Everything But The Kill : EQ2

As Telwyn posted yesterday, the signature crafting questline that wasn't ready for prime time when the Planes of Prophecy expansion launched last year is coming to EQ2 next week as the center-piece of GU105. With Domino long gone back to Canada and Daybreak evidently operating on reduced resources all round, I wouldn't presume to comment on the overlap between what you might argue would once have been discrete expansion and live content. I'm just glad we're getting a full tradeskill questline at all.

The quest is currently available on Test, where the invaluable and astonishingly dedicated Naimi Denmother of EQ2Traders is among the selfless players slogging through buggy, undocumented content so the rest of us can whine and complain when we coast along on their coat-tails in a week or two. That she's doing so while quite seriously unwell says volumes. Thanks, Mom!

I read her first post on the work in progress with some fascination. What she says is revealing; what I read between the lines even more so.

It's likely that when most people think of crafting they imagine a rather staid, static activity with characters standing at crafting stations performing the same rote actions over and over. Indeed, in many MMORPGs, crafting consists of little more than making sure you have all the correct materials then pressing a single key and watching a progress bar fill.

Tradeskilling in EQ2 has always required a very great deal more interaction and attention than that but under Domino's influence questing for crafters became indistinguishable from questing for adventurers. Perhaps the only difference was that crafters weren't required to fight anything.

The passing of the mantle from a tradeskill specialist to the shoulders of developers more used to making content for adventurers has narrowed the gap yet further. You still don't need to equip a weapon but you can forget any ideas you had about relaxing with something light and fluffy.

You have no idea what you're in for, do you?

Reading Naimi Denmother's detailed first quest walkthrough just about brought me out in a cold sweat. Fortunately, I know from long experience that most EQ2 quests look more daunting on paper than they turn out to be in game. Even so...

A timed instance that boots you if you fail to complete your tasks in time. Epic mobs that have to be avoided or stunned with crafted bombs - and lots of them. Multiple stages. Puzzles. And as for the crafting itself, many combines that take a skilled crafter using a progress potion over two minutes each to finish...

That is not for the faint-hearted. And it's only the opening quest in a run of five. What have they saved for the finale? I'd say I'm looking forward to finding out but I'm not sure I want to know!

So much for the content. There's also the timescale involved in bringing it to us. Naimi says that devs Gninja, Caith and the rest are "swamped" and that "It is beyond insane right now and we have such a tiny window of time to test this in that it is already stressful." It would seem that DBG's diminished resources are stretched almost to breaking point trying to get this done in time to include it in the Update.

All of which makes it even more impressive that they're doing it anyway. Yes, there will be bitter complaints when everything doesn't work perfectly. Yes, there have been moans for months that the questline should have been in the expansion in the first place. But it was ever thus.

In the entire time I've played EQ2, which is as long as there's been an EQ2, nothing the devs have done has ever been good enough for some people and too often those people have the loudest voices. Back when they had Sony's money to throw around and the dev team was who knows how many sizes larger, the forums still rang with complaints - too late, too little, too buggy.

We'll have none of this kind of behavior, thank you!

What's more, much of the ire will spill over to the volunteers on Test, who are clearly all just lazy moochers only there for the easy ride and the accelerated xp. People who would never spare a moment of their own exceptionally valuable time to test anything at all seem to have no trouble finding hours to spend on the forums blasting those who did. Even the few who pop in for just long enough to find out it requires some effort before logging out in a huff are more interested in telling DBG how they could organize their testing better than, y'know, doing some testing.

Not that I'm selfless enough these days to test much myself but at least I'm not about to slap the hand that's trying to help make my life easier. Especially when someone who's working the hardest to make my live experience as good as it could be is doing it while she's "sick, stressed, sleep-impaired, and upset."

I promise right here and right now not to complain about the implementation of the PoP Signature Crafting Questline; not to moan if it's buggy or whine that it should have been here months ago. I do reserve the right to critique its content and approach, to say what I do and don't like about it and to make suggestions about how it could be improved.

I'm not giving DBG a pass on the quality, style or appropriateness of the content they produce but I am cutting them some slack on when and how it makes it into the game because I am just happy they're still in there pitching. And honestly, I feel they're doing a fantastic job. When there were more of them with more money it wasn't always any better than this. Sometimes it was a lot worse.

And as for Niami Denmother - look after yourself! We don't have Domino any more - we can hardly afford to lose you too! If I see you online I'll be sure not to say hi!

