might have something for me. I don't relish having to make notes about where I met a questgiver just so I can find my way back to do the hand in, particularly when it might be days or weeks or even months later by the time I finally complete the quest.

Neither do I like having to hunt down a particular NPC to sell a particular type of loot. Yes, it's much more realistic to have to sell your pig and deer meat to the woman who teaches you to cook it, but do you really want to walk right across town past half a dozen other vendors when all you want to do is clear your bags? As for the banking system that has you storing different kinds of items on different NPCs all over town, that might be unique to P:G. I dearly hope it stays there.

Then again, the Player Work Order noticeboard that fills much the same purpose as the EverQuest barter system I was praising only yesterday is beautifully integrated into the infrastructure of the world. It's an elegant solution, as is the Trading Hall where player vendors stand in a convincing and above all visually appealing approximation of a country trade fair.

I'm still not certain I'll ever dedicate the time and energy to this game that it demands and very possibly deserves. I fear that, as a casual potterer, dipping in and out for short sessions as and when the mood takes me, I'll never get to know the best of it, or even experience much of what makes it different.

I imagine I'll mostly end up doing what I've been doing for the past five years: wander out of the gates of Serbule, take pot-shots with my bow at any passing pig or deer or brain bug, catch a few fish, pick a few mushrooms, watch random skills go up. It makes Project: Gorgon feel like a less satisfying version of old-school EverQuest. After an hour or two I tend to want to log out and go play EQ instead.

That, though, says more about me and my MMO history than it does about Project: Gorgon. For those who find modern MMOs too cookie-cutter bland and old-school games that have been running for decades too cluttered and forbidding, this might just be the half-way house they've been looking for.

Me, I'll keep dropping in and pottering around. I'm not expecting to get very far but I don't feel P:G is a game that cares very much about how far you get. It has always felt very comfortable and I'm glad it's there.

Learning Curve: EverQuest

If there's one thing you can be sure of when playing an MMORPG it's that you never know all there is to know. It doesn't matter if you have twenty max-level characters or you've been playing since beta. Never mind whether you lead a bleeding-edge raid guild or spend your free time writing guides and correcting the wiki, there's always, always going to be something you didn't know.

EverQuest is nineteen years old this year and I've been playing for eighteen of them. Over nearly two decades I've levelled more characters than I can remember (waaaay more...). I've played on servers that have merged into servers that have merged into servers until my character limits split at the seams.

I've started over so many times I have a method. I know where to go, what to do, what to buy, what to sell to bootstrap myself into comfort. I forget details but they soon comes back when I start playing again. Or so I've always believed...

As I mentioned in my last post, the Barter system forms a crucial element in any low-level EverQuest money-making plan. Bartering was introduced with the Dragons of Norrath expansion in 2005. DoN was the expansion that followed Omens of War, which was the expansion that followed the one that almost put EverQuest out of business, Gates of Discord.

The combination of a disastrous expansion (GoD), the launch of a sequel (EQ2) and the appearance of a ferocious competitor (WoW), all in the same year, was a body-blow that staggered EQ badly but there was no knock-out blow. Omens of War, which cleaned up GoD's mess, was much better received, EQ2 stumbled out of the gate and World of Warcraft managed to gain a reputation in EQ veteran circles as an easy game for kiddies, best ignored.

Swimming from across Lake Rathetear fro m Arena to South Karana. If there's a faster route I'd like to hear about it.

By the time I came back to EQ, Dragons of Norrath was old news. Everyone was anticipating the arrival of the new expansion, Depths of Darkhollow. As I check the wiki for the dates, the cadence of these expansions is breathtaking. Between October 2002 (Planes of Power) and November 2007 (Secrets of Faydwer) SOE produced and released eleven expansions, all of which (with the exception of the mini-expansion Legacy of Ykesha) dwarf just about anything released as "expansions" for most MMOs nowadays.

Some expansions added game-changing innovations: instant transport from a central hub with PoP's Plane of Knowledge; mercenaries in Seeds of Destruction;  the Task system in OOW; instanced dungeons in Lost Dungeons of Norrath. Others sought to shift the entire direction of the game - The Serpent's Spine in 2006 claimed to render the entire first 75 levels fully soloable as well as allowing all characters to regain mana and health quickly as soon as they were out of combat.

Not every new idea worked or was taken up with enthusiasm by the players. DoD's Monster Missions had their moment in the sun purely because of an exploit. Once that was fixed did anyone ever use them again? Prophecy of Ro, my nomination for EQ's weakest-ever expansion, offered player-set traps and "spheres of influence", neither of which have I used, seen anyone else use or even heard anyone mention. And then there was the "voice macro system" from OOW... no, me neither.

I don't remember them being called "Adult Elephants". I thought they were just "Elephants".

Of all the many great additions we've enjoyed over the years, quality of life changes that make modern EQ so very much more enjoyable and satisfying to play than "Classic" ever was, Barter comes close to the top of my list. It's been so useful that I've never minded the clunky, inconvenient implementation that requires not just a visit to The Bazaar but a fiddly trip through the maze-like corridors of the Blue halls to find the player-vendor with whom your character needs to interact.

