Howdy strangers. So here I am roughly six months since my last post and it feels like it’s been even longer. Where have I been? Well, I’ve been gaming on and off over the last few months but mainly I’ve been focused on RL activities (work, family, picking up some new hobbies etc…) Life is great though so I can’t complain – things are calming down enough that I should be able to get back to updating the site more frequently.
What’s new in my online adventures? First of all, I spent a few weeks playing World of Warcraft with my priest but it just didn’t stick. I even bought tickets for Blizzcon but now I’m not sure that I’ll even fly out to Anaheim later this year. It’s probably too late to sell my tickets so I’m may be out $300. At the same time, I’d save a few thousand dollars by staying home so that might make more sense in the end. Who knows maybe I’ll end up going after all as attending a Blizzcon would be something to check off my gamer bucket list. I have to be honest with you guys though, World of Warcraft just isn’t my thing – no matter how much I try to force myself to get immersed in it. In the end, I think it’s all the instanced dungeons. EQ2 has the same problem. I just miss open world dungeon crawling and being somewhere with a group only to see another group of people run by on their own adventure. Don’t get me wrong WOW and EQ2 are great games they just lack the immersion factor for me these days and without that factor I’m just not that into it anymore.
I tried some Age of Conan with the Godslayer expansion. I even leveled up to max level with the “free level” feature that they put into the game recently where you are awarded a level or two a week just for keeping an active subscription. I didn’t enjoy leveling up in that game very much so my theory was that I could get to max level and have a fresh start but it just didn’t feel all that fresh. There is a whole new expansion worth of content to check out but I’m not motivated to play AOC at the moment. Age of Conan feels like a cramped fish bowl sitting on top of a mountain. You see so many interesting things but just can’t get to them. EQ2 held my attention for a few weeks as I got my Fury on Nagafen up to max level and then betrayed and made him a Warden. I did some entry level raids in the new expansion but it seemed like group content and overland pvp dried up due to the implementation of battlegrounds. Needless to say, battlegrounds got old quickly for me and playing a Druid just seemed way too common so I put EQ2 back on the shelf for a while.
As the list of titles that interested me dwindled, I found myself deciding between Vanguard and EQ. I really wanted to spend more time in Vanguard but it’s hard to justify a large time commitment to a game that is effectively down to a single server. Granted, the world of Telon is huge and having all the players in one realm probably makes a lot of sense but I don’t know how long a game on a single server (other than Eve) can survive. Last week SOE laid off 34 employees and early rumors had several of the remaining VG developers getting their walking papers. Fortunately, these rumors seem to be off base as it appears the developers in question remain at SOE. What would make me want to spend more time in Telon? Honestly, some direct communication to the players from the developers regarding their master plan for the game and reassurances that the game isn’t going anywhere. Those reassurances plus details on new content in the coming months would go a long way to calming my Vanguard jitters. Until then, my 40th level Bloodmage will remain on the fence – waiting to see what happens.
With all that out of the way, guess what was left? Everquest of course! As the title of this post indicates, absence makes the heart grow fonder. In the last month or so, I’ve leveled up an Enchanter on the recently combined Luclin / Stromm server. He’s now locked at level 65 with about 80 AA points and has joined a new casual paced progression raiding guild called Visceral. The guild is planning on going through all EQ content starting with the Planes of Power expansion with a two day a week raiding schedule. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Sometimes coming back to EQ can be difficult because players are two boxing or using mercenaries and groups at low levels can be hard to find. At the same time, high level veteran players have so many AA points that the gap seems monumental. However, in this guild I’ve had groups almost instantly upon logging in each day and everyone has a great attitude. At the moment anyway, people are playing because they love the game and everyone is helping each other out. It’s a guild full of EQ veterans, returning players and people looking to relive experiences they had years ago. I know it’s not a novel concept and many guilds of this nature don’t make it very long but I’m hoping this will be different. I could really see myself leveling up with a group of people over the coming months and experiencing a good bit of EQ content that I missed over the years as I went looking for the “next best thing.” Perhaps, sometimes we are staring it right in the face but we just don’t notice it.
The guild is currently recruiting all classes and all levels (below 65). We have about 115 members now and had our first little mini raids this afternoon – taking down the Dragon Xanamech Nezmirthafen in Plane of Innovaiton which gave us keys for the Factory. Inside the Factory, we killed the Manaetic Behemoth which was a fun fight. Our raid split into two groups and each group was charged with keeping a constant stream of adds at bay (go go Enchanter) long enough for other groups to down the boss. That’s it for now, back to Norrath.
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Welcome back to the blogging world. I hope EQ1 finds you well. Maybe one day I will traverse old Norrath. I even used to play on Stromm. Anyway, good to see you posting again.