Archive for the 'General MMO' Category

Are you an MMO completionist?

August 31, 2010

As some of you may know, I like most of my guild have an army of Alts in EQ2. My latest plan was to work the higher level ones that are not 90, to 90 to get the xp bonus for the remaining characters. The target alt was to be my warlock Naitey who is 83 at the moment.

This was until I got thinking about my main Yetian the Warden. I really need to be working his AA’s as he’s only on 208 at the moment, so I began working his remaining quests and finding new ones. I then thought it would be nice to finish some of the main quest lines that I’ve yet to finish on any character. These include quest lines such as Swords of Destiny and the Claymore lines.

I started working those and then ended up finding a Heritage quest I hadn’t completed. For those that don’t know these are quests that give items from the original Everquest as rewards, as well as personal and guild status. To date I think I’ve finished 36 HQ’s and have 7 or so in my journal, with one still to pickup.

I intend to complete all the HQ’s, then go back to quest lines and then other random quests to complete my AA’s.

So what about the rest of you? Do you have one character you like to complete all quests on, or is there some other aspect of your chosen MMO that you just have to complete?

Everquest 2 and General MMO

Written by Yetian 2 Comments

Crazy Tech Shenanigans!

August 16, 2010

Ok, bare with me a moment.  This will start a bit techy… Watch this video.

For those who don’t know, that Legendary Nerd of Distinction is John Carmack, he who programmed Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake, at QuakeCon 2010. He is showing off Rage running on an iPhone 4. After having a gander at the game running at full resolution on the Rage website, you can probably see that it’s quite an awesome looking game.  But what does this have to do with MMOs?

Basicly, with id taking mobile phone gaming seriously, and putting out a tech demo that looks better than every game on a mobile before it. Makes other companies take notice, and other companies include MMO developers. No more bizarre zombie based GPS MMO things, no more sub N64 style attempts at MMOs with 3 classes and 7 weapons. Now we’ll have a proper MMO in our pocket, and about time!  MMOs are meant to be played alot, with all the good stuff you can do in them, but they’re also good for keeping in touch with friends, so having one in your pocket makes sense, and if it happens to be one of the larger ones all the better.

Give it a few years and most popular MMOs will have mobile clients, and not just the auction apps Warcraft, Aion and Fallen Earth have, but a fully fledged game in their own right, obviously the faster paced games like APB and Global Agenda will probably not work, but for your normal fantasy based game, should work a treat.

Anyone looking forward to their mobile battery taking an even bigger pounding than usual?

General MMO

Written by Wodge 0 Comments

Whats next for Everquest? EQNext, of course!

August 7, 2010

That Fan Faire thing is currently going on in that den of inequity and filth that is Las Vegas. From there SOE are holding various panels on the state of the various SOE MMOs.

All standard stuff on the upcoming stuff for EQ2 and SOEs other MMOs, apart from the EQNext Panel.  EQNext is just the name SOE are giving to the follow up to EQ2, the EQNext name is only being used for the time being, and it probably won’t be called EverQuest 3.  From what I’ve read over on EQ2Wire (here, here, here, here and here!) it seems they’re going for somewhere between EQ1 (less classes etc.) and EQ2 (ease of travel, streamlining of content etc.).  Of the images I have seen, the game is looking very nice indeed, seem to have managed to inject some much needed atmosphere (the joys of shader model 3), I found that EQ2 was always a little flat looking.

There wasn’t much info on gameplay, but I guess it will be similar to EQ1 and 2, no Vindictus style realtime hack and slashery.  Pretty much a graphical update with some tweaking then, which is exactly what the EQ fanbase wants.

Who knows if those EQ devs had a gander at the Symposiums very own EQNext(ish) and pilfered/borrowed some ideas from there?

Everquest 2 and General MMO

Written by Wodge 3 Comments

Final Fantasy XIV Beta: Now with added “Whenever you want”!

July 29, 2010

Today the Final Fantasy XIV closed beta went into it’s final phase, which means us lucky few with beta keys get to log in whenever we want!

I haven’t really been playing the beta as much as I could, don’t want to know everything about the game before I really get started on it after release, but have checked out the crafting, harvesting, trading and combat mechanics, and they’re all “good in the hood” as the kids might say.

Only a few short weeks until the 22nd of September before I get my hands on my copy, and my Collectors Edition “Frosted Adventurers Tumbler”!

Joy!

General MMO

Written by Wodge 2 Comments

Rift: Planes of Telara

July 27, 2010

Logo for Rift: Planes of TeleraOk Wodge has gone and done it again…

His post “Not Playing MMO’s” mentioned an upcoming game, Rift: Planes of Telara which I’ll admit I hadn’t really heard much about or looked into. Well thanks to the Short Shiny one (he plays dwarves in plate mail),  I have been having a read of the Rift website.

I have to say first of all it’s my kind of MMO, I’m a high fantasy MMO fan as you may know from my previous posts. I find high fantasy style worlds more interesting than the more futuristic worlds of Sci-Fi MMO’s, that’s not to say I don’t play those games, they are just not my preference.

Rift takes place in a world call Telara which was protected by a Ward setup by the Gods, due to the actions of the inhabitants of Telera this Ward was damaged and creatures from outside are now trying to get in. It’s a bit like the Shadow Odyssey expansion in EQ2 I guess though much more involved.

