Shrouds, Monster Missions, AAs, EQ2, and WoW
by Loral on September 03, 2005
We stand on the crest of the release of Depths of Darkhollow, Everquest's tenth expansion. My network of spies reports that the Non Disclosure Agreement by which many of us are bound to hold the secrets of this new underground world will lift soon. In the meantime, let's talk about some of the news in the past couple of weeks.
The latest Everquest Developer's Chat mainly talked about the spirit shroud system although lord Rashere revealed bits and teasers about the new Depths AAs:
"I'm putting together a good variety of AAs including some that introduce new concepts to EQ. If you're in the beta, you should be able to check them out soon."
Indeed, they were on beta a day later and the new concept is quite exciting. I will talk about it more in a few days.
Rytan also talked a little bit about spirit shroud progression, a subject I think is very important:
"The progression for spirit shrouds is completely separate from the experience you gain to increase your character's level. So you won't have to allocate any of your normal experience to advance your shrouds. It's completely a bonus on your normal experience."
Progression is the drive that keeps us playing Everquest. I am glad to see an independent progression path for spirit shrouds and I hope SOE continues to expand upon this as they do with tradeskills and AAs. Earning experience as a spirit shroud is nice, but being able to unlock new shrouds through their use will keep us using them.
Rashere also mentioned that 1/3 of the missions in Depths of Darkhollow will be monster missions. From the 60 missions mentioned on the Depths of Darkhollow homepage, that makes about 20 different monster missions.
Earlier this week I was more excited about spirit shrouds than anything else, but recent tests of the monster missions changed my mind. Monster missions open up an entire new way to play Everquest, not simply in shifting you to a new entity but in the tailored scenario around you. Expect me to spend some time talking about monster missions in a few days.
In other Everquest news, Caster's Realm had a few interesting articles this past week. My friend, the Kyv, wrote a Guide to the Muramites and my other friend Nanyea of Township Rebellion and a regular writer for Caster's Realm wrote All About Spirit Shrouds. I had the opportunity to write an editorial on Caster's Realm this past week entitled Who Deserves New Content. There are also some sneak screenshots of the new Clockwork Boar mount available to those who purchase Depths of Darkhollow in retail stores.
It appears the next SOE Fan Faire will not be until April 6 according to a recent posting from our favorite halfling, Brenlo.
It is always useful and interesting to take a look at some of the other massive online games in recent news. Here's a bit of news on the EQ2 and World of Warcraft fronts.
Everquest 2 made a couple of big changes on their test server recently: the removal of group experience debt and unlocking encounters while in combat. The first change, the removal of group experience debt, is one I looked forward to for a long time. I mentioned it in my smaller Evil Everquest 2 Agenda from the last fan faire. The big thing I'd like to see in EQ2 next would be some sort of mission or adventure system similar to EQ1. Not just group instanced dungeons, but actual focused group missions with a nice pickup-friendly reward system.
SOE will release Everquest 2's newest expansion, Desert of Flames, on 12 September. This is one day before the release of Depths of Darkhollow, putting a sixty dollar hole in the pocketbook of anyone playing both games. Fortunately or unfortunately my level 26 swashbuckler isn't quite hefty enough to brave the new deserts so I might give this one a pass for the time being.
Not to toss fuel onto a smouldering fire but it appears that Sony Station Exchange is quite profitable, pulling in $180,000 in transactions in 30 days. While I don't worry about future games built around a model such as this; we all pay for content one way or another; I don't like the idea of retrofitting this into existing games. Fortunately, I don't see that happening to Everquest or the non-exchange EQ2 servers. It doesn't appear World of Warcraft will add any similar system either.
It is hard to ignore the force with which World of Warcraft has hit the market. Blizzard recently announced that they have hit four million paying subscribers, nearly eight times what Everquest ever reached. One has to admire their ability to bring so many new players into the massive online world and apparently, despite a lack of level cap increases and expansions, keep them playing.