Chipping Away At The Foundations : EQ2

I haven't logged into EQ2's Beta Server yet but I have been browsing the forums, where the tone is markedly different from the grinding negativity of Live. Similarly, the /Test chat channel, which I've been in for a decade and more following my five year residency on Test as my main server, has been buzzing with positivity as the stalwarts there take a run at the next Holiday on the rank, Hero's Festival.

The EverQuest games have always benefited from a strong culture of dedicated service among a subset of players, those who have always understood that MMORPGs are a collaborative hobby as much as a commercial enterprise. From the Guide program, through well-established, permanent Test servers to an extensive and well-organized beta process with a full supporting incentive and reward structure, determined, invested players and developers have co-operated to build the best games possible.

The latest iteration of this worthy and welcome process is the Daybreak Insider program. I haven't signed up yet but only because I'm not sure I can offer the time and commitment just now. It looks like a good way to become involved in the future direction of the MMOs we play and enjoy, not to mention getting some insider gossip and advance knowledge. I wonder if there's an NDA?

Stats! We love 'em!

The reason I was on the Beta forums this morning was to see what people were saying about crafting. While I have four Level 100 adventurers ready to go and an instant Level 100 token in the bank, I only have two max level crafters.

The Collector's and Premium Editions of Planes of Prophecy both come with the first ever Tradeskill Boost but I didn't buy either of those and I'm not going to upgrade. In any case, it's not getting to the starting line that concerns me - it's getting to the finish.

The last few expansions all came with fully fleshed-out crafting questlines that matched the adventure version in depth and complexity. Well, almost. They were substantial and satisfying, anyway, and for every expansion since Velious the crafting line has been the one I completed first.

That was when we still had Domino. Now that she's gone back to Canada things are different. I'm not even sure EQ2 has a dedicated Tradeskill dev any more and we already know there won't even be a Signature Tradeskill Questline when PoP launches. It's scheduled to be added in an update at an as-yet unspecified later date.

Nevertheless, we'll be getting ten more levels on November 28th. With no questline to bump up the xp, my Weaponsmith and Sage are both going to have to settle down at workstations and grind writs.

According to the Beta forums, at the moment that's a mountain to climb. There was a brief period when crafting xp flowed like water but that was because of a beta buff. Once that was switched off the complaints began to pour in.

There was good reason for the change. It wasn't just to slow testers down or make it harder for them to get the promised reward for hitting max level in Beta. As Caith, one of the EQ2 devs, put it on Discord:

"The reason we turned off the beta bonus xp is so that we can get an accurate picture of how it would be on live, and adjust as required".

Very sound. Unfortunately, not all of the necessary pieces are yet in place to give an accurate reading. The invaluable and indefatigable Niami Denmother explains it thus:

"You need to do level 100 or higher rush orders or work orders. (Only level 100+ have the new xp rewards on completion) *Currently* they're using Maldura recipes for the level 100 ones and not everyone bothered to get those recipes. This is temporary. They've cobbled together a leveling path for all the eager testers while they're still working on the real writs, and some other crafting goodness for us. We've got a month - they ARE making progress, we're just trying to progress faster than they can keep up."

Isn't it always the way? Players burn through content so much faster than developers can churn it out - even in Beta.

Sparkles are good

Meanwhile I'm working on my harvesting skills. It's all very well getting an instant Level 100 crafter
but unless you plan on buying all your mats from the broker (very expensive) you're going to need at least one maxed-out harvester to go and get the stuff.

Or maybe not. These days anyone can gather or mine or lumber or fish. The minimum skill levels were removed a while back. All that happens now, when you harvest a node well above your skill level, is that you fail a lot. Which is fine, because you also get a skill-up on most attempts, successful or otherwise.

So, you can go out and gather the mats you need if you have the patience and skill up while you're doing it. It's a monumentally slow process though. And you don't get any rares at all until your skill passes the former threshold.

I spent an hour this morning harvesting in Sinking Sands with my Level 100 Inquisitor who is also a Level 50 Carpenter. She was boosted from nothing to 100 and has never done much field work. With a cap of 500 based on her Adventure level most of her skills were in the 20s. After an hour they're all around 100 and she has enough mats to do a few levels on Rush Orders.

Too lazy even to get off the horse.

I could find out what the relevant trade questline is for her level and go do that. If there is one. I'm not sure there is. It depends who the tradeskill lead was when the game was going through the fifities. If it was Behn there'll be nothing.

If I did, though, she still wouldn't have the harvesting skills because most craft quests provide their own mats or don't use any. There's a whole separate Harvesting questline - several in fact - that I could do to catch up. I've written about that before. It's very good. Maybe I'll do that.

