Anticipation of Dread (Metroid 5 speculation and Nintendo nostalgia)

[NOTE: contains some mild spoilers for the Metroid saga, but no spoilers for Metroid Dread]

It was a shock to hear that Nintendo had produced Metroid 5 (Dread) and it would be ready-to-play in October, no less. And I was also surprised to find I've never really written about the franchise. So, here we are... 2021 is a long way from 1994, when I first played a Metroid game.

Super Metroid was a seminal moment. I was thirteen. I recall two things happening in that point in my life. One, I was drinking huge glasses of Metamucil. There was a motherly thought that I wasn't getting enough fiber, so I'd consume the supplement after school while gazing up at the TV pixels. Two, I had relatives visiting while I was in the thick of exploring Zebes. I was so engrossed in the game that I would be zoned-out when they tried to engage me. I regret this memory as an adult, but I admit I was a socially-awkward kid having a "watershed moment".

Super Metroid existed in a pre-WWW time, where there was a reliance on hearsay and printed media for hints on such a maze-like map (or a tricky boss fight). But, I don't remember any friends or neighbors playing Metroid, so I must have figured it out solo. I did have the game manual, but that's was the extent of my knowledge of lore. Besides, video game canon is disregarded easily.

Putting "Super" in front of SNES games was a gimmick, but for Metroid 3 I think there is a subtext. It is a story that picks up after Samus Aran has exterminated all but one of the titular species (see also, Metroid II story). The larva is stolen by Space Pirates for weaponizing purposes. Eventually, the hatchling grows to be gigantic--much larger than seen previously in the canon. The gigantism could be due to Pirate genetic manipulation/weird science, but it is clear this is a super specimen.

Like many others dedicated the franchise, I was elated to see another 2D metroidvania officially greenlit in a post-Switch era. In this time of remakes and revamps (like Skyward Sword HD), it also seemed odd that there wasn't a digital way to play the Metroid predecessors. I wasn't impressed enough to buy the Samus Returns remake--didn't make sense to buy a DS handheld just for that. So I did what probably many other Geriatric Millennials did--I dusted off my Game Boy Advance SP to play Metroid 4 (Fusion) and the Zero Mission remake. It seemed like a chore at first, but just a few hours into the Metroid 1 remake fueled the nostalgia enough to go down a YouTube rabbit-hole. 🌌

I've been watching a lot of streamers playing ROM hacks/mods of Metroid games. It astounds me how much time people put into their customizations of the Metroid games. It's fanatical, and it's clear the Metroid fandom is alive and well, mostly as Super Metroid is on the "Mount Rushmore of speedrunning". It's a game rich in intentional sequence breaking with frame-perfect precision.

Metroid Dread speculation

I've shielded myself from Metroid Dread game footage and further spoilers, because I want to go in fresh, cold. Since Metroid Fusion in 2002, there hasn't been any official word on what happened to Samus since the X Parasite incident (and the destruction of planet SR388). My imagination runs wild.

With planets SR388 and Zebes only a memory, Dread will take place on a new setting. I'm sure there will be metroids of some kind and classic upgrades for Samus' suit, but I'm looking to have my expectations subverted. The classic beginning of Samus obtaining the morph ball upgrade can't happen as it did in Metroid 1 (and the nearly-identical Metroid 3) intro. Because the events of Fusion gave Samus a fully-powered suit, there will have to be some explanation as to why the enhancements are needed (yet again). I understand the "upgrade progression" need in metroidvania, but perhaps the morph ball won't be the first suit upgrade. Hell, maybe Samus will start suitless! Also, I hope they don't bring back Kraid and Ridley--those dudes are dead. Something novel, please.

There's also an interesting connection with world events and the curing of Samus with a vaccine. Maybe they'll do something cool with that...

I've never had a desire to play the 3D Prime games, but I know there's a narrative of phazon, Dark Samus, etc. There's a possibility there, plus that could to satiate Prime fanboys. 

The Metroid saga is a YA game that stands out in a milieu of Nintendo franchises for kids. No matter how much the Legend of Zelda tries to be serious and dark, it won't alienate the kids. And that's maybe why I like Metroid so much--it stays dark.

