Everquest II Player Diary Level 60-65

Well, Choraz did eventually make it to level 65, though it was a beleaguered effort some two weeks after the release of the expansion.

Sanctum of the Scaleborn was my first port of call at 60. This is a dungeon in the Tenebrous Tangle, and it's superbly executed. It consists of two levels broken up into various rooms, each one containing a named (if he is up). There is quite a lot of trash mobs and the respawns can get annoying, but the zone is brilliant experience and has a lot of achievement experience for the named kills/exploration exp. The big plus, however, are the quests. There are a number of quests for the dungeon, all of which are found within the walls of the dungeon, and they provide a logical progression through the zone and lead you deeper and deeper with each step in the quest chains. They are reasonably interesting quests as well, but it certainly is a bonus to get the free quest exp and AA as well as the dungeon rewards. If a group of friends ran through the dungeon together right from the start, I can see them having a really good time doing it. If I had to pick a flaw, it'd be that the quests are usually multi-stage, so it can be hard to find people on the same part as you (and even rarer to find a whole group there), but really that's just a minor niggle. The Sanctum really isn't too hard for a decent group, but it's still a really well designed zone that gives an ideal place to level up from 60-67 or so.

After that it was onto the Barren Sky, the mid-level zone in the Kingdom of Sky that runs to about level 64. The quest lines weren't too hard there and provided me with about a level and a half, and I was able to complete the whole zone by level 63 despite some of the quests going up to level 69. As always, monsters from older expansions are easier, and KoS is considerably easier than Faydwer zones of the same level. The look of the zone is rather nice, mostly Arabic-inspired in architecture and generally pretty deserty, which makes a nice change after the jungle of Tenebrous Tangle but can leave you rather sick of deserts after you've fought through the Desert of Flames (particularly as some of the architecture is remarkably similar). There's not really much to talk about regarding the Barren Sky that wasn't already said about Tenebrous Tangle - the zone isl made up of tiny islands, which I don't like, but you do get used to it even if it is a pain to navigate. A few quibbles with the quests - the major quest line requires you to summon various NPCs at their 'listening posts' with your flute, but it took me ages to find the listening post in the first place...and why? Well, because it's less of a post and more of a stick in the ground that does not look even slightly important. Why not make it suitably impressive, or clickable, and then people won't walk straight past it when they're looking for it...

After Barren Sky, I decided to head down to the Isle of Mara. This was an adventure pack that formerly retailed at $4.99, but as the Kunark expansion comes with all previous EQ2 content I now had access to it. It basically consists of a rather oriental-style village populated by monks, and then a few group instances and some raid bosses. It's actually a very beautiful town, with some rather easy quests available in the town for those of level 55 and up. After completing them, I headed into the other outdoor zone of the adventure pack and explored it for the AA. Towards the end there were a lot of heroics to dodge, but there was some really cool stuff to see too. The big lake near the end of the zone features a flooded temple I had a good time exploring (it contains a dungeon), and there's a big tomb earlier in the zone that also contains another dungeon. Without a group I didn't bother exploring either, but I did very much like the look of the zone even if it was rather easy (pre-EoF monsters again). Whether or not it was worth $5, I don't know - I suppose at the time of release it probably would have been, as the dungeons would have been pretty busy, but I would have felt a bit ripped off paying for what is essentially two outdoor zones (one with no mobs in it) and a couple dungeons when I'm already paying $15 a month - I think SOE showed good sense in abandoning the Adventure Packs and concentrating on expansions and free updates.

Speaking of free updates, along with Kunark came the new racial abilities, which are pretty cool (if not game-breaking) and serve to differentiate between the races a lot more than before. My Iksar can now breathe underwater, for example, while Dark Elves can hover, Gnomes can summon clockwork pets, Kerra can pounce and Sarnark can breathe fire on unsuspecting enemies. The fact that all the races were the same used to annoy me a bit and, while this hasn't exactly brought back all the racial cities and racial tradeskilling of EQ1, it's certainly provided some kind of identity to the different races. Kudos to the dev team for doing so.

The other thing I decided to do post-Kunark release was check out the various mounts on sale. The Kunark rhinos were pretty cool, if perhaps not as outlandish as I expected, but I was struck by the sheer number of mounts that a player could buy if they wanted to. Believe me, there is a LOT of choice there, with the new level 80 guild mounts looking extremely cool (fiery breath, eyes and feet on the new wargs, for example, with your choice of orange or blue flame). The old armoured horse mounts still look fantastic too, but sadly I don't think many people will be using them now all their flame-spewing cousins are available. Still, it's just another testament to the depth of EQ2 in terms of character customisation available.

Anyway, back to the levelling. After Mara I went off to Bonemire, the highest-level outdoor zone in the Kingdom of Sky. This is pretty weird as it is set in space with bright pink rivers and a crashed gnomish spacecraft to get your quests from. The main bad guys here aren't the aviaks of the previous two zones, it's largely the Ravasect, praying-mantis style bad guys who look rather cool and go down quite easily. While the zone does feel a bit incongruous with the rest of EQ2, it's quite refreshing to see a zone that's entirely different from the rest of the world - it reminded me a little of Silithus, if you're a WoW player, except I prefer the Ravasect to the nasties in Silithus. The quest lines are not really anything to write home about, though they do their job, and Bonemire does provide a bit of variation from the standard EQ2 zones. I enjoyed playing through it, though I only got about a level out of it because the solo quests are so easy to do. I'm still not sure if I'm comfortable with spaceships and space stuff being in EQ2, but that's a debate for another day. Bonemire is an okay zone, but by now I was getting thorougly sick of flying between countless tiny little islands in the sky.

So it was back to the Loping Plains to finish the grind up to level 65. The step up from Bonemire was pretty noticeable, as the monsters are packed right in in the Loping Plains and so it's easy to get adds while you fight, but I was able to wrap up the rest of the solo quests without too much trouble. I've got to say that I do like the Loping Plains quite a lot as a zone, with the fog and undead and ruins everywhere making it rather distinctive, like Darkshire in WoW. The quests are quite well done too, so all in all the Loping Plains was a good place to level and felt dangerous and hostile, like a high-end zone should.

Level 60-65, for me, was just a means to an end. There were several zones involved, the best being Loping Plains and the Sanctum of the Scaleborn, but all of them served their purpose. I can't say that they gripped me in the same way as the Steamfont dungeons did, for example, but they raised me up to level 65. Once I hit 65 I went to Kunark immediately, which is probably a good thing. The KoS was fine for seven or eight levels, but the thought of having to find another five levels grinding in Bonemire or the Loping Plains (as I'd done all the quests) really did not excite me, so I was pretty happy that there was an expansion with new zones that I could run off to. And then circumstance (exams) took over and had to stop playing EQ2. Maybe I'll continue the journey in the future (it seems stupid to stop now), but we'll see what happens.

Everquest 2 Player Diary Level 55 - 60

Level 55 to 60 provides players with their first chance to reach the content brought by the Kingdom of Sky expansion, though it is probably one best not to take immediately. The mobs there start at around level 57, so I thought I'd best wait until then before I headed up into the Overrealm. That meant I had to find two levels either in the Desert of Flames or in Faydwer; luckily I almost immediately found a group being put together for the Mines of Meldrath, an instance in the Steamfont Mountains.

