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| WHAT YEAR IS THIS? |
Yeah, so this just happened. I re-installed EverQuest Titanium Edition in order to play on the emulated server "Project 1999." This server is a true to form re-creation of the original EverQuest experience. It's one that I remembered very fondly the second I logged in... but something was different...
more after the jump
It took me a little while to be fully hooked on EQ. When I first started I stayed close to my starting city and only played for a little bit at a time... mostly solo or with another player or two. I didn't know what was going on and didn't really progress very quickly. It took months for me to out-level Blackburrow. Especially with how many times our groups would get trained and how difficult the corpse retrieval could be. I learned really quickly to note my surroundings and avoid falling off anything when death seemed possible.
I only had access to the first 3 eras due to my lack of knowledge when I purchased a copy at the store. I thought it had to be complete with the original game and 2 expansions! That meant no Plane of Knowledge, no fast traveling around, and no "hub" of people hanging around at all levels. It was me, the other White Wolves of the North, and the occasional odd looking fellow who would band together to slay monsters side by side, but I'd have to leave groups because they'd want to change zones via the "pok" and I couldn't.
When I was ready to branch out I was stuck. I wanted to just continue on foot, but nobody wanted anything to do with that route when the "pok" was the safe/fast/easy way to go. I caved and purchased all the expansions that were available. I never looked back.
Next, I was introduced to EQAtlas and map packs (that were actual maps... not new content).
Get to Project 1999 already...
I did so little before the "upgrades" to the Planes of Power expansion that I honestly forgot what I was up against originally. Well... that all came rushing back hard today. I decided I'd play a Gnomish Enchanter and off I went. I hit the M key... nothing. Try to pull up the compass... it's gone. I was a Barbarian in my EverQuest days which meant I was too tall to go to the Gnomish starting city. I had NEVER been there before and had no idea where to go or what to do.
What now?
This is when I got the rush. I felt it again and it's been so long since I had that feeling with an MMO. The world was big and scary. There was no PoK for me to hang out in and find stuff to do. There was no great library filled with merchants that sell just about every spell a new caster could want. There was no easy to find quest giver that'd get me started on my quest. It was just me... standing in a hallway... with no direction. All of a sudden all the corpse runs, trips through dangerous forests, cities that were unfriendly to your race, and all the monsters in between all started to feel really big and intimidating. There is no way I was going to let myself die in a place I couldn't find. No way I was going to go around exploring until I was familiar with the area I was in. That feeling is gone in most MMOs. It simply does not exist. You can easily find your way anywhere in any other MMO I've played (including current day EverQuest) and there's very little risk for striking out on your own to see a place you've never been.
I eventually found my way out of Ak'Anon and into the newbie fields right outside. "Great!" I thought to myself. "This will be just like Halas where I was able to farm spiderlings and wimpy skeletons for months to get myself leveled up! No problem at all... if I have trouble, I'll just run to the guards!" The first spiderling killed me. I had to go retrieve my corpse. While trying to do that, a gnome skeleton killed me. Oh boy. At least I learned my way out by chasing my stuff. A few trials and errors later and I'm in a little groove. I'm killing things and gaining experience. It was only a few more minutes before the glorious sound I missed so much... DING! At level 2 I started wondering if there was anything I could have received from my guildmaster that would help me along. I'm stark naked with a rusty dagger... there's got to be SOMETHING I can find.
That proved to be more difficult than I was ready for. The zone is huge with tiny hallways going in every which direction. I started to just study all the NPCs to see if I could find any clues. The first one sold blacksmithing supplies. The next was a baker... I must be in the tradeskill area! I back-tracked my way to where I started and tried another route. And another... and another... and another... now I'm 100% lost... IN MY STARTING CITY.
/WHO
1 Player in Ak'Anon
Crap... that's no help.
So, I keep looking. Just when I was about to shut it down and get back on Dark Souls for the night I see a halfling turn the corner and look right at me. THAT'S NOT A GNOME... THAT'S A PLAYER! I decide against begging for help finding my guildmaster. That's just too silly a question to bother someone with, right? I waved when he went by and he hailed me back [NOTE: When you target someone and press "H" it "hails" them. It's like saying "Hey" and if it's an NPC who has dialogue, they'll say it. If it's a player, it's a way to get their attention.] We start chatting and he says he'll help me find the guildmaster! After we search around a while it's clear that neither of us know where we're going, but he offers to teleport me to Freeport (which is a much easier to navigate area with a better newbie zone outside). Once there, he gives me a few coins to get me going, advises me of where to go, binds my soul at the gate, and even invites me to his guild! I see the familiar "everyone welcome" message come across guild chat... then something amazing happens... At least A DOZEN people say hello and welcome me to the guild... at three in the morning. This is the JOLLY COOPERATION I remembered from so many years ago. Turns out I ran into the founder of a guild that devotes itself to helping new players get acclimated to the world. The perfect turn of events.
Once in Freeport we go directly to the guildmaster, I train a point in Sense Heading (due to no compass) and I'm happily slaying small rats, bats, and skeletons just like old times.
My Dark Souls friends were somewhere between bored to tears and nostalgia'd. I get it, this isn't exactly the excitement of Dark Souls and most of the feelings that make the classic EQ experience unique don't really broadcast well. I mean, how are you supposed to feel what it's like to know anything and everything will kill you and you could lose DAYS worth of experience PLUS all of the things you've collected and all your supplies if you don't know exactly where you were when you died?
tl;dr I get that it may not be interesting.
So, are you moving to EverQuest? Also, Stream General.
