Real-to-Virtual Transaction: A Virtually Perfect Business

Virtual-to-real transaction is the practice of distributing virtual currencies, items and services for real-world profit. From the lowly Chinese workshop to high-tech offices of internet entrepreneurs, virtual money has become a hot commodity. The industry spans from New York to Shanghai, with hundreds of thousands of avid customers inbetween. Millions of players across the globe provide custom for RMT websites that are becoming some of the most search for site on the search engines.
Little press attention is given to this explosive industry and so it remains an unknown property to the majority of the world's population. Nevertheless this phenomenon exists in most MMORPG titles including World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, EverQuest and EVE, to name a few. This can be shown in the World of Warcraft where players battle through numerous dungeons, quests and scenarios in order to acquire piles of the game's currency. Most blow their fortune within the game's stores or marketplace, but some decide to approach the task like a business, utilizing any means necessary to bolster their reserves of currency and sell it on for real cash.
The creators of MMORPGs tend to disagree with the practices detailed above, and they cite several reasons for doing so. Major developers and distributers often cite intellectual property violations as their reason for objection, claiming that participants are selling part of the game which actually belongs to the game's creator. Developers often try to persuade players within the game that the practice is detrimental to game-play or the world's economy. Whilst some action has been taken by game developers, it has never been directly targeted at the transaction of company to customer.
Regardless of where you loyalties on the ethics or principles of the practices, virtual trading is here to stay. The bottom line for many is that there is money to be made, and the industry is continuing to grow. Future games such as Age of Conan and Stargate Worlds will no doubt act as the future venues for this ever expanding industry.
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Age of Conan: Very Early Impressions

The character creation screen is more in depth than many MMOs. However, if you're brave enough to admit you've played The Sims, then you've certainly seen better. In the end does it really matter in games where you're likely to be covered head to toe in armor? I think not so much but I sense that people do enjoy the versatility. What I would personally have preferred more than being able to tweak the length of my nose or the size of my boobs, was not to look like a ragamuffin. If you thought your character's gear looked thrown together in LOTRO you ain't seen nothin' yet. To date, Age of Conan and LOTRO are the only games that I've played where I looked like mixed-match mess.

I appreciate the circumstance of a recently escaped/freed slave. I understand they don't plan on making the game as gear dependant as others. However, do I really have to look that bad? Or am I that vain??? I found myself looking through the multiple tops, pants and shoes in my bag trying to find something that at least seemed like it went together. The stats were all the same but the styles, colors and textures didn't jive. I looked a hot mess. It was slightly similar to AC2 in that, there was a lot of variety in the same piece of armor so you can be in a red robe that has +1 Defense and I can be in a black one if I prefer and that's without dying your items. However, Age of Conan hacks made the stuff even at the lower levels look decent and you could easily match your items. Hopefully, I'll get to look better at some point.

AOC has a nice variety of classes within the four archetypes of Soldier, Priest, Mage and Assassin. Only certain classes can be played by certain races, which is a common implementation. However, in AOC whole archetypes are exclusive to certain races. For example, if you want to be a Mage of any kind, then you must be Stygian. On the PVE and PVP servers so what, but I wonder how this plays out on the Culture PVP servers where a race is completely locked out of an archetype?

Even though AOC has the usual suspects for classes, not all of them are the typical fare. Priests and Mages are battle versions of those classes. Everyone gets to have decent offensive skills and from what I've read so far, it appears that HOT and AOE healing spells are more prevalent than the "heal one" scenario. I think this might make playing a healer more pleasurable. If you can heal many more often with a single action, you'll have more opportunity to actual watch the battle – see the instances and bosses.

One of the Mage's has melee as its primary DPS, as does at least one of the Priests. It's little twists like these that add a bit of freshness into the game. I'll discuss the classes in more detail after I've finished testing my would-be mains.

Lastly, the combat system which is VERY different from any MMO I've ever played. At least in terms of PVE, it's not giving me nearly the trouble I expected. I never did well on the console games and don't consider myself adept at FPS style combat but so far, so good. The inclusion of combos which deal more damage when successfully executed is interesting. I do wish that I could move where they displayed. For some reason focusing left side of the screen doesn't work as well for me, as it would if I could place it right side or better yet, closer to my character and my Age of Conan cheats. I want to watch the combat but with the combos slightly off to the left, my eye is focused there. Oh well, definitely not a huge deal. It would just be nice to be able to move it to match my preferred field of view.