Admittedly, I was probably a couple of levels too high for the Mines of Meldrath at 55, but the wonderful thing about Everquest 2 is that the Achievement Exp you get for running a dungeon the first time will make up for that. The Mines themselves turned out to be inside an extensive tunnel system in Steamfont, but thankfully all the monsters were grey to me until I actually got into the instance (which took a while, as I had no idea where I was going). Once inside, I realised that I would be mostly facing clockworks, and I probably should have done it before running Klak'Anon - it seems to be intended partly as an introduction to its bigger cousin.

Anyway, the basic setup of the dungeon is that you have to kill a number of bosses and harvest a power stone from each, which are then used to activate a clockwork robot that will build a bridge to the final boss. Along the way a ghostly gnome appears, telling you a small part of his story and luring you onwards, but sadly I did not really get to listen to what he had to say - the group seemed intent on getting through everything as quickly as possible. That was a bit of a shame, I thought, because I do enjoy those little touches that add some background to a dungeon. The final bossfight was relatively challenging and we actually wiped, though that was largely due to my own stupidity (I pulled aggro while AOEing the bodyguards, then I decided to Feign Death to clear the aggro while forgetting I was still assisting the tank - so I FDed him instead, which got everyone killed). In general the zone was actually surprisingly hard, with the monsters hitting much harder than their non-EoF counterparts, so if you're not on your toes you could quite easily wipe. But on the plus side, the Achievement Exp was good, the loot was excellent and it was a fun way to spend forty five minutes or so (it's a relatively short instance).

After that, I figured I'd give the Lesser Faydark another try. I always had quite liked the (admittedly very different) Lesser Faydark from back in Everquest 1, so I wasn't entirely happy leaving the updated version with my previous conclusions of 'worst zone ever'. In fact, at level 55 the zone turned out to be a lot more accessible and, remarkably enough, quite good fun. That's not to say that I don't think the zone is not still badly designed, because it is - frankly, it's like a maze. The wandering hostile heroics are also still a complete nightmare, particularly near the Butcherblock Mountains area. However, at level 55 or 56 you don't instantly die when you get an add while fighting, which makes the zone somewhat less frustrating. The fact that the horse stations have been added makes the zone MUCH easier to traverse too, though naturally you've got to have found each of the stations before you go there.

Once you get into it, though, you'll find the Lesser Faydark quite an interesting zone. The quest lines are plentiful and actually kept me more than interested as I played through them, and the fact that there's an outpost in the zone with a mender and broker there (along with lots of quests) made me very happy. There's also an area in the zone that's been overrun by otherworldly attackers like Shadowed Men, which I really enjoyed fighting in. The Shadowed Men look very impressive with decent graphics settings on (apparently they look similarly good in the Obelisk of Lost Souls, but I always turn my graphics right down in dungeons as you can't afford to lag while tanking), with really cool smoky effects around the edge of their portals. There's also some weird void creatures that look vaguely humanoid while standing still, but then split apart and become very distinctly alien when they move. I spent half a level soloing around there to hit 57 after I'd done the quest lines and I really quite enjoyed it. Thus, I've upgraded the Lesser Faydark to a mediocre zone - it's far from well designed or beginner-friendly, but it's a lot of fun when you get into it. I really wouldn't bother going there till 55+ though; stick to the easier DoF zones instead.

Once I hit 57 I headed up to the Kingdom of Sky using the wizard spires in the Commonlands, ending up in a zone called the Tenebrous Tangle. But even after extensive leveling there, I'm still not sure if I like it, as it is quite an odd design (like much of the KOS that I've seen). Basically, the Overrealm consists of several zones, each broken up into numerous small islands connected by teleporters. While this does allow each little area to have its own distinct theme, usually dictated by the type of monster that lives there, it does strike me as somewhat lazy. Much like the original release zones of Everquest 2, they appear to have come up with a few ideas and then not bothered filling in the blanks, the empty sea between the islands in this case being replaced by empty sky. The graphical style in each zone is generally similar between each island, too, the only difference (as mentioned above) being the monsters that reside there. Having said that, the Tenebrous Tangle and the neighbouring Barren Sky were visually very distinct from one another - it was just pretty monotonous within them.

Putting aside the structure of the zone, though, Kingdom of Sky has some neat ideas. To reach the friendly outpost in the Tenebrous Tangle, for example, you have to leap off a waterfall and fall about five hundred metres into a big pool of water. It's nothing too major, but it is quite a cool touch. The zone is also quite clearly designed as a 'newbie' zone, as it's packed full of repeatable quests that make leveling towards 60 a breeze. I picked up two levels in TT before the easy repeatable quests ran out, and I didn't get bored because it went by so quickly. In terms of monsters, there's a new dragonkin race called the Droag that make up the majority of the enemies, as well as the standard dragonflies/snakes/wasps/hostile plantlife. Some of the islands are quite good for grinding, too, though finding the right teleporter can be a nightmare. The other thing worth mentioning about TT is that it contains the Sanctum of the Scaleborne, a dungeon that starts at about level 60 that I'll cover in my next entry, but I'll say now that it's very well designed and a lot of fun to play though. Overall, Tenebrous is quite a good zone that gives good adventure and achievement experience, though I do find the fact it is literally a series of unconnected islands with different creatures on them rather underwhelming in terms of zone design - had I paid good money to buy the expansion separately, I might have felt a little shortchanged.

To get up to 60 after I had grown tired of soloing in Tenebrous, I returned to Faydwer and did some grouping. My first port of call was New Tunaria, formerly Felwithe from EQ1. This was the home city of the High Elves back in the day, but over the last 500 years they had become a little more insular and now the place is a level 60ish dungeon. First up, it's worth noting the zone's visual style, which is very striking with a lot of gold and white marble. Sadly the exteriors of the buildings are actually quite badly textured when you get close, but the interior areas of the zone look very nice. The creatures you will be fighting are just average looking elves, mixed in with the stone statue mob models that you'll have seen before in countless other dungeons, but it's in the EoF mold and therefore a pretty tough zone. The mobs hit hard compared to those of similar level in other expansions and drop slightly better loot, but the zone overall is pretty badly done despite the potential it had for being really good. I was honestly expecting something special once I'd seen the striking white towers, and I was really hoping that they had done Felwithe justice, but sadly it was not to be.

The main problem with New Tunaria is largely that there's nothing to do. There's not many nameds and almost no quests at all, coupled with little loot worth remarking about (unless you're particularly keen on repeating the word 'average' to yourself). There was one quest, but to get it we had to pray at an altar while being beaten on by four non-heroic mobs. This wasn't too much of a problem once we'd worked out what to do, but then it turned out we couldn't pray at the altar because it was nighttime. A quest that you can only get half of the time? Yeah, great idea...

