2 weeks back: First ImpressionsFollow

The way the game has become with mercs there's basically no grouping until about 75 unless you find yourself a guild and make friends. With mercs though it really is pretty simple 1-70 though.

I was never much of a fan of DS to begin with and with it being a hotzone i still tend to avoid it, although i did DS PL an alt there recently since its so unbelievably easy to create a massive train in that zone.

The guild lobby thing varies by server, it seems. On Cazic, there are MGBs going off all hours of the day and night. It's to the point where if you leave the keyboard for an hour, you'll come back fully raid buffed.

Mercs were a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing for those whose time (or patience) is limited so LFG isn't a good option. It's a curse because mercs basically give people a way to avoid socializing in the conventional EQ way (i.e. in groups) so the social bonds many of us old timers formed in years past, don't really happen. For me personally, mercs cost me some of my dearest friends (who were mainly clerics with a few warriors as well). These were folks who played the class because they liked helping others and being needed, not necessarily because the class was so fun to play. Granted, I have their characters so they can come back at any time but with the merc addition and the way other games have implemented their cleric/priest class(es), there's rarely a desire to return. They've turned the page on the EQ chapter of their gaming life and moved on. Don't even get me started on the warriors ("So wait, I have to spend months camping a handful of spawns for augs so I can do my job adequately but some NPC can do it BETTER unless I get a few thousand AA? Screw that, I'm gone!"). The merc damage dealers can't hold a candle to real players because they lack the subtlety/knowledge required (like the fact that you need to stand under a dragon's belly to hit it with spells. My Paladin's merc wizard blew her entire mana bar "nuking" fabled Gorenaire from max range. I had to log in a real wizard to come do the job properly).

I came back in January after being away for about eight months. The game's still fun, even without most of my friends playing anymore. I've always been a self-starter (in RL and in games) so I set goals for myself and have fun pursuing them.

I've noticed something about Elidroth's work with the hotzones. In every set, he has at least one zone that you scratch your head at. You wonder if he actually plays the game even. Zhisza in the previous set was an example (the zone's too small to be a hotzone. One group, in today's gear, can clear it all) and Dranik's Scar in this set is another (not to mention Plane of Disease). You also have to wonder about things with the design of the hotzone augs. Seems like they've gotten worse over time, but maybe that's just my perception. But yeah, you're much better off sticking to Goru'kar for that range than bothering with DS or even Great Divide. You can easily do Blightfire to Stone Hive to Goru'kar.

There is something that's all the rage in MMO development now that I am convinced EQ's devs don't do.

Data mining.

In other words, taking the data of user activities (what people DO, not like forums which is only what they SAY) and using that data to assist your development focus. I first became aware of it with City of Heroes (where data mining is used to the nth degree, almost fanatically), like finding out what powers "everyone" took (the fitness pool as the most obvious example) and how they spent their time (outside, in missions, in social areas, etc). EQ's devs don't use this technique at all and what leads me to believe that are their design choices in and between expansions. That may change some but not much. For example, I can almost guarantee that in the next expansion, an anti-swarming mechanic is going to be introduced.

Speaking of, one thing that tells me the devs don't actually play their game is that 12th anniversary mission (Infiltrating the Guardian). Seriously, did you NOT think people were going to find a way to use a scalable mission for farming purposes? That's probably why the mobs inside don't drop any real loot.