Couldn’t really let this pass now, could I?
http://adelecaelia.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/paul-prezzer-is-so-sweet/
Golly! T’weren’t nothin’. 
An interesting post by Ethic over at Kill Ten Rats on the whole grouping and social issue (I did some browsing following yesterday’s post telling of my own woes). The original post is good, but the discussion spawned afterwards is where the real meat lies.
One thought to spring up following yesterday’s War And Peace-sized missive was a campaign to bring Airwolf back to television (if Battlestar Galactica can be reimagined and Knight Rider can be refreshed (possibly NSFW), why not the real classic, eh?). The other thought, more sensibly, was of tutorials. Seems to me that there are beginner’s guides and starting quest lines covering all sorts of aspects of EQII gameplay – from combat to zone exploration to crafting – but none that really go into educating people into the very key reason EQII exists – online interaction with fellow adventurers.
I’m not merely suggesting a series of Very Hard quests that necessitate multiple party members to defeat (that would be Heroic mobs as far as I understand it) as these could easily be got around by out-levelling the mob in question. Instead I’m referring to a series of quests, certainly within the first three tiers of the game, that not only encourage grouping with their objectives (multiple levers that must be pulled within ten seconds of each other in differing locations, for instance), but also guide the player in the arts of recruiting groupmates in the first place.
Nothing compulsory of course, no reason to force a solo-oriented player to mix with others if they don’t want. But at least something there for people that suddenly want to dip their toe into the multiplayer waters to be able to head in the right direction.
What this also throws up, of course, is the aspect of class roles within a group. It’s all well and good to put out a quest that says “You will need three other heroes to complete this”, but far more useful might be for each class to have a ‘group specialization’ series of training quests. Could a dirge be rewarded with certain quest progression items if they successfully debuff twenty different mobs in a fight? This would require there to be a tank dealing the damage (and similarly gaining quest progression items when he performs a number of successful ‘pulls’) while the dirge concentrates on learning his particular role.
Not, I hasten to add, that group roles should be specific to individual classes only. We all know there’s a fair amount of role-crossover in EQII, so maybe a group gets to assign roles during the first stage of the quest, regardless of class – but thus allowing a player to learn just what roles are more ‘suitable’ for a particular career choice when they try a tank-damage dealing bard and fail the quest big time.
The typical bloggers’ cliché is to have a post that states: “I’m no game designer, but…” and I guess this is mine. I’m sure there are gaping holes in this idea that I haven’t yet thought about, but I figured I’d put it out there at least and see what people think (even if I now expect 90% of the responses to be about bringing back high-concept, low-budget 80’s TV shows instead).
My new life in Butcherblock (happy new year everyone, by the way – usual story of holiday periods, office moves and lack of internet connections are to blame for the sparse blog updates lately, but at least I’ve breached the mental firewall of letting this thing slip prior to Christmas and seem eager to continue into ’08)… uh, where was I? Oh, right…
So, my new life in Butcherblock has been temporarily delayed as a few unearthed areas of Antonica still rang out to me (will I ever get to leave this green and moderately pleasant if somewhat overly spacious land?). Basically, in tying up the last few loose ends in my quest journal before packing up and shipping out, a few more final strands shot up so I’ve been knee deep in McQuibble Farm scarecrows (is it just me or does the sudden rushing of a gang of x3 Heroic mobs at the end of the quest chain seem like a slightly unfair difficulty upramp?), camping out gnoll captains down in Blackburrow, taking a sudden and strange interest in harvesting and crafting, and impersonating Seaman Stains (one for the fellow Brits reading this) on the good ship Smarmy Sprocket and its crew of workshy fops.
The other EQII resolution that I’d promised to myself last time we spoke, was to start grouping. My first foray into that since could hardly be said to be pushing back the boundaries of gaming excellence however. My quest journal has had a handful of Stormhold-based quests hanging around in it for ages, picked up in a mad fit of peak many levels ago, and just hanging around like a bad smell, waiting for the day I’d reached a level sufficiently powerful enough to not be killed just by the wind rush thrown up when the front doors open.
As luck would have it the ‘level 20-29’ channel threw up a promising-sounding “SH group looking for mid to high 20s.” Assuming they weren’t referring to some kinky sex game I’d hitherto been unaware of, I sent back a /tell and was promptly accepted. Despite being a monk.