In 1994, I hadn't seen any of the Alien movies, but Xenomorphs and facehuggers were part of the 80s/90s pop-culture. And its popularity was a springboard (springball?) for the Metroid story and aesthetic. Whatever happens with Dread, at a minimum it will be a fun maze of discovery with a retelling of the original mythology. I'm totally OK with that. 

Axiom Verge 2 is also slated for 2021. It seems like my gaming schedule is overbooked! 🦠

DK Tropical Freeze advice 🏝️ ❄️

🦍 I’ve been meaning to write more here, and I’ve got my eyes on video games at this crazy time of self-quarantine. Before I post my Top 30 list (and articles), a warm up: the Nintendo Switch.

Donkey Kong Country (SNES) is one of my all-time favorites (Top 30, probably higher), so I decided to buy the Switch version of the 2014 “sequel”... Tropical Freeze.

It was on sale on the Nintendo eShop thingy. And holy shit, is it hard. It’s way hard. 🦧 The developers knew this, so they provided some much-needed mercy in spots. Here are some tips for you Switch players:

1. Play as Funky Kong. Don’t even think about playing the classic way.
2. Play. As. Funky. Kong. He hovers! He has more hearts! 
3. Use the alternate controller config. The action went way smoother after I could use X and Y to grab.
4. Play thru once (and beat the game) without worrying about all the secrets.
• Once ready, this GameXplain video will help.
5. Learn how to high-bounce off an enemy.
6. Get all the gold Banana Coins you can. The 1-Ups and bananas don't really matter.

You will get better. There’s so much to unlock here, that the replay value (once you get over the hump) will make the game quite enjoyable.

I really wish I had the advice above when I began! 🍌🍌🍌

Recommended GLQuake Console Commands

+mlook
r_wateralpha .8
r_mirroralpha .8
sv_aim 1
showturtle 1
r_timegraph 1
r_shadows 1
crosshair 2

* http://www.gamers.org/dEngine/quake/QDP/qconcmds.html
* https://www.quakewiki.net/archives/console/commands/quake.html
* http://quake.wikia.com/wiki/Console_Commands_(Q1)

How do you set resolution?

For Steam, additional launch options must be set for "-width X -height Y". If you need windowed mode, use "-window"

Titanfall and the game year

Reports say that Titanfall users surpassed 8 million at the end of 2014. This is a "best of the year" article about the game and sleeper success. I am a gamer on a budget. And, I am a gamer who plays 3 games a year. This means I have to wait for good deals to come by--I never pay retail. And, I finally broke the bank and spent $10.00 on Titanfall for Christmas.

Titanfall was released by EA in early 2014. It had a lot of hype--the E3 debut was very well received. But, there was no gamer buzz. Gamers were distracted by old games, primarily. To me, 2014 was a lackluster year. Destiny still seems so overrated. And the rest... same franchises, same gameplay.

Titanfall is a game changer--a watershed in FPS. While games like Call of Duty and Halo are still relatively the same since 2004, Titanfall is a logical move forward. It's a first step in combining RTS and MOBA into the first-person shooter schema. It makes MechWarrior look like Pong.

Reasons I like Titanfall:

1. It's a more complex FPS than anything out there.
2. It's easy as hell to learn.
3. It's easy for me to dominate.

It is not a perfect game. It is lacking a single player mode, and the storyline is unclear. But, people don't care about story when you pit it against gameplay and aesthetics.

EQ1 Map Archive

My current pet project (among other things, like life) for the past few months has been collecting all of the dwindling EverQuest drawn maps, storing them, and giving them to the public. I call it the EverQuest Map Preservation Society (maybe I should have a Donate button). Work in progress here.

www.steveprutz.com/eq

Thief Gold on a modern system

[Taking a break from music videos for a short, short time.]

I hate how gaming companies try to resolve problems via an online forum or messageboard. Posts get deprecated so easily, and sifting through the replies is a chore. Isn't the internet supposed to make life easier?


Thief: the Dark Project is one of the best first-person shooter ideas ever. It's innovative and epic. One of the best things is that there are no guns. Ingenious.

