EverQuest Finally Starts to Roleplay.

… or so I thought.

Verant finally decided to put up a “Roleplaying Perferred” server. Its got a few rules over and above the regular server and a semi-complicated alignment system with exp penalties for grouping with the wrong sort of people and of course the infamous “Trivial Loot Code”. Most of these rules are well and good, and I think outline a roleplaying system quite nicely. However…

Arguably, one of the best roleplaying game systems ever created came out of TSR in the form of its many versions of Dungeons and Dragons. Over the years, I’ve played a few of these and one thing remained constant: TSR would put out book after book outlining spells, equipment, lands, history, classes and all the nit-picky goodness, but never in any of its myriad of books does it tell you HOW to roleplay, it leaves that to the player.

The difference between EQ and D&D? Never in D&D would you create a character named “Mystik Al`dude” and sit in one place killing a single monster over and over. Not once while playing D&D did anyone ever say “Explore? Why don’t we just wait for this kobold to respawn and gang rape him? Its easier.”

I logged onto the Firiona Vie server after having let it sit a couple of days live. Partly this was because I didn’t want to run into the first day issues of 300 people trying to kill the same 12 moss snakes. I sat at the character creation screen for a long time (you only get one character on this server) trying to decide who I wanted to play and why. I quickly bypassed all the characters I regularly play on other servers. I wanted this to be new. So finally I ended on a Dark Elf Shadowknight named Dvain.

My first impression? Too many people running. When you go into town in your normal life, or even in a D&D session, you don’t run at top speed. I put on walk and began to stroll. People zinging by me at a full run, flailing weapons about. Don’t these people have any manners? Put the swords away when there is nothing to fight, no danger. After about 5 minutes of horrible talk and worse names, I had to turn off OOC, Shout, and Auction, and PC Names (so they don’t show over people’s heads). Ahhh… much better.

I wandered around and spoke with my guildmasters, they don’t respect me, and I am humbled by their willingness to openly hate me as a tribute to our dark god. They gave me some chores to do, so I spent time cleaning the floors and other such things until they decided I was worthy to begin my path as a shadowknight. I gladly accepted these new duties and headed out into the city proper.

I met quite a number of other adventurers, a few talkative fishermen, but also about ten times as many people zinging by at full speed in a hurry to do something. Finally I made my way out in Nektulos Forest. I stretched for a bit, then drew my sword and began looking for the beasts who held the items I sought.. fire beetles!

I’m as curious as any lad, and after finding a few of my prey, I realized I was further from town that I had ever been. And I liked it. I had heard stories from some others about a human city, I even saw the guards of Neriak killing a few of them. So I decided to seek it out.

After that I had quite a few adventures. I met some other roaming dark elves and some humans, and a few other odd races. I found the city of Freeport where they tolerate my kind, and even a brother guild of shadowknights who were willing to assist me in my dark ways.

Mostly I was disappointed. Not in the game. After two years I still find it fun to play this game in almost any form. I’m disappointed in many of the players. It seems, from my experience so far, that about 90% of dark elves have chosen to roleplay as the brooding silent type who seeks power and wealth. Many of the humans seemed to be that way as well. With so many ways to roleplay a character, its odd that so many choose the exact same way to play.

At the end of the night, after being trained in much of the ways of adventure and entrusted to advance to the 5th level of skill, I returned to Neriak, pulled up a stool in the Blind Fish, popped a few silver on the bar to start a tab, and began to share my tales with the other patrons… no one. Well, not entirely. I had two people come in and ask me what the hell I was doing justing sitting around and not “playing”. They seemed frustrated when I asked them, “Playing what?” And one guy, bless his soul, who actually sat and listened as I told him the story of my adventure to Freeport.

As I told him I was turning in for the night, he jumped out of his seat, looked at me with a gleem in his eye and whispered, “I’ve got to see this Freeport.” He smiled, and walked out of the pub.

There may be hope yet.

It`s MY day.

It’s my birthday, my b-b-b-birthday!

Feel free to send me money. I won’t be offended.

Happy birthday to me…
Happy birthday to me…
Happy birthday dear me-eee…
Happy birthday to me!

And don’t forget about the money.

There`s nothing like a good scare to get the blood pumping.

It’s October. This means two things: Oktoberfest and Halloween.

Since I haven’t made the jaunt up to Helen, GA for the beer sloshing fun of Oktoberfest yet, that means I’m talking about Halloween.

Last night, some friends and I made the trip out to Tom Savini’s Nightmare Haunted House and Crypt of Terror. Both of these places are well done within the constraints of the law.