World of Warcraft is a very solid game. I have never played a massive online game with a better newbie game. It is easy to get into and easy to play. No doubt the ability to solo just about anywhere helps considerably, although I think this is a danger to the core of massive online gaming.
A recent interview with WoW developer, Shawn Carnes, had a lot of interesting insights. Here is one surprising quote that got a lot of people stirred up:
"An expansion is planned, not in 2005, possibly in late 2006 barring unforeseen chaos. Work is already going on for the expansion, and it's going good [sic]."
I don't doubt that they can hold their player-base until late 2006 but it still sounds like quite a ways off considering how many players have capped their characters and are already struggling for something to do besides raid for gear.
Still, no one can ignore Warcraft's success. They have an extremely solid game with a great UI, great graphics, and great gameplay. If they came out with more regular expansions, level cap increases, and added a mission or adventure system, they would dominate the market for a long time.
On a last note, Everquest 2 recently added in a /donate command to help players donate to the Red Cross to help in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Here was the press release:
Please help us get the word out to the SOE community at large about our hurricane relief efforts.Hurricane Katrina has left an incredible wake of destruction across the Mid-Atlantic States. Sony Online Entertainment would like to ask you to take a moment to make a donation to the American Red Cross in order to help alleviate some of the suffering.
In EverQuest II we have added the /donate command, type in /donate to be taken to the American Red Cross’s Hurricane 2005 relief page. For those members of SOE Communities in other games, you can contribute using this link, American Red Cross. The American Red Cross will process your donation and make sure that it is put to maximum use to help those whose lives have been affected by the hurricane.
Additionally, for our 13,000+ players actually in the affected areas, we will be suspending billing until such time as they are able to play again. In addition, any items or structures in any of our games, which decay over time, will be preserved until the user’s next login.
Thank you in advance for your support and generosity.
The SOE Family
If you have the means, please donate to the Red Cross.
That's it for now. Keep your eye on Mobhunter over the next few days for a post-NDA-release writeup of Depths of Darkhollow!
Loral Ciriclight
3 September 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Glormane on September 5, 2005 10:04 AM
So its been a few days, talk already :P
Comment Posted by: Tuco on September 5, 2005 06:42 PM
* unlocking encounters *
PL'dMONSTER: Did you miss me?
TUCO: oh of coarse I did. You big sexy thing you.
PL'dMONSTER: Ready for the big push on class's that can pl?
TUCO: Ready? its all I can think about! God I miss
the days of group members with no clue on how to play their class!
PL'dMONSTER: psst.. and <wink <wink you know what else right? I'll give you a hint- Station enabled servers...
TUCO: I'll be able to buy PL'd characters! WHOO WHOO!
Comment Posted by: Naladini on September 5, 2005 10:57 PM
"although I think this is a danger to the core of massive online gaming."
It can be, but then again, it can also be the ingredient that actually makes the gaming massive. The group and raid content can and does still exist, with a very vibrant community to recruit from. ;) Personally, I've never much cared how many servers or running, nor how many total subscribers there are, the only number that really matters is the number of folks you can interact with on your own server.
That being said, injecting large amounts of solo content into an existing game could prove quite destabilizing.
I look forward to reading more in the coming days.
Comment Posted by: wormy on September 6, 2005 09:55 AM
[Rashere]"I'm putting together a good variety of AAs including some that introduce new concepts to EQ."
What beta is he talking about?!
Can't go into details, but these "new concepts" are still missing in action...
Comment Posted by: Loral on September 7, 2005 12:54 PM
Just a quick note: Mobhunter just switched servers and is now back up and operational. Commenting has now returned.
If you see any bugs, please let me know at loral@loralciriclight.com
Thanks!
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on September 7, 2005 04:42 PM
Wait, unlocking encounters in EQ2... does this means... we wll be able to heal other teams? Passer heroes can buff me up while i am mid fight?And no more will i fear to invite people that are across the map because they may be stupid and get killed on their way to me??!
Those two points plus no offline auctioning was what made me give up on the game... and i know that offline auctioning is already back in...
