The Shard of Fear, Map Making, and Random Other Thoughts

For those of you not already in the know, the newest addition to EQ2 is a zone called “The Shard of Fear.”  The Shard of Fear, as I understand it, is situated within a sliver of the plane of Fear, itself.  Hence the term “shard.”  You access the Shard through a portal in the far-eastern reaches of the jungle Feerott.  Yes, remember that place?  You were there, oh, maybe around April of 2005.  Not a long time ago, or anything.  …  As I was saying, it’s in the far-eastern part of the Feerott — and before you ask, no, traveling across the Feerott is no shorter a trip now than it was 3 years ago, although we can hope you aren’t level 38, anymore — in a cave adjacent to the temple of Cazic-Thule.  That lake where Agony spawns.  Yes.  Good times.  The Screaming Place I MEAN the Screaming Mace.  Yes.

Okay, so.  The Shard of Fear.  Or, “SoF,” as fanbois lovingly write it in shorthand.  Nifty place.  Wicked cool looking if you go for the dark, evil stuff.  Which I do.  Obviously. My favorite touch is the magma-like rain that falls from the sky.  Adds a great sense of atmosphere.  Amazing how it’s the simple little touches like that which can totally alter and enhance the mood of an area.

Not a particularly tough place, as far as the mobs go.  Oh, they’re level 72-75 with carrots, but unless the mob you, they aren’t really tough.  Of course.  They mob you quite frequently.  Mob.  Weird that in MMO-speak that word is associated with single creatures rather than its actual meaning — multiple entities.  heh  Okay I digress.

Brasse the Bearded Dwarf has posted an incredible map of it:

http://www.thebrasse.com/eq2map/46 

If you aren’t familiar with his work … err, HER work … then check it out.  S/he did the (okay, it’s a guy in real life as far as I KNOW) work in the original EQ2 guide published by Prima, for those of you suckers who went out and bought it.  The maps were the best part about it, no doubt.  Remember, there was no “eq2maps” back in those days.  Paper maps were the dillio.  Did I just write “dillio” ?  Good god.  I need alcohol worse than I thought.  I am really annoyed becuase I went to the nearest convenience store today and took a 12-pack from the cooler to the desk, and the Indian guy there scolded me and told me I was breaking the law.  Umm.  Okay.  I forgot that South Carolina is a backwards-ass place where nothing opens until 1:20 on Sundays and licensed beer and wine vendors are prohibited from selling.

Anyway that had nothing to do with anything.  Maps.  Maps, yes.  I love maps.  Maps are fun.  I designed many as a child.  I haven’t done it in ages but I feel inspired now to update some of my old ones.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Who knows, maybe that novel will appear.

STUFF IS HAPPENING PEOPLE

Well, it sort of HAS already collapsed, I know.

But.

Icing on the cake.  Or shit on the fan, if you like.

Trent Reznor has parted ways with Interscope after fulfilling his contract.
Madonna has inked a 120M deal with a promotions agency (not a record lable) to handle all of her shit, every merchandise, all of it, for 10 years.
TSP have decided they will probably not release another “album” but may shift into some other format — EP, singles, and so forth.

Well the interesting thing about this all is that we’ve really come full circle.

Before mega lables existed, artists recorded 1 or 2 songs at a time.  Then they released them on 8-inch vinyl.  Side A was the main single.  Side B was the secondary song.  Hence we grew the term “B-Sides.”  Artists were paid based on sales of these singles.

Then labels were formed, and then the “album” concept grew.  That changed into full-blown album/single/tour/merchandise.  A routine, standard.  Boring, by most accounts.  I agree.  I can’t see art being formed in such a system.  (Although miraculously, due to the human condition, it was.)

The day will soon come when your local record store will be no more — and not even Wal Mart or Target or Barnes and Noble will carry CD’s.  Instead, they will be partnered with iTunes or whatever incarnation of that model is working for them at the time, and listeners will download everything, jsut like they do now, at home.  IN fact, music “retail” as we know it now, is, I think — quite done with.  Quite.  I give it 3 years, tops, before it’s gone completely.

Artists are thrilled for this.  With the birth of the Internet, as a true marketing force, with such sites as iTunes, YouTube, MySpace.  We are no longer using the internet for simple websites.

