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EQ 'Shadow of Luclin' -- Pretty Graphics, Ugly Release
GamesPosted by timothy on Thursday December 06, @03:00PM
from the stay-in-the-shadows dept.
ajs writes: "EverQuest isn't a book or a movie, but a work of fiction that's kept a 400,000 member audience enthralled for months is worth a closer look. The most recent update to EverQuest, Shadows of Luclin, is out and of course much of the subscriber base is flocking to be the first to kill the big bad ... whatevers that lurk in the long-lost moon of Norrath. My review touches more on the release than the software, since I think that's what's truely interesting about this industry right now. But to sum up: if you play EverQuest, wait a few days or weeks and then give this a spin ... it's a ride." Read on for the rest of his account.

For starters, everyone reading this should understand that persistant gaming of various forms is here to stay. EverQuest will likely be around for at least a few more years, and its successors will probably take over the gaming industry for several reasons: first, they offer a different and more lucrative revenue model; second, they offer some intriguing secondary revenue possibilities; oh, and third, there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming ;-)

EverQuest has been a rocky road since day one because the people developing it have never truly understood their market (this can be evidenced by how many customer service policies have been reversed over time). Now, on the eve of their most hyped release, they have done the unthinkable: They released a product which has substantial crash-to-desktop bugs and made the update process so painful as to be impossible for many players. Now, with Quake you'd say "that's awful, but they'll fix the bugs and players of the old version will be fine for now". With EverQuest, everyone gets patched at the same time, and no one can play until it's done and works.

To give some examples: every player is now required to run Microsoft's DirectX8; Minimum memory and processor specs have gone up, and if you dare to run the new expansion you will have to have at least 256MB of RAM just for the core functionality (they provide a way to back out most of the new UI stuff for those who have 128MB of RAM, but I'm told its almost unplayable); 512MB of RAM is suggested!

Ok, so what was the first day like? Well, the servers were down for most of the day, when they were supposed to just be down for a night. Then, when they came up, it seems that Sony did not provide enough network bandwidth for the patching storm that ensued, so no one could patch (and thus, no one could play) until a crittical mass of players gave up and went to bed.

Worse, the patching program was intolerant of the network failures and would leave droppings that would prevent subsequent attempts to patch. I required 2 reboots, 5 file deletions and 2.5 hours to finally patch and run.

"So, how is it?!" you ask? Well, it's a whole lot better than it was, but it's really still not there yet. The graphics are actually disorienting because of their quality and the new hardware T&L acceleration from DX8. Turning around makes you feel like you live in the land of smooth scroll. The facial feature selection for humans is very nice, but for the Iksar (the lizard race), it's rather sketchy, and not much different from before. Horses are cheaper than some had suggested (8,000 platinum minimun). New models for summoned pets and other character-related models like "wolf form" are very slick. The new zones seem to stress their size quite a lot (it's hard to accept that humans would build on such a scale).

I've yet to see the new race, as I assumed that everyone would be starting those characters and the server would be quite slow in those zones.

There are some problems, though, and I think Verant should have held off on the release until they were finished. First is the much anticipated Bazaar zone, where players will be able to become merchants (to some degree which is not yet clear) and sell their goods automatically. This functionallity is off, and still being worked on.

Second, there appear to be a number of bugs. Teleportation while in the new zones was supposed to take characters to a central zone ("The Nexus") from which they could then teleport to their destination. (Currently, that's not the way it works: 10-20 seconds after teleporting, everyone in our party except for the person who teleported crashed to the desktop with no warning!)

There are some problems with spells. Someone pointed out to me that low-level wizard spells do not animate at all, so its hard to tell that your wizard is actually doing anything in a fight.

Overall, I'm going to give this release a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. It's pretty and in a month, it will likely be the best MMORPG on the market, but again -- it's just not there yet. This release hurt a lot of players who didn't even want to buy the expansion yet.

Some key resources for those who are trying out Luclin are:

Enjoy!"

