MMO BinA Geek's Look at Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Thanks to EQ2 traders, I know to be on the look out starting the 20th of every month for the ‘moonlight grotto’ events that will be making their way through EQ2. These are small mini events that reward players with some neat house items and a lot of fun. To read more about the event, please be sure to check out the article here. I’m excited about all the house items (as always) and I’m looking forward to these neat events. The aa experience increase has been VERY nice, despite some people saying that they don’t notice the difference, I think it’s amazing.

Some of the things you can find:

Portals Into Magical Grottos
When the moon is just so, five magical mushroom rings will appear in Norrath. Each time they appear, which will be once a month around the 20th, they will stay for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours.

These mushroom rings will appear in five locations:

* Antonica - Archer’s Woods
* Darklight Woods - the mushroom area up near werewolves
* Nektulos Forest - near the spires to Barren Sky
* Enchanted Lands - near the spires to Bonemire
* Greater Faydark - in the Nursery

Other Important Notes

* Two of the instances require minor combat that should be easily soloable (down-arrow mobs).
* One instance offers a second quest, but you must be at least artisan level 2 in order to obtain it
* Each instance can only be completed once per month per character. Run as many alts through as you wish, but you won’t be able to keep looping the quests and collecting the glowies on the same character. (Since one instance contains two quests, this means you can earn 6 tokens per character per month)
* Each instance spawns one purple glowie, for a grotto-specific collection (5 total collections, 1 from each grotto). This glowie will not respawn, so one glowie available for grabbing per character per grotto. The glowies can be traded, so you can juggle amongst alts, go on broker binges, etc. Remember - if you don’t finish a collection this month, you have a chance to fill in the gaps next month, the month after, etc.
* Each grotto has a vendor with items unique to that specific grotto. Most of these items are furniture items that can be traded, but there are a few exceptions here and there.
* The furniture items each cost 1 Elemental Token apiece (the wearable circlets may cost 2 each)
* This is meant as something small and fun that can be easily completed without a huge time expenditure. While I know the furniture addicts will obsess about getting everything immediately, the event is going to be a regular monthly feature, so if you miss something, there’s always another chance down the road.

Be sure to check out EQ2traders for the rest of the details as well as images of the house items!

I gave the station launcher a look a while ago at the beginning of beta, and there were so many bugs and issues with it that I just couldn’t see myself using it, so I un-installed and barely gave it another look.

On a whim this weekend I decided to reinstall it and see if it was any better the second time around now that some time has passed, and much to my surprise it is.

Keep in mind that I play three of the SOE titles (four in total but Free Realms is not listed on station launcher as of yet) and have friends scattered all over on various servers. That’s where this little application really comes in handy.

Now let me start by saying there is one semi-significant bug still. The bug occurs if the game you’re playing thinks you have not logged off properly. This is most notably the case in Vanguard, I haven’t seen it happening anywhere else yet. There IS a way to solve the issue by logging to character select first before you exit the game. This tells the system that you’re actually NOT in the game. If you do have a ’stuck’ character in some game, you’ll also be able to SEE it, under the ‘by character’ category it will list your characters and say “so and so is currently in game” - if you have a character stuck in game (such as I did) you will be able to send tells to your friends but they will be unable to send tells back because it thinks you’re on as that character. Make sense? Good!

For people who may have been having issues launching their SOE games from the patcher, this also provides a work around. I know people who have been having some enormous issues trying to get the game to start, but can launch perfectly fine from here. I’ve got mine set to close down once I start up a game which comes in handy and the whole program acts as a chat platform for when you’re not actually in game. The friends list is a little easier to understand now. You can have it ignore particular characters you may have to cut down on doubles and reduce the size of the friends list. You can easily block and ignore people, or add new people to the list. The program has yet to crash or freeze on me, and aside from that one ’stuck character’ bug, it seems to be working fairly well. I’ll continue to use it for the next few weeks and if I like it I’ll stick with it after that. It’s nice to see it’s still being worked on, and if you DO have issues with the station launcher be sure to bring it up on the station forums, there’s a fairly active section devoted specifically to the launcher.

On May 5th some new house items will be making their way to the Station Marketplace, they follow the same graphics as the last round of house items, and are absolutely beautiful to look at. These new items have created a few issues both in game and out - but there’s a pretty valid reason for them when you find out why.

Voices were raised in the forums discussing the positives and negatives of station cash, and these items in particular because they are so unique compared to what the crafting class ‘carpenter’ already makes. Some felt it de-valued their craft classes, since a player could just throw down some real life money and purchase items that were far superior to what they could create. Others mentioned that at best these SC (station cash) items were aimed towards a niche market, and there was no way they would replace a hard working carpenter since they have a huge amount of items that they can create.

Whether you personally agree or disagree with station cash is not the main focus I want to mention today (not this time at least!) there was a point that was brought up: the fact that none of these station marketplace  furniture pieces can be placed within a guild hall. You are more then welcome to place the items in your house, or even a friends house, but you are unable to place them within a hall.