That's where I'm at for now. It's pretty, different, combat feels fresh, UI could be better but no deal breaker. I'm on a PVE server at the moment. I'm going to do a Bear Shaman on a PVP or Cultural PVP server at some point. The only pitfall I can foresee at the moment is if I MUST quest. Forced questing for leveling is why I'm not playing LOTRO or EQ2. Grinding XP is a play-style and as much as some people hate it, others enjoy and actually prefer it. I don't mind questing in moderation but when I'm not in the mood, I really do need the freedom to just go whack stuff and still level at a decent rate. This philosophy is one of the major reasons I'm excited about Warhammer Online.

May 29, 2008 in Age of Conan | Permalink



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MMO MMOnkey: Age of Conan reinvents the early game

Like a damsel in distress, MMO players have been held captive by game openings that have relied heavily, much too heavily, on bounty quests of the "Kill twenty of these and then come back to me" variety. Trapped in chains of tedium, experienced players blitz through early levels to get to the point where something interesting starts to happen while gamers new to the genre often wonder why anyone bothers to play these games before they quit from boredom. At least that's the way it used to be.

Lord of the Rings Online took a giant step toward freeing the damsel when they placed the player in a solo instance at the very beginning that gets the player immediately involved in the story that drives the game while also providing instruction in basic game play. It is a terrific way to begin an MMO and the people at Turbine did a great job with it. LotRO weakened the chains but did not quite free the damsel. Now Age of Conan has arrived and by incorporating LotRO's approach into an extended opening that is innovative, immersive and exceptionally well implemented Conan has rescued the damsel by reinventing the early game.

Your character begins AoC in a solo instance. You've washed up on shore with shackles on your wrists after your slave ship has wrecked at sea. Your first task is to free a damsel in distress named Casilda. She's gorgeous, scantily clad, and provocative, follows you everywhere you go, and never misses an opportunity to tell you you're a stud muffin as she bails your sorry ass out of whatever trouble you've blundered into. In other words, she's a wet dream for 14 year old boys of all ages.

Casilda keeps you alive as you play through the instance learning the basics of game play while picking up starter weapons and armor. If you talk to her, she'll also begin to fill you in on the dire situation that will occupy your efforts through the first part of the game. Talking to her is a good idea for two reasons; she's your introduction to the terrific story that drives AoC's early game, and she has an accent that would make listening to the grocery list enjoyable. (If you enjoy listening to Casilda, just wait until you meet Tina.)

AoC is following in the path blazed by LotRO in its use of a solo instance as an introductory tutorial that puts the player in the story. Once you reach the starter city of Tortage, however, Age of Conan goes where no MMO has gone before.

The early game in AoC is divided into daytime and nighttime segments. The daytime game is a fairly typical shared-world MMO with vendors, quests, several different locations, and lots of other players running around. Some of the quests are of the standard bounty hunter variety that turns the early game into a dreary grind in so many other MMOs. However, there are so many other kinds of quests in both the day and nighttime games that you can skip the bounty quests if you don't want to do them. If you like them, they're there for you; if you don't, you can avoid them without penalty.

The nighttime game is a single-player adventure in which you learn about the evil things that are going on in, around and under Tortage and play your part in trying to put an end to them. It is also the mechanism AoC uses to let you build your character to the point where you are ready to enter the main game world. During character creation you choose one of AoC's twelve character classes but when you wash up on shore your memory is gone and your character doesn't know who or what they are. Both character and story development are carried out through a single series of destiny quests in the night game.

You can go back and forth between the day and nighttime games whenever you please; day and night are not on a timer in the early game. The destiny quest line is designed to take you through approximately twenty levels and you must attain a certain level to unlock the next series of quests in the sequence. Quest mobs are tuned to your level so the destiny quests are always both challenging and doable. Some players are finding the destiny quests difficult but that has not been my experience. When you have finished the destiny quests you can go to the mainland and enter the main part of the game or you can stay on the island; your choice. If you leave, you can come back at any time.