After getting rather bored of New Tunaria, my group decided just to head to the Court of Innovation instead. This is an instance within Klak'Anon, aimed at those in their high 50s, and it was a complete contrast to New Tunaria. Though by this point I was getting thoroughly sick of fighting clockworks, I had a really good time in the Courts - fighting through the dungeon involves a series of puzzles as well as bossfights, and it was challenging but not impossible. It felt well-balanced in that the zone felt dangerous but doable, and it taxed your head a little more than just hammering your hotbar keys. It was also cool because there were no respawns as it was an instance, meaning that the clearing of trash mobs was not much of a chore - you knew you'd only have to do it once. The final bossfight was pretty climactic (you really felt like you were fighting a final boss) and the loot was excellent, as was both the adventure and achievement experience. Overall, a very polished instance that shouldn't be missed by anyone.

To wrap up, level 55-60 was fine. It took a while to do but, with the release of the Kunark expansion, the level progression pre-70 is being made easier and therefore this is somewhat of a non-issue. I get the impression that the trek would have been quite dull without Faydwer, but being able to alternate between zones in Faydwer and the Kingdom of Sky kept things fresh and meant I didn't have to spend so long anywhere that I became sick of it, and that can only be a good thing. Next time, the Loping Plains and the rest of the KOS.

Everquest II Player Diary Level 50 to 55

Choraz continued his frenzied race through the levels once he had hit 50, hitting 55 with only six days left before the expansion is released (I don't think he's going to make it). That's not through want of effort, however - levelling beyond the big five zero seems to take much longer than it did before it. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, as there's a lot of content for you to explore (hence the long post), but it's not ideal when you're desperately trying to hit level 65. Also, as with the previous entry, screenshots will come once I've got to Kunark. Give it 2-3 weeks and this whole diary will look lovely from start to finish.

Anyway, as I'd already completed the Sinking Sands, I kicked off level 50 by going to the Lesser Faydark. Turns out that was a bit of a mistake - despite being advertised as a zone that ranged from 50 to 60, it's quite clearly impossible to do anything there when you're a level 50. Given that I can solo non-heroic monsters five or six levels higher than me, this is quite astounding. I thought perhaps the dev team had got past the stage where they made horrible zones, but as the Lesser Faydark is most definitely another terrible zone they clearly have not.

So what's terrible about it? Well, first up, it's really enclosed and it's very difficult to work out where you're going. There are very few wide open spaces, if any, and the zone itself is actually pretty small. On top of that, I had the audacity to try zoning in from the Butcherblock Mountains side, which is a level 20-30 zone that contains the docks from Antonica, and I promptly found myself surrounded by level 60 triple heroics intent on melting my face with whatever magic spells they had to hand. Thanks to the fact my class is blessed with all sorts of ways of getting out of trouble, I managed to dodge through them and head towards the outpost beyond them, thinking I was in the clear. But the monk outpost beyond is also surrounded by level 60 mobs and the only quest-giver has hostile triple heroics flying around near him, meaning that you'll usually get killed before you can accept the damn quest.

Seriously unamused by the fact I'd died twice and achieved nothing, I pressed on and went deeper into the zone. I found an outpost in the middle of the zone, but it didn't offer me any quests - it only had quests for the high 50s - so I continued on my way. I immediately was set upon by a level 60 single heroic just as I walked down the path, so I ran past it, only to find myself in a part of the zone surrounded by level 60s. Predictably, I died. I respawned back at that outpost, and took another path. This one turned out to be leading in the vague direction of the Greater Faydark entrance and so did not contain quite as much uberdeath, eventually leading me to an outpost with quests around my level. Sadly, the wandering high-level mobs made the zone impossible to solo in when I found the Thexians I was meant to be killing, so I threw the hat in and moved on. I really don't like saying this, but the Lesser Faydark was one of the worst zones I've played in the game - it's restrictive, very difficult to solo and packed full of heroic mobs that you can't avoid because it's so tight. I genuinely thought the dev team were past that, but obviously not...

After that I went to Maj'Dul, the city in the Desert of Flames. That didn't amuse me overly either, as I'd aligned myself with the Court of Truth and therefore found both the Court of Coin and the Court of Blades hostile to me. This meant their patrolling guards would attack me, cutting off access to the parts of the city that had heroics guarding them. I kinda blundered around there for a bit, not achieving very much, then left. The city was more like a dungeon than a city and was largely abandoned, which to me isn't entirely surprising. I like the concept they went for, but I don't think the execution was ideal. For example, the other two Courts had stairwells down to their Court buildings, whereas the stairway to the Court of Truth was guarded by Court of Coin guards. So I had to fight my way to my court building, where I discovered I couldn't get in anyway.

In the end, most players who want to fight will go to a proper adventure zone, so I think Maj'Dul suffers from trying to mix a city and a dungeon - it's not particularly good at being either. The other thing to mention was the Arena, which is intended to allow people to team PvP one another or fight using 'champions' that can be bought or won from quests. Only problem is, I've never seen or heard about anyone using it - to use it, you have to stand by the entrance while you wait for opponents, rather than being able to run about like the WoW battleground queueing, and once inside the arenas are hardly inspiring anyway. It's a shame, because god knows that EQ2 could do with some casual PvP just for an occasional change of pace.

After these two levels I was still only about 35% into level 50, so I headed to the Pillars of Flame, which is another large outdoor zone that borders the Sinking Sands. It's unfortunately not as well designed as the Sinking Sands, but it's still not bad to play though(particularly as you get towards the mid-fifties). The quests are quite interesting and the variation of mobs in the level is quite good, and it still looks rather good, but inexplicably the heroics are back. There's one area full of tigers that has linked tigers that are double undercons, meaning I could quite possibly solo five or six of them at once, mixed in with triple heroics who can kill me in less than ten seconds. As they both look exactly the same, this is ridiculous and just makes travelling that part of the zone an undue hazard. I mean, it's not like anyone's going to want to group up and hunt the heroic tigers as any quests involving them can be done by hunting the easier linked ones, so why bother at all? Not to mention that this area is right near the zone-in outpost, meaning that unless you want to be dodging heroic tigers you need to fight your way through an enormous goblin camp to see the rest of the zone. There were also similar wandering heroics among the harpies, again looking exactly the same as their brethren, which killed me on a couple of occasions.

The other thing that annoyed me about the zone is that there were three or four areas you could get quests, but they were spread to different corners of the zone. So you'd complete a couple of quests and find you'd have to run/fly the whole length of the zone just to hand both in. Given quests from both outposts were for the same level range (in fact, often the same monsters), it seems a little strange to do it that way. It would have been more logical to have all the quests for level 50-51 in the first outpost, then you get sent to the second one for the 52-53 quests and the like. That having been said, however, it's still an enjoyable zone to play - it just didn't bowl me over like Sinking Sands thanks to a few niggling design flaws.

