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EverQuest Fan Faire - New Orleans 2004 |
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My visit to the 2004 EverQuest Fan Faire in New Orleans began in earnest when I arrived at the Hilton Riverside hotel Thursday evening; this is where the Fan Faire was held. I was not alone, and arrived with my friend who, like me, played EverQuest for several years on the Torvonnilous server. The Fan Faire Parade was already in full swing when we arrived, but we opted to head in and get our registration badges instead. Since we both pre-registered for the event, I wasn?t expecting any problems. He walked over to the normal pre-registered attendee counter to get his badge, and I strutted over to the V.I.P. table to get my media badge. For whatever reason, they didn?t have it. So I had to skulk over to and wait in line at the table for walk-ins to get a badge printed up. Not a great start, but I forgive them.
There wasn?t much going on yet, so we opted to head down to the Riverwalk and get some food. When we returned, the EverQuest kickoff party was in full swing, and we headed down to the Grand Ballroom to hang out a bit. Imagine a room full of EverQuest fans all drinking and talking about their favorite thing, EverQuest. Neither of us was in a very social mood at the time, so we opted to leave a little early and head over to a friend?s apartment where we were staying for the night. Despite a busted TV, and an evening full of grotesque medical school pictures and stories, we managed to get some sleep.
While some people arrived Thursday evening, the Fan Faire didn?t really start in full force until Friday. While my friend opted to go hang out at the Harrahs Casino across the street for 30 minutes or so, unsurprisingly, he didn?t reappear until later that evening. I went upstairs to check out the EQII Ultimate Elimination Challenge which was already in full swing. The Ultimate Elimination Challenge is a contest between about 30 people to see who can get the most experience in EverQuest 2 in 24 hours. The winner gets a top-of-the-line Alienware computer. They even had a few beds located near the computers with a big sign that said ?Best Questern.?
After watching the contestants, as well as other people just leisurely playing EverQuest and EverQuest 2, I began chatting up a few folks. Let me tell you, EverQuest players are some of the most passionate people you can run across. They understand that it?s just a game, but they also take their hobby very seriously. I was also happy to run across a couple who also played on Torvonnilous. They didn?t recognize my character, Duhulk, but one of them said my friend?s character, Sayjinman, sounded familiar to her. Figures. Anyway, a few of us chatted about the game for a while when it came to our attention that we could get free copies of PlanetSide: Aftershock and EverQuest: Platinum for filling out a short survey; so we did.
Around this time, it was getting close to 2:00, so I headed downstairs to partake in some of the panel discussions. The first one I went to was ?EQ Dev: Maintaining a Living World.? The five SOE folks on the panel were the following: Jason Miller, designer who worked on the task system and 2nd warrior epic, Ryan Barker, designer who works on spells and created the 2nd bard epic, Terry Michaels, programmer, and two others whose names I didn?t catch. One was a content designer, and the other worked on alternate abilities. Also in attendance was Alan Crosby, AKA Brenlo, the community manager who helped keep things on track.
The first issue addressed was older content and what plans they had to revamp it so that it sees more use. Some things the panel commented on were their implementation of zone hotspots, which frequently change around the experience modifiers in older zones to get warm bodies down there. Barker also talked a bit about how it?s in the very nature of these types of expanding games that people will congregate near the newer zones. The existence of legacy content that doesn?t get used much isn?t really a problem, just a reality. A small portion of the discussion was directed specifically at revitalizing the old cities. They said the purpose of putting the guild tribute NPCs in the old city zones was to help do that, though it clearly isn?t enough. Given the age and intricacies of many of the old cities, redoing them would be very time consuming. |
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One member of a high-level guild asked if there was any thought to redoing Plane of Fear, to make it a bit easier, since they get frequent requests by newer guilds to help bail them out of corpse retrieval. The entire room?s response was pretty unanimous. Keep Plane of Fear the way it is; it?s a rite of passage. Similarly, due to its unique nature and the dependences it has with various old epic quests, they have no plans to revamp the Plane of Sky either. It was also asked if there was any thought to making the fabled items temporarily introduced during the 5th anniversary celebration permanent. They?re response was that while they may reintroduce another temporary event, there are no plans to make such things permanent over the long term.
The discussion then moved on to the task system. Being a relatively new system, it still has quite a few bugs in there. I have to give Jason Miller props. He handled this part very well, and certainly managed to keep me laughing with his well timed ?yes? and ?no? responses to certain questions. I couldn?t resist taking my own little shot at him by asking whether my 57 warrior was suppose to be getting tasks that take him to Veeshan?s Peak. His response, an exasperated but humorous, ?yeah, that?s not in the game anymore.?