Yep, as the woman outside will inform you, “The monsters inside WILL jump out at you, but they WILL NOT touch you.” And with that in mind, there was really nothing left to be scared about.

For me anyway… For one of our group, everything was scary. She must have screamed or skittered away from every shadow and ghoul from entrance to exit.

In any event, haunted houses are cool. Even though you know you can’t be touched since the owners fear lawsuits more than they fear the undead (lawyers are much more frightening than flesh eating zombies anyway), a well done haunted house will use suspense to build up your expectations of a man leaping out from the next corner… then NOT having him leap out and putting him at the turn after that. You know, the one right after you relaxed… Good stuff.

So, if you happen to be in the Atlanta, GA area and want to spend an hour or so and $22, go visit these two places. It was worth my hard earned dollar.

The Next Game.

Currently I play Everquest. I used to play Ultima Online. I tried to play Asheron’s Call. I beta tested Anarchy Online. I never considered World War II Online. And I’m currently beta testing Dark Age of Camelot.

But what has me really excited these days is City of Heroes.

Most people who are willing to look beyond the minor inconveniences of most games will tell you they play them because they like the fantasy setting. They wanted to hurl a fireball, or draw sword on a dragon. Me, I always wanted to fight crime.

I’ve been reading comic books since before I could even understand the words. I’ve got 15 long boxes of comics (soon to appear on Ebay) of what I have collected over the years. With every page I read, I dreamed myself into Batman’s cowl, I wore the Green Lantern’s ring, I fired bullets while wearing the Punisher’s boots, and every now and then I’d save the world all while wearing a silly looking costume and proud to be wearing it.

There are lots of games on the market. And lots more slowly heading towards it. Of all of them, this is the one I hope for most. This is the game I drool at the thought of playing.

Yesterday they released a “gameplay” demo. Not really much of gameplay, but it does show the in game graphics and some of the interface, and character creation. I am in awe.

This is the game I want to play. I just hope I can survive until Summer of 2002 to do it.

I fear Hate, but I hate Fear.

Last night I lead my first “break” of the zone known as the Plane of Fear in EverQuest. And now I understand the above quote from an old friend.

It refers to two alternate planes in EverQuest: Hate and Fear.

Hate is, by far, a cakewalk. You zone in to a spot that is somewhat safe and, most importantly, defendable. In the days before people thought up all the different strategies for Hate, they used to zone in, and huddle together waiting for something to notice you. Then if you survived the first onslaught, you started slowly bringing the rest of the zone to you in a somewhat orderly fashion. However, since the plane has existed for quite some time, people now zone in, run along the walls to a safer camp and pretty much do as they please. Its almost smooth as clockwork.

Fear, on the other hand, is a bitch. You don’t zone into a somewhat safe spot, you zone into a shitstorm. You don’t sit and wait for something to notice you, it hits you on the way in. Now, to offset this incredibly annoying way to be greeted into the zone, Verant did make it so any schmuck level 46 and above can just walk right in, whereas Hate requires a wizard to teleport groups up. Sadly, this doesn’t make things easier. Because if one member of your raid party forgets to go into Anonymous or Roleplay mode, which hides your location from others in player queries, the word will get out that a Fear raid is happening, and all the schmucks level 46 and up will start heading over.

After almost 4 hours last night we had managed only to kill one denizen of the Plane of Fear. One. About 20 of us had died, and in the end, a few of them lost their experience permanently since we didn’t get to their corpses in time to resurrect them.

I fear Hate, but I hate Fear.

Those are words to live by.