However, this ten-year-old game is feeling the effects of the Computer Age, and my copy takes a little fixing on my system.

Part A: Installing Thief


Speaking of deprecated... computer game installers are notorious for becoming obsolete approximately 10 seconds after they ship. DirectX (aka Direct3D) is making leaps and bounds, and leaving all the old stuff drowning in the wake of incompatibility. Thief Gold is one of those casualties. If you obtain the older discs for this game, here is how to play them on a newer computer system.

The fix:

1. In Windows, open the Run application (shortcut is Windows Key + R).
   
2. Type in x:\setup -lgntforce
3. Click OK
4. Install Thief without problems.
   

Part B: Playing Thief without freezes

Intel's Hyperthreading technology chewed this game and its sequel to bits. There is a quick, non-permanent fix (which gets tedious), and there is a long-term resolution to playing Thief Gold on a Pentium.

The (short-term) fix:

1. Open Task Manager (for later).
2. Run the Thief executable (THIEF.EXE).
3. Immediately Alt+Tab (or Window key) out of the game.
4. Find THIEF.EXE under the Processes tab in Task Manager.
5. Right-click on the Image Name and choose "Set Affinity".
6. Un-check one of the CPU's and click OK.
7. Alt-Tab back into the game and play.
8. Repeat every time the game is run.
   

The (long-term) fix:

• Read and follow this website's instructions.
  

I just ordered Thief II. I can't wait to tackle its problems!

Links:
* http://www.thief4.com
* http://www.thief-thecircle.com
* http://www.neilstuff.com/thief/run-thief-with-no-cd.htm

Quake and Quake II on a modern system

[Taking a break from music videos for a short, short time.]


I may go into how awesome Quake 1 is someday, I want to address a common problem with newer video cards and graphics chipsets: GLQuake won't work!

The fix:

1. Delete (or rename or move) opengl32.dll from the Quake directory.
2. Play!

Some great console commands for GLQuake are:

• r_wateralpha .8 will make the water slightly transparent
• r_mirroralpha .8 will make slipgates kinda transparent
  
• +mlook will make the mouse work better
  
  
  
  

Also, I wanted to recommend FitzQuake as a good engine for today's needs. So is JoeQuake (gives Quake 3 looks to stuff), but I don't think it's being developed. They're nice and bright (cough, cough IDGamma). Another useful article is here.





Speaking of brightness, what about Quake II? Sure, it wasn't that spectacular of a sequel. It was a departure alright. But, with modern systems the game may be too dark. Here's what you do:

1. Access the configuration file at \%Quake2%\baseq2\config.cfg
2. Look for gl_modulate and change the number to 2.5
3. Look for gl_shadows and change the number to 0
4. Save and play!
   

If you are doing some testing in-game (ad hoc) in console (~ key), make sure to type: "disconnect" to apply the changes.

EverQuest, WoW and Gaming Addiction (Part 3 of 3)

Part one and part two.

Friendship & Guilds

When I played EQ, I already had a friend-base. I had several in-game buddies, but none I would call or email regularly (shout-out to Sutton, Dita, Josefa, Jaxxem, Genka, Damastas, Daymondd and Aegies!) When I started playing World of Warcraft in 2004, it was different. All of my current real-life friends weren't gamers. Soonafter, voicechat (TeamSpeak then Ventrilo) became a part of the game for group raiding, so that intimate act made me closer than I will ever be to any EQ player.

However, EverQuest was still a very social and populated game. I knew a person who had an EQ monthly account just so they could chat. So, both games can be equally addictive for their chatting aspects.

Mithaniel Marr was a great great server. I had no idea when I joined the realm, and would have regretted picking another server. For one, all my college buddies were on it, and secondly, we had Afterlife Guild. You may have heard of the legendary Thott (Aftathott) or Hobben the Strategist. This guild was badass, and set the bar for past and present gaming clans. It was even said that Verant/Sony had an open dialog with the guild, to suggest harder and more compelling end-game content...