A trip to the Bazaar to type /barter and bring up the search window to see what people are buying has been a rite of passage for all my new characters for years. Many a hunting session has ended with a Gate to PoK and a run to the Bazaar.

Then last night I discovered I'd been wasting my time. Not by using the barter system - that's as essential and rewarding as ever it was. No, it's just that I never needed to leave my hunting grounds to to cash in!

I'd have known sooner if I read my own blog or took my own advice. I've recommended Almar's Guides more than once but it seems I haven't been reading them closely enough.

I linked to Almar's Bazaar Guide in the last post to save myself having to explain The Bazaar. I checked first to be sure it was relevant but I trust Almar so I didn't do much more than a skim-read. Then last night something happened in game that made me go back and read it again, properly.

You can never kill too many aviaks.

I was in South Karana, down at the birdhouse, killing Aviaks for great xp and pretty good loot, when someone in General Chat asked a question about how to make some plat at low levels. Vox, the new (as in five years old) server where I'm currently playing has excellent General chat - lively, well-mannered, helpful. Answers and suggestions were offered.

Someone was explaining Barter and I was half following the conversation when I saw something that made me exclaim out loud in surprise and disbelief. They were saying that you could check barter from anywhere in the game and then sell straight from your bags where you stood!

Could that be true? Right there, mid-fight (my pet was doing the fighting and my merc was doing the healing so my involvement was optional) I typed /barter and the window opened. It was like a miracle. I grabbed the corner and stretched the window so I could see all of it and there, next to every listed item, was a blue "SELL" button.

I searched my bag for something I could sell. Anything. I didn't have anything anyone wanted. For the rest of the session I scanned my loot obsessively as it came in, looking for an item I could use as a test. Finally a Steel Ingot dropped. They're always in demand. Only not today.

Killing lions in the vain hope of getting the elusive High Quality Lion Skin, curently trading on /barter for 10,000 plat.
In 19 years I've seen one drop.

Eventually an Aviak Rook gave me some Sivril Ore. Someone on Barter wanted a few pieces for some arcane purpose. I clicked on the SELL button... and the ore vanished! A platinum piece clinked into my purse and the whole of Norrath changed in an instant.

Being able to search and sell remotely is game-changing. It allows me to find a spot where things people want to buy drop, then stay there to farm them without having to gate to clear my bags and sell. Given the time it takes to travel and get set up to hunt in Norrath, this is a Big Deal. Yes, it only applies to the small number of items that players want to buy, but now I can check every drop to see if there's a demand and if there is I can sell immediately and clear a bag slot  for more.

This wonderful change was a feature of the Rain of Fear expansion in 2012. You have to own that expansion to use it. I have it on my lapsed All Access account, which is the one I'm currently playing. I'm not sure if I have it on my current All Access one but if I don't then I'll be buying it (or rather I'll buy the latest expansion, which will give me all the previous ones) if I start playing a character over there.

I was particularly impressed to find I could use the function even though the account I was on isn't subbed. I already knew you could search the Bazaar remotely but I thought that was a perk of All Access. According to Almar "you can open the Bazaar tab anywhere in the world and buy items from anywhere in the world (Ownership of the Rain of Fear (RoF) expansion required). The same goes for using /barter. You can sell items immediately after picking them up from a monster and have the plat instantly placed in your inventory after you sell the wares!"

I often used to check the Bazaar remotely when I was playing my Magician, back when hers was the subbed account, but my memory was that, when I tried after my subscription lapsed, the option was no longer available. Well, either my memory is faulty (likely!) or things have changed. (Or, it just occurs to me, I am confusing the usage of EQ's Bazaar with that of EQ2's Broker...the "too many Norraths" problem). Anyway, I just tested it and a F2P (Silver) account can check the Bazaar remotely.

Not only that, there's a "BUY" button for /bazaar just like there's a "SELL" button for /barter. I found a cheap pair of gloves I needed so I could test it. I pressed BUY and another window popped up. Apparently you can pay via some kind of ticket to have the item delivered straight to your bags or pay a platinum fee to have it sent to a "Parcels" NPC.

Since I didn't have any of the tickets and didn't know where or how to get them, and since I was in Plane of Knoweledge, home of every service known to Norrath, I chose "Parcels". Then  I popped "Find" (another essential quality of life feature) and followed the glowing trail to the Small Bank, where a gnome by the name of Caden Zharik had my gloves ready and waiting.

Clearly I need to read up on all this. I feel like I've been playing with blinkers on these past few years. How much more is there that I don't know? How many awkward, time-consuming aspects - "that's just how it is in EQ" - are really artefacts of my own ignorance?

I don't know but I suspect a lot. It really is no wonder new players find it heavy going. You could say it should be better explained but it would need a manual the size of an encyclopedia and who would read it? Keep adding content for two decades and that's just what happens, I guess.

Always something new to learn, though. I'd call that a feature all of its own.