After this I popped over to Permafrost for a bit, a dungeon in Everfrost that contains the ghost of Vox, a famous dragon boss from the original EQ. She's an epic mob so we didn't try and tackle her, but we did head around the rest of the place and clear it. While it looks quite impressive in places (in a kind of badly-textured release EQ2 kind of way), the zone was very little challenge and by the end we were three-manning the place with the swashbuckler (rogue class) tanking. The loot was horrible, as in most old world zones, and there was minimal quests on offer as well. I left having gained half a level but feeling a little let down. Permafrost is a zone that needs updating, as it's largely obsolete given that it was made for characters who were capped at level 50 and had none of the gear that came in the later expansions. It can barely count as a dungeon any more either; it's just so damn easy that there's no sense of risk any more.

That done, it was back to the Pillars of Flame, where I headed to a dungeon called the Clefts of Rujark that straddles both the Sinking Sands and the aforementioned Pillars. This is quite a neat zone for two reasons; firstly, the lower level is entirely soloable if you're of the right level. The exp is average and there's not too many named, but it's nice to have somewhere to go that's between Sinking Sands and Pillars of Flame in terms of levels. The upper levels, however, are full of heroic group content with several nameds. You have to use a lift to get between them, so there's no chance of running into a heroic when you're soloing, so I thought that was quite a cool change of pace. Having said that, there were numerous rooms that you could fight your way into only to find that there was nothing to speak of inside them; it would be nice to have some kind of named mob or questgiver/quest target at the end of most of the corridors. With a decent group we cleared most of the Heroics, then did the instance inside the zone. That had three nameds in it, none of whom dropped anything worthwhile, but the Achievement Exp meant it wasn't a complete waste of time. I got a valuable level fighting in Rujark and quite a bit of Achievement exp from exploring the place and killing named enemies, so it was well worth clearing at least once.

The Living Tombs was next, a mid-fifties dungeon accessed from the Sinking Sands. I didn't spend long enough there to do many quests but I got a bit of achievement experience from the few I did, as well as for exploration and killing a couple of nameds. Again, the loot was pretty unimpressive, but I still loved the zone. Why? Simply because it looks so damn cool, with great mausoleums lit up by eeire green lighting and filled with undead. It gives the feeling of a really unnatural zone and that you're somewhere you shouldn't be, which adds to the tension quite a lot. It's really a shame that the zone hasn't been re-itemised because it really looks that good. The screenshots don't even do it justice; everyone should go visit it even if just to look at how pretty all the lights are. Maybe that's just my personal tastes, but I really think it looks that good.

The final zone I spent a bit of time in was Klak'Anon. This is the homeland of the gnomes from Everquest I, Ak'Anon, having been taken over by the clockworks. This is actually only the second dungeon I had visited in Echoes of Faydwer, after Crushbone Keep, and the first thing to mention is that it is damn hard. The monsters hit like a ton of bricks and, even though I'm wearing largely mastercrafted gear, I nearly died on several occasions while fighting a couple of trash mobs. That may be due to questionable healing, of course, but getting more than a couple of triple heroic adds when you're fighting will spell doom in Klak, unless you've got a crowd control class to deal with them. The respawns in the zone are also rather quick, meaning you've got be on your toes and keep moving forward else you'll find yourself in all kinds of trouble.

That having been said, I thought this was really good (despite it being quite mentally draining to tank, given the endless stream of adds you seem to get in some of the rooms). It's nice to have a challenge, and the Echoes of Faydwer dungeons are certainly that. Despite being of similar level to Permafrost, if you tried to three-man Klak the only place you'd be going would be the graveyard. The place is well laid out and comes with an in-game map that allows you to see where you and all your groups are in the zone just like you could in outdoor zones, which is a fantastic touch and one I really appreciated. There are a lot of quests there, one of which took two runs to complete but gave me a very good reward indeed, and plenty of named mobs to keep everyone happy. There's also an instance and a raid zone inside Klak - we went to the instance but found it a little too tough for us, so I'll probably go back around level 60 and give it another go.

Overall, 50-55 was quite a good experience, particularly towards the end when I spent a couple of levels in Klak'Anon. Having said that, though, it took a LONG time to get there and I expect that to only get worse as I progress through the levels. Still, it's nice to see the high-end game content and it's particularly refreshing that the EOF zones are a challenge even to someone with relatively good gear and fair bit of MMORPG experience under their belt. I'm quite eager to see the Kingdom of the Sky after the surprisingly good Desert of Flames, so I plan to visit that in my next entry. Until then, it's adieu from me.

Everquest 2 Player Diary - Levels 45-50

After my three month hiatus from EQ2, enforced by my internet connection, I returned with newfound enthusiasm for the game. Why? Well, because the Kunark expansion is due to come out on November the 13th, meaning that I had all of two and a half weeks to gain at least 20 levels (the proper Kunark content starting at 65). I burned through 45-50 in three days, mostly thanks to having rested (double) experience the whole way, and I actually really enjoyed it. This may be down to the break I'd had from the game, but I think it also had a lot to do with the zones I was in. Screenshots will come later, because I'm too busy trying to level to go and take them.

I kicked off in Steamfont, a zone I've mentioned before. I went from 45 to 47 there, hunting in the two high-level parts of the map I'd not explored before and refamiliarising myself with my character. Both had a few quests and were entertaining enough, helped by the fact that Steamfont is a very pretty zone. The water effects around the geysers are very well done too, as water effects in EQ2 generally are. Not much to say that hasn't already been said regarding Steamfont, though, so I'll move onto what came next.

At 47, I headed over to the Sinking Sands, the first zone in the first expansion pack - Desert of Flames. I thought it was a bit random at first to have an Arab-inspired continent in Everquest 2, given its high fantasy roots, but it quickly began to make sense when I discovered the continent was based on the Desert of Ro in the original EQ. It's a shame that it's a separate continent, really, as there aren't many desert zones in EQ2 and the fact they all seem to be on a continent of their own really serve to emphasise the fact that the in-game world is largely a series of unconnected zones, all surrounded by ocean. Faydwer and Kunark are entire continents and feel much better for it, so it seems a shame that Antonica is so disjointed. If it were joined together again (with the Desert of Flames re-integrated into it), the game would feel a hell of a lot more cohesive for it.

Previously, I had assumed the Desert of Flames would be crap. This was largely thanks to the fact it was released within a year of the original EQ2, so I assumed it would suffer from generally the same malaise as the rest of the release EQ2 zones. However, I'm glad to say that I was wrong - from what I've seen of it so far, the Desert of Flames is a superb expansion. Let's start with my old favourite, visual style. The vast expanses of sand are very striking, and the large numbers of undead and ruins with glowy green writing give a rather eerie feel that does bring back fond memories of the original Ro. The locals have also built their own structures in the classic Arabian style - brightly coloured spiralled towers are visible on the horizon, alongside fantastic palaces on floating islands in the sky and the like. It really does give the sensation of a land filled with powerful magic, and it gives you a very good feeling about the dungeons in the zone.

