EQOA Is Closing Its Doors

First I got the email, and then I went immediately to see what Stonee had to say.  I agree with most everything he has to say.  I do commend SOE for giving us the rest of the month free.  I’m on the road until Friday, but you bet your boots I will be firing up the PS2 this weekend.

 

My first thought is wondering if there is a way I can rig the TV to take some screenshots.  There are so many places and things I want to capture before the place goes into the dark void of internet land.  (Wonder if they are wiping the servers or if  they might be willing to sell them…probably not, copyright info and all that jazz.)   Anyone have ideas on that?

 

Anyway, there is some grief there, but I’m holding it at bay with the simple thought that this game lived far beyond where I thought it would.  And that I had literally years to play the game and never did.  But then I hear the distinctive sound effects of the game (which I will be recording no doubt) and it shakes me a little.  The opening music, the confirmation “bloop” and so on.

 

And…I’m already wondering where I should be when the lights go dim.  For some reason it seems important to decide where to park my character when the game ends.  My old guild all jumped their characters into the volcano outside Klik’anon.  But I chose long ago to eschew that tradition.

 

Qeynos Prison seems appropriate symbolically – my characters trapped in bits and pieces, like Moriarty on the holodeck.   And because I spent so much time grinding there.  But then Highbourne cavernous secret cabal area under the main city was one of my main haunts.   And of course Darvar Manor was the social hub of the game when I was playing.  Or maybe I end where it all begin, the gleaming towers of Fayspire.

 

Anyway, I have some  time to decide.  If anyone wants to join me at the end, that would be neat.  The game deserves more of an ending than a few lonely old veterans solo at their favorites haunts, that’s for sure.

 

When I started the game, I chose Ferran’s Hope server, simply because the name appealed to me.  And perhaps that’s what hurts the most right now.  When the servers shut down, hope is gone.  I will never ago set foot in the land of Norrath as it existed 500 years before Everquest.

 

But perhaps its also a chance to explore what is, to me, the “future” Norrath, as it exists *in* Everquest.    Maybe hope is not gone after all.

 

Anyway, that’s enough for tonight, I’m getting all sappy.   I’m sure I’ll have another post on it later.

Epic Bunny Shot

I was excited by the email in my inbox last week proclaiming three free days of access to the original Everquest in celebration of their upcoming expansion (EQ2 – take note!).   I was excited because years ago, I bought the original EQ Trilogy for a penny at a GameStop that had it on the clearence rack.  It was marked $5 but when they scanned it it came up as a penny.  The look on the cashiers face was priceless.  I told the manager he called over I didn’t mind paying the five bucks, but he shrugged it off, and I handed over a penny.

You may wonder, outside of a great deal, why that was exciting?  Because it means that I have an actual EQ account – not a trial one - and so I was eligible for the free time.  And ever since last year, I’ve been wanting to try that famous 51/50 server that starts you at epic level.  I did a little of everything, but ultimately, I spent the three days with my two favorite classes, the original Magician and original Shadowknight – now much different (both of them) from their current EQ2 incarnations.

It was fun getting to play the epic versions of classes I’d really only played for any length of time in EQOA, which is in all reality a stripped down version of its big brother. So I was dying to play around with all of the summoning skills a Magician had access too.  And the first I just had to try was “Monster Summoning” – a sweet ability that calls a pet for you, but using the graphics load of the local surroundings rather than a set Elemental pet, which is the norm for the Mage.  In this way you can get all sorts of fun pets, without running around for hours unlocking stupid achievements and paying gold through the nose (WoW – take note!).

So I stepped out into the grove outside the recommended 51/50 starter city to take on some basic mobs, and I used Monster Summoning to call my pet – figuring I’d get one of flying lizards, snakes, or maybe even an undead fisherman.  But behold, I could not have imagined the awesomeness that awaited me, for I did not know that I was still in the same area as the peaceful gardens in the city.  Check it out:

Death awaits with....well, you know.

That, my friends, is pure win.  The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog himself, under my control.  I even look a bit like Tim the Enchanter, don’t I?  Totally made my weekend people.  The urge to grab a Station Pass is getting much harder to resist.

I also found that I missed some things from EQ that don’t show up alot in games anymore – requiring components for particularly powerful spells, the possibility of spells “fizzling,” limits on number of available abilities at one time, the wide range of thrown weapons, freeform NPC interaction using keywords, food and drink requirements.

I also found a few things I’m glad we have (mostly) left behind – corpse recovery, claustrophic city models, dos-era overhead maps, non-WASD movement, etc.

But mostly this is another chance for me to push my own particular MMO Design carp – the graphic on the screen and the numbers crunching in the game engine can be two entirely seperate affairs.  There’s no reason other than lack of creativity on the part of devs that would keep someone from playing a tank that looked like a wizard, or having a tank whose weapon stats reflect a legendary sword, while on screen it looks like a simple quarterstaff.  We’ve already seen the reverse and similar ideas in other games (LotRO in particular had to bend their classes in original ways), but honest to god free character development is still lacking.  Someone step up to the plate please.  Thx.

And, as a postscript, as of this morning, I still have access to EQ, even though my three days is long gone.  Not sure if its an intentional error or not, but I’m loving it either way!  So if you have an EQ account, check your sub status, it might still be active.

Escape to Norrath = Everquest?

So I’m still trying to figure out this EQ delim…dalim…problem.  So I’m off today, and I’m scouring the website while the baby sleeps (because when she is awake, she is way to cute to ignore) trying to find a solution.  And I’m checking the EQ trial pages – and there is only one EQ trial, Escape to Norrath, a limited, ten level, not on any server, special trial.  So there’s no way, right?

But then I read the fine print beneath (I’m good at that, I shoulda been a lawyer I guess):

If you currently have an EverQuest subscription or Station Access^™ account, you already have access to these files and do not need to download these files. If you do not have EverQuest installed on your machine you may visit the Upgrade to EverQuest page to download Trilogy.

Well, well, well.  This is what I need.  So I follow the link…and discover that I was all wrong.  Escape to Norrath is also the Everquest Trilogy client!

Of course I’m hoping that since my account has additional expansions enabled, I’ll be able to get to them.  Especially since I don’t know where the new 51/50 server starts you out at.  But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

ETA:  I’m reading several blogs that are indicating that free game time is being handed out as incentive to rock the 51/50 server and keep it full…so I checked my account page again, and no love this time.  Strange.  They give you free stuff and don’t tell you, and then they tell you they will give you free stuff and don’t.