The topic then shifted towards the economy. The biggest problem with the EverQuest economy was that the game was never designed to last nearly as long as it has. As a result, inflation and chaotic pricing has always been an issue. The devs acknowledged that while the tribute system was meant to help this somewhat by introducing money and item sinks to take things out of the economy, it really seems to focus more on the mid-level guilds, while the majority of the wealth is found in the highest guilds. There were also concerns that there was a discrepancy in the quality of items vs. the amount of tribute points given. The initial response, ?I could change it, and you?ll hate me.? They based the tribute points more on bazaar prices than anything else apparently. Jason Miller chimed in with ?Who wants taxes? I do, I do.? It carried a facetious tone, though it was clear he was serious to some extent. One excellent idea a player put forward was the concept of cheap, no-rent horses. Running about 100-200 plat, these would be affordable alternatives to the normal, mega expensive, horses, although they would only last until you logged off. The devs seemed receptive to the idea, though, as always, no promises.
The final topic that I was there for (I only stayed for about half of it as this panel was longer than others and I wanted to catch a few more) was class tuning. The term usually applied is class balance, but Crosby said he hated that term as it didn?t make much sense. You aren?t really trying to balance classes against each other; you?re just trying to tune them so they are wanted by groups and raids. Anyway, a large portion of this was spent by dunderheads asking specific class questions after Crosby and about half the panel made it clear that they wanted the questions to remain general for now. A few of the points touched were the following:
- While it?s easy to change a number, like DPS, the ramifications are huge, and that?s why they don?t do anything too quickly.
- The Top 10 Class Problems lists that they asked players to make awhile back haven?t gotten responses. They say the players were supposed to have a comprehensive list to upkeep for the devs to look at.
Additionally, Crosby said that they are currently working on new definitions for each class so that everyone can be on the same page about what they intend each classes role to be in the current game. They called for a short break at that point, so I headed off to the next panel.
This one was about EQ lore. There were just two folks on this panel, Holly Longdale, who is the developer in charge of lore, and Harvey Burgess, someone new to the team and the creator of the new monk epic. The first thing Longdale commented on was the recent re-introduction of Firiona Vie into the storyline. She seemed to want to make it clear that the developers realize that players haven?t really responded well to the Wayfarer?s brotherhood storyline. So hopefully they?re going to be moving away from that. They are hoping to go back and, in the near future, tie up some loose ends to certain plot elements. The reintroduction of Firiona Vie probably has something to do with that.
One of the things Longdale and Burgess seemed interested in was re-introducing factions as critical components to expansions, similar to the way that Scars of Velious had the three primary factions. The players in the room seemed keen on the idea, as long as it wasn?t made too tedious and there were always ways to fix factions. There was also mention of epic quests to reset certain factions that you screw up. |
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The issue of zone revamps was also discussed at this panel. Burgess? comment on the matter was that they?d love to, but some things are more important right now. There seemed to be some consensus among the players present that they missed the old lore and weren?t terribly fond of the new. This was a rather biased crowd though. Most of them, Longdale included, seemed to be rather hardcore role-players. Not that role-players can?t be impressive. She mentioned a level 55 character who has never, ever, grouped with an evil race. No lore discussion is complete without someone mentioning Mistmoore. Longdale said they weren?t ruling him out, but there are no plans anytime soon.
The final panel discussion I attended was ?The Basics of EverQuest II.? Unsurprisingly, there weren?t many folks on the panel as the teams are busy, busy, busy back in San Diego getting the game ready for launch. The two guys on the panel were Steve Danuser, Moorgard, the EQII Community Manager, and Chad Halley, an environment artist. Poor Moorgard looked a little wiped out, but he was a trooper and did a good job.
They covered a few of the basics first. EverQuest II is not suppose to be a true sequel; it?s suppose to be a complimentary product with EverQuest. The idea is for it to appeal to a slightly different audience. The game itself is set 500 years after the waking of the Sleeper. They were supposed to have a PC present to show off areas of the game, but it didn?t work out that way. It seems they got one for the Saturday presentation as I saw Moorgard in the game popping from area to area, assumedly showing off various zones.
The game is going live on November 8th, and they hope to have it in stores ready to be put in players? hands on the same day. The game itself has already gone gold, and they have locked down art assets until release. That way, players shouldn?t have to do too much patching on release day since most of the downloads will be small code updates, rather than huge art files. They also said voice-over patches will be part of optional patches since they aren?t technically required for the game to be played.
The general line people like to throw out about EverQuest II is that it appeals more to ?casual gamers.? Danuser said he hated the term ?casual gamer,? as it can mean very different things to different people. The game is still designed to be primarily played in groups, though they always offer something for solo players to do. Instead of using the term casual gamer, he said a more accurate description was that one of their primary design goals was to allow players to accomplish something in smaller chunks of time.