Onto zone design, and the Sinking Sands comes out pretty well. It's a large zone (though only one map page) and it's packed with content, so you get an awful lot of Achievement Experience for exploring it. The various areas are different from one another too, so it's not packed with content in the tedious sense of the Feerott - this is a proper zone in which you could happily spend three or four levels adventuring and exploring without getting bored. The number of quests is also pretty high and, if you do most of them (which you should do, as you get a lot of Achievement xp), you'll be sent everywhere in the zone. Some of them are quite interesting, too - treasure hunting and exploring, for example. The most intriguing one, however, was helping an armorer who needed intact scarab shells. To get them you would have to chase skittish scarabs into a valley of triple-heroic tarantulas, who would then kill them and let you steal the shell to return to them. Unfortunately, there's 9 quests in the line and to complete them all you'd have to herd well over a hundred scarabs to their doom, but certainly doing two or three is quite entertaining.

In terms of the old bugbear, wandering heroics, Sinking Sands doesn't do too badly. There are quite a lot of heroic monsters, such as the aforementioned tarantulas, but they generally stay in their valley and, besides, they're there for a quest. The only wandering double or triple heroics look like you should stay out of their way - the named heroic orcs have platemail on and the giants are, well, giant. As I mentioned in the last entry, I don't have a problem with a few wandering triple heroics in the zone, so long as they actually LOOK heroic and you can easily see them coming. Linked mobs are more common than in Faydwer, too, but they are confined to static camps in this zone (and only rarely are they linked heroics). Again, that's fine by me - I'd prefer if there weren't any linked mobs at all, but I'm not overly bothered by linked mobs if they don't wander and they're non heroic. Thus, in my book at least, the Sinking Sands has all the hallmarks of an excellent zone and it's left me looking forward to exploring the rest of the expansion.

The other thing I did between level 45 and 50 was go and visit Everfrost, one of my favourite zones from the original EQ. I didn't spend too long there (I earned perhaps 25% of level 48), but I went to level up my harvesting. Sinking Sands only has level 50 harvestables in it, which you need to be level 48 to have any chance to harvesting. Since I started in the SS at 47, I had to go back to Everfrost/Steamfont to get my harvesting up to the required level once I had hit 48. While I was there, I thought I'd have a peek around.

Overall, I have to say that I hated it in pretty much every way. The original Everfrost was mostly open tundra, with a mountain-based newbie zone for those fresh out of Halas, the barbarian city. The new one appears to be some kind of ice floe, and is frankly laughable in its design. You arrive on a dock which is not connected to the mainland, thus forcing you to jump off and swim. Sadly, there does not appear to be any way back up there once you have jumped, which is a bit of a shame if you happened to grab a quest or two off the NPC on the dock. That's pretty annoying and completely mystifying, but to make matters worse there's usually an epic x2 shark called Dreadwake swimming about in the water, ready to devour you when you try to swim for land. If not, the whole sea is filled with hostile and often heroic whales/sharks anyway, so your chances of actually making it to land are minimal anyway.

Fortunate as I am, though, I survived the water and found myself in a canyon. I fought through that, dying only when I was jumped by some linked triple heroic wolves that looked exactly like all the other wolves in the zone, and eventually found myself in some strange icy plateau. It was full of creatures, most non-hostile (except the wandering triple heroics), and eventually led me to a small dungeon filled with some ice spirit maiden things. As the journey had been rather dull, I was somewhat underwhelmed and wondered if there was anything else to the zone. Consulting my map, it appeared I had not even explored half of it, so I set about trying to find the rest of the zone. Turns out, to find the main part of the zone, you have to jump off the docks and swim through a couple of tiny, almost invisible tunnels that lead within the island (while trying not to get eaten by the sharks). Good luck finding that if you didn't already know about it...

When inside, the zone basically consists of (triple heroic) golems and skeletons with their models set to a transparent blue to represent ice. Beyond that there's finally a bit of tundra, filled with the familiar bears and mammoths of the original EQ. But there's few quests, and the mobs are all just milling around (often triple heroic), so it seems rather empty and pointless. Beyond that there's a load of giants guarding the entrance to Permafrost, another dungeon, and a sea filled with ice floes covered in goblins. I left the zone wondering why it had been made in the first place, as it seems only to exist to contain Permafrost. There are almost no quests, few interesting monsters and no friendly outposts to speak of, so overall it's a poor zone at best. Thank god we've got the Sinking Sands to get you to 50 then, eh?

EQ diary updated to level 45...

As mentioned above, the diary now goes up to level 45 - access the new entry from the menu on the right. I've not added all the pictures yet, partly because I can't quite bring myself to go back into the Obelisk to get screenshots of that god-awful zone, and partly because I was too busy having fun in DFC to remember to take screenshots. They'll come shortly tho, don't worry. Witty comments (or my attempts thereof) will also be up soon. Keep tuned, anyway.

EQ2 Diary updated again...

Okay, the diary now runs up to level 40. Choraz is only level 42 at the moment, so it might be a while before the next entry. I am, however, in the process of securing a friend's LOTRO account and install disc so I can add a player diary on that too. I've every intention of making this into a resource for those who want to play a (non-WoW) MMORPG, allowing them to compare the features of each game and maintaining reasonably up-to-date reviewsand rankings of each to help them decide on which one is for them. So stay with me.

EQ2 Player Diary Updated

Just to let everyone know I've added two new entries to the EQ2 player diary, from level 30-35 and the first part of level 35-40. The rest of Level 35-40 will follow tomorrow, and I'll add the missing pictures of Zek and the Ruins of Varsoon ASAP. In the meantime, enjoy - the links are on the sidebar to the right of this page.

EDIT - Pictures now added. Enjoy.

Apparently, I'm a victim of piracy...

Yesterday, my computer packed up. Wouldn't boot up at all, said the operating system needed reinstalling. Naturally, I spent about five hours searching for one, and when I found one I thought 'well, superb, the problems are solved'.

But they weren't. Oh no, because Windows won't install - apparently, I didn't have a hard drive installed. I started swearing to myself at this point, because I really didn't want to lose a 200 gig hard drive and everything on it, but I figured it was a bit too late to do anything about it. So I set off across the road to buy a replacement, costing a whacking £45, and then come back to install it.

But then my computer boots up fine. Completely fine, no problems with my hard drive nor my operating system. So I'm sitting there, Windows install disk in one hand and brand new £45 hard drive in the other, and my PC is working like a charm. This does not make me happy.

What makes me even less happy is that my PC keeps crashing, which I have surmised is down to it overheating. My CPU fan isn't spinning, which is probably the reason, though the heatsink is going quite nicely for hours at a time (allowing me to type this). Thing is, the fan IS working - it powers up for a good few seconds every time I start the PC, but then it just stops. I've twiddled the BIOS, I've downloaded programs to control it, but nothing works. It's all rather stupid, as I don't mind if my computer physically breaks but I get quite pissed off when it is capable of working but chooses not to.

Oh, and to make things better, Windows Update has downloaded a new patch that apparently thinks it is helpful to tell me I've been a victim of counterfeiting every 30 minutes. So that screws up whatever I'm doing every half an hour, as it alt-tabs games down, and I can't seem to dislodge that either. Even as I type this, it's done it again. Do they honestly think I don't KNOW I'm using a pirate version of Windows?

If I go quiet for a few days, either my computer has actually melted from the lack of fan action or I've thrown it out the window in a fit of rage. Either way, the computer loses. I hope it thinks about that carefully before it decides to fuck with me again.