There were a few other hardcore guilds on the server, but nothing really touched the daily raiding regimen and DKP system (which they invented) of Afterlife until further expansions (the guild eventually transplanted to WoW). Near the end of my experience, I was able to join Deadly Virtues, which at the time was fairly uber. I once saw a member and was in awe of their spectacular armor, so I kept camping their forums until they wanted a rogue. It was fun, but it was kind of like a job. I had friends to help me out with all sorts of wishlist quests that were too hard for the average party. It was my first taste of real raiding (dragons, Ring War, Luclin) until I joined my first (and only) guild on WoW. Unfortunately, I left EQ only 3 months after I joined that guild.

The Council of the Dedicated may be the oldest active WoW guild on Garona realm. I joined only a month into the game launch, and I never left. At the time, they weren't thinking about raids, and in fact it was a family guild. The guild master's 9-year-old son befriended me and his dad recruited me for casual play. About a year or so later, the guild was booming and we started thinking seriously about "keying up" and hitting the 40-man raid areas like Molten Core. We formed an alliance with and started working our way towards the big leagues. Cowbell Open Raid was a huge success in 2006, and it eventually got us the numbers to go on our own. It was a great time to be in CotD. We even managed to have a guild convention in Minnesota (where most people were). I took off a week from work and flew up there. It was a blast, and the first time I met people from a virtual world. We went to Hooters.

Holidays
Now Blizzard completely trumps SOE when it comes to rewarding their players. I can only remember a few GM Events (as they called them) on EverQuest. One was a week of Halloween spawns in East Karana, which after the fact I was obsessed with (some spectre dropped the best agility ring or earring ever). The sky also turned blood-red in several zones. I think also in Karana there were plague events where bugs would fly around, but I don't recall. It was a gigantic zone. Rathe Mountains had some stuff going on, too.

Occasionally you would ceremonies in town with a ton of decked-out GM's (who had unlimited power, unlike Guides in WoW). And sometimes there would be a wedding (you could get an admin to tie the knot for you). Does anyone remember the time they added a feature to where you could be a random mob? Yes, they actually let you for a short time run around as a cool monster! I do remember logging on as a goblin once and running around. I ran to the nearest player to try and freak him out... I think I died. Someone also told me they spawned as a godlike dragon, but I dunno about that. Now for the big section...

DEATH
There was a certain survival instinct that came with EQ. It was like you were a caveman and everything was out to eat you. You did what you needed to survive, even if it meant trampling others in the way.

Aggro
One stupid thing was distance aggro. EverQuest players learned to avoid this fairly quickly, but I saw this shit happen all the time in WoW. If you're an EQ player, you know how to hug a wall like a champ. World of Warcraft players are clueless about proximity aggro, for the most part. This is because it wasn't as bad as EQ. In EverQuest, aggroing a mob when a party was regenerating mana was a guaranteed death. Most everyone in the game could know exactly how many feet away a mob was, and avoid it. I loved being a rogue because stealth was such a safety net. But, I couldn't avoid everything...

Trains

Before Leeroy Jenkins became a household name through WoW, EverQuest was the innovator for "mob trains". It was a natural thing: When a party became overwhelmed, they jumped ship and headed for the safety of a zone-line, carting behind them sometimes 50 enemies. Because the mobs in EQ never broke off from their pursuit, it was usually a memorable experience if you saw "/ooc TRAIN" and lived. And, any player from the Kunark era knows about trains in Sebilis and Karnor's Castle. Monks could feign death and avoid this, but for all the other classes it was a common threat.

Corpse runs
A corpse run on EverQuest was... ridiculous. From a World of Warcraft perspective, pretend that you died in some lava. In WoW, you're a ghost in a nearby graveyard. You run to the general area of your former body, and simply click "Resurrect" and run away without dealing with the lava. Now, here's EQ: you spawn at a bind point, not a graveyard (usually several, several zones away), you run with minimal health, naked (no items) to where you think your corpse may be and start looking. You realize it is in the lava, and you have to /loot the corpse just like a dead mob. You figure you can use the /corpse command to drag it out of the lava. It barely works (sometimes you were totally fucked), and now you must loot all of your armor and bags and coins. Did I mention you lost a ton of experience, and probably lost your level? So, you must now find a resurrect-casting player to gain back some of that experience, or you're hosed. Next time, remember to die in a good spot...