In fact, websites are rather outdated, too, I think.  Except as a form of artistic expression, now.  Much like TV replaced paintings and drawings, interactivity has reached a new height, and users have moved onto the blogosphere.  They want dynamically linked everything.  They want it, and they want it NOW.

Music follows suit, and, who knows.  Perhaps movies will, too.  (I think they are a bit safer becuase, movies have always been a more social event than music, at least in terms of the venues and the avenues within which people find that art and digest it.)

we are on the verge of something, I think, that is very exciting.  Our favorite artists, not withheld by restrictions of their lables, able to say, act, do, and produce whatever they like, however they like, and directly reap the benefits.  NIN fans already know that TR has made his latest album completely availalble in multi-track format, for fans to mix and remix and tear down and piece together, however they wish.  Yes, you can do the right thing and pay for it.  But as TR himself glibly remarks “The second it goes to the manufacturer someone will kindly upload it.”  So rest assured pirates.  Your shiz ain’t drying up.

Piracy isn’t the issue here — piracy was in place the day recordable tape was produced and marketed en masse.  No, the issue is looking at a new marketing horizon.  And embracing it, instead of fearing it.  Business is changed.  To quote some jackass, “STUFF IS HAPPENING PEOPLE.”

Updates

Added a new blurb to the Movies page.

The City of Lost Children 

Warlock or Wizard?

I see this question come up from time to time on the SOE EQ2 Newbie forum.

“Which class should I pick, Wizard or Warlock?”  It’s usually followed by some sort of qualifier, like: “I want to be a pure caster class that does a lot of DPS, but reading the class boards, I can’t decide!”

Okay, well.  First of all, a couple things to know:  1.) the class boards, while they CAN be a good source of information, are more often than not a very bad representation of any given class’ potential.  These boards are usually filled with posts from a vocal minority who are primarily concerned with two things only; how much their class sucks, and how much their class rocks.  There is almost no in-between, and usually very little constructive feedback or discussion.  2.) Finding the worthwhile threads can be tedious, as you generally have to sift through a lot of crap, for the afore-mentioned reasons.

So, there is nothing wrong with asking this in the Newbie forum.  I find that people generally give better, more concise and constructive answers there, anyhow.  Particularly the warlocks and wizards, who, when left by themselves in their respective forums, usually resort to flaming one another and anyone unfortunate enough to stumble in and ask a valid question.

So now that you know about the perils of the class fora, I can proceed to answer this conundrum, based on my own experiences.

First.  I am biased.  I love my warlock.

But, I am also a realist, which means I am well aware that the wizard currently holds the trump card in this game.

Wizards have one huge, overwhelming advantage.  And no, it’s not “evac.”  Please.

Their advantage is that, within the current mechanics of the gameplay, they are able to pump out more damage with less risk to themselves.  In EQ2, the standard group or raid works like this: one person is the “tank” who pulls the monsters to your group, and then, you all assist the tank, who does the targeting for you.  So long as you all focus on his target, you can safely kill each monster with very little chance of it turning its rage onto you.

But what happens when you are a warlock?  This entire system that so many people rely on becomes, for lack of better terms, completely FUBAR’d.

A warlock works like this.  Tank pulls an encounter, warlock targets tank, tank begins attacking first mob.  Warlock unleashes an encounter-wide AE (in EQ2, there are two types of AE: encounter-wide, which does not affect any mobs outside the current encounter, and point-blank, which is your typical “everything” AE — warlocks have many spells which are encounter-wide, in fact, most of our damage, almost half, comes from these spells).  3 of the 4 mobs — all but the one the tank is focused on — immediately come and unload on the poor little warlock.

Now, you CAN learn to throttle this.  It comes with time and MUCH willpower.  However, even while doing the best to throttle your output to lower levels, more often than not you’ll die first.

Why don’t wizards have this issue?  Becuase wizards are focused on single-targets.  Just like everyone else in the game.  And so they can easily attack JUST the monster that the tank is focusing on — and since the tank has already built up tons of hate on JUST that ONE mob … the others don’t even bother with the wizard, since he is not attacking them.

But, but “Why don’t I just use my single-target spells?” you say!

Because, the entire point of being a warlock, as it is now, is to do as much devastation to as many opponents as you can.  That is what our “role” is in this game, now.  Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t FIT into the way most people play.

So what can you do to be the best warlock you can be?