12 September 2001

Yesterday
The World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. The Pentagon was also attacked. Four airplanes were hijacked to do this destruction.
Sounds like some hot new action flick starring Arnold or Sylvester or even Wesley. But it’s not. It’s real.
I told some friends yesterday that I kept blinking my eyes, like I was trying to wipe away the last remnants of a bad dream. And it was true. I spent the entire day in utter disbelief that this could be happening.
There have been other attacks on the U.S. by terrorists in the past. But each of those existed in a world of “isolated incidents”. Yesterday was a concerted, organized, deliberate effort to end lives. No kid with a truck of fertilizer parking next to a building, but hijacked airplanes diving down at the world below that no amount of security or protection could avoid, let alone stop.
Terrorism has existed for a long time. But to us in the United States, except for “isolated incidents”, it was a news story, a movie, a book, a television show. It was on the other side of the glass, over the fence, in the neighborhood down the street. It was second hand, rumor. Yesterday it became real.
For thousands of people yesterday, life came to a sudden and final halt. Minutes before they were probably looking, like most of us who exist in a corporate world, forward to the weekend, even though one had just ended. They joked. They gossipped. They smiled. They laughed. They stressed. They loved. They died.
For millions of people yesterday, life as they knew it came to a sudden and final halt. The world crashed down around their ears. Some of them ran. Some of them stayed. Some of them charged into the discord to see if perhaps they could calm the storm, or perhaps just drag one life from the jaws of death and into the world of tomorrow.
For billions of people yesterday, a dream came to a sudden and final halt. The United States has for 200 years been the beakon of freedom and hope for those both within and outside her borders. The dream of the perfect life in the land of plenty is something that people from all over the world think about. Even if they never work toward it themselves, they knew it existed and that people actually lived there in safety and peace.
There is a dream that is America. It still exists, but for most that dream now seems further away than ever. Where it used to be just out of reach, within our grasp, it is now a few paces away, easier to see than to touch. And in seeing the dream, we see that it is tarnished.
We will recover. America will be strong. Woe be to those who have for the second time in a century tempted fates and awoken the sleeping giant.
Life will go on. People will work. People will live, and love, and hate, and laugh, and cry, and die. People will fly in airplanes, although perhaps giving a second glance to all those passengers who made it through the new security checks. People will visit tall buildings to look out and the beautiful skylines of cities all over the world.
But these people are not the same people from last week. They are more like those of 1941. The people of the United States today have been touched by something that leaves no thing unchanged. Its a message. “Time is short. Life is precious. Live.”
Me? I’m off to get a job. Life goes on, there are bills to pay, and I’ve spent too much of my short precious time here on this Earth doing nothing waiting for life to take me along for the ride.
It’s well past time I put both hands on the wheel.
I’m driving from now on.

21 March 2001

Examination of a quote
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A quote often misquoted, and I think often misunderstood. Or maybe Johann was just wrong.
Most people, I think, would say that it means that surviving adversity makes you stronger in your faith, you convictions, and yourself. That when you emerge from the trial by fire, you are yourself, as before, only better, more powerful, to use the word from the quote, stronger.
I think this is wrong. A better thing to say would be, ‘What does not kill me, changes me.’
Whenever you are given a trial in life, a challenge, a joy, a pain, anything, you are never the same. Not neccessarily better or stronger, but different. At least you should be. If you are not changed by the events of your life, then you learned nothing from having lived it.
This leads me to a thought I had once and that I still hold on to today.
I have often been a part of a conversation that most people have with friends at some point. Its the “If you could go back and do anything one thing in your life different, what would it be?” conversation.
This can bring out very important information about someone. If they tell you about a missed job opportunity (not a money one, but a whole carreer change) there is a good chance that person is not happy in their job and would be happier if they took the risk and pursued the once missed path. Or they might tell you about a lost love, usually showing that when they get into relationships they don’t fully open up and because they once missed out on love, they’ll probably miss out on more because they don’t want that regret a second time in life. Or they do the opposite and open their hearts to every person to come even remotely close because the thought of missing another chance at love is too much, and so they convince themselves they love people that they don’t. There are more examples, but I’m not going through them all…
My point of this sidetrack, the thought that I had once and still hold: If you are happy with the life that you have and the person that you are, you cannot have regrets. Not real regrets, not the kind that would fit in with the above conversation. You can regret having hurt someone by leaving, but you cannot regret the leaving itself. And you cannot regret opportunities you didn’t take or the ones that you did. You can’t because each and every thing that you have done has shaped and molded you into the person that you are, and if you regret a choice in your past, then you also regret being you and are lying to yourself about being happy.
Am I happy?
For the most part. I regret nothing of my past, its made me who I am. I am a little disappointed in my present, but only when it comes to my job, and I’m working on that.
And my future?
Looks pretty good from here. I’ll let you know when I get there.
So back to the main point. If it doesn’t kill you, you learn, you adapt, you change, you grow… or at least I hope you do.

19 March 2001

Just Talking
Sometimes it just feels good to put things on paper, so to speak.
When I write here, even though I am fairly sure that no one is reading it, it still feels better once I put things here. Get them said, in a manner of speaking.
It’s almost 8 AM here in the city of Atlanta.. Nope, not up early.. up late. 🙂
Finally reached a goal last night that I have had for a long time. Over a year in fact. I made 50th level in EverQuest with my first character.
Of course, its largely meaningless now since Verant made the level cap 60 a while back.
Sigh.
On a good note though, I just sent out an email for a job that I would like to have. Not going to jinx it by talking too much about it. Just, if you read this page, think good thoughts for me.
Thanks.