Probably the most memorable corpse run occurred in a 2 AM Chardok raid. It was in Warslik's Woods, and my home bind point was far away. Our whole late-night dungeon raid died about 2 hours into the zone, which had by then fully respawned. Therefore, we're all naked and can't handle a single mob. Eventually the raid leader called in a necromancer to "casket rez" the whole raid at the entrance. It was so late, and I remember getting up the next morning and barely staying awake.

Dying was a big, big deal in EQ. Not only did you lose valuable experience, and had to run back and get the corpse, but players had to re-equip and re-learn their spells, all while regenerating mana and HP. Mind you, there are no hearthstones to speak of! It was so easy to die in that game.

Hmm, I could play it right now...


The Final Solution: Quitting EQ and WoW
I quit EverQuest cold turkey. My college workload was too much, and I decided that the upcoming expansion (Planes of Power) was going to suck the life out of me. To realize this is the first step to recovery.

I did this liquidating my platinum pieces (pp) and posting 130,000 pp on PlayerAuctions. There weren't really gold farmers on EQ, and money was slow to collect. World of Warcraft players wipe their butts with gold in comparison. Virtual money was an emerging market, and still lucrative for the regular player. The auction didn't last long, and I soon had a buyer who PayPal'ed me the cash. Believe it or not, I sold the money for $500.00! Today, that amount is going for less than $15.00.

I disbanded from my guild on the day that PoP released. I gave away my username/password to an in-game friend. I had little gear, but my bank account in-game was full. To this day, I don't know what came of little Amalgamax. I was told a few years ago that the person who took it over kind of abused the name, and I told my friends it wasn't my doing. I tried to not let it bother me. If you are thinking of giving away your account, beware... there may be some guilt.

I quit WoW differently. I moved to another country, and I knew the internet access and time-change was going to kill my experience. I gave all my remaining funds to my guild's bank, and gave the account over to a coworker at the time. He did the right thing by changing the character name and moving him to another realm. To my knowledge, he still plays and hopefully he is putting my gear to good use. I still miss it.

Epilogue
Well, I hope my blathering and rambling provided an ounce of insight into MMO addiction. EverQuest is over 10 years old, and I just downloaded EverQuest Titanium Edition to try and play offline (using EQEmulator). I am excited that it may work, and for free.

I would love to hear (and link to) several other EverQuest memories and great stories. So, shoot me an email (or write a comment below).

External Links
Remarkably, someone wrote a tune about Link Deaths, trains, corpse runs, downtime: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1cUoSjO7uM

Check Wikipedia's References for lots of interesting reads!

http://webslingers.awardspace.com/eqwayfarer/wayfareri.html

http://www.jdw.ca/eq.html

http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2010/06/02/good-riddance-to-these-game-mechanics-of-yesterday/

http://laundrybox.net/grandeur/history.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J03uinOhI1g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S75f-G_G5A

EverQuest, WoW and Gaming Addiction (Part 2 of 3)

Part 1 is here.

Not to sound like a broken record, but everything in EverQuest was so manual. From a perspective of World of Warcraft, EQ is like DOS command line and WoW is Mac OS GUI. This can be best exemplified by the questing system and other anecdotes.

Questing
To do any kind of questing (even for a small piece of equipment), you have to chat with an NPC. Picture yourself "hailing" a bot named Conium Darkblade and gleaning information out of him like he was a real person. So you're reading all this babble and looking for [words with brackets around them] to figure out how to type a response to Mr. Darkblade. Then, you type the matching words and... nothing happens. You realize you misspelled "the" and re-type the whole thing to finally get to more babble and more [word searching]. It was ridiculous and not fun. But that's not all...

Now picture yourself finally finding the quest piece that you need to turn in to Conium Darkblade (to complete the quest and receive your rewards). Imagine grabbing the quest item from inventory and clicking on the NPC to open trade. Then, when you press the Trade button, nothing happens...... The NPC just ate your item. Well, tough luck. Time to start all over again. No time to think about why, just keep playing for 8 more hours.

