So I played Conan….

Well after SOE launched Rise of Kunark I quit playing EQ2 – it really killed the game for me. I stumbled around somewhat, playing BF2 and a bit of CSS but nothing really grabbed me. A few months later many of my guild moved over to the latest new thing Age of Conan and I decided to go and see what all the hype was about, what a huge mistake. For me if an MMO doesnt grab you by the genitalia and give them a gentle tweak in the first few hours, it is unlikely to do so later on. Conan from the outset was horrible. Character animation looked like something from EQ1, combat although novel at first was the same old button mashing and the quests – well we may as well have been back to kill 10 rats. To make matters worse, this was not an item centric game – it had no real focus on character development.

Please do not take this as being some sort of xenophobic comment – but the game felt decidedly European in its design (I am English btw). US MMOs have a style, Korean MMOs have a style Conan felt like it was designed and built by the European Union – a hotch-potch of all the worst traits of any game, decided by democratic process and built by pseudo-politicians (Euro MPs arent real politicians) and marketed bt Saatchi and Saatchi. It was a triumph of style over content (much like most of the crap that comes out of Brussels).

In many ways Conan did me a favour, it made me realise that MY hayday of MMOs is over. i will not be able to recapture those spine tingling days of EQ1, crawling through dungeons, with 5 other unknowns, grinding on mobs and trying to reach that elusive camp, waiting for a named to pop and wiping. Gone is the mature(ish) adult banter that would arise, often whilst medding, between bulling mobs. EQ1 for me was MMORPGs Magnum Opus, due to its timing, and my time of life – neither which are recoverable.

I know there are many gamers like me for whom EQ1 was their first MMO and were at a time in their lives where they didnt have the commitment of children and had time to burn. Now we are grown up, with children and what we should realise is that they are now our real life avatars. Our efforts should be spent on gaining that +1 to Int or +2 to Dex as they will be be our true legacy, not some bunch of pixels or sats on a database burried in a datacentre somewhere. Life is a much more difficult MMO that EQ or WoW will ever be and when you have children, the rewards (in general) are far more rewarding, but that is to say I still sometimes see them as hoard of evil goblins training to my zone line.

Hello world!

As I seem to spend my life either playing EQ2 or listening to podcasts about EQ2 and MMORPGs in general I decided to start my own blog.

I currently play an Arasai Defiler on the Splitpaw server called Jitter. He is a member of Band of Brothers, level 60 guild, who are a great bunch of mature, casual gamers. We dont raid much, but we do have fun and help one another with HQs and other quests.

My gaming background is EQ1 – Pre Luclin. I had a 59 HIE Paladin called Mushii and a 59 Barb Shaman called Leillanni on Mith Marr server. I pretty much quit EQ1 about a month after LDoN.

After EQ1 I went back to my FPS roots playing CS, where I was an admin on a CS Server called Shady. I played WoW beta and hated that, then got into EQ2 beta – where I played till launch. Post launch I played a DE Defiler called Leillanni, again on Splitpaw - but quit and deleted her after 6 months. Stupidly I also gave away about 40pp to a noob, Lei was a high end jeweller and pretty well off.

I returned to my FPS roots for a while, playing CS and BF2 until I got into Vanguard Beta 3 – a game that had so much promise, yet failed so dismally. I quit Vanguard on launch day and went back to BF2. Between times I have been listening to lots of podcasts, SOE’s official podcast; MMOG -2 truly funny guys; Virgin Worlds – Brent is scarily professional and recently EQ2 Ratcast. The combination of all of these and the launch of EoF drew me back (much to the other half’s disgust) and 2 weeks ago I rolled a new Arasai Defiler – Jitter. Jitter is now lvl 36 with 32 AAs and levelling like a demon.