 

 
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  • Features

    Some of Slashdot's more recent features include:

    Review: Fellowship of the Ring
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    EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin
    The Age of Paine Revisited
    Felten vs. RIAA Hearing
    Sell Out: Blocking an Open Net
    Constructing a Truly Quiet Gaming PC
    The Hypermedia Hazard
    Net: Now Our Most Serious News Medium?
    Morals and Layoffs
    Civil Liberties and the New Reality

    Update: 2001-12-29 by michael:

    Past Features

    VP3, Open Source Video at 200kbs | You May Not Link This Web Site  >
    This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
    EQ 'Shadow of Luclin' -- Pretty Graphics, Ugly Release | Login/Create an Account | Top | 316 comments | Search Discussion
    Threshold:
    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
    (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
    MUDs will live forever (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Marx_Mrvelous ({ude.eudrup} {ta} {woldulg}) on Thursday December 06, @03:05PM (#2666851)
    (User #532372 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Interesting to note...
    The thing that makes these games so popular and addictive is the human interaction element, not the graphics, the plot, or the monsters. I remember playing MUDs in high school that people were just as devoted to as EQ.

    So by that reasoning, the true key to a successful multiplayer RPG would be improving and rewarding actual role-playing and character interaction.
    [ Parent ]
    Guess I'll wait.. (Score:3, Informative)
    by MantridDronemaker on Thursday December 06, @03:05PM (#2666858)
    (User #541253 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Ugh, how could they do this? I played EQ on and off for two years and had planned to go back for another around for SoL, and from the sounds of things it's a total disaster. Well I can wait for now and tool around with my Shadowblade in Dark Age of Camelot for now. SoL sounded like it had such potential though...

    [ Parent ]
    Crackheads, its payday! (Score:1)
    by Alpha_Geek on Thursday December 06, @03:05PM (#2666859)
    (User #154209 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    heehee
    Thankfully I never got into evercrack [sony.com]. I think I'm going to quit my job when Star Wars Galaxies [starwarsgalaxies.com] comes out, though.
    [ Parent ]
    Fair, but it's getting better (Score:4, Informative)
    by johnburton (johnb@jbmail.com) on Thursday December 06, @03:07PM (#2666868)
    (User #21870 Info | http://www.jbmail.com/)
    I've not got the luclin expansion yet but many of the problems introduced were there even with the old version.

    The article is fair, but the expansion had only been out for 36 hours when it was written and already they have had one patch which has cured many of the worst software problems, and are promising more to come in the next few days.

    I have every confidence that this will be a great game by the end of the week and everyone has forgotten about the launch problems.

    As for the requirements, they are high, but that most people who buy a new computer now will get one that easily meets them. And they have to target the game at people who are likely to be buying it soon, not at those who last upgraded their PC 2 years ago. I'd rather they pushed the spec and made a nicer game than just went for the lowest common denominator and lose out to other games.

    The worst problem I've got is that the expansion is not yet available in the UK!!!

    But if you've not played everquest I have to recommend it to you. Yes there are some problems with this update but they'll all be sorted out in the next week or so and it will continue to be the best game around at the moment.
    [ Parent ]
    Major Bugs (Score:4, Informative)
    by Binestar on Thursday December 06, @03:07PM (#2666869)
    (User #28861 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    One of the major issues is that under windows XP and windows 2000 there is a major memory leak. After 2-3 minutes of playing on a machine with 512MB of ram I crawl to a 1fps grind before finally just having the machine reboot on me.

    It's painful.

    I've decided just to hunt in the empty Zones and wait a month before doing any serious Moon hopping.

    Enjoy the game everyone, it's pretty. (buggy =)

    Check out the Buggy Naked Pictures from the expansion [ezboard.com]. I guess someone didn't have all the files downloaded or DX wasn't loading properly. Makes for interesting grouping... Later, Binestar

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Major Bugs by kcornia (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @03:44PM
      • Re:Major Bugs by Binestar (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @04:09PM
    • Re:Major Bugs by pyrodex (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @03:45PM
    • Re:Major Bugs by Kaydor (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @05:46PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Major Bugs by SilentChris (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @05:36PM
    • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
    128 MB is ok! (Score:3, Informative)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @03:41PM (#2666894)
    I have P3-500MHz 128MB RAM TNT2 Ultra
    and without the new textures, can play very well thank you.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    MMORPGs taking over? I hope not. (Score:4, Insightful)
    by dswensen on Thursday December 06, @03:42PM (#2666903)
    (User #252552 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday October 05, @06:32PM)
    "EverQuest will likely be around for at least a few more years, and its successors will probably take over the gaming industry for several reasons... oh, and third, there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming..."

    I certainly hope you're wrong about persistent online gaming taking over the industry. If that's the case, I'm going to hang up the old joystick.