First.  Learn to use your de-aggro abilities.  We get two, fairly early on.  The first, the Vulian line, is encounter wide, with a short daze.  The second, also encouter wide, is Concussive.  Concussive does slightly more, and also has a short stun.

Second.  Don’t unload with your biggest nukes right off the bat.  You may even need to wait, especially in raids, until 10 or 15 seconds has passed, if you plan on unleashing all of your encounter-wide nukes in succession.

Third.  Learn to use your procs.  Warlocks get some nice proc spells.  A “proc” is something that adds extra damage on top of another spell.  A triggered effect, all its own, if you will, that goes off when certain conditions are met.  The term is short for “procedural code” — which is basically what the programming entails.  Our first proc is the Gift line, which adds a tiny bit of damage on top of every single poison-based spell we cast.  The second, and more powerful and volatile, is Netherous Realm, which you won’t get until your 50’s, and only if you have the Desert of Flames expansion.  This spell covers a radial area around the warlock, and yourself, and any other group or raid member, who cast a poison-based spell, will get a hefty amount of extra poison damage added.  This will also proc off of scout poisons!  It’s a great benefit to you and your group.

Fourth.  Cast your DoTs!  DoT (damage over time) spells tick for small damage, but have a long duration, and, if kept up consistently, will do a lot of damage while you are busy casting your nukes.  Warlocks get 3 DoT lines, eventually.

To Dark Elf or Not to Dark Elf, that is the question.

I have now posted about this subject — quite coherently, I may add — twice on the SOE EQ2 boards. First, the subject of the discussion (I wouldn’t actually call it a debate, thank god — but rather a simple discussion) :

And, my post about it. Which I copy for this blog, since, I don’t think I could expand more on it.

Each time I see this box art I like it more and more, and I have some insight now into why the image is a dark elf and not a Sarnak.

As others have said, this isn’t so much “the Rise of Kunark release” as it is a re-release of “Everquest II” — but why choose a dark elf for it, still?

Well.

Think about this:

Dark elves, for better or worse, have become one of the most recognizable races in modern fantasy. They are as well-known now as orcs, goblins, dwarves — and arguably better recognized than halflings or gnomes. And that’s rather surprising, given that they are also one of the newest heavily re-adjusted races in high fantasy, in general.  Thanks to the efforts of writers like Bob Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham, and a lot of press generated from their bestselling books set in the D&D campaign world of the Forgotten Realms, we now have dark elves firmly entrenched in our modern fantasy mythos, in a very specific way.  So … what better choice to get the attention of a certain demographic — i.e. those people who are interested in fantasy and MMO gaming but who are NOT currently playing EQ2 — than to use one of the most iconograpahic images we know today?

I think it makes great business sense. I know some fantasy enthusiasts, and particularly some members of the vocal EQ2 community here on these boards, are automatically against any kind of commercial “branding” such as this … but what’s bad about it? It will likely bring more players to this wonderful game we all love, and I can’t see anything wrong with that, at all. And besides — the art is technically beautiful, no matter its subject.

Updates

I’ve recently added bits to the Movies and Music sections, for those curious.

And a few new entries here below.  Mostly newbie infos.

Newbie 201-A: Starting in Neriak

The first rule of MMO gaming is that you need to forget everything you learned while playing Final Fantasy games. MMO’s are not linear. They are not based around a central plotline that starts and point A and ends at point B. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to go about accomplishing your goals and objectives.

Instead, think of the MMO as a book, and yourself as one of the secondary characters in that book. You are not the hero, but you are a hero. You are not Sandor Clegane … but you might be one of the scumbags in his band of ruffians. You are not Daenarys Targaryen, but you might be her maid. So on, and so forth? Get it? Good.

When you begin your journeys in EQ2, you’ll most likely start in one of the 2 main cities: Neriak, if you are evil, or Kelethin, if you are good. Alternatively, if you elect to become part of the communes, you’ll be sent to either Freeport (for evil races) or Qeynos (for goodie-goodies). In which case, you first begin on a tutorial island of sorts, called the Outpost of the Overlord, or the Queen’s Colony.

But what do I DO, you ask?

Well, let’s take it from the top:

If you are in Neriak :

You start in the small outpost village of Hate’s Envy. In Hate’s Envy, you can gain an assortment of quests, which, when you have completed them all, will leave you at about level 7, and direct you to the next area, T’vatar Post. To compare, you’ll be at around the same level leaving Hate’s Envy as you would be after you left the Outpost of the Overlord (Freeport’s starting area) or the Queen’s Colony (Qeynos starting area) or the Nursery (Kelethin starting area).