There are 2 factions on Telara which the players get to choose from, the Guardians and the Defiant. For the Guardians think religious “I’m going to cleanse the world to save it” types and for the Defiant think “Where are the Gods when we need them, we’ll save the world ourselves” types.

Continue reading ‘Rift: Planes of Telara’

General MMO
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Written by Yetian 2 Comments

Raptr! It’s Awesome!

July 26, 2010

Just a brief one while I remember.

Been using XFire to keep in touch with my merry band of followers, but recently I was told of Raptr.

This program is the canine’s reproductive organs!

Here is where you go to get it, it supports, XFire, XBox Live, Playstation Network, AIM, Yahoo IM, Google Talk, MSN and tracks yer achievements and all that jazz.  Also has a client for *spit* iPhone *splurgle* and one for *yay* Android *cheer* supposedly in the works.

Here’s my Profile Thingymabob as an example, it’s a great way to keep in touch with people playing other MMO’s, and lets you know what they’re upto.

General MMO

Written by Wodge 0 Comments

Not Playing MMOs.

July 26, 2010

Ok, I guess I should come clean.  I’ve not been playing many MMOs in the last few weeks.  Odd trial here and there, a brief stint in Age of Conan, but that’s it.

Why?  Complete and utter bordom of the genre.  Why am I still posting on and reading the various MMO websites?  I know of all the good stuff that is just around the corner…

Continue reading ‘Not Playing MMOs.’

Age of Conan, Beta Testing, Everquest 2, General MMO and Warhammer Online

Written by Wodge 2 Comments

My Cataclysm Wish-List…

July 21, 2010

Hi!  I’m Wyntr — I have a platoon of level-80 toons in World-of-Warcraft.  I’ve been playing this game steadily for the past five years, am active in end-game, and have slowly acquired a sense of proficiency across the available classes, races, and aspects.  I play the game with a programmer’s eye for details and I’ve written one or two mods over the years.  I have a WoW-blog at wowrantz.com where I nitpick (with a programmer’s sense of anal-retentiveness) or praise the work done by Blizzard on this epic piece of software.   I’m absolutely stoked at the invitation to contribute to MMO-Symposium and hope my WoW-based articles find an audience here!

Blizzard is currently upgrading the servers in a concentrated twenty-four-hour window of maintenance to prepare the realms for the release of the new Cataclysm expansion.  This is the third major revision, following Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King, for the World of Warcraft since vanilla WoW was first launched.

In this expansion, we’ll see a new level-cap taking our toons up to level-85, new instances and end-game content centered in Azeroth and the sundering of the lands by black dragon aspect known as Deathwing.  Two new races will be introduced: the Worgen for the Alliance, and the Goblins for the Horde, along with their corresponding starting-zones and quest lines.  Also on-tap for the expansion is a re-vamping of the talent-trees, and the addition of new classes to the existing races.  (Tauren Paladins FTW!)

However, as the old saying goes: the devil is in the details.  And, fwiw, I’d like to take a brief moment both as means of introducing myself, and as an outlet to pent-up frustrations, introduce my list of improvements that I’d like to see addressed in the new expansion.  Realistically, I understand that most of these issues are probably way far down on the features list and won’t be addressed anytime soon.  But, in spite of that, let’s gird our loins, hoist a lance, and go tilting at that Blizzard-owned windmill, shall we?

Continue reading ‘My Cataclysm Wish-List…’

General MMO and World Of Warcraft
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Written by Wyntr 1 Comment

The blogging block

July 19, 2010

Apologies for the slow arrival of posts in the last month or so, I’m having a (partly enforced) blogging block. With a mini me on the way and all the things that need to be sorted before the arrival, my time for gaming (for those long weekend sessions) is reduced. I’ve had less time to look around the MMO space or to write the posts here.

I’m hoping this will improve now most things are sorted out though I’m sure when baby arrives I’ll find gaming time harder to find.

It has got me thinking though about blogging in general. What kind of posts do people want to see? Lots of MMO blogs post only about aspects of the genre or upcoming games, with less in game experience posts. Here at MMO-Symposium myself and the other slacking writers have tried to make the site about all aspects of MMO’s. For me in game experiences are a big part of my MMO life and I often like to write about them or post a few pics of what I’ve been up to in game. I even thought about having a dedicated MMO photo blog as I sometimes feel that angles on MMO’s I want to write about have all been covered by those who slack less.

Continue reading ‘The blogging block’

General MMO and MMO-Symposium News
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Written by Yetian 2 Comments

MMO’s Up and Coming?

July 12, 2010

There is currently a post going on, on my guild forums where a member asked what MMO’s we were looking forward to. The answer is pretty much Star Wars the Old Republic (though nobody is sure what to make of that game) and nothing much else.

The Agency was mentioned but I myself am not that bothered about what looks to be an FPS with an MMO amount of players.

I’m currently playing Everquest 2 still and Lord of the Rings online, both of which I still enjoy though LOTRO is a more occasional MMO for me. I also play Battleground Europe though I think I may be taking a break from that game soon  due to my impending Dad status. I don’t feel that paying a monthly sub for a game I only get to play now and again is worth it, I have a life sub for LOTRO so don’t have to worry about play time there.

Continue reading ‘MMO’s Up and Coming?’

General MMO
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Written by Yetian 2 Comments