Just Potatoes

I have another stamp in my MMO passport this month… Everquest II.

After thinking through what I really want out of my gaming experience in the last post, and spending time playing single player games for a bit, I decided to give EQ2 another shot. I’d played it briefly just prior to the release of Wrath of the Lich King, during the pre-expansion lull.

EQ2 has the level of complexity that I’ve been craving, an overall decent commmunity and a fairly rich lore. I’m playing on Antonia Bayle, which is the RP server, and I was so impressed after playing for a month that I actually bought the Collector’s Edition of the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, which won’t surprise anyone who remembers that I’m a sucker for a CE…

So the Collector's Edition mount isn't the most beautiful thing I've ever seen... The graphics really aren't that bad, considering the age of the game.

In the previous post, I mentioned that I enjoyed the leveling experience and the challenge of gearing up a character. I really *want* an uphill course to climb in improving my character. While leveling in EQ2 is fairly easy, the other aspects of character development are where the challenge lies.

A few of the things about EQ2 that I’m enjoying…

• Community – My biggest issue with WoW (and other games) is that I’m a cranky old lady (though I’m known to still laugh at my 4 year old’s potty jokes, soooo….), and I just don’t have the patience to deal with trolls anymore. I can’t read chat in WoW for more than about 10 seconds before getting the overwhelming urge to poke my eyes out. While EQ2’s “1-9 chat” channel, essentially the global channel, can occasionally get a bit silly, it’s the *only* general channel in ANY game that I haven’t needed to turn off soon after logging in.
• Alternate Advancement points – This is part of the complexity of character development. AA points are akin to WoW’s talent points, and you spend them to upgrade skills and obtain new abilities. They’re received independently of your adventuring level, and you get AAs by doing all kinds of things… exploring, killing, questing, collecting stuff, etc. The AA cap at level 90 is 250 points. However, if you just level through to 90, you’ll end up with only a portion of those (someone told me around 100-120 points at level 80 if you jam straight through). In order to be good at your chosen class, you’ll want to earn as many AA points as possible. To this end, there’s an “experience slider” where you can convert portions of earned adventuring experience into AA experience. I absolutely love being able to control my journey through the content like this. It also means that if something is tough for me to do, I can earn more AA and try it again instead of giving up and outleveling it. The AA slider also lets me continue questing in a zone that I’m enjoying, when I might otherwise level out of it quickly. If I want to jam through to max level, I can. If I want to take a slow, leisurely journey through the content, I can. EQ2 feels far less linear than other MMOs I’ve played.
• Dings – So many things “ding” in EQ2. There are adventuring level dings, and AA dings, and collection completion dings, and tradeskill level dings, and the little ding noise you get when you harvest a rare crafting item…
  

  The atmospheric effects are decent, and I look forward to seeing the improved graphics in the newer zones

• Classes – I spent a couple of weeks just trying different classes, and settled on playing a fury, which is an offensive, healing capable druid. I leveled a dirge to level 20 when I’d played previously, which is a bardic, buffing class. I’d like to try a wizard, and one of the tank classes at some point.
• Betrayal – Every race and class is either good, evil or neutral. My fury is a high elf. I’m not sure what I was thinking, other than that all the characters I’d tried had gone through the starting areas for evil races so I should try a “good” character. But if I decide to turn evil, there’s no problem, since EQ2 has a betrayal system allowing the player to switch factions! The betrayal system is well thought out and a really neat feature. I’ve done some of the quests to betray, though I haven’t gone all the way yet. I love how the quest givers subvert the character by convincing them of the flaws of their current faction. I probably will betray eventually just to see that content. Imagine if you were a Horde player in WoW and could quest to convert to the Alliance, or if you were a destruction race in Warhammer and could quest to become Order…
• Chronomancy – I haven’t experienced this one yet, but there are chronomancer NPCs who’ll lower your level temporarily so you can go back and earn XP and AA with quests and instances that you’ve outleveled. There are people who jam through to max level and then use the chronomancer to go back down to earlier content so they can earn those AA points. I have yet to see anything like this is any other game. You can also “mentor down” to a lower level friend so you can quest and instance with them at the same level as they are.
• Crafting – Crafting is not something I generally enjoy. For some reason, I’m getting a real kick out of it in EQ2. Maybe it’s because you ding tradeskill levels. (Apparently, I’m a sucker for a ding?) Starting at level 10, you choose one of three general tradeskill areas – scholar, outfitter and craftsman, and get to experience crafting a wide variety of items. Every character has a tradeskill level as well as an adventuring level, and when your tradeskill level hits 20, you choose a specialization. My fury took tailoring, so I can continue to make my own leather armor upgrades.