Bugs
Which brings me to in-game bugs, exploits and patches. EverQuest was taken down a lot for hotfixes. It was (and still is) rife with bugs and glitches. "You pay to be the bug tester." I remember hearing people losing their characters after a teleportation went totally wrong. Falling through the world was commonplace. Practically every week you had to download updates from Verant and stare at a progress bar. And, some of the servers had different patch problems than others. All the modern MMO's have learned from this, and really haven't topped the EQ clusterfuck of patches breaking more stuff. Blizzard and Warcraft are an absolute joy compared to the quality of SOE.

Epic Quests

The first EQ expansion (Kunark) added epic weapons (also known as particle weapons, because they glowed and sometimes had cool graphics like translucent leaves emanating from them). The rogue's was called the Ragebringer (pictured). All class epics had a "proc" (process) that would trigger something to help defeat or prevent defeat from an enemy. Like the priest's epic (Water Sprinkler) could resurrect a player without any mana cost.

One part of my epic quest was in a place called the Plane of Hate. You had to steal a book from a table, and then give that book to a questgiver. Most people brought dozens of people to raid the area and kill everything, but as a rogue I decided to do it solo. I wasn't playing when my character got the book. I was at work, and over the phone I told my friends how to sneak to the book. By the will of the gods, they somehow avoided disaster and got out of there. I never went back to PoH.

I was extremely scared when I was near the end of my epic quest that I would lose everything and have to start over. The multiple zone, many NPC quest chain involved lots of work, and in the end trading with a high-level mob in a log cabin full of enemies. I was an excellent sneak, but failure was a fact of life for EverQuest. The quest triggers all worked, and I won the Ragebringer.

Items and loot
EverQuest had lots of cool little items that really didn't help you kill enemies, but were just awesome to have. One of those was the Mask of Deception. One of the cool things about EQ player (unless you were on the short end of the stick) is that races like Barbarians and Erudites could see differently. Some could see in the dark better. The Mask changed your race to Dark Elf for 29 minutes. As a bonus, sometimes you could infiltrate an "evil" city as a dark elf instead of a good race. There were other racial masks (including the Holy Grail of the Guise of the Coercer that was impossible to get), and there were other novelty items. I used to carry around Tuuak's Fishing Pole (that did nothing) in one hand and a real fishing rod in the other, because it looked uber to dual-wield them in town.

Ninja looting
Ninja looting was rampant throughout the game. If a decent item dropped for a group of 6 players, the first player who looted the corpse could easily just take it instead of being honest. There was no safety net, there was no automatic dice roll. The only punishment for a ninja looter was social blacklisting and possibly a short ban from the game by a GM. But too many got away with it. I cannot tell you how many times someone looted a group item and then went "LD" (link dead), to never return. I'll admit, I once or twice went LD because I didn't want to be in a dumb group or had to leave the computer, but I never ninja'd.

Being anonymous
That brings me to another WoW vs. EQ comparison: anonymity. In EverQuest, a simple "/anonymous" command could make your level, race and location unsearchable. In essence, you could be alone in peace and quiet. With Blizzard, there is no such thing. How many WoW healers out there would kill for this feature on their downtime? And to boot, everyone can see your WoW gear online... It's a privacy issue, and Blizzard needs to think about protecting individuals from other individuals. I mean, you are paying to play a fantasy game, where you are already mostly anonymous. There is no PATRIOT Act in the online world...

Factions

One of the cool undertones about the game was factions. This concept of "good standing" with a group of people was not a new concept. To gain access to some areas, you had to gain a reputation with the monsters or people in a certain zone. So, if you wanted to walk through an ogre town, you had to kill their enemies (lots of them), in essence.

I remember killing goblins in the Nurga/Droga area for a solid 2 or 3 weeks. Their sworn enemy are the Sarnaks, and the Brood of Di'Zok faction was what I was after. There was a certain (epic) quest for a dungeon key that required running all over. And, in pure EverQuest fashion, one of the quest givers was in the middle of a remote dungeon. To be able to walk through to him, you needed good standing with the Brood. As a rogue, you would think I could just sneak in and waltz out, or maybe use an invisibility potion. Well, the mobs wouldn't be fooled. I could have also just brought a group with me, but it was an unpopular zone. I had no idea why I wanted the key, probably for bragging rights. I never finished the final quest piece, either...

