The Angry Raider

The past couple of days in EVE have been quite exciting. I left the dead corporation I was in and joined The Greater Goon (also known as Groon). I had originally planned to join GoonFleet but I started feeling like I’d just disappear in their ranks, and they can be pretty rough on inexperienced players. Groon is just as bitchy but more accepting of new players, even encouraging them to get blow’d up as much as possible using the corp’s Rifters.

I’ve liked EVE since the day I first played it, but I’ve always felt like it was a relationship going nowhere. With this game, it is absolutely vital to make friends or find a corp to do stuff with. It changes everything.

Meanwhile, I finally built up enough standing to do the lowbie Sisters of Eve epic mission arc, which is pretty fun. I’m doing it all in my Kestrel, and with my missile skills as high they are, I one-shot everything. Someday I’ll have a challenging mission, but it won’t be with these Level I agents.

Speaking of missiles, my Manticore fitting is 99% done. I just have to finish training Cloaking IV and I’m good to go. I need to start mentally preparing myself to lose the Manti. Groon likes to tackle, and we use a lot of cheap frigates to do so. The Manti was 20m, which isn’t particularly cheap, but it’s also not a tackler. I’ll likely park it in our 0.0 HQ and bring it out when we assault stations and battleships.

I’m going on my first PVP op tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.

A lot has happened in the two months since I last posted. I reactivated WoW, played for a while, and deactivated. My wife started playing Aion. And most importantly, I started working a lot at my new job, where I am in charge of product development. And I bought a house. So I haven’t had a lot of time to play MMOs, and my interest in them was fairly lacking anyway.

But remember in my last post, I said:

I plan on reactivating EverQuest II when GU53 comes out.

Well, GU53 came out, and I reactivated. I needed something to disappear into for an hour or so to chill out after work. And just as I expected, Norrath felt like home again. The changes in GU53 aren’t particularly drastic, but they make the game a little bit more casual, which is what I want in these last few months before the new expansion comes out. There are lots of nice conveniences, like Lore & Legend items serving as quest starters and increased spawn rates for nameds. The achievement system is clever, but nothing new. I do like that it serves as a sort of guide for things to do.

My real interest in returning to EQ2 is in my new gnome illusionist, Joybuzz. He’s level 23 with 30 AA. You read that right: 30 AA at level 23. Now for you PVP folks, this isn’t impressive. But for us PVE carebears, it’s not too common. It was only possible (for me anyway) because of the new AA slider, which I put at 100% and left there for 9 hours of gameplay. Having 30 AA at level 23 makes me feel very, very powerful. In fact, I can solo even-con ^^^ nameds.

My brother’s WoW account deactivated so he bought an EQ2 time card and reactivated as well. He’s playing a conjuror. I think the illusionist/conjuror duo will be a lot of fun. The nice thing is that, unlike in the past, we’re not rushing to some kind of goal. Getting level 80 isn’t a big priority. For once, we’re going to enjoy the journey.

At this point, my only goal is to reach 80 by the time Sentinel’s Fate comes out. It seems very lofty!

I don’t know what it is about EQ2 that makes me more emotionally invested it in than other MMOs that I currently play or have played in the past. In terms of the number of hours spent playing, I’ve invested far more into WoW than EQ2, maybe tenfold or even more. It’s a dizzying concept to grasp, but bear in mind that I played WoW for four-and-a-half years, and a lot of that was spent raiding on several different characters, all of whom needed fantastic gear, rep grinds, badges, and so on.

But with EQ2, I find myself caring more about each hour I spend in game than I ever did in WoW. It’s like an hour in EQ2 is more valuable than an hour in WoW; perhaps it’s because EQ2 is less grindy, or maybe it’s because EQ2 has so much more to do and I want to maximize my efficiency. WoW also does a much better job of leading you from point A to point B so you can spend more time doing what you set out to do.

A couple of nights ago, I was playing my then-65 ranger with my wife on her 48 illusionist and my brother on his 80 wizard. We mentored down to my wife’s level and ran the Eye for Power HQ, along with that ridiculously painful related quest where you have to kill Webclaw. The Webclaw quest involves killing placeholder after placeholder after placeholder to spawn a named for an update. When our named spawned, someone stole him from us so we had to do it all over again. Yet, we were victorious and finished both quests, which put Ipswich at 66 with 72 AA.

As I ran around Feerrott the next day, picking up lizardman parts for the Lore and Legend quest, I arrived at the realization noted in the first paragraph of this post. For each hour I put into the game, I wanted to extract as much growth as possible, whether it’s AA, or gear, or a quest update, or whatever. If I didn’t accomplish something after my playtime, I’d walk away somewhat frustrated. Yet at the same time, if I logged in and overplayed with dungeon run after dungeon run, I’d feel burned out and tired. I needed to find the balance.