Cross platform gaming? Xbox 360 and PC gamers set to collide over Team Fortress 2...

Or at least, the option is there. Apparently the Team Fortress 2 coding allowing cross-platform play has been completed, but Valve are as yet unsure as to whether they will be implementing it.

I'm of the belief that within five years the majority of cross-platform releases will involve cross-platform play. However, I'm starting to wonder what this means for the evolution of the next-gen consoles - or even the current batch (and indirectly, for the future of the PC). MMORPGS play quite a big part in this, so if you're only interested in that aspect of the article then bear with me.

Currently, the only game out there that allows cross-platform gaming is Shadowrun - and I imagine most games will follow a similar model at first (basically, Xbox 360 players play on Xbox-Live, while PC players have to upgrade to Vista and then pay a fee for XBox-Live membership). With only Shadowrun available I don't see this as a particularly great idea, but if some flagship titles start to bridge the gap, we might see this become more popular. Team Fortress 2 is clearly going to be one of these titles, but it's going to be immensely popular anyway. When PC players are perfectly able to find a game of TF2 without upgrading to Vista or paying for it, there's no reason to pay for Xbox-Live. Thus, I think the logical progression will be to link Valve's servers (Steam) with the Xbox-Live ones, so the PC gamers don't have to jump through hoops to play against console players, while Microsoft still get their cut from the Xbox 360 players playing online. This solution isn't just applicable to Valve, of course, because the majority of gaming companies offer similar online support.

In a desperate attempt to break even, the Peruvian government finally allowed tourists to do what they had always wanted to do in the country's Inca ruins: sniper rifle duels.

The next issue, then, is balance. For FPS games, mouse and keyboard is king. Yeah, people who are really good on consoles might be able to stay in touch, but a mouse generally gives far more precision than an analogue stick. Shadowrun got around this by implementing a heavy auto-aim system for everyone, and giving PC gamers twice as much recoil on every gun. That's not an ideal solution, and don't expect to see many more like it. Instead, I expect to see a mouse and keyboard becoming increasingly common on consoles. But I don't expect to see that happen too quickly, because I think consoles are trying to resist the idea of being a computer that you can't upgrade.

Thus, I don't expect to see FPS games being the sparks that ignite the fire of cross-platform gaming. Instead, I fully expect it to be MMORPGS - specifically, Age of Conan. With an MMORPG, you don't have to worry about all the jazz with PC gamers having to pay - they have to pay a monthly fee anyway, they're used to it. Other MMORPG games also will always want more subscribers to earn more money, too, so the large markets of the Xbox 360 crowds will be tempting for them. But overall, the type of game is well suited to console gaming because the combat system is less based on instant reflexes - with the introduction of online voice chat, you probably wouldn't need a keyboard at all. Thus, I expect to see quite a lot of cross platform MMORPGs coming out after Age of Conan starts to capitalise on the market after it's Xbox 360 release. I think the Xbox will see more of them due to its close links with Microsoft, but I believe by the time the next gen of consoles comes around Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will be bending over backwards to incorporate cross-platform play into their machines.

This leaves PCs in a slightly strange position, as the increases in chip power will obviously be utilised in servers, but with gamers possibly migrating to more inexpensive consoles instead, the desire for high-end graphics advances will fade. Perhaps they'll trudge along as media stations for a while, but I see the consoles eventually snapping up those markets too. But by that time they'll probably be very PC-like themselves, except they won't be upgradable. I must admit, I quite like the idea of just buying a new console every 4 years and knowing that the playing field is perfectly level between everyone - it's much less hassle than gearing out a new gaming PC every few years, only to realise most of your friends can't play the same games as you because they've not managed to buy a good enough machine yet.

Microsoft's ongoing problems with weight reached crisis point with the release of the Xbox 740.

Having said that, there are already two versions on the PS3 on the market. By the time of next-gen consoles, can we expect to see several different models available? I hope not, otherwise the point of the console - ease of use and less complexity when compared to a PC - will have been lost.

But we'll have to wait to see what'll happen, won't we? Keep your eyes on Age of Conan for Xbox 360, too. If it does well, expect to see others follow in its footsteps, and expect to see the MMORPG market get even bigger.

Hektor.

Blizzard's next-gen MMO?

Before the announcement of Starcraft 2, there was some speculation that the title announced would be World of Starcraft. This was not entirely unsurprising, if a little hopeful - Blizzard had put up a couple of recruitment ads on their site a couple of weeks before, looking for designers to work on a 'next-gen MMORPG'. Now, we all know Starcraft 2 was the game announced, but that doesn't answer the question of what Blizzard are going to do next in the MMO market.

Let's look at the facts. World of Warcraft is hardly flagging (currently at 8.5 million subscribers and with a net taking of around $1.5 billion annually), but it is coming up three years old. It's not going to last forever, but even if 99% of the population left there would still be 85,000 subscribers left in the game - more than enough to warrant continuing to support the game. I also expect to see at least one more expansion, likely three more, the next of which will be Northrend (from the Frozen Throne), in an attempt to keep WoW going/growing for as long as possible. There's little argument that Blizzard WILL bring out another game, and I imagine we can expect it in about three years - some time in 2010, by which point WoW will be six years old and most certainly have had its day. And I imagine it'll completely dominate the market again, at least for a while, because at the end of the day Blizzard do make high-quality games. That, and their success automatically breeds a level of hype in the gaming world that is literally unparallelled by any other gaming company or franchise (maybe Halo and Half-Life come close, but not within touching distance).

WoW has a female night elf on the box cover. Half Life 2 has Gordon Freeman. I think I may just have solved this mystery.

Now, about the content. There's four options here, the first being a MMO set in an entirely new universe and the remaining three being a title set in one of Blizzard's established universes - Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo. Diablo is a rich universe that could transfer well to a MMORPG universe, but it lacks the depth of the Warcraft universe - nevertheless, it could translate well. I can imagine the Evil side would have a lot of choice of monstrous races, while the Good side would have humans and angels (and they could probably think of some other ones too). The classes could be numerous, given that there were 7 in Diablo II alone if you include the expansion. Most people write off Diablo as being too WoW-like, but by the time the next MMO comes out I doubt that'll be an issue. Diablo is quite an adult world, but then a lot of the criticism aimed at WoW is that it's cartoony and seemingly geared towards kids. If Age of Conan's realistic style succeeds, Funcom may find Blizzard aggressively expanding into their territory.

A World of Warcraft II has a certain appeal, too. First up, it's a familiar world that might well lure old players back with a wave of nostalgia if they're thinking about giving up WoW around now. If the game is set in the future, you've got an excuse to change the world considerably, keeping the experience fresh. Having said that, my money is not on a WoW2. This is because, in order to change the world enough to create a different gaming experience, Blizzard would have to have a catastrophe strike Azeroth, or set it at least a century in the future. And remember that WoW is not the only game in the Warcraft Universe - I fully expect to see a Warcraft 4 in the future, continuing the storylines of WC3 and WoW. And revealing the future or wrecking the world would make this prohibitively difficult to achieve, so I don't expect to see a WoW2. Not until after a WC4, at least.

