MMO Gaming

I know I promised an SOE/Sigil/McQuaid post up today but much of what I would have said has already been stated around the ‘net. I won’t throw the same words out again but I will add a few points of my own or clarify some things I’ve read elsewhere.

To start, a large cluster of the community is blaming Brad for all the ills of Vanguard. It wasn’t his fault. Seriously. Don’t get me wrong, he deserves to be blamed for a crappy game as much as anyone, but blaming him for all the problems that plagued that game is silly. There are lots of bugs in the game, Brad didn’t code the game, which means someone else screwed up too. Brad didn’t make every decision for the game and company (I don’t know very many CEOs who know of each daily decision that goes on.) There were people, aside from Brad, who made a bad game.

As I said though, I’m not taking blame away from Brad, he is still very much at fault, but it wasn’t only him and I think we can stop berating him for being out of touch with reality. He got bitch-slapped by reality just now, it’ll sink in.

To reiterate comments from other blogs, sorry to all those who lost their job because of this mess. That sucks.

I may have more to say on this at some point, but for the moment I don’t. Now it’s off to continue this other post…

soe, sigil, vanguard, brad mcquaid, sony online entertainment, sigil online

I’ll post my thoughts tomorrow, but for now, let me just put up the press release. For those of you who don’t know, the shit hit the fan over at Sigil and SOE told people to get the hell out because Vanguard sucked horribly. Well…maybe they didn’t use those exact words, but it was, generally speaking, the notice that was given.

Anyway, as I said, more later, but here’s the press release.

soe, sony online entertainment, sigil, brad mcquaid, vanguard

Well, time for a quick wrap-up of my goings on in EQ2 this week.

I’m currently sitting at level 9 on my Guardian and level 8 on my Wizard. Not sure which one I want to go with for sure yet. To be honest, I’m really enjoying my Guardian, but I know from other games that the “tank” class can quickly feel like a chore so I’m holding off on declaring a “main” for the moment.

I like a lot of things about EQ2, several things I think it far surpasses WoW on. This wasn’t true at launch, but SOE seems to have tried harder to make sure they keep a quality game on the market. Maybe it is partially burnout, but WoW has been showing less and less creativity and polish in design and instead throwing the old “put it in now, fix/balance later” approach with a lot of their content. I don’t enjoy it and seeing a game that is (at least at low levels) as polished as WoW was at low levels is nice. If it keeps that same level of quality all the way through I will be very happy.

Anyway, I’ll post some more thoughts later, but that’s what I’ve got so far.

So, with me starting to play EQ2 a bit now I thought it would be a good idea to try and do a weekly update of my progress. Partially so I can personally look back and remember how much fun I was having, especially at particularly frustrating points in the game (which I’m sure there will be.)

I still have yet to decide on a definite character, I’m going to have to delete a few current ones to try out ones I haven’t yet. Not that it will be hard, I already know which ones I am not liking. So, starting probably next week I’ll keep a running journal of activities in Norrath.

Speaking of which, if anyone wants to meet me in game, I’m on the Permafrost server. Currently probably playing either Demus or Kalven. I’ll update again with any more information I have including my final character that I plan on sticking with for a while so anyone that wants to drop by can do so.

More to come later…

eq2, everquest, everquest 2, soe, sony online entertainment, norrath

Well…I’ve started playing EQ 2 a bit now. The worst part is…it’s actually really fun. Damn. I’m still messing around with a bunch of classes, not sure what I want to stick with. I’ve got a level 7 Guardian, a level 6 Wizard, 3 different level 4 characters (a Berserker, a Fury and an Illusionist) and a level 2 Monk. I didn’t enjoy the Monk to be honest. I might delete him to try out Ranger or something like that.

I also downloaded Lineage 2 to try out a bit as well. I haven’t gotten far enough into it to say much about it though. I will say I don’t think it’s my kind of game exactly. I mean…it uses the function keys…I hate that (not that it matters at all with my gamepad) and there is no jump button. That doesn’t bode well for a game…I love to jump. Anyway, I’ll have to spend some more time with Lineage before I can judge.

I’ll update later, possibly tomorrow, on EQ 2 again with some more thoughts.

soe, sony, sony online entertainment, everquest 2, everquest, eq2, EQ II, lineage, lineage 2, ncsoft, fury, illusionist, monk, berserker, wizard, guardian, ranger

I didn’t give EQ 2 much of a chance when it first came out. Partially because…well…it sucked. But I’ve heard from several people that it is actually quite enjoyable now so I figured I’d give the 7 day free trial a chance and see how I like it. Starting…as soon as I download all these updates. Only 3 hours to go.

I’ll let you know how it goes later in the week.

everquest, everquest 2, sony, sony online entertainment, soe, free trial