    For me, socializing is socializing, gaming is gaming, and rarely the twain shall meet. I play games to enjoy myself and de-stress, and the last thing I really need is to do is log on and transport myself away to a magical faery world where "L0RDBADA$$23" and "SexyBiGrrrl8775" gather in Ye Old Inn and ask "hi how r u r u m or f? lol brb u sux." And then be PKed and have my corpse looted.

    I've just never met an online game that I could get into. The plot and roleplaying elements are fine, but nothing I couldn't get from a single-player RPG, in general. And as for human interaction... while I'm sure there are a lot of intelligent players of EQ or UO out there who like to roleplay their characters, somehow I've never met them -- most everyone I've ever met playing either game has been the intellectual equivalent of the goatsex ACs or a deep-sea tube worm. Why would I pay American money to interact with people like that?

    Single player games don't have server downtime, cheaters, whiners, politics, or require a credit card to keep playing them. UT bots don't try to crash the server when they start losing, or strip naked looking for cybersex.

    I realize, of course, that I've probably just had one too many bad (and maybe even unusual) experiences that have soured me on the whole concept. I understand there are many people who have deeply satisfying and personally fulfilling hours of fun playing persistent MMORPGs. I'm very happy for them, but I prefer my games single-player, offline, and not charging me ten bucks a month for the privilege of continuing to play it.

    I hope there are enough gamers out there with a similar outlook to sustain a market for single-player games. Because if persistent online worlds take over, I'm pretty much going back to chess.
    [ Parent ]
    Social Aspect (Score:2, Funny)
    by sllort on Thursday December 06, @03:43PM (#2666908)
    (User #442574 Info | http://org.slashdot/ | Last Journal: Tuesday February 26, @10:52AM)
    there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming

    Hey, I have a suggestion. When I want to add a social element to my gaming, I call some friends and go play football. It's actually surprisingly warm outside today for December and all, especially out here on the east coast. Either way, football is fun in the cold too. Give it a try!
    [ Parent ]
    Dark Age of Camelot (Score:4, Troll)
    by Maul (darth-flower@microsith.com) on Thursday December 06, @03:43PM (#2666909)
    (User #83993 Info | http://ieng9.ucsd.edu/~ajpace)
    I've been playing Dark Age of Camelot casually since October. I find it to be much more enjoyable than EverQuest, mainly becuase it is less crowded, and is based upon Arthurian, Celtic, and Norse legends that many people are already familiar with. They are still tweaking the game quite a bit, but it runs fine, unlike the newest EQ expansion. Plus it has a great PvP system in which, rather than people killing mindlessly like in UO, "realms" are pitted against each other. It also seems easier to play causally than EQ.


    I recommend this one to anyone fed up with EverCrack or other online games.

    [ Parent ]
    Society... (Score:5, Interesting)
    by don_carnage on Thursday December 06, @03:44PM (#2666913)
    (User #145494 Info | http://spookyworld.dnsalias.com/)
    I never ceased to be amazed by the virtual societies that are created in massive online multiplayer games. I used to be an Asheron's Call addict because I fell in love with the idea of being able to adventure across the landscape to far away lands. I didn't really get into the role-playing aspect, but was intrigued by people that would complain about theft, treachery and the multitude of con-artists that sprung-up in game. The sheer fact that these games mirror our own society (with greed, deceipt, etc.) is truly a great technical feat!
    [ Parent ]
    Updates (Score:5, Informative)
    by ajs (ajs@ajs.com) on Thursday December 06, @03:46PM (#2666922)
    (User #35943 Info | http://www.ajs.com/~ajs/)
    Since I submitted this, there have been several developments:
    • It's becoming obvious that a fair number of Win95 users are pissed that the game they bought and ran under Win95 has suddenly stopped working [everlore.com]. Note: this has nothing to do with the fact that the expansion does not run under Win95, but that old, installed versions of EQ were updated (via the patcher) with a game that refuses to run under 95!
    • Verant has been BUSY! There is now a patch for some of the larger problems [castersrealm.com] that people were seeing. I was personally bit by the auto-follow, crash-to-desktop bug several times :-(
    This is not a bad release, really. It's just pointing out a lot of the problems that games now face when everyone gets updated/patched at once. The artificial lines between people running "Luclin" and people running "the old EverQuest" are very thin....
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Updates by geekoid (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @03:58PM
      • Re:Updates by jued0001 (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @05:23PM
        • Re:Updates by EvilBastard (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @07:33PM
          • Re:Updates by jag111 (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @07:45PM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Updates by don_carnage (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @04:00PM
    • Re:Updates by gmhowell (Score:3) Thursday December 06, @04:05PM
      • Re:Updates by ajs (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @04:56PM
      • Re:Updates by fhknack (Score:1) Saturday December 08, @01:03AM
        • Re:Updates by ajs (Score:2) Monday December 10, @09:14AM
    • Re:Updates by D'Arque Bishop (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @05:13PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Updates by DNS-and-BIND (Score:2) Saturday December 08, @12:41AM
    • Re:Updates by Cheeko (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @04:38PM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    subscription software (Score:5, Funny)
    by jd142 on Thursday December 06, @03:46PM (#2666926)
    (User #129673 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    So basically, what you are saying is that there's a downside to subscription based software when the user has no choice about the upgrade? That the manufacturer of the subscription software can put out a buggy update and force you to take it, which means the software is useless until the fix is in. And you can be forced to upgrade your hardware instead of using existing hardware and existing software.