Kunark

That dungeon key quest was just a sliver of what the Kunark continent offered. I absolutely loved the art and the zones there. It was just so jungle crazy, and death was stalking you everywhere. Think of anything that was scary, and it was there.

The first real zone for any newbie was the Lake of Ill Omen. To access the Lake zone, you had to leave the city outpost and run like hell to the zone line. There were giant spider women that you had to outrun to reach the area. If you made it, you were home free because it was a busy, and well-inhabited zone.

In the LOIO, /OOC chat was ridiculous. Because it was level 20-30, it was a proving ground that eventually divides the serious gamers from the tools. And, the chat reflected the absurd and the argumentative features of the internet. Whether it be "/ooc ding 23!" or "/ooc 23 ranger LFG" or "/ooc hepl", it was just major spammage. But the main pull of the area was the experience. The sarnaks there were abundant and fairly easy. There were dozens of camping spots for groups.

I know another Kunark zone that would bring a smile to any seasoned veteran's face: The Overthere. Like LOIO, it had its charm because it was just... odd. It was a huge open field were each "pull" (term for luring mobs to a party) was unique. At any time you could be killing a sarnak, a cockatrice, a golem, a rhinoceros, a sabertooth tiger, a scorpikis or walking cactus. And the experience was good enough to stay there for an entire ten levels. But, one of the charming aspects that kept you on your toes (much like the Fire Swamp), was the Dragoons. If you were a good race, you had to keep an eye out for these guys. Every hour or so, they would patrol the whole zone. If you were close enough to aggro General V'Deer, you had at least 5 Goons whipping your whole group's ass in a matter of seconds. And a corpse run was never fun... TO BE CONTINUED!

[There is still more, including death and beating your addiction....]

PART 3 is here.

EverQuest, WoW and Gaming Addiction (Part 1 of 3)

The prologue
My first foray into MMORPG was in February, 2001--my second semester in college. I had acquired a new roommate and made new friends, and these folks were massive gamers--most of them would flunk out of school because of gaming addiction. My grades would be a victim of the same curse, but I overcame and beat my addiction (or so I thought).

The first semester of college, I was addicted to QuakeWorld and Counter-Strike Beta. The dorm I lived in had its own CS server (called "Celery"), and there were about 20-30 players... even football jocks. It was a great time. But, without a computer of my own, I became a computer-hog to my roommate, and he eventually moved out. A new slacker came in, and I had to fill the gameless void with something.

That game was EverQuest. It is the most addictive game I have ever tried. The Great EQ.

EverCrack aka NeverRest

Let me say first that this is not an anti-EverQuest plea. It is one of those games I will always look fondly upon, and share memories with many people ("remember when you camped Raster for 20 hours straight!?") I will try to explain this in a way that a non-gamer will understand.

The game, released in 1999 was one of the first massively multiplayer games (after Ultima Online), and held the title of "most played online game". It was based on the same universe of the Lord of the Rings--it had elves and dwarves and orcs, with a whole ton of magic and lots of dragons. There was a monthly fee of $9.99, plus the cost of each retail release ($29.99). Expansion releases eventually came out (there are 17 expansions now), and would revamp the game every few years. To my knowledge, it is still a profitable game for the company. It has outlasted many of its contemporaries and is still chugging alongside those new shiny MMOG's that were inspired by it.

I believe the reason why it was so addictive is because there was so much to do, and it took hours upon hours to obtain skills, items and the like. Some items were so rare that they would appear only once a day, and that "camping spot" had fierce competition. The trouble with a persistent world is that it never sleeps. That means to be "the best", one must lose sleep (and let a few real-world chores pile up). Going from level 1 to level 60 takes weeks of gameplay and months of sitting in front of a monitor (it took me a year).