Only, harvesting is really relaxing. And fun. And satisfying. It is in most MMOs but especially so in EQ2. What's more, if you're catching up on a level 100 in older zones, everything's gone grey. The wildlife wanders past you and leaves you alone. You can drift.

That's the one I want!

Even in level-appropriate zones at 100, geared up from the last expansion, topped out with panda hand-me-downs and guarded by an equally well-turned-out mercenary, there are precious few interruptions to the zen-like calm brought by knocking chips off rocks.

I took my Berserker around Phantom Sea and Obulos Frontier for a couple of hours on Saturday, buffed up with an old potion I dug out of the bank that came from when I was still religiously doing my Crafting Apprentice quests every day.

With maxed skills, harvesting AAs and items and the boost my Berserker/Weaponsmith has a 27% chance per strike of getting a "Bountiful Harvest" (more stuff) and a 9% bonus to his chance of finding a Rare. It was Rares I was after, looking to supply my Warlock/Sage so he could upgrade his, the Necro's and the Inquisitor's 90s spells to Expert before the expansion lands.

I have no idea what to do with this but it sells for 84k Plat...

It was a very successful run. I came back with eighteen rares. Naturally, only two of them were the specific rares I needed but if necessary I can sell the wrong ones and buy the right ones with the proceeds. I won't though. I'll end up using them all.

I also bagged some rares I didn't know what to do with and after investigating them I realized I barely even understand EQ2's spell progression any more. Or the augment system. Or the various upgrading options for gear. It's so ferociously overwrought after fourteen years of continual development I'd be amazed if anyone knows what's going on.

And that's the fun of it. Come the new expansion it'll be all change again. I'm going to try and catch up then, in theory if not in practice. I can hardly wait!

All of which means this probably isn't the best time to be revisiting old systems and trying to remember how they work. I think I'll just go and hit some rocks. That, at least, never seems to change.

Currently Residing In The "Where Are They Now?" File...

As MassivelyOP's annual trawl and Wilhelm's drill-down on Blizzard suggested, 2017 was hardly a vintage year for April Fools' jokes. Maybe in a world soaked with fake news, where every day something real happens that we only wish was someone's crazy fantasy, we're all happier humming along with Morrissey. (And you can find that video clip in the dictionary under "Irony").

I've never liked April Fool's Day - well, not since I was seven years old - so I'm more than happy to see it fade away. Even in MMOs it's never been a holiday I look forward to with any enthusiasm. At best it's a lackluster celebration and at worst it can be intensely irritating.

I do like free stuff, though, and I do like short, easy quests that reward house pets and mounts and tokens to spend at vendors who stock things I actually want to buy. All of which is pretty much the house style in EQ2 these days.

As I was pottering through this year's new quest for Bristlebane Day (a holiday that actually lasts almost two weeks, although there are even more high jinks on the High Silly Day itself) I started thinking about how well SOE, and now DBG, does these kind of events. That, naturally, put me in mind of Emily "Domino" Taylor, who did so much to foster that reputation.

It occurred to me that, after all the commentary about her decision to return to Canada for what turned out to be as much political reasons as anything else, we didn't seem to have heard much about what she might have ended up doing there. The last I'd seen was a post on her own seldom-updated blog.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to fly down here?

So I set about stalking her doing a little research, which pretty much consisted of checking her Twitter feed and LinkedIn. Anyone can be Bob Woodward nowadays.

It turns out that Domino is now a Producer at Smoking Gun Interactive. No, me neither. They seem to have a close relationship with Microsoft, for whom they currently provide Age of Empires: Castle Siege, the "#1 grossing game on Windows Store" as well as some titles for XBox and Kinect. They also worked with NASA on a Mars Rover game.

I'd tell you more about the company itself but the "About" page plays music you can't turn off and I literally couldn't concentrate to read. It was like a time-trip to the late '90s and not at all in a good way. Give it a go - it's like an April Fool experience you can have all year round!

Anyway, that's where Domino is now. The focus of SGI appears to be mobile and small-scale. Also retro - their last project was a revamp of the "classic" Microsoft Solitaire Collection for Android and iOS. Whether there's anything MMO in the works I would somewhat doubt.

If there's not then that would be a shame.  I'm sure Domino's an excellent hire to produce any genre of video game but she's an MMORPG creator par excellence and MMOs need people who think the way she does about content and immersion and inclusion.

All of which makes a little something I noticed about her LinkedIn profile particularly intriguing. Now, I'm not on LinkedIn, not being self-employed and anyway already having this platform right here to promote my all-round magnificence, so I am not entirely up to speed on how it works.