The combination of a single player game and a shared-world MMO is an interesting and innovative game mechanic in and of itself but what makes it work so well in AoC is how well Funcom has combined the two in a coherent whole. The evil that you uncover at night is reflected all around you in the world you see during the day, and the experience of living in the daytime world deeply enriches the adventure you have at night. The day and night games beautifully compliment and reinforce each other in such a way that their whole is greater than the sum of their parts. It's two different games in one seamlessly integrated world and the result is a deeply immersive experience for the player.

The sense of immersion is greatly enhanced by the story line that drives the nighttime destiny quests. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that the story is a very good one that is very much in tune with Robert E. Howard's classic Conan stories. The night game carries the main story line but several quest sequences in the day game fill out some of the details. As always, there's the big bad guy that you're going to have to deal with in the final confrontation but along the way you'll get up close and personal with his lieutenants, minions and soldiers. In the daytime world you'll witness their depravity and be personally subjected to their arrogance and disdain. They will scorn and demean you and, like the other denizens of Tortage, you will be powerless to do anything about it. Other than pray your paths will cross in the night, that is. If and when your paths do cross, you will understand at a gut level the joy in wreaking physical destruction on your enemies that is so much a part of the Conan stories. You really want these people to die, you really want your friends and allies to survive, and you find yourself this deeply immersed in the game during the first twenty levels. These are the same twenty levels that other games have you grind through before the fun starts.

The day – night mechanic also contributed to my sense of immersion in the game in a way that was completely unexpected. Many MMOs have a day – night cycle that is designed to contribute to the player's sense that the virtual world is a real place that exists independently of the player's actions. At first glance, allowing the player to control when day and night occur appears to be a large step backward from this kind of immersive realism. It didn't work that way for me, however. I found I quickly fell into a rhythm where I would play the day game for awhile, get tired of the daytime quests, switch to the night game, play that for awhile, switch back to the day game, and so on. Alternating the two games like this led me to think that AoC captures the functional difference between night and day like no MMO before it and by doing so draws the player more deeply into the game.

What do I mean by the functional difference between night and day? In the real world, night comes, it gets dark, and there's nothing we can do about it. AoC 's early game utterly fails at depicting this aspect of the day – night cycle. Don't want it to get dark? Don't play the night game. It's that simple. But for most of us, day and night involve much more than a difference between light and dark. We generally do very different things during the day and the night. Day is for work, night is for relaxation and fun. Day and night fulfill different functions in our lives and for many of us this functional difference is much more important and meaningful than the simple difference between light and dark. By splitting the day and night games between a shared-world MMO and a story-driven solo adventure AoC does a wonderful job of capturing this functional difference. Nighttime not only looks different, it feels different because you're doing different things, and that makes it more real and more engaging than the regular application of a dark color scheme on a cyclical timer.

The integrative aspects of AoC's early game are not limited to melding the day and nighttime games into a single fully realized world. There are four class archetypes in AoC, soldier, rogue, priest and mage. The destiny lines for the rogue and soldier archetypes (the two I've played through to the end of the early game thus far) have some quests in common but each also has a number of special quests that are tailored to the archetype. For example, the soldier goes on a rescue mission while the rogue has a sneak and assassination mission. In addition, the differences in the quest lines provide interlocking pieces of the overall story. As the soldier you are told that because X has happened you must now do Y; as the rogue you are the one that did X so that the soldier can do Y. Playing out the different parts of the story with different characters greatly adds to the fullness of the world and the richness of your experience in it.

It also appears to be the case that the adventure you have in the early game is only a small segment of a much larger story that will play out through the rest of AoC. The destiny story line has hooks aplenty for subsequent development in the larger world. Your victory in Tortage may well have brought your character to the attention of much more dangerous foes. You'll just have to keep playing to find out.