    Hmm. Why does this sound so very familiar.

    And you thought there wouldn't be an M$ bashing post under the evercrack story. Shame on you! This is /.
    [ Parent ]
    UI MIA (Score:3, Funny)
    by LightBender on Thursday December 06, @03:47PM (#2666927)
    (User #541895 Info)
    You forgot to mention their new interface is MIA! We are still stuck with the old dated rather poorly designed UI. This was one of my main reasons for purchasing SoL. (now I'm the one SOL)
    [ Parent ]
    SOL has refreshed my EQ spirit (Score:1)
    by wshelby (btkmedic@satx.rr.com) on Thursday December 06, @03:47PM (#2666931)
    (User #233609 Info | http://www.btkmedic.com)
    I had vowed to stop playing EQ when DOAC came out only to find out that i never should have quit.

    With the new expansion pack out i have found some new life in EQ.

    Be ready Thanks to SONY You really have to pay attention to the location that they try to install SoL to. Every other copy of EQ installed to c:\Program Files\Everquest, and the new one tries to install to c:\Program Files\Sony\Everquest. All I can say is thanks Varent.

    I guess im not going to be that upset when I sell my char for alot more than I have paid to play the game.

    --[A computer is] like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.
    -- Joseph Campbell
    [ Parent ]
    So when does EQ the Orgy get released (Score:1, Funny)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @03:48PM (#2666936)
    This is what I'm waiting for.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Turning around? (Score:4, Funny)
    by Happy Monkey on Thursday December 06, @03:52PM (#2666968)
    (User #183927 Info | http://members.bellatlantic.net/~mbuckley)
    Turning around makes you feel like you live in the land of smooth scroll.

    If you actually turn around, without using your computer's I/O peripherals, you'll get an even smoother scroll...
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Several months ago, people whined EQ was"outdated" (Score:2)
    by Blackwulf on Thursday December 06, @03:55PM (#2666983)
    (User #34848 Info | http://www.arches.uga.edu/~bwolf/)
    ...Now that they've tried to listen to the players and update it, people whine that it is now too much updated. No-win situation here.

    36 hours is definately not enough time to write a review of something like this, heck, the reviewer hasn't even SEEN the new race, and in effect, 25% of what the expansion offers. Kind of like reviewing The Sims Hot Date without ever going downtown.

    It does suck that Verant had some last minute problems. They even stated a pre-emptive apology that there are things that can only be caught with a load of 400,000 players and the strict scrutiny. If the game is still unplayable at the end of the weekend, then let's start roasting. The latest patch was a step in the right direction.
    [ Parent ]
    Hype and Timing is what made this Ugly (Score:2, Informative)
    by vtechpilot on Thursday December 06, @03:55PM (#2666990)
    (User #468543 Info | http://k2wrpg.dhs.org/)
    Verant Interactive (the company that makes EQ) was simply not prepared for the anticipation for this release. The release is the first major upgrade to the systems graphics. Previous upgrades only affect territory in Norrath (the fictional world that is the setting in EQ), but this one affects a whole lot more. Previous expansion packs didn't affect the anywhere near as much of the game.
     
      This combined with lots of hype (every time you log into EQ they send a message saying Luclin is comming) left Verant feeling like they had to make deadlines. Luclin wasn't even in most stores when it was supposed to be. I know people who preordered and were supposed to have it delivered by now who still don't have it.

    All the hype means 400,000 subscribers all foaming at the mouth to see the changes. So they log in as soon as the system is back up. The catch? All of them need updated files, and none of them have them. That by itself isn't bad, but when they had trouble updating their servers, the system didn't come back up till 4:00 California Time, which means that all of North America was in primetime for playing.