One thing that was mentioned some time ago about EQII that seems to have vanished was the mention of long time EverQuest players being able to ?inherit? something from their EQ1 toon in EQ2. That idea has since split off into two concepts. One is the heritage quests that allow you to get classic EQ items like a greater light stone or a flowing black silk sash. The other aspect, that I had never heard anything about until the panel, was their plan to have merchants that can only be used by long time EQ1 players that may sell ?fun? things like paintings that depict scenes from EQ1 or titles. |
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Another topic that was touched on was the way death works in EverQuest 2. It?s common knowledge at this point that you don?t lose experience at death, but rather get an experience debt and a penalty to some stats. Corpse retrievals aren?t the same as the original EverQuest either. Rather than having to return to your corpse to retrieve your equipment, you return to a ?spirit shard? to remove ? of your experience debt and the stat penalties. If you can?t get back to your shard, your stats will return to normal in three real days.
The most controversial aspect of the EverQuest 2 death system is shared experience debt. When you die alone, you take the full experience debt. In a group, however, the debt is shared evenly among all members when you die. So if one person dies in a full group, everyone gets 1/6 of the debt they would have dying solo. If everyone in the group dies, everyone gets exactly the same debt as if they died solo. One of the problems players have is that you share the experience debt even if you are nowhere near the person... even on the other side of a huge zone like Antonica or Commonlands. Moorgard said the reason for this is that if you didn?t, you?d get idiots who would just try to run outside the range of the experience debt every time something bad happened.
They also talked about how guilds work in the game. Guilds actually have levels in EQ2. Guild levels can unlock things like guild halls, housing, quests, and even raids. Players can do special quests that gain them status points, which can be spent on things like mounts and housing. They can also use status points to gain guild experience. Guild status will also degrade overtime, so players will constantly need to be doing quests for the guild. In order to prevent huge guilds from having an advantage in earning guild levels, every guild is allowed to have 30-36 patron members. Only members who are patrons can earn status points for the guild. Guilds are based in either of the two cities, and while you can be a Freeport citizen and join a Qeynos guild, you can?t be a patron member.
A few smaller things touched on were the fact that the U.I. will be fully customizable and skinnable like EQ1. I raised some concern about the 50 quest limit recently put in. The limit was put in because certain characters were getting corrupted from having too many quests. Still, 50 really isn?t high enough, and I?m confident they?ll probably raise it a bit before release. Someone also asked if there were any plans to actually let characters sit in chairs. They said they?d like to, but it?s not a high priority at the moment. Finally, no EverQuest II panel is complete without a comparison to World of Warcraft. To put it succinctly, Moorgard said World of Warcraft was a great game, but is designed differently. It rushes you to the high-end of the game for the fun part, while EverQuest II adopts a ?the fun is in the journey? mentality with fun stuff to do at every level.
At this point, it was 5:00 p.m. and the panels were over. I hung around awhile and talked with Moorgard and Halley. We slowly made our way back upstairs just as the elimination contest was taking a break. As of then, the highest level character was a guy named Jerrithia who was level 12. It was easy to see why he was in the lead; he was the only guy I saw with a binder that he made himself, which included instructions on which quests to do, where, and when to maximize his experience. In the end though, it was Omni who won, hitting level 16 Saturday evening.
The grand reception didn?t start until 8:00 p.m., and there was nothing scheduled for the next two hours, so I spent the time hanging out and talking with various folks. I found this one retired player who told some very entertaining stories about the ?old days? of EverQuest. Things like giving -20 hit point tunics to a poor level one character who only had 20 hit points or less. There were also some dealers around peddling things, so I looked. There was a table selling official Sony Online Entertainment items such as the novel they kept pimping out the whole Fan Faired called ?EverQuest: The Rogue?s Hour,? written by Scott Ciencin. They also had an assortment of books for the pen & paper EQ game. There were also several tables that offered other types of things, such as character figurines based on your actual in-game character, goblets, chains, and jewelry... many with class insignias.
My friend finally showed up again, with a much lighter wallet I would imagine, and we headed down to the grand reception. While the kickoff party the previous night had looked kinda ratty, chaotic, and messy, the hall for the grand reception looked very nice. We found the Torvonnilous table and met a few more folks from our old server. We chatted awhile, but couldn?t stay too long as Sayjinman had unexpected family in town, so we needed to head back to Baton Rouge around 9:00 p.m. We said our goodbye?s and left the Fan Faire a day early. I was a little disappointed that we wouldn?t be able to participate in the live quest Saturday afternoon, but aside from that, the schedule of events was pretty similar, so hopefully we didn?t miss out on too much. SOE were great hosts, and the fans didn?t scare me too much ;>, so it was a fun time overall. Until next time! |
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-Alucard, GameVortex Communications AKA Stephen Triche |
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