No. Dark Souls is my primary focus. I'll be playing Dark Souls until I can't stand turning it on... then will go to Demon Souls... and then back to Dark Souls... and hopefully Dark Souls 2 will be on the horizon by then.
That being said... expect more EverQuest to be live on my channel in the coming weeks. I'll make sure that the title of the stream and "playing" sections accurately reflect what I'm playing and it won't hurt my feelings if you want to watch other players play Dark Souls while I'm doing something else. If you come by and hang out a bit, that'd be super awesome of you, but I'm not delusional. I've been doing this a long time and understand that not every game carries the same level of interest from the viewers of the last one.
I will still talk Dark Souls while on EQ, will still stop to SunBro with people, and will freely move back and forth when possible. I'd love to just pick a night and make it an EQ night with the rest of the week being Dark Souls, but with my schedule, I don't know how that could be possible. On top of that, I have a couple old EQ buddies who may get into it for a little bit, so playing when they are on may happen. This will be similar to my Borderlands 2 play time. When my cousin is online we play Borderlands 2 together. That's happened once since I started playing Dark Souls... and will happen in the future... but this is a Dark Souls stream and will continue to be Dark Souls.
WARNING: this may happen with other games from time to time as well. I bought XCOM at launch and haven't installed it. I would love to try the games that are "similar to" Dark Souls like Monster Hunter Tri and Dragon's Dogma. Games like Left 4 Dead also are on the radar as one off "change of pace" nights. Path of Exile is going to happen at one point or another. Etc etc etc... you get it. We can do these things together in game and on stream or you can take these nights to explore other streams that are available. Again, I'd love it if you'd hang out, but there are plenty of really cool Dark Souls streams out there that will be readily available if I'm playing some dumb game you hate.
Also, I've been down this road before. I've got the itch to play EQ and decided I was going to dedicate myself to it only to last a week before I got bored. Project 1999 is a different animal when it comes to the experience vs the F2P EQ of today, but I really don't expect to be spending all of my time there any time soon.
uh.... Dark Souls?
Yes. Praise the Sun. I ended up back on Dark Souls and had a perfect record with my Undead Parish invasions last night including a 1v3 where I used a couple forms of psychological warfare to net me a win. I started out by poisoning both the host and his first summon with arrows followed by hiding behind the rapier wielding Balder Knight on the stairs. He stuck his head out and got it cut off by 3 swift strikes from my Great Scythe.
I plan on spending more of my time invading as this play through goes on. I really like the low level invading stuff and I hope it will actually get me ready for the higher level guys I'll see in places like Oolicile Township and The Kiln. The way I see it, the difficulty of the players I invade should scale with the zones I invade barring the random people like me who stay low level. I think my SL18 Darkwraith will stay away from places like the Forest and focus on being an actual invader over someone walking into a trap. Walking into traps is what my SunBro will do... seeing as he won't be in a PvP covenant ever. I'll black out Anor Londo and hang out in human form in the forest a while to see if I can't improve as a PvPer with his stats, load out and SL. It's also nice to not be in a "zero mistake" PvP situation. Being level 18 and invading means I pretty much have to avoid all damage or I'm history. At SL60, my SunBro can at least take a shot without the fight being over.
HURRRR NO SKILL DURRRR
Here's my take on PvP: I don't like fishing for back stabs, rolling into back stabs, using magic/pyromancy, or using any combination of the above to "simplify" PvP. That being said, I'll stab you in the spine if you leave yourself open to it in the course of the fight. That's just how I like to play. It's not an honor thing and it's not because I don't want you to do it... it's just how I play.
In the same vein... if someone leaves himself open for something he's getting it. If he's spamming I'll try to pull off a parry. If he turtles hard behind his shield (especially with a thrusting weapon) then I'm going to swap in a shotel or black flame to break the stalemate if a simple kick won't do it. I see all these things as reactionary and necessary. Any time I'm in one of these situations where my "normal" PvP standards aren't cutting it and I resort to something a little more definitive it leaves me feeling dirty, but there's no reason I should lose a humanity because someone is doing something funny. I mean, I'm no Peeve, but I'm also not completely terrible. Today, for instance, the first R1 shot staggered the dude I was fighting... of course I'm going to finish the fight with a couple more R1s. That's part of knowing what's going on. If that person is going to die if I do X... I'm doing X. I don't see it as anything but reading the field. You may see the low hitpoint PvP as raking up kills on rookies, but not all these people are new... by a long shot. I have to be ready to be one shotted by anyone I fight. It may seem like a skill-less fight when it ends so abruptly, but you also need to remember how fragile I am as well. It's not like I can tank a hundred shots and I'm vs some guy who has 100 hp. We both have low HP and high damage... it's far from one sided.
There's also the chance I'm going to show up and the person on the other end is going to be SL700 and won't take more than a quarter of the DPS I'm putting out while having five times my hit points. It doesn't happen much on the xbox, but when it does, it's bad. It doesn't even matter where you invade because people play through the whole game on their super high level characters. So far I've only ran into maybe two players over 200 on my 18, but both of those were BRUTAL.
Am I wearing great gear and prepared for PvP? Of course. Do all the guys I fight put out my DPS? No. So, how do I justify what I do? I'm the counter to playing the game on easy mode with summons. You all better be ready to fight invaders if you think you're just going to summon a sunbro and walk directly to the boss talking about the sunrise. When I'm on my sunbro I have to be ready to defend the host from any "anti-me" that decides to tread on his game. It all works together and shouldn't be seen as something awful. In fact, they could solve the problem in game by hitting "indict" after they die. That puts an ever climbing number of sins on my shoulders and makes me eligible for retribution from higher and higher level players in the Darkmoon Blade. I like the idea of that. Bring it on!
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