Looking positively palatial. Who'd believe these tiles only cost one gold a pop?

I may be reading something into this that isn't there. It may simply be a function of how LinkedIn entries are structured or a reflection of contract expiration dates or just a plain oversight. With those caveats, Domino's current entry does say this:

Producer
Smoking Gun Interactive Inc.
March 2017 – Present (2 months)Vancouver, Canada Area

Lead Game Designer
Daybreak Game Company LLC
March 2016 – Present (1 year 2 months)

She was "contributing to prototyping of an unannounced title" at DBG so maybe she's still doing consultancy on it. Of course, these days, even MMO developers aren't interested in making MMOs anymore, so maybe it doesn't matter much anyway.

Good luck in Vancouver, Domino. I hope your cat settles in soon. Put some butter on her paws, that's what my Grandma would have done. Then again, she told me if I swallowed chewing gum it would wind around my heart and I'd die so maybe not...

Triple Threat: Smed, Domino, Dociu

For many years one of the things I found most confusing about the MMO scene and the people who follow it was the way individual game developers would sometimes be talked and written about as though they were rock stars. It seemed to me as peculiar as if the owner of a refrigerator were to praise the vision and skill of the factory worker who put the parts together.

It seems odd, my attitude, in retrospect. Not only did I come to MMO "fandom" fresh from a couple of decades reading comics, during which time I attended conventions, presented panels, interviewed artists and writers and wrote extensively for fanzines, but also I played video games throughout the 1980s.

Those were the days when the typical media representation of a video game creator was either a precocious social outcast coding his way (and it was always a "he") to a million from his teenage bedroom or an eccentric, bearded quasi-hippy expressing the kind of offbeat individuality more usually found in second division provincial prog rock.

The twin ideas, then, that a collective, commercial enterprise could be driven by the vision of individuals and that video games were a form of personal, creative expression, should have been well established in my worldview. Nevertheless, by the time I came to understand that MMOs weren't simply the inevitable byproduct of technological progress but something made by humans, those logical links seemed to have fractured.

It used to annoy me quite a lot when, on forums I frequented, people would refer to developers, designers or producers by name, according them the kind of stature, respect or admiration that a music fan might routinely give to a favorite songwriter or instrumentalist. It seemed deeply inappropriate, uncomfortable, embarrassing. To be frank, I thought it was gauche.

Over time, as I became embedded more and more deeply in the MMO milieu, some of the discomfort faded. I became familiar first with the names and later with their achievements. I began to develop some knowledge and even understanding of the history of the medium and the form and with this context the constant name-checking began to feel less like bizarre affectation and more like technical jargon.

Although I adopted, almost by osmosis, the coloration of the environment within which I now moved I still struggled badly with the overwrought emotional intensity that sometimes came with that territory. I was comfortable with reference but not with deference. I recognized that the games were made and that named individuals made them but still it seemed to me that this was a technical rather than an artistic achievement and should be addressed accordingly.

This persisted for a long, long time. It can't be that many years ago, certainly in the life of this blog, when I first came across "Developer Appreciation Week" and felt my hackles rise. Why I might have reacted that way, only five or six years ago, somewhat mystifies me now.

Over the intervening years I have, at last and not before time, come to share most of the opinions and attitudes towards the people who make these games and this hobby possible expressed so well by Rowan in his opening paragraph here. While I, too, may criticize as much, or more, than I praise, even that criticism comes, these days, with full recognition and understanding that everything we see, hear and do in our MMOs derives directly from the imagination, effort and endeavor of named individuals.

All of which is a very long preamble to contextualize my reaction to a trio of apparently unrelated news items from the past week.

First there was the announcement that John "Smed" Smedley, last seen going down with the good ship "Hero's Song" as captain of the doomed PixelMage Games, had bobbed up, not clinging to the wreckage but safe on board a much larger vessel, indeed back in the Captain's chair, at Amazon Games.

Second came the departure of Daniel Dociu, GW2's art director and the man who "has been defining the art direction for ArenaNet since 2003". Shamefully, until I read the news that he was leaving, I could not have named the man whose influence and oversight led to what I have frequently referred to as the jewel in ArenaNet's crown, its ineffably confident, secure and professional visual style.

Thirdly, freighted with the most emotional heft by far, came the news that Emily "Domino" Taylor is leaving Daybreak Games. Domino is not only my personal pick for the most consistently reliable MMO developer with whose work I am directly familiar but also the one who is most clearly emblematic of what I believe a developer should be.

