user generated content

Home Sweet Home (Norrathian Museum) WIP

I’ve been working on my ‘Norrathian Museum‘ off and on for quite some time. The screen shots don’t do it justice, so if you’re on the kithicor server please feel free to stop by the Magical Academy Housing in North Freeport. Character name is Ellithia. It’s in the mage tower, bottom floor. I’ve worked really hard on this and I’m exceptionally pleased with how it’s turning out.

Ideally, the library will be filled with a combination of player-written books and ones that I’ve quested for. It’s a little bare right now, but it gives me a goal. If there is anyone who wants to add some of their writing to my library, please don’t hesitate to make a character on Kithicor and mail me with your name, I’ll send you a notebook and some coin in return, then all you need to do is mail it back to me when the story is complete, you can delete the character right after.

It is still a work in progress, but the main floor is completed now, and the majority of the upper floor. I want to add tables and chairs to the library area, as well as a living space downstairs for Ellithia (the owner of the home, my mystic). She has a little bedroom tucked away, didn’t need much space for that, but I’d like a little kitchen, and perhaps a bath, we’ll see.

The garden picture was taken at night so it’s really hard to see, and looks far better in the day light. With the new grotto quest rewards (which I’ll go into more detail about tomorrow) the outdoors in any home will lack for nothing.

A silly way to spend my time? Maybe, but I had an absolute blast decorating.

The Difference in Servers

When player-written books first came out, I had grand hopes of putting together a library in my Norrathian Museum (a work in progress) that was filled with player-created books instead of the usual ones that everyone finds (aside from a few select volumes). The books have only been out a few days now, but so far only one other person aside from my guild mates has placed any books for sale on the Kithicor server. Whether this is because people are just shy with sharing their work, or it is because they’re saving it all up for some big boom, I’ve no idea. There are 17 pages of blank books for sale, and 2 written books, both from my guild mates (one pictured above).

Now take a look on the Antonia Bayle server – which I realize also happens to be the most popular server, but it’s got pages and pages of user created books for sale. I would LOVE to be able to fill my library with these books, so if anyone is interested in creating a character on Kithicor and penning a book for me to add to my library, I will pay for the blank notebook.

I would also (no idea if this is feasible, it’s probably not) LOVE to have some unique one of a kind books penned by our resident community team members (I’m looking at you Kiara!) to add to this library. People of note from the game, friends, anyone I can possibly find to add to this library. It’s more or less for sentimental value to me, but I would really appreciate it. If you happen to pen a book, or want to pen a book for me to use in the library, you can find me in game as Ellithia or Arysh – and if you don’t currently see me on, send me some mail and I’ll send you a blank book in return that you can mail back to me. You don’t have to actually level the character, and you’re welcome to delete afterward, but I would really love a user generated library with unique stories.

Last night we attempted Mistmyr Manor for the first time (the first time all together, that is, and the first time over all for me) but Ultann was feeling ill so just before we hit the library we had to call it a night. I picked up a nice cloak for Goudia (she was needing one badly) and a piece (or two) of vampire bane gear for the coercer. Even though the stats are not that great I do love being able to proc against them. Especially since I always put the mystic buff that increases proc chance on my coercer. The joys of boxing!

This weekend should be fairly quiet. I’m crafting a lot of the new hex dolls and bandoliers in order to be able to make some future purchases. I haven’t any masters for sale and I pretty much transmute everything else I get, so this should help out a little bit. Of course, not creating so many alts would also help out. Ah well!

Time to see if the Grotto event is in game yet! Safe travels, and see you in Norrath!

Exciting News All Around

Wow, yesterday was an overload of new happenings in games and lots of excitement came out of it. I’ll be making a post later about Free Realms now that the NDA has lifted (I have to jump on the bandwagon after all!) and if you’re looking for me in game you can find me as Stephanie Stardream – though both people DO have to currently be online in order to friend them.

Also, housing has gone to the test server in Wizard 101! I have really been looking forward to this. Even though I don’t play Wizard 101 as much as I’d like, I still dive in a few times a month and find it a great casual game when you’re looking for a bit of a break from your ‘main’ MMO. Plus it’s perfect for families and who doesn’t enjoy that.

Now, the main bit of news I’d like to focus on at least for this post is the new user generated content coming to EverQuest II! If you haven’t heard of it yet, be sure to check out the blog post made by Rothgar yesterday on the EQ2 dev blog. Basically this will allow players to write their own books in game, pick an appearance for them, and even make copies of them. They will be tradeable and you can put them on the broker.

This will be an amazing feature for people on role play servers to start. I’m absolutely excited about what people will come up with on those servers in specific where everyone has a tale to tell. I think the idea of collecting volumes of player-made books is fantastic. Lets say you’re an author in real life and you want to promote these little books in game, you could develop a whole marketing scheme for them. Now, I have no idea if this would take off on servers OTHER then the role play ones to any great degree. But housing enthusiasts and book lovers can certainly be found everywhere.

There’s also ascii art you could fill the pages with. Poems for friends, Christmas gifts, your own personal Norrathian stories. You could write guides for players in game, leveling guides, how to make money, a method of gaining achievement points, LOTS of things could be written within these pages for players to enjoy. Dungeon guides even if your character is perhaps an adventurer who explores the deep caverns and writes about what they discover. You could collect rare issues of books from players who left the game since their names are written as the author. You could try to convince devs or guides or GM’s to hold events where you could win a one of a kind book created by them.

Obviously my own personal excitement is pretty high. I’m all for making MMO worlds more personal and involving the players in such a way that they become a part of the world itself. Vanguard has this to some degree by allowing players to purchase actual plots of land in the game (no instances) CoX has this with their new user created missions (If I played I’d certainly be all over it).

Of course, there are down sides. As Tipa pointed out, what about gold sellers. Will they just mail you books filled with links to plat farming sites and spam. The books are created by crafters and I’m not sure what level you have to be or what sort of a hassle that may be. Until it goes live there’s no way to really tell if this will become a valid method of promoting gold sales. Also, what about those naughty books that people decide to write. There’s no real way to sensor a player written book – and I don’t think there should be. Sure, you’ve got the choice to read it or not, but do you really want 100 books of how to mate with an ogre covering the broker? Well, actually, maybe you do.

In any case, I think this is a fantastic idea.

On the down side, the next post after the announcement of these wonderful books, is the Research Assistants who are going to help you learn your master spells. I dislike this idea, a lot. I think it’s just another method of dumbing down the game, to just hand out master spells to players after an amount of time has passed for the NPC’s to “research” it for you. While you may think to yourself “well, YOU don’t have to take advantage of it then!” it will be far too easy to be left behind if you don’t have your master spells when it comes to groups and raids. On the Kithicor server there’s already a very high bar set for players. If you don’t meet a certain quota you’re excluded from a lot of going-ons. It only takes an hour or two in 70-79 to see what direction most people seem to head, every “LF” (looking for) message is followed by “must be mythical” “must have such and such gear” “must not suck”. One of the issues with the server that makesĀ  me wish server transfers were free again for a short while.

Game wise last night was pretty relaxing. My trio did Crypt of Agony which was fairly painless, we also did Obelisk (no, the shield still has not dropped) and Nocbot managed to get a few levels and some aa. It wasn’t one of the busiest days in game but it was still lots of fun and I think everyone had a good time. This weekend I believe we’re attempting to get Nocbot to 80 (he’s sitting at 76 I think) so that he can get started on his epic. I also want to finish harvesting on my mystic, so I can start her epic as well as my illusionist’. We’ll see how that goes!

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday in the mean time!

Nomadic Gamer