There’s actually a reason behind this - though you may not consider it a valid one from your personal perspective it’s just one indication on how developers think on a different level then players. Guild leaders have the ability to remove you from a guild and thus ban you from the guild hall - all it would take is for one guild leader (or officer) to kick out a member who has placed their station marketplace items within a hall for disputes to arise. You can in essence ’steal’ something that a player has dedicated an amount of real life cash towards.

Now, you can debate the fact that ALL items cost ‘real life’ money due to paying for an account monthly, and that players could lose items that they had placed be they station marketplace items or not, but station cash items were never intended to be placed within halls, for that specific reason.

Of course, there could be ways to fix that. Allow guild members to ‘donate’ an item towards a hall with the realization that they COULD potentially lose it. Allow a new flagging system to flag items based on a guild name so that it’s tied to the hall. It’s easy for me to spout off ideas since I’m not a game developer and I don’t have the faintest idea how hard it would be to implement a system like that. I’m sure it would take manpower that teams simply don’t have right now, or it would have already been looked into and done.

It’s important as players to remember as we’re begging for some new feature to be added to the game that the developers are NOT actually out to get us and screw us over - despite what we may all think. There ARE reasons behind their choices, whether we agree with them or not, and it’s typically some very simple fact that we just haven’t taken the time to look at because we’re glancing at things from a players perspective and not from the developer side of things.

Personally? I’m loving the new items in game. Sure my carpenter is a little put off that she can’t create these items herself, but for those who can afford to spend the money on these items they certainly do look awesome.

One thing I WOULD like to see, is all of the station marketplace items flagged as heirloom. This tag allows you to trade items between characters on your account via the shared bank. Right now the person who claims the item is the only character who can place / wear / use it. If there was an heirloom tag at least I could share items between all of my characters. /Feedback is a wonderful thing!

I’ve talked about this before on my own site, but wanted to go into a little more depth on the matter. One of my personal pet peeves is games that allow a player to out level the content. I realize that games move in a linear fashion and that it’s not exactly easy to provide content that appeals to the masses - but what you really don’t want is for people to have a reason NOT to visit your content.

Lets take EQ2 as an example. Encounters in game ‘gray’ out, providing no experience or loot (aside from body loot which is typically used in quests). Unless you happen to be a quest-o-holic or you happen to be mentoring there’s really no reason to go back to an older zone. As the leveling process is sped up, more and more content is overlooked and lots of it isn’t even touched. Have you been to the caves in Pillars of Flame beneath the monk camp? Have you done all of the Gobblerock hideout instances in Commonlands and Antonica? Chances are if you’re a fairly new player you have not.

There are a few ways EQ2 has chosen to combat this. One is allowing higher level players to ‘mentor’ lower level players and adjust to their level. This allows you to play with friends and experience lower content. Lower level quests (10+) also offer achievement points for first time completions which inspire higher level characters to quest since those points are difficult to obtain.

This simply is not enough inspiration.

Over the time I have leveled it’s amazing to see how much empty content is out there. EQ2 is a huge vast world but you only ever need to level in a very small portion of it. Players keep asking for choice and content but forget the vast amount of content out there already because they have no reason to re-visit it.

Now take a game like EQ or Vanguard or even WoW. The content in these games does not trivialize. Sure, you may not gain experience from defeating an encounter but you will still find crafting goods, as well as quests and achievements to unlock, and even loot (gear etc) from defeating mobs. This allows players to at least have some sort of purpose. Perhaps they are working up a new crafter, or need gear for an alt, or have some unfinished achievements to unlock.

I know the whole concept of an achievement system has been over played these days. WAR and lotRO have vast systems where killing any mob or discovering any new area unlocks a new title reward. Players LIKE these though, they like having goals to aim for and have a sense of pride over hunting down each and ever little bit they can acomplish.

If there were title achievements for EQ2 like perhaps completing all of the quests in a zone, or discovering all of the POI (points of interest) maybe we’d see people in more areas then just the ‘main’ leveling ones. In EQ the problem is some times even worse because there are ‘hot zones’ which offer a substantial increase to experience then regular areas. Each level tier only has one zone associated with it, so while you may find groups within those specific zones fairly easily, you’ll be hard pressed to convince people to venture out into the world (which is gigantic).

This topic of out leveling content certainly is not new, either. You can take a look around the gaming blogs and see that it’s cropping up this week more often then normal. Why is that? Is there something in specific that we’re all trying to grasp our minds around here or are we just bored with the content we’ve been given and find ‘most’ players in so we’re trying to make a mass appeal to ‘older’ content for a change. Have any thoughts on the matter? Feel free to leave a comment below!