The key to that balance is playing a class you enjoy, building a certain bond with your character, and most importantly, managing your own expectations. I used to think it was important to have a plan for each play session. We’re going to do this HQ, or that epic update, or the other shard run. With trying to manage my time, plus my brother’s time, plus my wife’s time, I started to feel less like a Ratonga Ranger and more like an Erudite Project Manager.

It’s good to have goals. Success feels good. Accomplishments feel good. But sometimes being goal-oriented can, well, ruin the fun. With trying to plan an evening of activities every time we logged in, the excitement got sucked out of it as my focus switched from doing what sounded fun to making sure everyone was happy. Like the old cliche says, when it starts to feel like a job it’s no longer a game.

I left Feerrott last night feeling like a new rat. Now that I can manage my own expectations, I don’t feel as pressured to manage everyone else’s.

There has been quite a bit of discussion in the MMO blogosphere about hardcore vs. casual, difficult vs. easy, and what the next generation MMOs will have to do in order to compete. Quite a bit of this discussion was fueled by Blizzard’s further nerfing of Ulduar and the change in patch 3.2 to support faster travel on mounts.

I don’t play WoW anymore, but all of this got me thinking about EverQuest II a bit. Game Update 52 comes out tomorrow and adds some controversial additions. First, spell ranks are changed. Gone are the days of App4 and Ad3 and M1. Now there are Journeyman (formerly Apprentice 1-4), Adept (formerly Adept 1), Expert (formerly Adept III), and Master. Second, research assistants are being added to the game. They will take one spell and upgrade it to its next rank. So your Expert rank of Nefarious Sacrament can be upgraded to Master without you having to buy the spell on the broker. Supposedly it takes about a month for the research assistant to upgrade a level 80 Ad3 to its M1 equivalent.

These changes were added to make EverQuest II a bit easier for all the new folks who are coming from WoW, WAR, AoC, and so on. The old system of spell ranks and new names for upgraded spells was very confusing for new players. And getting a Master was either an exercise in frustration (farming for it) or a very expensive proposition. SOE solved the problems by redesigning the spell system and making the spell upgrade process a bit less daunting.

Longtime EQ2 “hardcores” cried foul, understandably. They don’t want the game ‘dumbed down,’ and they worked hard for their spell upgrades. Further, they feel that people don’t even need their masters if they don’t raid. And so on and so forth.

In my opinion, whatever gets more people to try the game—and stick with it—is more important to me than placating the people who want things to stay the same. I do understand where they are coming from: change is difficult to deal with, the time we spend on these games is enormous and it feels like something is lost, and EQ2 specifically has a great community that the players don’t want tarnished by kids coming from WoW.

But in order to ensure the survival of EQ2, Sony has to adapt. They have to adapt to the rules that WoW has implicitly enforced on MMOs. Thankfully, if EQ2 is no longer to your liking, there are other hardcore MMOs like Vanguard or EVE. And if EQ2 is still too hard for the new players, they’ll stick with Runes of Magic or the old standby, World of Warcraft.

My only hope is that SOE remains agile enough to backpedal on a change that ends up bad, like the fighter hate changes they rolled back a few months ago. I am willing to try new things, support the changes that SOE is putting in, and help new players get into the (IMHO) best MMO on the market.

As one of my guildies recently said, “It’s really a good thing that EQ2 is good enough and popular enough for people to get upset about it.”

Yesterday I did some mentored shard runs on Grabthar (I’m up to 12 now) and dinged 78 in the process. Seeing 80 right there on the horizon, I decided to work on the grind over the next few days, achieving 35% XP toward level 79. I have been doing this in Kunzar Jungle.

Why Kunzar Jungle? One reason: City of Jinisk rep for my epic weapon timeline. I have already farmed up the Teren’s Grasp rep, I completed the Dragoon K’Nae heritage quest, and I learned the Sathirian language via the Mysterious Black Tome. Now all I “need” for the prerequisites to my epic timeline is the 40,000 rep with Jinisk. I’m presently at about 12k, so I don’t have much farther to go.

Of course, this is just stuff I need to get out of the way. The actual timeline is much more intense, with several heroic dungeon runs, lots of names to kill, and various mobs to farm. I’m actually very excited about kicking off the quest when I ding 80. The timeline doesn’t look too difficult, and it’s nowhere near as groan-inducing as the ranger epic quest.

I’m generally a goal-oriented person. I set goals for myself and I work toward them. This is true both in real life and in MMOs. In MMOs, my goals are usually something special to me and my character, such as getting 700 agility for my no-raid hunter in World of Warcraft (pre 3.1). I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Grabthar, but I’ve finally realized (and accepted) that he’s my main, he’s fun to play, and I’ve already succeeded in so many ways with him that I should go the distance.

Thus begins my travel down the road to Sedition.