Thursday, September 22, 2005
PvP
There are two factions in WoW, the Horde and the Alliance, neither of which is allowed through game play to talk/trade/group with each other. Normally you can't just attack the other faction if you see them. However if you engage any NPC with a PVP tag or another player, then you are flagged yourself for PVP and can be attacked for about 5 minutes. Vtash and my little gnome were out in Horde territory having just finished a quest and we see a Horde player that's tagged. I'm 27 with a 27 succubus pet and he's 27 with a 27 bear pet. The Tauren was 20 and currently engaged with the wildlife there. Needless to say there wasn't really any combat involved, the poor cow was just slaughtered when we quickly decided to attack him. I felt a twinge of guilt but Vtash noted he deserved it. This of course meant we were flagged in the middle of Horde territory but my gnome has very short legs and I figured it would be much easier for us to gate back than walk all that way so that wasn't much of a problem. I did note when we were safe at home that someone in the Horde could have thought we deserved it too. Vtash asked, "Why? What did we do?". Good point, I guess. :)
I remember the beginning of EQ1 in the Oasis the dark elves could not buy food and drink from the vendors because they were evil. They would beg players in OOC for food and drink so they didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. Many players wouldn't trade with them in the beginning because I think there was much more thought to roleplaying, and I was one of those that thought, "Starve! Die of thirst! You evil stinking pig dropping!" Unless of course it was a female dark elf, damn they were cute. That was actually the first female character I played when I wanted one of the evil necromancers I made it a female dark elf and found it much much easier to get food and water so I didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. *cough*
I have always thought from a roleplaying sense that your race shouldn't HAVE to make you evil and there's no reason why you couldn't be a nice vegetarian troll. EQ2 I think did a good job in having a way for you to move to the other side. Even though players don't really use that in a roleplaying way, EQ2 did an excellent job within the game design of how it was done and how the NPCs reacted to you.
I remember the beginning of EQ1 in the Oasis the dark elves could not buy food and drink from the vendors because they were evil. They would beg players in OOC for food and drink so they didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. Many players wouldn't trade with them in the beginning because I think there was much more thought to roleplaying, and I was one of those that thought, "Starve! Die of thirst! You evil stinking pig dropping!" Unless of course it was a female dark elf, damn they were cute. That was actually the first female character I played when I wanted one of the evil necromancers I made it a female dark elf and found it much much easier to get food and water so I didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. *cough*
I have always thought from a roleplaying sense that your race shouldn't HAVE to make you evil and there's no reason why you couldn't be a nice vegetarian troll. EQ2 I think did a good job in having a way for you to move to the other side. Even though players don't really use that in a roleplaying way, EQ2 did an excellent job within the game design of how it was done and how the NPCs reacted to you.
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
EQ2 vs WoW
I had played EQ2 less and less and a little over a month ago I stopped playing. After not playing a couple of weeks I finally bought WoW. Artistically EQ2 is a 10. It is a beautiful game. I was as high as second on the game-wide first finds and that was directly because I was the highest level chef in the game because I was working for access into the highest zones just so I could see them. I always thought it ironic that it wasn't some iconic fighter that led the way into the new zones, but a chef wielding a spatula. Once I reached 42, I went to Feerrott and Everfrost, took pictures, and went back to adventuring.
Nothing comes close to EQ2 visually. The other artistic half, the lore, is top notch too...especially with Tracy's writing skills. :) The "game" itself sucks. The collection and scrying stone quests, both thanks to Tracy's boyfriend Matt :), are good creative design that fit well. Unfortunantly good design was a rarity in EQ2. Much of my time there was frustrating, and my entire 40s sucked because of thoughtless game design. Level 50 players would not group or hunt content meant for their level but instead would mow down the 43 - 45 solo content which was what I needed. Why? Becuase the writs/money made that the most profitable thing for them to do.
WoW has graphics that seem on par with the original EQ's second generation. The reason WoW is hugely successful and still gaining subscribers (EQ1 after a year was still increasing, EQ2 started going downhill in only a few months as it took that long for us to lose half of our guild there) is because of how well designed it is. WoW has a max of 20 quests, 1/5 of what EQ2 did, but I have yet to run out of quest room. The quests are designed very well and lead you from one area of the game to the other doing an excellent job of matching your level progression. My EQ2 conjurer and WoW warlock are about the same level, 28. EQ2 she only used one pet spell since it was so much better than the others. The format was to sit in a safe spot, send pet out even half way across the zone, bonk critter, call pet back, tell pet to attack critter again, heal pet as needed. I would watch Tivo on my other PC while doing this. My warlock has several pets that are very different from each other AND all useful to play depending on the circumstances - whether it's group play and what pet best suits your party's needs, or solo play and HOW you want to play. Again, the design is excellent, and this is what I've found the game to be overall is just very well designed. No fantastic groundbreaking designs, just good design. Some of it the design is fairly simple, but an excellent simple design is far better than a bad complicated design.