I know the subject has been talked about up one side and down another but let me add some more thoughts and comments to the pile already out there. There seems to be no avoiding RMT (real money transfer) in games this day in age - and honestly players are getting quite used to it. When EverQuest II announced that they would be implementing ‘Station Cash’ and a ‘Station Store’ the outcries on the forums were, well. Everywhere. For the most part the station store caries items like experience bonus potions (which players can obtain through veteran rewards), appearance armor (no stats, just looks), house items, and little pets that follow you around. Nothing has been game breaking per say. 

Some argued that this was the beginning of a slippery slope, that opening the doors for such simple items will lead to bigger RMT transactions in the future. So far, we haven’t really seen it - on EQ2 at least (or EQ) with the station store. Granted, the items are moving towards a more ‘functional’ use instead of just being fluff items.

There are potions that will allow characters to change their names, gender, and appearance (though there are also barbers in game that will allow you to change your appearance). These potions are not game changing per say - but they do affect the community to some degree. There is a lengthy discussion posted on the official forums about these new items. Players have a few concerns, like what about those bad apples you ban from your guild. They can simply pay $15 for a name change and become someone new. On the other hand, if you have friends or family who have left you an account and you’d like the characters to feel more like your own, here is a simple (and fairly cheap) way to accomplish that. 

Vanguard:SOH  announced that they will be dealing with LiveGamer and converting their current four servers to RMT enabled servers. This came as a shock to most of the community who had little warning that all of their servers would soon be allowing the sale of platinum, equipment, and even characters. For those outside of the VG community this announcement made barely a splash. It’s still in the beta stages right now, and is progressing from there - however those within the community wanted to make sure their opinions were heard and there are over 200 pages of comments from players expressing their concern and thoughts on the whole ordeal. 

It’s one thing to have a game start out with RMT enabled or even to implement RMT enabled servers such as the Bazaar in EQ2. It’s quite another to suddenly take your game and decide for all of the player base that their servers are going to be enabled whether they agree with it or not. Again this goes back to the ‘give your players choices’ situation. If you enable one server and allow people who are not interested to transfer off of it, you’ve at least given them an option and they will be far more lenient to your suggestions that way. If you come across as though you are forcing that option onto them they’re going to fight you tooth and nail. Personally speaking while I don’t relish the thought of people being able to buy platinum or equipment or characters for real money in a game that I’ve loved since release (despite the NUMEROUS bugs and issues) it doesn’t bother me so much as the lack of communication does. I think that the whole situation could have been handled in a better manor - on that same note, those who were going to create a ruckus and leave over the incident probably would have no matter how it was handled. Some times it doesn’t matter what you do, there’s no pleasing people and there will always be those out there who find flaws to pick at. 

Does it feel a little like ‘double dipping’ that a game with a $15/m subscription would also have RMT enabled? A lot of F2P (free to play) games have RMT but they don’t have the subscription, or they offer alternative means of payment (via purchasing coins to unlock zones like Wizard 101). Is there a wrong or right way to add RMT to an already existing game? Lets hear some thoughts!

Excited about this latest game update to EverQuest II? I know I sure am! Below you can find a full list of the latest patch notes. Any in particular that really catch your eye?
 

Hotfix March / 31 / 2009 

FEATURED
Appearance Slots
Players now have access to primary, secondary and ranged appearance slots. 
The wield style (one-handed, two-handed, shield) of the weapons must match the weapons that are currently equipped.

Bristlebane’s Day
(3/31/2009 - 4/8/2009) Jesters, thieves, bards and fans of mischief are invited to enjoy the festivities that surround Bristlebane’s Day! You never know what laughs and pranks are to be found, during this enjoyable time of year. Celebrators are present in every home city, and the oddest of objects have been spotted in Antonica, The Commonlands, Darklight Wood, Timorous Deep and Greater Faydark! Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for special events occurring only on the highest of silly days, 4/1/2009!

Lavastorm
Lots of brand new content has been added in this classic zone. Almost all of the population has been re-tiered for solo players, with a new level 45 to 55 adventure quest line with the industrious…but rather insane Sootfoot goblins, and a new level 40-45 tradeskill quest line. Brand new void invaded areas also feature new level 80 solo quests. Additionally, a solo-able daily shard quest has been added as well as mount paths and additional teleporters to make traversing the zone much easier!

Shard Armor
A new set of shard armor is now available from merchants!

Threat Meter
Players can now see how much aggro they have generated towards NPC’s in combat.
A new UI element will display players’ aggro percentage for their current target or implied target.
Players with the most hate will also see the hate value for the player below them.
Players’ aggro value will also appear above an NPC’s head, just below their remaining power.
The aggro value displayed above an NPC’s head may be toggled off under Options -> User Interface -> Name and Chat Bubble

Ward of Elements
A brand new level 80 two-group raid instance has been added! This zone is balanced for players without a proliferation of raid gear, and should provide an exciting challenge to any group of 12! The first six bosses can be tackled in any order, and provide fantastic fabled loot with brand new armor sets upgraded from the tier 2 void shard sets, complete with new appearances! You can find it in Lavastorm beneath the Hollow Tower and Deep Forge.

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