Age of Conan opens like no game before it and I expect the changes will not be to everyone's liking. The weary complaints from people who assert that World of Warcraft didn't do anything new because it was just an easier version of Everquest seem to be counterbalanced by the segment of the MMO community that wants every new game to be just like WoW only better. The latter group may find AoC confusing and I've seen some minor pissing and moaning in OOC chat from people who are frustrated by being challenged to do something other than mindlessly grind out the first twenty levels to "get off this damned island" as fast as possible. In many other MMOs the first ten to twenty levels are a chore you need to get through. In AoC, they're an exciting and compelling introduction to the game and the game world. If you can adapt to this difference in the early game, you're in for a treat. If you can't, you're going to blow through an experience that's meant to be savored and miss one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

With Age of Conan Funcom has melded innovative game design with the centuries-old standby of a good story that is well told and then deeply embedded the combination in a world that is so fully realized it draws you in almost immediately and doesn't let go until you set sail for the mainland. AoC sets new and very high standards for what the early game in an MMO should be. Having played through the adventure in Tortage, grinding out five, ten, or twenty levels at the start of an MMO just to get to the part where the fun begins isn't going to cut it anymore. Age of Conan has come roaring out of the gate and like the mighty Cimmerian for whom it's named has put a boot in the ass of the early game in nearly every other MMO out there. Conan has rescued my damsel from her early-game distress and she's never going to want to go back to the way it used to be.

Source : massively.com

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Online Game communities are social in nature

By Cindy Ahuna

Who are the friendly characters that will play with you if you play with them?

In 1969, "SpaceWar", developed by Rick Blomme, was the first two-player game designed to play on PLATO. In 1961, the "Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations" was the first network to run on the Illiac computer system. PLATO was created by Professor Chalmers Sherwin, under the direction of electrical engineering professor Don Bitzer, co-inventor of the plasma display pane at the University of Illinois.

During 1970 through 1977, multiplayer games included "SpaceWar"; a version of "Star Trek"; "Avatar", a Dungeons and Dragons-style game; "Airflight", a flight simulator; and "Empire", which supported 32 players on PLATO. In 1972, PLATO hosted 1,000 simultaneous users. In May 2001, Sony's "EverQuest", a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, hosted 60,000 to 80,000 players daily.

In 1973, David R. Woolley designed "Notes", a communications software for PLATO. Due to the release of this software, "Talkomatic", precursor to IRC with handles and chat rooms, was developed for PLATO. A maximum of five people wrote and read each other's messages on the same screen. Chat rooms were open and uncensored. A player logged on using their real or an anonymous name, and played either gender role.

In various online chat rooms found on AOL's games and in Sony's "EverQuest", text is censored when gamers use brand or offensive words. Role-playing genders, sometimes referred to as gender swapping or multiple representations, is possible when gamers change or hide the genders of their characters using anonymous names.

In "EverQuest", with more than 360,000 subscribers, thousands of gamers play characters of the opposite gender. Gamers are free to explore relationships while in character. Male gamers find that female characters generally get treated better in male-dominated virtual worlds. Sometimes men find it easier to chat with other characters and escape the competition. In free online games list, multiple representations allow players to see how other players solve problems. "There are a lot of rumors and anecdotes about people referring to play games as men or women because they are treated differently," says avid gamer J. MacLean.

In a lecture titled "Programs, Emotions and Common Sense", Marvin Minsky emphasized in his book the idea of multiple representation. "If you understand something very precisely in one way", Minsky claims "you don't understand it at all." "You know it by rote. What does the word understand mean? Understanding means having many different ways to deal with things," said Minsky. Children memorize history by rote, but they usually don't understand it how free online games work. Sometimes gamers falsely assume they are interacting with a person who matches the gender's name. Perhaps on one level, Minsky's definition can be applied as a working analogy for multiplayers who role-play playing games. If multiplayers had more ways of identifying the characters, they might be able to understand who the friendly characters were when they played with them, but then again, that might take all of the fun out of the game.

Artist/curator Anne-Marie Schleiner, describes social developments in gaming: "Multiplayer games can be very social. In the shooter genre, players sometimes band together into "clans", groups who fight against other groups. Sometimes the social bonds developed in these clans extend beyond the game into friendship and players offer each other moral support through personal hardship and help each other find jobs," said Schleiner.

Social environments evolve from online game communities. "A great example is "Air Warrior", a WW2 flight simulation with players are so dedicated, they've held conventions. Massive multiplayer role-playing games are also famous for the strength of their communities "the guilds in "EverQuest" are a great example of this phenomenon," says MacLean. In contrast to single player games, communities are vital depending on the game. For example, "for a game like chess, where skill levels can be critical, many people prefer to play with someone of relatively similar skill," says MacLean.