    Since the server came up at the worst time of day, The patch servers got hit hard. Most users were stuck waiting to get their updates because the patch server couldn't handle the load. Eventually over the night Verant got more patch servers up and things started moving more quickly.
    By 5:00 AM California time, (8:00 AM for me) the traffic jam was gone.

    In Short it was all hype and incredible bad timing that made it such a mess.
    [ Parent ]
    Blame Verant (Score:4, Insightful)
    by DocMiata on Thursday December 06, @03:57PM (#2667003)
    (User #182708 Info)
    Well, after 25 megs. of patches (and EQ telling me I didn't have DX8.1 installed despite it being there) I finally got it running well enough to look around at all the pretty new graphics.

    This one falls squarely on Verant for blowing it big time.

    Rather than let the release date slip, they shipped a very not-ready-for-primetime product (just in time for the Christmas shopping season!), hoping they could get the bugs fixed in patches before the release date when everyone would find them. They missed.

    They also should have never allowed Jeff Butler & friends to do the player wipe on Test Server last year. This cost them a bunch of loyal players who either quit EQ or moved to other servers, myself included. All those players they lost from Test probably could have been very helpful in finding all the bugs they are facing now. You can't do quality testing on a project this ambitious with a small testing group.

    The new graphics engine is (currently) way too hardware picky, and that should have been caught months ago. (I downloaded 3 different version of eqgfx_dx8.dll last night off the patch server in under 1 hour. Think someone isn't in Verant's offices furiously trying to get it working?)

    [ Parent ]
    Get over it... (Score:2, Insightful)
    by Muggin on Thursday December 06, @03:58PM (#2667008)
    (User #530890 Info)
    I think people should bear in mind that this is a revamped graphics engine, and that thousands if not millions of people enjoy this game worldwide. Of course when this rolls out, in a years time, there are going to be kinks that need to be worked out.

    This is a fairly optimistic outlook considering it took me 6 reboots to get my install to connect. When I did finally get things to work I couldn't keep from going LD (link dead to the uninitiated), with my Vah Shair character. The lag and what not wasn't a suprise to me as alot of people that play ran out to get their copy on the same day. Many of these people hadn't played in months, and were looking forward to the alternative skill option of leveling. Case in point East Commons had like 60+ people on the server that I play on. Making a fairly commonly used zone almost unplayable. Most of the people were sitting around checking out the new social animations like a bunch of newbies.

    All this said I tell you, this is a great expansion pack, with great graphics, even for the Iksar, which I play. Give it a couple of weeks when the newness wears off of the wannabe players, and everyone starts going back to performing their quests instead of admiring the new graphics, and everything will start to shake itself out.

    Remember hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    I'd send a witty reply, but... (Score:1)
    by Brad Wilson (dotnetguy@pobox.com) on Thursday December 06, @03:58PM (#2667012)
    (User #462844 Info | http://www.quality.nu/dotnetguy/)
    ...I'm too busy actually playing an MMORPG right now. See you all in Camelot! :)
    [ Parent ]
    • Sssshhhh!!!! by Anonymous Coed (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @05:52PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Triple take... (Score:1, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @04:00PM (#2667028)
    "EverQuest isn't a book or a movie, but a work of fiction that's kept a 400,000 member audience enthralled for months is worth a closer look.

    Am I the only one who had to read that sentence three times to make sure I wasn't the idiot?

    Good, I'm not alone. :)

    [ Parent ]
    There are players and there are whiners (Score:1, Flamebait)
    by TBone (mark@thisismyown.com) on Thursday December 06, @04:02PM (#2667042)
    (User #5692 Info | http://www.thisismyown.com)

    The whiners started up 2 weeks before, complaining that Verant/Sony said, back when EQ was released, that you'd never have to replace your computer to continue playing. Well, the new requirement of DirectX8.1 (not Dx8 as the review says, but 8.1) forced a bunch of people to have to upgrade theor video cards. You know what though? Suck it up, your Voodoo3 hasn't been supported for almost a year and nas no company behind it any more, why would you expect Microsoft to support it in Dx8?

    And then the revised Luclin specs were released about 2 weeks before launch. Suggested specs went from 256M to 512M. Hardware T&L recommended, required if you're not running a P-III or better. And the new install requires an additional 1G (yes, 1 gig) of disk space to install all of the new textures and character models to. Oh, and you can't play Luclin on Win95 any more.