Eager to begin my epic afternoon of thrilling adventures and derring-do, I rushed towards the stony doorway, surprisingly didn’t die that much on the way, and leapt straight into the fray when I witnessed my party leader idly killing opening area goo things while waiting for the Avengers to Assemble.
And that’s about where it all fell apart for me and this is the indicative of my whole problem with grouping up in the game so far. This wasn’t the fault of the party itself, I hasten to add, but it’s just indicative of the typical grouping experience of the game. What happened from there on in was what can typically described as a madcap rush from one named mob to the next, barely stopping to catch breath and hardly even waiting for one corpse to hit the floor before we were speeding off to find the next.
Where was the thrill of adventure? Where was the exploration of (to me) an unknown environment? The tense advancement along unknown corridors, the glory and marvel on arriving in a beautifully dilapidated ballroom? We even seemed to just rush past the fabled glowing sword at the top of the spiral staircase that I heard was a major plot point but barely raised a flicker of interest from anyone here as we sped towards our next XP-boosting target. No one was speaking a word to anyone else other than to call out a target and debate on whether the drops would be any good. It was only once I’d finally had enough of this and called it a night, stepping back into the cool, evergreen air of Antonica at dusk, that I discovered I’d actually crossed off a couple of the Stormhold quests I’d been storing. Discovery quests mostly, but in all the non-stop running and slashing I hadn’t even noticed them dinging away.
Anyone know what’s going on? Answers on a postcard to…
I guess that’s why I’ve been all too keen to keep soloing to date. When I’m running a quest, I like to stop and smell the jumjum beans. I’m actually interested in the content of the world that’s been so lovingly designed by the good burghers at SOE. I like to read the background, listen to the quest givers and know what I’m doing. The problem is, there are too few grouping opportunities for people who are still fresh to things. I have no problem with XP/loot chasing groups, let me be clear on that, but at the level 20-40 stage, it’s not what I’m after. I’m still exploring. I’m still excited by seeing a new area. Surely I’m not the only one.
Hence a proposal. The chat channels are often home to group inviting calls, but rarely do us lore fiends get a chance to know what’s waiting for us if we sign up. So how about setting up a new chat channel solely dedicated to letting those with a taste for a slower-paced approach advertise for first-time quest running groups? If you see “Looking for Firemyst Gully group, levels 20-25 needed, esp Healers” you automatically know that you’ll be banding with like-minded souls looking to explore quests for the first time and who will have an interest in following the plot.
Chances are I’m just describing a role-playing server, but I doubt it somehow.
(P.S. Apologies for the lack of imagery with the recent postings. I’ve been shuttling from one dodgy internet connection to another just lately. Hopefully normal visual servcie will be resumed shortly.)
Having spent literally minutes mulling over my options as were left to me at the end of the last post (which alt to be my main and which area to go to with him), I think I’ve decided to split duties between my Dwarven Monk in Butcherblock, and my Sarnak Fury in Nektulos Forest. I really couldn’t abandon my first real main EQII character for some young upstart, I felt I’d invested far too much pain, humiliation and column inches in him to just throw the little one to side of the road without even stopping to open the car door first. And since he was the first to get to Butcherblock and had already started carving out a name for himself as the premier Aqua Goblin dispatcher du jour, it wouldn’t be right to stop now.
But Nektulos was always an area that held some interest for me. The only time I’d encountered it before was months ago on a magazine screenshotting exercise, which required the rapid creation of a random alt (an iksar funnily enough so maybe there’s some karma in all this somewhere) with inherent invisibility powers, a skipping past the training island and a quick sprint straight past anything with teeth to the entrance of NF, and then a madcap race around as much of the locale as possible, snapping scenery shots like a crazed wildlife photographer covered in BBQ sauce and running around a lion enclosure. I think I was level 4 which meant even the grass was auto aggroing me.
In fact, it’s usually a safe bet that if you ever see a ridiculously low-level character running around completely unsuitable environments in what appears to be a mad panic, constantly stopping to crouch or jump on a rock to get a better angle on a shot, chances are it’s me doing my best Peter Parker impression while on Official Business. Sometimes I wish EQII came with a set of ‘Press’ armour, bright, blue flak jackets with the legend “Don’t Eat Me, I’m A Journalist!” written across the back and that have the dual effects of removing any aggro, but also prevent you from attacking anything.