In a global point of view, the Internet is the living organism that hosts many online games systems. Boundaries of geography, economy, culture, degrees of education and family traditions have disappeared. Gamers are co-authors that take part in the experience. Communities are playing fields for social interaction. When gamers send messages to other gamers, they are free to exchange email addresses and meet beyond the game community. Communities have become an extension, a new medium of human touch.

When communities form, a semantic world of sharing knowledge, solving problems, working as a team, playing, building, quarreling, cooperating, planning and forming relationships develop. Games are formal because they have a set of rules. A game is a system because it has a collection of parts that interact with each other in complex ways. In "EverQuest", the Game Masters hold the most power. Online games run on a '24x7' calendar. Generally, online the role-playing games are maintained by paid subscriptions, whereas, online fighting games are free. Communities exist in time by free and paid subscriptions. Gamers occupy real estate within the online game. Communities live in both space and time. Thus, it is a lifelike system.

Popular game boxes vary from Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2; Nintendo's GameCube projected to ship Nov 5, '01 in the US; and Microsoft's Xbox projected to ship Nov 8, '01 in the US. "Although game boxes offer higher resolution graphics in comparison to PC gaming, they are a closed hardware platform and less amenable to multiplayer social games. Multiplayer gamers cannot insert their own character skins into shooter games in a game box or with a multiplayer game, such as "EverQuest". "EverQuest" can easily receive updates on the game over time that get rewritten over the original game software," says Schleiner. Many gamers develop friendships with other gamers in different countries using the chat session in "EverQuest".

In some ways, there are as many different types of gamers as there are games. General definitions include:

* Generally, casual gamers are people who enjoy simple decision making games and typically play less technical 3D graphic games. * Generally, traditional gamers are people who enjoy a more complex game. * Multiplayers (simultaneous players) are defined as those who play with other gamers in the same game.

What makes an online game exciting, interesting, social or more fun than another game? Motivation evolves from sensory gratification, role-playing, personality, taste, adrenaline, sociology, immersive and engaging environments, and the element of fun. Games in general motivate ideas. Topics include life, survival, strategy, role-playing, and building relationships. In all circumstances, the player learns by playing. "Building colossal virtual worlds are very important. In a virtual world, everything has a purpose. I love games, " said Minsky during his lecture, "Programs, Emotions and Common Sense".

In Star Trek CCG, gamers can buy and sell, trade and collect digital cards, watch or judge games, and attend tournaments. One disadvantage, prior to downloading the plug-in, a high risk is indicated. The risk is associated with the possibility of gamers accessing your computer if you proceed with download. This warning appears with this statement: "JavaScript or a java applet from DigitalDeck, Inc. is requesting additional privileges." This plug-in is required to run the application.

Because game communities are social in nature, knowledge and understanding are more apparent in virtual worlds. "Wouldn't it be nice to connect two thoughts," said Minsky.



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MMO 2.0

Lately, there has been a lot to talk about in the MMO-verse, with Age of Conan just getting released and a World of Warcraft expansion pack on track for a holiday unveiling there seems to be nothing that can stop the momentum gained by the industry. However, despite all the success being thrown around by the top five MMOs (World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, EVE Online, Final Fantasy XI) there seems to be very little that is truly pushing the genre towards the "next step."

In every walk of the technological life there are upgrades to the original. Even something as simple as the web was fully upgraded into what has become to lovingly termed: web 2.0. So the same should hold true for MMO, right? You'd think so, but very little has actually changed since the dawning of the 3D MMORPG in the heyday of Everquest. There has been smaller changes like the advent of a quest based storyline and an enhanced mini-map and traveling system, but nothing I'd really call revolutionary, or next generation. Let's face it, nobody out there is really attempting to do anything to set a new standard in the industry.

Now I know that there is at least one EVE Online fan reading this right now in disgust. Let me say this right now, EVE Online is definitely a different experience and CCP has done a marvelous job and creating a successful MMO that strays from the typical archtype that most MMOs follow today. However, that said, they are not setting a standard in the industry. EVE Online and CCP will not be changing the way the industry makes its games and there probably won't be any long lasting affects from their technology. The original Xbox was the first to really incorporate seamless online and now it has become the standard. MySpace truly pushed the bounds of "web 2.0″ with it's social networking applications and it has now become the standard. Apple created the first truly desirable MP3 player and it has now become the standard. All of these are examples of an industry that was expanded on by companies that wished to create a fresh experience on an old application and as such truly changed the landscape of how everybody else played in that field. So despite EVE Online's unique gameplay they certainly haven't changed the way developers make games.