/em runs to reactivate his EQ2 account
Comment Posted by: Teremar on September 7, 2005 05:48 PM
I do think WoW has longevity issues, but I hope they don't imitate EQ's solutions.
The amount of free new content added since release is now comparable to LoY, and they've announced more. No game has enough content, but for EQ putting out an expansion every six months led to poor quality and a tendency to focus on selling expansions rather than sustaining a healthy game. Yes, WoW needs expansions, but not on EQ's schedule.
I hope they NEVER raise the level cap in WoW, and that they never raise EQ's level cap again either. Adding five levels that can be gained in a matter of days does not give a game longevity. What it does do is make tons of old content obsolete. The only level increase that benefited EQ was the jump from 50 to 60 with Kunark, and that's because 1) getting to 60 took a LONG time and 2) Kunark alone had more content for level 60's than the old world had for level 50s. Slow leveling would be totally out of character for WoW, and it already has more content for its top level characters than old world EQ did.
So why did SOE keep raising the level cap? Simple--it sold expansions. Who wants to be the only level 65 in a group of 70's?
The questions of "What do you do once you've hit level 60?" still doesn't have a very good answer in WoW. So far it's mostly "Get better gear." That doesn't mean it's as raid-centric as EQ players might assume, at least not in the EQ sense. People who would be "non-raiders" in EQ regularly go on 10 or 20 person pick up raids in WoW. There's some good gear from 5 person groups too. But it's still not enough. Faction has gotten more important in some of the recent additions, and there's PvP rank for those who like PvP. There's always talk of "hero classes" though it's not clear to me if that's a long-abandoned concept from the design phase, vaporware, or a work in progress that happens to be top secret. More needs to be done, but frequent expansions and increasing the level cap is not the answer.
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on September 8, 2005 02:21 PM
They really are in hot water right now with the EQ2 Combat Upgrade. It is supposed to go live monday with DoF.
See this thread...
http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=comtest&message.id=6834&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on September 8, 2005 06:39 PM
Instead of a level increase of 5 every few expansions, I'd like to see an increase of a couple of (really hard) levels every expansion. This offers more level progression to those at the top level without quickly trivializing older content.
Comment Posted by: Moorgard on September 8, 2005 06:55 PM
"Wait, unlocking encounters in EQ2... does this means... we wll be able to heal other teams? Passer heroes can buff me up while i am mid fight?And no more will i fear to invite people that are across the map because they may be stupid and get killed on their way to me??!"
Most of our buffs are group based, but yeah, you'll be able to run past somebody in need and lend a helping hand.
Crazy concept, I know. :p
As for the combat changes, there will absolutely be an adjustment period for existing players. Spells have changed, and there are new abilities to get used to. Change is inherently scary and tends to make some folks rush to judgement, so I expect it to be a bit bumpy while we all get used to the newness of it.
Comment Posted by: valbarr on September 8, 2005 10:21 PM
posting here, because castersrealm doesnt have comments, and i know loral goes there a lot.
anyways, they have interview about mechanical boar. in which a question is asked
what speed is the mechanical boar ?
answer is this
the speed will be on par with other mounts in the game.
now my question is what the hell answer is that, there are 10k mount speed up to 100k mount speed, what the hell does on par mean ? do you get a boar whos speed is based on your lvl ? can you trade in your existing mount, and get a similar speed boar ? what, cos as far as i can see it doesnt make sense. shrug.
Comment Posted by: Nadia on September 9, 2005 09:57 AM
Speed is rumored to be a Rope Horse
Comment Posted by: Horzek on September 9, 2005 03:45 PM
Just a couple suggestions I would like to drop in here.
first, I need a new AA that will reduce the number of fizzes I get on my healing spells. I propose we call it the Koolaid AA skill. (No Fizz)
second, I dont want to see more level increases. Right now the game is tempting but all my friends that might otherwise come back for another shot at playing just cant see the point in coming back and having to level grind all over.
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