Real Life

Girl who cried Nerf

stargrace June 18, 2007 3 Comments

Dasie in Darklight Woods, working on getting those aa points by mentoring

Everyone on every channel that I listen to lately has one subject on their mind, and that is the dreaded GU36 and 37. Why do I say dreaded? Well, the notes can be found here with all of the new changes listed. I personally like a good deal of them, but there has been huge out cries from raiders and casual players alike. Especially when it comes to agro, and reducing a few classes usefulness on a raid. People are screaming nerf every which way.

However, I don’t feel the same.

In preparation for any expansion the first thing that happens every single time, is a game wide “nerf”. There’s really no other choice though, it has to happen. Why? Because they’re adding another 10 levels, and in order for those next 10 levels to be on par with everything else, they’d either have to be super duper hard so hard that only the best of the best raiders could ever attempt anything at all — or — they down grade how we play now, and make us learn and adjust to the new changes. Come on now, this is not new, it happened with DoF it happened with KoS, and when it’s happening with RoK people should not act so surprised or hurt. It is going to affect everyone, it’s going to make raiders re-learn how to handle their agro, maybe switch up some of those MT groups. Scouts are going to have some learning time with their changes, summoners as well. So when everyone is screaming on the channels about all this stuff that’s going on, I just sit back and listen. It’s not going to be that bad, and if it is, it will get changed. That’s why it’s on the test server, to change and adjust. Until they go to live, and even when they do, it won’t break the game for me or make me not want to play any more. It will just be a period of re-learning my classes to work with the new changes. Finding my niche again. I can completely understand why people who have already spent time learning their class and how they work do not want to have to re-learn how to play, but MMO’s are dynamic and ever changing. It’s never going to stay exactly the way it starts.

I find it amusing the ruckus it’s caused. I’ll wait for it to go live, and adjust with the changes. I’m sure some people will get pissed off and leave like they did after GU13 (which went down in record books I am sure for creating disturbances, you may remember it as the great combat revamp) but the majority of people will stick it out and realize that the changes are needed and are not that bad at all.

Sides, there are a few things that I love coming out with this update. More crafted furniture for one. The ability to respec your tradeskill class as another. I have two jewelers and I’m looking forward to making one a carpenter or weapon smith instead (I have two because one used to be on another server and then I transferred them).

Another side note, I’m headed to Niagara Falls for a few days this week to get away from things, so no blog entries here. I hope everyone enjoys their week though and it’s filled with happy gaming, I’ll bring back lots of pictures.

Eenie Meanie Miney Moe..

stargrace March 1, 2007 4 Comments

So. Station access is getting bumped up to $29.99 a month American. x 2 for my house. Ouch.

Converted over that’s almost $100 a month to play video games, and only two of those games are played to any extent, Vanguard and EverQuestII. Worth it? I’m beginning to think not. So the new decision I have to make, is which game am I giving up. There are good and bad points for each.

EverQuestII is still a lot of fun for me, I have three level 70 characters, two raid geared, fully mastered, and a bunch of crafters. The issue with that game for me, is lack of players on my server specifically, Lucan D’Lere. If it merged, I wouldn’t have so much of an issue. The down side, well obviously a lot of my friends have left for Vanguard. The game is lacking high end content. If you’ve been there and done it all, why bother any more?

Vanguard is also a lot of fun for me. My highest level character is 20, meaning I have a lot of work left (if I were to stay). The game unfortunately is very buggy. Not that it won’t get fixed over time I am sure, but do I want to be paying full price for a game still in beta? How many people are going to stay around in Vanguard once LoTR and WarHammer and Conan and all those other MMO’s come out? At least in EverQuestII I know there is some sort of a player base. It’s just relatively small. If I were to spend some money and move to a more populated server, would that solve my issues? Najena for example is still thriving. Lucan can barely support one ‘real’ raiding guild.

It’s a shame that they’ve decided to raise the price. I feel even worse for those who had station access due to the free adventure packs, as well as the extra character slots. Why would you pay TWICE as much as one monthly subscription if you only play EQ2. I’d be mighty pissed off if that were the case. They should allow you to keep your $24.99 price if all you’re after is the extra characters and the free adventure packs (splitpaw, the village of shin, etc). I think this was a very unwise business move. Not only will Sigil lose money from those who were only playing Vanguard due to station access and the ability to play both games at a discounted price, but SoE will lose money from those who decide to give up their station access fully and move to Vanguard. It will be interesting to see how (if any) affect this will have on the populations of both games. I know I’m tempted to just throw in the towel and go play WoW again, just to not deal with this any more.

The price change goes into affect April 2nd, so they’ve given one months warning. Unless Vanguard by some miracle fixes the numerous issues that players face every day, I won’t be renewing my subscription. If the situation on EQ2 doesn’t improve with the decline in players (and so many servers that we’re all spread over) then they also will no longer have my monthly business. Does SoE care? Of course not, I’m one small subscriber. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t make the slightest dent. If enough people do it though, they’ll see the change. I already know quite a few bloggers out there are talking about what they’ll be doing, which game they’ll be playing, and what’s next.

For further reading about the ideas and opinions out there, check out the following:

The Ancient Gaming Noob , CuppyCake , West Karana