So, where does that leave the industry? With the huge success of World of Warcraft, which handily dashes the success of the other top four MMOs combined, game developers desperately need to find new ways to make their games different and if that means employing a new combat system (Age of Conan) or seriously enhancing the PvP and RvR settings (Warhammer Online) then thats what these companies will do. Unfortunately, many of these "enhancements" are gimmicky at best and won't be offering any true MMO 2.0 anytime soon. However, and this is just my prediction, I think it's safe to say that after all the so called "WoW-killers" have debuted to date, the only MMO that will truly begin to pick away at the house that Blizzard built will be an MMO 2.0 game. Personally, I'm keeping my eye on Copernicus.

P.S. I am in no way calling Age of Conan's combat system or WAR's RvR system bad or flawed, but, rather, non-revolutionary. Yes I have tested out both; Age of Conan beta, Warhammer Online at E for All 2007.

Source : MMOCrunch.com

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What AoC means for WoW

According to Michael Zenke from Massively, Age of Conan has sold 400,000 copies, out of 700,000 boxes they put on the shelves. Not bad for the first week. And, kudos to Funcom, the release launch went a lot smoother than the beta or early access. The reception of AoC in the blogosphere was a mixed. Keen and Graev already cancelled their accounts again. Tipa from West Karana sees AoC challenging WoW. The Ancient Gaming Noob correctly points out that "MMOs are a long haul proposition" and reserves judgement until having played it more. And the Common Sense Gamer thinks that WoW won't even notice AoC is out.

So here is what I think. I don't have proof, only anecdotal evidence, so preface every phrase here with "In my humble opinion": I think that World of Warcraft suffers from a cycle of peaks and troughs in subscription numbers. This is largely self-inflicted, numbers peak after big content patches and expansions, and fall in long periods of no new content added. Other factors, like summer holidays, also play a role. I do believe that WoW is heading for a major trough of subscription numbers in the western world. Remember that of the 10.7 million WoW players about 6 million are Chinese, who are on a different cycle, and who pay much less. There are less than 5 million players in the US and Europe, and the number will be falling over the summer, because the Burning Crusade is getting long in the tooth, and not everyone likes to spend his summer holidays in front of a computer.

Age of Conan will reach between half a million and one million subscribers this year. Most of which will be ex-WoW players. A good number of them will have stopped playing WoW anyway, with or without AoC, but a couple of hundred thousand will be pushed over the edge and quit WoW for the prospect of a new game. And Blizzard will notice that, because all of these are the well-paying US/Euro kind of subscribers. Age of Conan will not "kill" World of Warcraft, but it will dent it a bit.

Summer will end, christmas will approach, and now everything is possible. WoW could bring out Wrath of the Lich King in November, and it's subscription numbers would peak again. And personally I don't see Age of Conan having much staying power, not in a game where the first people reached the level cap in the first week already. Wrath of the Lich King will make a much larger dent into Age of Conan's subscription numbers than AoC does into WoW's now. But another possibility is that Blizzard misses a 2008 release date for WotLK. And it is also quite possible that Warhammer Online makes that date, and comes out for christmas. And then Blizzard would really start feeling the pain. I do believe that WAR has an even bigger potential of getting subscribers away from WoW than AoC has. If WAR comes out for christmas and WotLK doesn't, they could easily sell a million copies this year. Again, these are all Americans and Europeans, and if WAR beats WotLK to a christmas release, WoW numbers could suffer an even deeper trough.

None of this will "kill" World of Warcraft. But we are talking numbers here that are big enough to show up in a companies annual report of revenue and profits. If Wrath of the Lich King doesn't come out by the end of this year, the 2008 profits from WoW will be significantly lower than those of 2007, and investors and people at Vivendi will notice. Blizzard would bounce back to a dominating position when they bring out Wrath of the Lich King, but then what? If the third expansion is still another 2 years away, the overall trend of WoW subscription numbers could well go into permanent decline. One day WoW won't be the biggest kid on the block any more, not because of one WoW killer, but because of a death by a thousand cuts. The best Blizzard can hope for is that the new champion will be their next generation MMORPG, but that is not a given.