Starcraft. Now, this IS an interesting topic. With Starcraft being considered one of the finest games of all time and a universe that has the potential to be very cool indeed (though it's rather underdeveloped with only a single game and expansion pack to its name), it's definitely a fertile ground for MMO exploitation. What form this will take is debatable, though. Let's look at the facts. SC2 is looking to be very good indeed (see an explanation why Blizzard will make it amazing, regardless of budget), and will doubtless expand the universe of SC a great deal. I expect to see it hit the shelves in late 2008, given the state it appears to be in at the moment seems quite advanced - but given the slow speed at which Blizzard are currently releasing information. This would give between 18 months and 2 years to my supposed release date for the next-gen MMORPG. Currently, the universe isn't particularly suitable to a WoW-style MMORPG, for a series of reasons. Firstly, basically everyone except one unit per race uses ranged weapons. Secondly, there's a lot of vehicles. Thirdly, unlike Warcraft in which battle raged across Azeroth, SC takes place across a multitude of different planets and thus there's no real defined setting for it. There's a defined feel, true, but that's not quite the same thing. Now, I fully expect SC2 to flesh things out a bit, completely intentionally making the universe more easily ported in the MMO world. About what I think they'll do with it - well, I'll mention that in a moment.

The only thing likely to reunite Korea.

Firstly, I have to dismiss out of hand the idea that they'll do another MMORPG set outside their existing franchises. I don't see them doing that at this stage, because there's not really much for them to gain by doing it. WoW didn't actually bear much resemblance to the Warcraft games I've played, true, but at least it was a recognisable name that I subconsciously associate with quality even if the Blizzard label were not present. I, along with many others, would be very surprised (and disappointed) if Blizzard did not use their existing franchises for their next gen MMOs.

So, what do I see coming, Starcraft or Diablo? Well, here's the thing: I see both of them coming but, perhaps surprisingly, I see a Diablo MMORPG arriving first. Why do I think that, when most people predict a Starcraft game coming first? Well, because I can't see Blizzard releasing a SC MMORPG. Nope, I see them releasing an MMOFPS. I see an MMOFPS as a logical progression of the current trend in online shooters to have character progression and large scale battles, as demonstrated by Battlefield 2 (and no doubt soon Quake Wars and Unreal Whatever It's Called). I don't consider vehicles to be a good addition to the current system of timer-based fighting that exists in MMORPGs, but they sure as hell work in BF2 and the like. Whether or not the players would get to use vehicles/play as the heavy zerg units, I don't know, because it could work either way.

In my eyes, the game would be about 50% PvP and PvE. The PvP would take place between the different races, like a glorified game of BF2. PvE would involve levelling up and raiding, too - but how could you raid in an FPS game? Well, quite easily really. Get together the 40 people, split into groups of five, and then zone into a large instanced zone full of NPC bots. Certain parts of the map would need certain classes to get past, like getting around the perimeter walls might need snipers to take out turret gunners, while clearing a minefield might need a player with a shield generator to cover a class capable of minesweeping. If you have a series of objectives that had to be hit in a co-ordinated strike between different groups, it would be quite complex as well. One group might have to hold a computer terminal for 2 or 3 minutes against an enemy assault, while their hacker brought down the target base's shields - at which point, a group that had taken over an artillery turret would have 30 seconds to shell the defense systems to cover the advance of the rest of the units, who would then have say 5 minutes to fight their way inside and shut down the defences, so that the other two squads could join them. If it were like CS, where a dead player is out for the duration of the game, it'd be quite exciting (and there'd be a use for medics), and it were done well it'd be really good fun. You could gear up like in WoW, where you get armour that increases your survivability (or perhaps contains functionality like limited auto-aim or IR detection or something), while weapons could do more damage or have bigger clips or better scopes etc. This would be a game with far more player skill than WoW currently has, and it would actually be truly revolutionary (and people would use gear due to personal preference for its features as much as stats, which would be nice). Games have tried this kinda thing before, with limited success, but for this to work you would need tens of thousands of players, so it would seem like a proper war was raging. Blizzard's name would guarantee that, and an MMOFPS would open up a whole new market to Blizzard - FPS games. They'd make a LOT of money out of it, and it'd be another feather in their collective caps.

Huxley (named after the author of Brave New World) is probably the first real attempt at a MMOFPS, but I only heard about it today when I typed the term 'MMOFPS' into Google. If this was a Blizzard game, even my cat would be excited. Not that he'd be any good at it: lack of opposable digits, you see. That's why your pets never beat you at Halo. Unless they're monkeys. Or children.

Diablo, however, I see as the logical progression of the fantasy MMO genre. 2010 will be a decade after Diablo II came out, so it's more than possible that Blizzard will stick to what they know and will bring out Diablo III as their next MMO. I'd like to think a SC MMO would be the next one they release, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be Diablo. So thats what I'm going to predict. A Diablo MMO coming out in 2010, with a SC MMOFPS following in about 2012.

Only five years to wait to see how right I've been, then. Comments enabled on this page, so you're welcome to post what YOU think too.

Hektor.

Everquest 2, suddenly a worthwhile choice again?

About a week ago, I resubscribed my Everquest II account that I had played for one month upon release of Echoes of Faydwer about 4 months ago or so. I did it on a whim, I'll admit, but it has turned out to be quite interesting. Read my player diary for more information on that.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to talk about my experiences in EQ2, it is to talk about EQ2 in relation to the rest of the MMORPG market. Now, it is no secret that Everquest 2 was a bad game when it came out. Most of the players will freely acknowledge that, and in some ways the stigma of EQ2 appears not to have washed off even after nearly three years. However, the game has changed greatly since release. Some would argue it is for the worse, but the game has become much more solo friendly and casual-friendly, and the new development team have taken the game in a new direction after the relative success of Echoes of Faydwer. They are intentionally bringing back familiar EQ1 content (though usually with a fair few changes), and they've started to take longer over expansions to make them more polished. This can only be a good thing, as the new expansion recently announced brings back Kunark, probably the most distinctive and well-loved continent of the old Everquest. This isn't just good for nostalgic EQ1 players, because Kunark was well loved for a reason - it was awesome. If they can capture the forlorn grandeur of the original Kunark, this expansion will be an excellent experience for EQ2 players.

Everquest II - now officially not shit.

Now, that's slated for a November release, nearly six months away. In the meantime, however, the dev team are churning out monthly game updates. And, no, we're not talking little changes to balance and bugfixes in each update. Last Game Update saw the return of the Dark Elf city from EQ1, Neriak, and the starting zone Darklight Woods just outside it. This brings the number of starting cities up to 4, with at least another one slated for release in the expansion. And I have to say, I LOVE Neriak and the Darklight woods. They're both very characterful and well designed, with Darklight easily being my favourite starting zone in EQ2 so far. It's almost a shame when you zone out into the lvl 20+ zones around it (which have both been there since the start of EQ2), as it really shows how much the devs have improved since release. In the next Game Update, coming out four weeks later, the features include a complete revamps of AA trees (similar to talent trees in WoW), an addition of the 'dressing room' feature to allow you to preview what armour looks like when worn, as well as another entirely new zone - this one a high-level raid zone. Tradeskills are also being revamped.