Anyway, the point is, I’ve seen Nektulos before and it has an appeal, one that I’d like to explore at a more suitable pace and progression. It’s definitely time to start exploring the lost art of Pick-Up Groups in more depth as well. So far, all I’d managed to achieve on that front was to join a silent mob slayer back in The Caves who must have fallen into the old trap of assuming I Know What I’m Doing and without a word just proceeded to attack anything that moves without even stopping to draw up a plan of action, assign group roles, fill in ANY forms in triplicate whatsoever, or even introduce himself.
That and one other time I haphazardly agreed to join a PUG that was setting out for Fallen Gate (I think it was, can’t fully remember for sure) but was having difficulty locating a healer online to join us. So instead of the much promised adventure and excitement I thought I was going in for, I spent a confusing fifteen minutes trying to work out how the teleport spires worked, then an oddly disconcerting dash across the Commonlands with my distinctly Qeynosian dwarf, and then much sitting on rocks and waiting while the group leader cursed constantly about how no one plays healers any more before he gave up on the whole enterprise and logged off. Leaving a nervous and suddenly bereft of companionship ‘goodie’, knee-deep in ‘baddie’ territory. Thanks a bunch.
So basically I haven’t had the greatest of luck with groups to date, but I’m not going to let that get me down. I know there has to be some decent action going on out there, and I aims me to find it. I’m fully house-trained, I promise not to steal loot (in fact I won’t even roll for it, how about that? I’m just happy to help out), and I’ve recently started to get a hang on what all these combat arts do so I might even prove to be useful. Look out world, I’m coming for you!
A lot to cover as I’ve been getting quite heavily into many aspects of EQII lately, not least of which is enjoying the low-level area of the Kunark expansion along with 98.7% of the rest of the game’s population it seems. Prior to that I’d started off on a few of the early Butcherblock quests, gathering sandal ingredients for the fisher bloke on the beachfront, swimming back and forth to the aqua goblin island to retrieve pages of a book (haven’t you people ever heard of saddle-stitch linings or leather-binding? Honestly, Norrathian books seem to fall apart at the slightest gust of wind) and generally avoiding dying through my monk invisibility skills and hit-and-run, take ‘em down one at a time, Predator-style tactics.
Nonetheless, progress was being made, levels were obtained, quests ticked off and even a wrong turn in Globbsunk Cove which instead of leading to a final quest item, instead brought me face to eye with Leviathan. The all-seeing monster of the deep. Ol’ Squiddy McTentacle (yes, it killed me so quickly I didn’t actually get a chance to see its proper name, okay?). Which is one of the things I love about this game. Every time you think you’ve seen all of a certain location, something mysterious and terrifying is always waiting just around the corner.
Then, just as I was starting to hit my stride and beginning to throw off the shackles of ham-fisted gameplaying, really start to enjoy myself you know, Kunark hits and a quick nose around with a Sarnak alt suddenly turns into my main EQII’ing experience and before you can say “Well that was inevitable when you stop to think about it,” McStumpy Carrotbeard the Monk is somehow no longer my number one guy. The alt has become the master and this scaly fella below has jumped into the lead position as my highest-leveled character. How the hell did that happen???
I’m beginning to think that banana-tinted aftershave was a mistake.
Damn you, bargain aisle!
The solo starting path for Sarnaks in ROK is surprisingly well structured and it was probably that being-led-by-the-nose aspect that kept me playing through it. None of the vague wanderings found in Antonica, never a moment when I’m not sure how to proceed, and even a surprisingly well-designed selection of quests that, while still mostly of the Kill X mobs variety, at least peppered with enough imagination and plot exposition to paint a really entertaining picture of life in this neck of the woods. Plus it looks gorgeous, but then you all know that already:
Can’t be that advanced a civilisation. Haven’t even invented escalators.
But it puts me in a quandary. The next step for my Sarnak Fury is to head over to Butcherblock. So which of my now two mains do I carry on with? I’d like to stick with the dwarf as BB is based around his kith and kin after all (the main reason I went there in the first place), but the Fury is proving to be a lot of fun to play and he’s kitted out quite well now. Can a Sarnak go to Thundering Steppes and have a worthwhile time? Should Nektulos Forest be an option? All advice welcome to the usual address…