Source : www.Tobold.com

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EverQuest - City of Mist

We didn't come anywhere near our level cap Friday, as Mistmoore Castle turned out to be pretty tough. Saturday, a few of us were on, not doing much, so we decided to just DO something. And so we did probably about the most boring thing you could think of — we went to a zone, broke a camp, and stayed there and chatted and just had fun for the rest of the night. In the end, it was probably my most … nostalgic … moment since I returned to EverQuest.

The zone was the City of Mist, in the Emerald Jungle. The camp was the stables, one of the most coveted camps for experience groups Back In The Day. A named pops there, and gave our cleric, Ishbel, a fancy new shield. Lackey, our mage, also got a shield of some sort (not as nice, though). No notable loot aside from that, but once Urtog figured out the spawns and we got the camp nice and broken, we were in the zone and it was the standard EQ camp from then on.

On Nostalgia nights, we tend to crawl through dungeons. This was not the typical way of playing EverQuest. Usually you fought your way to someplace you liked, and you STAYED there. The puller would pull, the tank would grab the aggro, and everyone would pile on. But that sort of play has fallen out of fashion, and I believe EverQuest is still the only MMO that offers this sort of casual, extremely social, style of play.

I have long thought that all the things people count as bad points in EQ, are actually good points — if you are with the right sort of people. MMO devs were far too quick to blithely toss out what was good about EQ. And now people will never know, unless they play.

Source: westkarana.com Sunday I was putting stuff in the guild bank with Brita, my 75 cleric, when I got a tell from a monk asking to help him on his final fight for his epic 2.0. Naturally, I said I'd be right there. The fight was on the aviak island in the Ocean of Tears. The fight is meant for two groups, but can be done with one. The group was made of people from between 70 and 80. One person didn't get to the fight in time, so we did it with five — monk, cleric (me!), shaman, warrior, warrior. He's the fun bit, and why EQ is EQ. Nobody was exactly sure what happened on the fight or what the mob would do, though they didn't think there would be adds. And so we just started it off. Turns out he had a short-range AE rampage and a single target fear+stun. But not a word was spoken about those. Everyone seamlessly adapted to a fight they were learning as they went on, and after awhile, we won without a single death (and mana was okay too). High level EQ players are professionals. They have played in groups nearly their entire time, they know their jobs, they are adaptable and expert at their jobs. Take a standard high level EQ2 group. About half a pickup group will have no idea what to do. They clearly don't know their class. They don't assist, they don't cure, they don't use all their abilities… it's a mess. Or your standard WoW group. Everyone is sure they can solo everything, and so they don't even pretend to work together. They just go wherever, and blame the healer if they aren't kept alive. (I was that poor healer. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating to have people just wander off all the time, or a mage suddenly and without warning decide to jump into the middle of a group of mobs and start AEing while I was trying to heal the tank. But I digress.) That cool competence is another thing I would love to see in other MMOs. But to get people to learn how to act as a team, games would have to encourage group play, and that notion has become radioactive to MMO devs. Encourage people to group? What is this MADNESS? MMO games are for SOLO players, dontcha know. SOE obviously thinks that now; the Rise of Kunark expansion proved that. I hope they don't mess with EQ. rangerdie.jpg I spent some time brewing up a couple stacks of armor dye Sunday. I wanted my ranger to have ranger-y colors, so I finally settlled on an outfit with shades of green and burnt orange that complemented the weird halfling chain armor model colors and looked fairly unique. In EQ, you come to recognize people by their armor designs, so everyone comes up with colors that are uniquely theirs. It took awhile to come up with a pattern that would look ranger-y — tending toward green and brown — but not monochrome. I also worked fletching up to about 150, got my conjuration skill high enough to cast DoTs reliably, and did some weapon quests for decent weapons. I eventually went to the Bazaar for a 1HS, since my 1HS skill was falling behind. Level 40 and beyond starts bringing rangers into their unique role, with short term buffs that greatly increase melee. I am still really happy with the abilities of the class, and regret not trying one sooner.

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