I'll eventually buy the expansion and will keep my EQ2 account with its all access pass. Nifty thing that being able to have a subscription count for all three games even though the player is actually only playing one of them. :) I don't see ever playing either EQ again as the primary game. There's too much new stuff coming up in the next couple of years.
Nothing comes close to EQ2 visually. The other artistic half, the lore, is top notch too...especially with Tracy's writing skills. :) The "game" itself sucks. The collection and scrying stone quests, both thanks to Tracy's boyfriend Matt :), are good creative design that fit well. Unfortunantly good design was a rarity in EQ2. Much of my time there was frustrating, and my entire 40s sucked because of thoughtless game design. Level 50 players would not group or hunt content meant for their level but instead would mow down the 43 - 45 solo content which was what I needed. Why? Becuase the writs/money made that the most profitable thing for them to do.
WoW has graphics that seem on par with the original EQ's second generation. The reason WoW is hugely successful and still gaining subscribers (EQ1 after a year was still increasing, EQ2 started going downhill in only a few months as it took that long for us to lose half of our guild there) is because of how well designed it is. WoW has a max of 20 quests, 1/5 of what EQ2 did, but I have yet to run out of quest room. The quests are designed very well and lead you from one area of the game to the other doing an excellent job of matching your level progression. My EQ2 conjurer and WoW warlock are about the same level, 28. EQ2 she only used one pet spell since it was so much better than the others. The format was to sit in a safe spot, send pet out even half way across the zone, bonk critter, call pet back, tell pet to attack critter again, heal pet as needed. I would watch Tivo on my other PC while doing this. My warlock has several pets that are very different from each other AND all useful to play depending on the circumstances - whether it's group play and what pet best suits your party's needs, or solo play and HOW you want to play. Again, the design is excellent, and this is what I've found the game to be overall is just very well designed. No fantastic groundbreaking designs, just good design. Some of it the design is fairly simple, but an excellent simple design is far better than a bad complicated design.
I'll eventually buy the expansion and will keep my EQ2 account with its all access pass. Nifty thing that being able to have a subscription count for all three games even though the player is actually only playing one of them. :) I don't see ever playing either EQ again as the primary game. There's too much new stuff coming up in the next couple of years.
Thursday, September 01, 2005
New Orleans
I truly feel sorry for the people stranded in New Orleans after the Hurricane. It has to be about the lowest point in anyone's life to have a major loss like your home and everything you own due to a hurricane, fire, or whatever. It's not just the TV, PC, and things like that...they can be replaced. It's the things you have that can't be replaced, and just the fact that you lost your "home". That being said....People have a tendency to live in the path of a natural disaster, whether in a city below sea level by the sea, or along a riverbank of a river that floods every 20 years. When it happens, don't be blaming the Mayor, FEMA, the President, and Paris Hilton...the blame lies on the person who decided to live there.
I came across the following story from the Washington Post a few days ago. Being from the area (Lynchburg is just south of Nelson County) I remember the flooding, and you can still see today the devasting effects it had on the land (I used to trout fish the area). When it says it hosed away entire mountainsides, it means that the entire top layer of soil became so saturated that it gave way and slid off the mountain. Trees, boulders, everything. It wiped out a small town along the Tye river in the middle of the night.
Those of us who lived though Hurricane Camille will never forget it. Camille struck with the force of several hydrogen bombs, altering forever the topography of the Mississippi coast. Its nearly 200-mph winds and 25-foot storm surge exploded concrete buildings and erased entire communities -- then gouged open graveyards and hung corpses in the live oaks like so much Spanish moss. There was a problem for a time telling the storm victims from those already embalmed.
More than 250 were dead before Camille swept up the Mississippi Valley as a tropical storm. Then, three days and 1,000 miles after it hit the coast, it took a right turn over West Virginia and, in some sort of terrifying meteorological joke, dumped 20 to 40 inches of rain in eight hours on Nelson County, Va., hosing away entire mountainsides, drowning or burying 150 more people and touching off 100-year-record floods in the James River basin.
I came across the following story from the Washington Post a few days ago. Being from the area (Lynchburg is just south of Nelson County) I remember the flooding, and you can still see today the devasting effects it had on the land (I used to trout fish the area). When it says it hosed away entire mountainsides, it means that the entire top layer of soil became so saturated that it gave way and slid off the mountain. Trees, boulders, everything. It wiped out a small town along the Tye river in the middle of the night.
Those of us who lived though Hurricane Camille will never forget it. Camille struck with the force of several hydrogen bombs, altering forever the topography of the Mississippi coast. Its nearly 200-mph winds and 25-foot storm surge exploded concrete buildings and erased entire communities -- then gouged open graveyards and hung corpses in the live oaks like so much Spanish moss. There was a problem for a time telling the storm victims from those already embalmed.
More than 250 were dead before Camille swept up the Mississippi Valley as a tropical storm. Then, three days and 1,000 miles after it hit the coast, it took a right turn over West Virginia and, in some sort of terrifying meteorological joke, dumped 20 to 40 inches of rain in eight hours on Nelson County, Va., hosing away entire mountainsides, drowning or burying 150 more people and touching off 100-year-record floods in the James River basin.