I met Antonia Bayle at the Royal Hunting Camp, after uncovering a sinister plot to kill her.

I’m looking forward to hanging out in Norrath some more…

In the Fallen Earth help channel, the same few questions get asked over and over. (No, not “How do I make relish?” and “How do I equip the axe?” though those do get asked an awful lot.)

It’s very common for people in the tutorial to ask, “What’s the level cap and how’s the endgame?” When hearing that Fallen Earth really doesn’t have much of an endgame yet, and the level cap is 45, the response is often, “Then what’s the point?”

What’s the point, indeed…

Many MMO players are inclined to look at the endgame of a potential new MMO as a determinant of how long they’ll stay with the game. What’s the point of subscribing if you’re going to run out of content in a month of playing?

The issue with Fallen Earth is that so much of the game is about the journey, and about exploring, that people who think, “I’ll jam through 45 levels and be stuck with nothing to do” don’t do the game justice. But I’m not surprised they think that way.

When I first tried Lord of the Rings Online, shortly after it’s release, I decided not to subscribe, because I was concerned that the level cap was only 50, and there seemed very little content past that. So I know what those people in the Fallen Earth help channel are thinking. I felt that same way about LOTRO.

For anyone whose main leap into MMOs began with WoW, as mine did (not counting MUDs and Guild Wars), I think it’s hard to break away from the idea that the*real* game starts at the level cap.

In World of Warcraft, leveling characters is easy. In the past, it was far more difficult, but they’ve since reduced the experience required to level and increased the experience earned from quests. So the journey to the level cap is short and sweet for most people. And that’s where the REAL game begins. Gearing up, reputation grinds, raiding… Blizzard has focused so much on the endgame in WoW that the Wrath of the Lich King expansion didn’t provide any new content for characters under the level cap. It was solely an endgame expansion. Blizzard’s primary demographic is clearly the endgame players.

Where I find the most enjoyment in WoW, or “the point” of WoW for me, is getting a character to the level cap then gearing them up. I love the gear grind. In Burning Crusade, I spent hours doing heroic 5-man instances with guildies for badges, and grinding rep with Ogri’la, and the Shatari Skyguard. Getting to exalted reputation levels with the various factions had tangible rewards and was tough to do for the casual player. It took time. As a result, there was far more diversity in the server community.

Maliera as a new level 70 in 2007

Now, the loot grind is ridiculously easy. Not only is leveling short and sweet, but so is gearing up! The whole point of WoW, for me, is lost. I was never a hardcore raider, so I’m not lamenting that they’ve made content more accessible. I’m glad it’s accessible! I’m just disappointed in that there’s nothing really left for my style of playing. I’ve got six characters sitting at the level cap, and the most recent two level 80s (druid and warlock) were both pretty well-geared within a few days of hitting 80.

Maliera in 2010, days after turning 80, all epic'd out in Tier 9, badge gear and the robe from 25-man ToC

I enjoyed Warhammer because I was able to level through PvP (RvR), and gear up through renown, lucky bag drops and later, tokens. The gear grind frustrated a lot of people, which is why Mythic introduced tokens, but it didn’t really bother me.

So after realizing that “the point” of an MMO, for me, is leveling (with friends!) and then the loot grind, I’m starting to look at other games to see what’s out there that might still satisfy that play style…

I’ll still stick around WoW, because I love the people I’ve played with the for the last three years, but I really need something more… hmm… satisfying? Or what’s the point?