Once leaving Hate’s Envy, the quest lines at T’vatar Post will take you to around level 11 (comparably, you’d be at this same level after completing the hunting ground quests in Freeport or Qeynos, or after completing the quests at Sapling Spur in Kelethin).

From there, you move to the Wanderlust Fair. This will serve as your base of operations up past level 18. These quests will become gradually more challenging, and by the time you leave for the Shadow Oak, you should be ready to get into your first group to complete the final set of quests.

At the Shadow Oak, the druids will send you into the Funnelweb Depths, the Thexian camp, and finally to the Bone Tower.

After this, you should be close to level 20. The final quest line you should persue will be given by the dwarf at Wanderlust, after you’re level 19. This series will require a group to complete, and after which, you’ll be directed to the next continent, for players level 20-35: Butcherblock Mountains.

SOME TIPS FOR NEWBIES!

• Make sure you pick up Lore and Legend books! Completing these quests by finding all the body partsof the various creatures will give you extra abilities that can be used against those creatures. There is a Werewolf L&L in one of the shacks in the Nerian Highlands, and the Skeleton L&L is in a bookcase in the Bone Tower.
• Utilize the Level 10-19 channels to form up groups! type /[number of channel here] to speak in the channel. You’ll automatically be joined to it at level 10, so look in your chat box to find out what number you need to type. (Usually 2 or 3).
• Utilize /ooc for general questions about the Darklight Woods!
• Make sure to visit a mender when you die. There are menders at T’Vatar Post and Hate’s Envy, as well as inside Neriak itself.

NERIAK QUESTING

After you finish the quests at T’vatar Post, you will have the option of traveling inside Neriak. There, you can take on several additional quests for the local inhabitants, and gain teleporter access to the various sections of the city. Since these quests will turn gray at some point (i.e. they will not be worth any experience) you may want to complete them in order to gain the extra experience while you can. Having a house and teleporter access is also very helpful! Once you have gone to the Inn and purchased a room, you can utilize the broker (in the crafting area just off the Docks District) to sell items. Selling items on the broker is the primary means of making money in EQ2! There is also a lot of Achievement experience to be had by exploring the city, and some very beautiful sights as well!

That’s it for now. I hope to go through Kelethin next!

Newbie 201: Fundamentals of Grouping

Good afternoon, class.

Today we will be discussing the basics of grouping in Everquest 2. Everyone got your notebooks? Good. Let’s begin.

I. Grouping is a necessity

A.) to be badass

1.) Quests requiring a group to complete

a.) Heritage

b.) Signature

c.) Heroic

d.) Access

e.) Epic

2.) Gear

3.) Raids

4.) XP and AP grinding

Got that jotted down, yet? Okay.

Now let’s go through it.

First, grouping is required to complete all of the quests that offer the best rewards. Including but not limited to: heritage quests, usually awarding a badass item or armor; access quests, usually granting entrance to a raid instance or special zone; signature quests, usually awarding tons of experience, unique items, lots of achievement experience, and other fun goodies; epic quests, as part of raids and other quest lines.

There are also other good reasons to group. Raiding is one of the best ways to gain great gear once you’ve hit the high end. It’s also an awesome way to make sure all your firends know that you have absolutely NO life, whatsoever. Plan to spend about 4 hours on any given raid, when its all said and done. If you can afford this hefty investment of time, you’ll no doubt make the grade when it comes to uberness.

Experience and Achievement points can be gained, at early levels, much faster by joining a dungeon crawling group. Popular dungeons include the Wailing Caves, Fallen Gate, the Ruins of Varsoon, and Runnyeye. Look for a post in the future to go over all the game’s dungeons in more detail.

BUT HOW DO I GET INTO A GROUP?

Okay see the little thing that looks like a key, on your screen? And above that, an exclamation mark? Clickie click! Now you have the LFG window. Pick what you are looking for, leave a little blurb, and hit Start Looking. That’s it!

And it never hurts to advertise yourself in the chat channels. You should be in the level channels by default. Type something like /1 and see if it turns into “Level xx – xx”  If not, try some other numbers 2-8.  One of them will work!

Say something like “Level xx [your class here] LFG!”  And it never hurts to be specific.  Dungeon?  Quest?