Iiiiiiit’s me! Huzzah! Back once again, like the renegade master, and all that, and as usual, I take time off and the MMO world goes crazy, with the most notable bombshell being the sudden, startling and ongoing collapse of Nevrax, the company behind Saga of Ryzom. Odd really – I thought it was doing quite well; shows how much I know. More on that later. Mostly my last week has been spent being pleasantly surprised by Everquest II.
It’s been quite some time since my last foray in there, which was brief, and spent largely puttering about the Freeport 10-20 levels, in the city and Commonlands. Prior to that was another large gap, which almost reaches back to the title’s release, getting on for two years ago, and my first and ‘main’ character in the game, a Gnome Swashbuckler/Jeweler, who I managed to get to Lv23 or so, before hitting a massive wall of content scarcity, group dependency, access quests and locked zones, and subsequently burning myself out of the entire game. I expect I was in World of Warcraft not long after – the details become blurry.
I’m not sure what prompted me to try it again now – a combination of nostalgia and my seeming completion of World of Warcraft (or at least the bits that mattered to me anyway), but within hours I was starting to see a game that had much improved since my first go at it, back at the start. I’m not sure if ‘easier’ is the word exactly, but in general the game does feel a lot more fluid, action-packed and indefinably accessible now. A great many small things go to make up this new feel.
Some are obvious, such as the far greater availability of solo encounters, huge array of new quests, the variety of new items and abilities designed to help with downtime and combat viability – totems, adornments, etc. Some are less obvious or apparent; I’m almost certain the base rate of xp gain has been upped since my first go, although this could just be the extra quest xp, which was generally sparse after Lv20 previously. Death and XP Debt are so trivial to be unnoticeable – travelling back to the fight is the real penalty now I guess. Saying that, run speed increases, cheap boat tickets, and new Griffin Tower taxis all conspire to make getting there less of the chore it once was, and many of the group-based instance areas now have soloable versions for when grouping isn’t desired or practical, selectable on entry. I'm sure some of you group for the camaraderie, companionship and fireside storytelling, but most of us are generally more mercenary in our sociability - we group to tick jobs off lists, and to get things done. It's nice to now have things you can get done without an army at your back.
Most encouraging for me personally, was the removal of access quests for the main level progression areas. When I’d given up in disgust last time, I’d seen perhaps 40% of the game’s content – the rest hidden away behind a wall of grind, and groupwork, I didn’t feel up to scaling. One of the perennial pleasures of level-based MMOs for me, is trying to get to really dangerous places where I really shouldn’t be yet. This extreme exploration, where to be noticed is to die instantly, is an entirely different way to play the game, and a tremendous source of fun, and pride – the look of ‘WTF???’ you get when you casually sidle up to a Lv50+ pulling spot at Lv10 or less, is it’s own reward. Exploration is very important for me in an MMO, and the original EQ2 tended not to allow its more exhilarating forms.
Of course none of this is likely to be news to anyone who plays or follows EQ2, and showing my typical sense of all things current and trendy in MMOs, I’m only now discovering the Enchanted Lands and Zek, while everyone else has already gotten bored of the Desert of Flames and Kingdom of Sky, and are even now charging off to be fairies and ransack the Echoes of Faydwer. I’m three expansions behind, and godknows how many Adventure Packs missing too, but am still having a surprisingly good time just working through the now old-and-busted basic Lv30-40 content, along with some of the suicidal exploration of Everfrost, Lavastorm and Feerott that I love.
I’m also quite digging the current incarnation of Trade Skills in there. In to its third format now, crafting in EQ2 has much improved. Not only has interdependency vanished – a nice idea on paper, but a doomed gameplay mechanic in practice and hindsight, but sub-components have now gone altogether, leaving a ‘one product, one combine’ system that is much less niggling and tiresome, and far more intuitive. You want a bookcase? Find the wood and roots, etc, select the bookcase recipie, craft and viola, a bookcase. The crafting minigame is still there, which I never objected to per se - I just didn't like having to play it up to eleven times for one single finished product!
(I swear, there have been times in EQ2, when it has taken me less time to eat the food and become hungry again, than it took to make the damned stuff! Madness!)
Rare harvestables seem to be much less rare nowadays too, which is all good, and best of all, the ridiculous AFK-merchant system has been replaced by something a lot like the Auction House from WoW, only without the auctioned goods ever expiring. All very civilised (and a practical reason to maintain an Inn Room, apart form playing dollshouse with all the furniture rewards), and I seem to be making quite a bit of money doing it. I can only imagine inflation is rampant in there now, as I *never* normally do well at mercantile gameplay, not having the patience or market savvy.
There are minus points of course. Many of the new quests are quite obviously ‘Kill Ten Rats’ auto-generated content with very little in the way of engaging story or interesting rewards. Many of the more interesting quests are still the same old (Heroic) ones that were there to start with, needing groups to accomplish. It also suffers, as its predecessor, from Expansionitis, with the classic symptoms of low player density, particularly in the Old World areas, and a distinct mothballing of the older content by the playerbase. This suits loner me perfectly, but can’t be good for the more normal MMOist, and finding group-members becomes a world-wide search, rather than zone-wide now. The game engine is still brutal in its hardware requirements, although to be fair I’ve not upgraded since my original days anyway. Saying that, I’m not sure 512MB Gfx Cards, required for the game's most detailed graphics settings, are even standard today!
I’m quite enjoying it’s new direction however, and have managed about 12 levels in a little over two weeks – a rate of engagement, enthusiasm and progress I’d not seen since WoW, and definitely didn’t expect from an SOE game. Clearly someone at HQ is studying the market (and lets face it, WoW in particular) and listening to what we like, and the game is far better than the one I originally bought, yet still manages to retain enough individuality to make it a different kind of experience to WoW, and one I'd recommend if, like many, you're currently listlessly treading water until The Burning Crusade comes out.
How long my enthusiasm lasts, once this ‘second honeymoon’ wears off, is another matter. I feel I ought to be buying up expansions for it, but to be honest, I’m not bored of the basic stuff yet, so will probably save those for another time. My multi-MMO lifestyle makes me a hardcore gamer overall, but quite casual on a per-title basis, but nowadays, it does rather seem EQ2 has relented, and is now okay with flakes like me too…