Her work is not just sprightly, lively and fun but also logical, coherent and constructive. In two lengthy stints, first with SOE and then with DBG, she both created a wealth of excellent content herself and inspired an extended period in which development around her appeared to take a healthy, positive direction.

Also she once posted a comment on this blog, which, apart from being pleasing for my ego, demonstrates a degree of involvement with the wider hobby that exemplifies why my own attitudes towards the people who make it all possible have changed so much over time. We really are all in this together.

What these three personnel changes mean for the industry as a whole and the MMOs I play in particular is not yet clear. That. naturally, won't deter me from speculating.

As far as impact on existing games goes, probably the move that will impact players the least is Daniel Dociu's departure. The look and feel of GW2 is by now surely too established to change significantly. What's more, Daniel is succeeded in post by his son, Horia, who has himself been working on the same team for as long as his father. I would expect business as usual to be the watchword there.

Domino has left Norrath before. Based on previous evidence I wouldn't expect to see any radical change of direction in EQ2 either. Last time crafting, Domino's prime, although not sole, area of influence, carried on by and large along the same heading. You don't just slot in another visionary of Domino's class, though, and while it was steady sailing without her last time the difference when she returned was immediate and marked. She will be missed but how much depends on who replaces her and what resources they are given to empower their own vision.

Smed, of course, doesn't leave a game behind him from which he could be missed. Hero's Song crashed and burned. The MassivelyOP thread following the announcement is filled with conspiracy theories pondering the timing and the provenance of that simple, uncomfortable fact. Not to mention how very closely the staff of Smedley's new San Diego operation reassembles that of Pixel Games. Oh well, at least everyone got their money back. Somehow.

Looking to the future, the prospects for us as players and the three developers (if we can call Smed that) seem more vague. There seems to be no information available yet about where Daniel Dociu might go or what he might do. All that's said is that he's leaving ArenaNet. He's 59. He might be taking early retirement. He might be ill. He might be changing career paths.

Dociu certainly has no shortage of options. To quote his own biographical details, "Daniel is a prolific freelance artist, contributing to numerous publications, advertising, film and world wide educational and public speaking engagements. With his skill and talent any MMO would be lucky to nab him but I'll be quite surprised if any does. Even Amazon.

Domino already has a new job. She's just not ready to tell us what it is. Unless she's remote-working it won't be Amazon for her, either: "it feels like time to return home to Canada, and remember what shoveling snow is like" she commented with typical whimsy. With her management background it could easily be any kind of supervisory position but her heart always seems to be set in gaming so it would be a surprise to see her re-appear in an unrelated industry. Does Canada have any MMO developers though?

All of which just leaves Smed, who one Massively commenter memorably described as a cross between a cat and a cockroach because he always falls on his feet and would probably survive a nuclear war. I savored that comment because otherwise it's disturbing the way the tone of the comments on Massively have veered of late towards some kind of rehabilitation for Smedley.

The previous knee-jerk reaction that could be relied on to paint the industry veteran as some kind of mustachio-twirling villain from a Victorian melodrama is being replaced by an equally un-nuanced picture of Smed as The Old Lion brought down by hyenas. To me he seems more and more like a management executive who, whether by inclination or imperative, has donned the clothes of a creative. He reminds me a little of the great Rock Managers of yore - Peter Grant or Colonel Tom Parker or, perhaps most tellingly of all, Malcolm McLaren.

What games Amazon want or expect him to make we have no idea. It would seem odd if it was anything entirely different from the games he's famous for but whether it will be something old-time MMO players will want to acknowledge or own as an MMO I wouldn't be so sure. Early talk of "an ambitious new project that taps into the power of the AWS Cloud and Twitch to connect players around the globe in a thrilling new game world" suggest something most people reading this probably will only download out of curiosity.

Whatever the future holds for these three significant players in the field I wish them all well. Even Smed, although where he's concerned I mostly hope Amazon keep him the hell away from any MMO I'm trying to play. Oh well, I guess if anyone has the infrastructure to shrug off a DDOS attack it would be Amazon.

Video games in general and MMOs in particular are strange. Here we are, talking about these people and the impact their job changes may have on our entertainment and yet the youngest of the three, Domino, must be in her early 40s, while Smed is in his late 40s and Daniel Dociu almost 60. The average age of the people who make our MMOs seems out of kilter with what I see in other media I consume, where the drive and innovation comes mostly from people twenty or thirty years younger.

If there's to be a real step-change in MMOs I'm not sure it can ever come from giant corporations like Amazon or industry veterans like Smed. While I'll watch what they do with interest it won't be with any great expectation. When change comes it will be sudden and from a direction no-one's looking.

Or we can hope so, at least.