Despite their hard work, the dev team have still not quite got around to implementing gravity.

Seeing this kind of workrate in the dev team is really something, and it really gives you a lot of hope for the future. If the Rise of Kunark turns out to be a really good expansion pack (and the devs keep working like this for the next 6 months), I imagine that EQ2 might honestly be a genuine challenger to WoW and AoC in terms of popularity. I'm not saying that the game is flawless, but I definitely think it is underrated. As said above, if you want a more detailed analysis of the game, read the first week of my play diary on the sidebar to the left.

Hektor.

Warhammer Online, eh?

To be brutally honest, I'm not particularly excited by Warhammer Online. I used to play the miniature based game when I was about 13 (though I played the sci-fi equivalent), so I do actually know the world quite well. It's certainly quite a detailed world, and it has probably more premise than most of the MMOs today are gifted with. It's just what they're doing with it that doesn't really convince me. Mostly because I think it looks horrible. I don't want to play a game that looks crap, basically. The screenshots I've seen really don't impress me. The two below, at full screen, both have horrible texturing. If you're going to the trouble of making an MMORPG, you may as well make it look nice.

There were concerns among the beta testers that the dwarves had an unfair advantage.

I'm also not sure I want to play a game that's so heavily geared around PvP. For the uninitiated, the idea of the game is to sack your opponent's city. You choose from one of three races on each side, and one of four classes in each of them (presumably they all play differently, giving you a total of 12 classes per side). You then engage your opposing faction - Empire vs Chaos, Dwarves vs Greenskins and High Elves vs Dark Elves - though you are allowed to move fronts and fight in a different area to your starting city. It's kinda like a big campaign, and the lines off battle ebb and flow depending on how well the PvP battles go. You also have integrated PvP and PvE on the same maps (on all the maps, possibly - I'm not sure on this). The combat seems interesting enough, though, as it's quite tactical and involves a lot of blocking. You can't move through someone, friend or foe, so the big tanks literally do act as meatshields for the casters and archers behind them. It could work very well, if done well, but I'm not convinced.

Van Helsing gets ready to make another god-awful movie.

What doesn't convince me is not the combat, however. I can't predict how that'll turn out, it could go either way. What concerns me is what you'll do in Warhammer Online. I get the impression the game may be very shallow, as PvP might get old quite quickly. I'm not sure what they're doing in the way of raid content or tradeskilling, if there is any. Their site is not as comprehensive, informative or well designed as the site for Age of Conan, which annoys me too. I might revisit this game in more detail when I get some gameplay movies of it, or a more comprehensive FAQ, but right now I see it as a gigantic Alterac Valley. And while I loved the concept of Alterac Valley, I wouldn't buy it as a stand-alone game.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

Hektor.

Age of Conan? But I don't like Arnold Schwarzenegger...

EDIT - As this page remains inexplicably popular on Google, I'm adding a link to my Age of Conan play diary and ongoing review here. (http://mmodusoperandi.blogspot.com/2008/05/age-of-conan-player-diary-level-1-20.html)

For those of you who aren't a fan of the Governator, his loincloth-clad form is officially not in this game. I can't speak for what he gets up to while ruling California, but one would hope that also does not involve him wearing a loincloth. I hope that gave you an unpleasant mental picture - if not, I've helpfully provided you with a physical one.

Scantily-clad Arnie NOT included in box. Probably the best advert for Age of Conan you will ever see.

But onto more pressing matters. My tip of the week is this - buy some shares in Funcom, because Age of Conan is going to be big. Why have I come to this conclusion? Well, these guys were behind Anarchy Online, which means that they're not new to this MMORPG malarkey. I'll admit, that's not a guarantee of success (just look at what EQ2 was like on release, followed by the rather abject failure of Vanguard - both made by the person who created the original EQ)They've also got some ideas that, while not revolutionary, certainly are a little different.

Realism = man in skirt shooting a bow at a bear. Apparently.

First up, it's meant to be fairly realistic. That's as in low fantasy rather than high fantasy. No elves and dwarves and stuff like that, just a lot of humans with sharp objects and anger management problems. Much like real ancient history, everyone seems to solve their problems by shooting them full of arrows or stabbing them through the face. This is a good thing, because it gives the game the grown-up feeling it is going for. There are scantily clad women in it, and lots of blood, and some quite impressive finishing moves and stuff. It's also meant to be quite morally grey, which is always slightly less patronising than:

'Help, I've lost my pet dog! Will you help me?'

A) Yes! I will risk life and limb to save your dog, for no reason other than the good of my pure pure heart!
B) No. Now I'm going to murder you and burn your village to the ground for asking. Then I'm going to eat your dog.

Probably the most unique feature of Age of Conan is the combat system, however, and it's here I'll stop mindlessly prattling away and actually voice my main concern about the game. It's going to be skill based in a big way. You actually aim your arrows, like in Oblivion. When you're fighting in melee, there's no auto-attack button, you kinda just hack around with your weapon and hopefully de-spleen some of your opponents. Or stab them through the face. I believe there is a low-end targeting system in there to make it bearable, but that unconfirmed at the moment. This might all sound hideously imprecise, but I've not seen it in action so I couldn't possibly comment. Fact is, though, for better or worse there will be a lot of player skill involved. The concept kinda reminds me of the combat in Fable, for some reason, though again I'll reiterate the fact I've never actually played it. Similarly, there's a spellweaving element for casters, which again is affected by the skill of the player involved.

I was going to say something funny, but instead I'm just going to gawk at how gorgeous Age of Conan actually looks.

Now this is either going to be awesome or completely rubbish. I don't see much in-between space with this game. If their combat system fails, it's going to be clunky and difficult to use, completely unplayable on any connection that isn't awesome, and generally a very-hit and miss affair open to a lot of exploitation. If it goes well, it'll be an exciting break from the norm that may well revolutionise how we play the genre. PvP will be nail biting and intense, and realistic to a new degree.

THIS IS SPAARTAAAAAA!

Oh, you're looking for Corinth? No problem. Three villages along, second on the right. No, don't worry about it, really. Happens all the time.

Time will tell which. Age of Conan is currently in beta testing, so hopefully it'll be a very polished game when it comes out. It has a lot of cool features I've not listed here, like player-made cities and siege PvP warfare between guilds, and PvP player levelling. If any of it catches your fancy, check out their FAQs on their website. Funcom are really aiming for the stars with this one, and if they deliver then they're going to have rewritten the genre. It's looking good so far, with impressive visuals and a lot of work going into animations, sound and armour suits too (as well as zone design), and it's definitely a game I'm going to buy on release. I'm tipping it to be the best MMORPG that will come out in the next twelve months, however, and I'm watching it very closely.

Hektor.

Age of Conan FAQ - http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?session=cwul1uhnwzgvtvfbw94v2ftd8m1gv3&func=publish.show&func_id=1029&table=PUBLISH&template=news_no_feature&selected=1029