Some people attribute recent games like World of Warcraft and Halo to being the "most addictive". To them I say: try a more demanding game. EverQuest is very long; everything is manual, and there is no way you can play solo at a high level. If you have played EverQuest in the early years and quit cold turkey, you should be able to beat crack cocaine addiction.

Gameplay
I started playing the game when Ruins of Kunark (expansion #1) released. I chose to play a half-elf, half-human character. My archetype was a rogue--a thief/assassin--which I have a certain gravitation toward in all games. When you start, you're at level 1, and all of your skills (swimming, stabbing, sneaking, orienteering, pickpocketing) were level 1 (out of 200). This meant killing rats and snakes to level-up...

Most people begin their journey in town of North Freeport. I can remember it like it was yesterday. This is where all the commerce occurred on my server. Before automatic auctions and the like, you had to sell the item by hand, by advertising in /OOC (out of character) chat. It was a pain. While players watched the sale item text scroll by, they either dueled, practiced tradeskills or killed guards. Unlike in World of Warcraft, you are able to attack any NPC (non-playing character). Guards would shout medieval profanity.

The good thing about beginning in Freeport is that guards do protect you. So, if you're on the outskirts of town and a pack of rats gang up on you, the guards will rescue you with some crippling blows to the rodents. In World of Warcraft, you would die if you ran to a guard for help. But, then again, the rats didn't chase you forever, like in EQ. Nothing breaks off an attack unless it is killed or you are killed.

When you've adjusted to the game and the rats are no longer putting up a fight, wanderlust grabs you. You want to see the world you paid for and maybe move up to rattlesnake killing. Unfortunately, there's zoning about every 5 mins. Every different area was a zone that had to load separately. So, if you planned on journeying, you planned on seeing LOADING... on your temporarily frozen chat screen countless times. Don't get me started on boat travel. Jesus, talk about waiting. You Warcraft players have NO IDEA what waiting 30 min for a boat and then a 20 min boat ride through bug-infested waters.

Rare loot

The next few zones: the Commonlands and the Ro desert, were pretty typical. They had spiders and cougars and skeletons (EQ has a lot of skeletons). To boot, just about every zone in the whole game had rare spawns. These were "mobs" (basically monsters) that would drop gear or weapons that were above average. (Warcraft has rares, but they have average loot and few and far between.) The catch with EQ's rare mobs is that killing them does not guarantee loot. This is a critical part of why EverQuest was so (love it, hate it) addictive. Let me give an example.

During those first months, I leveled up and learned my class skill-set and fared well. My friends were about the same level, and one of the hot items for any player was the "FBSS": the Flowing Black Silk Sash. This was a belt item that gave "haste" (rumored 40% increased attack speed at the time). It was looted from a frenzied ghoul in the frog city of Lower Guk. Now, normally all mobs in the game took 20 minutes to respawn after they were killed. The "frenzy room" where this undead frog lurked would have placeholders. That means the ghoul would not spawn every 20 min--it was more like every 4 hours. To boot, the mob would only drop the FBSS at random. To boot--if and when it dropped--it had to be /rolled on (using the game's dice) by each group member, because the "frenzy" was too hard for just one person. So, it could be weeks of playtime before you had your own sash. Let me give you another example of stingy loot:

"An ancient cyclops" (pictured with a sand giant and another player). This giant in the southern Ro desert dropped an even hotter item: a quest piece for the Journeyman's Boots. In my opinion, this was the most important piece of a equipment in the game. These boots were able to instantaneously cast a "buff" that improved your running speed to be faster than any mob. It was marvelous for anyone, because running away and surviving was a big deal (explained later in the Death section).

The problem was that the cyclops could spawn anywhere in the zone, and it became a searching competition. I once ran a circular search for about 4 hours, only to see the ancient cyclops die within a matter of seconds by someone else's hand. I eventually got my JBoots, but I took the easy way out and paid 3000 platinum (pp) for a multiquest. TO BE CONTINUED!

[There is still lots to talk about and compare, including the quest system, bugs, guilds, ninja looting, "trains" and corpse runs. And, the final solution to overcoming addiction...]

Part 2 is here.

Here is a decent YouTube video with a demonstration of one of the EQ GUI's.