    What people fail to grasp is that Luclin is an expansion, and a complete revamping of the original game at that. No one is required to buy Luclin to keep playing. You will still see the new characters and new equipment without it, you just can't BE one of the new characters, or go to the new locations. Loading character models, which is where the memory hit comes, is configurable - you can load all, none, or any combination in between. Many people are reporting very acecptable performance with 256M. And DirectX8.1, while bleeding-edge, is a FAR improvement over 8.0a - bug fixes, performance boosts, the whole lot. We covered the video card already. And as far as Win95 no longer being supported (it's still supported for the OLD version), well, check out Microsoft's home page people - 95 was end-of-lifed on November 30, 2001. That was last week.

    The servers _always_ suffer after an outage when everyone is trying to reconnect every 30 seconds, waiting for them to come back up. And as far as the patch running long, most of you numbnuts can't even run Windows Update and keep your own computer running right, let alone manage the patching of a 1,200-computer server farm within 8 hours.

    You claim Verant should have done more testing before release. You have no idea now many variations of motherboards, chipsets, video cards, sound cards, network connections, and whatnot there are. It is physically IMPOSSIBLE for a company in today's technology world to be able to anticipate every software interaction on every hardware platform. It always amazes me when Verant stages a patch that doesn't cause lots of problems, adds lots of new features, and frankly, only inconveniences you. If not being able to play for a day is such a big loss for you, drop me an E-mail, and I'll refund the $0.33 cents you lost for that day because you're too lazy to get off your butt and go outside to see the sun (AAA MY EYES). Just leave me a credit card number for me to run the refund onto :-P

    For what Verant is doing, they manage to do it really well. You claim the release of Luclin was a failure. Perhaps you forget the 2 recent MMORPG releases. Remember Anarchy Online? That was gonna be an EQ killer. So was World War II online. I don't htink I've heard anyone mention them in months now. THAT was a botched release.

    Considering what you're getting, IMO Verant is doing a great job. If it's that much of an inconvenience to you, maybe you should take a break and watch TV for a few days, talk to some RL 'toons', go to the mall, clean off your desk, say hi to your parents for the first time in months.

    [ Parent ]
    And the process continues (Score:1)
    by Reliant-1864 (reliant AT canshell DOT com) on Thursday December 06, @04:06PM (#2667074)
    (User #530256 Info | http://www.worldgaming.ca/)
    Develop, Market, Release, patch, patch, patch, release sequel, patch sequel, etc etc As long as we keep buying games the day they come out, they'll keep on releasing games like this. Wait until after it's been patched before buying it, especially if other people say it's buggy, or if it's a company well known to release buggy software, and send them an e-mail telling them that's why you're holding off on buying their game. Same rule applies to hardware, applications, OSs, anything Microsoft, and Linux Kernels ('cept the Linux Kernels are free, so you're not buying them, just downloading and installing them).
    [ Parent ]
    not the real problem (Score:1)
    by archen on Thursday December 06, @04:16PM (#2667151)
    (User #447353 Info)
    "Ok, so what was the first day like? Well, the servers were down for most of the day, when they were supposed to just be down for a night."

    Well at least patch day has stayed the same!

    I quit playing EQ a while ago, and I still don't have any regrets. And I really don't like the newer character models anyway. But what this is all missing is that the REAL heart of the problem are the fundamental rules of which EQ is based off of. And don't even get me started on how FUBAR the high end game is (level 50+) for most classes. Insane hardware requirements, Driver problems up the wazoo, and bad servers make this situation just that much worse. And what is with that patch client anyway? Hello Verant? Why can't I resume a download?

    But then there are other rampant problems as well stemming from the players themselves (twinking, power leveling), which doesn't help either. But what is this? Verant has the ultimate surprise which will right all wrongs: cat people.
    I mean WTF? Iksar were stretching it, but freaking CAT PEOPLE?!?
    [ Parent ]
    I just have two words to describe Sony and VI (Score:1, Flamebait)
    by Demonikus on Thursday December 06, @04:18PM (#2667172)
    (User #157686 Info)
    Fucking and Pathetic.

    They have had many months in which to perfect the release of SoL, and when it came time to release it, they were not prepared. This I might have suspected from a smaller gaming company. But we're talking about Sony/VI.

    They have a test server to try out their new implementations so that when the time comes to update new patches and expansions, it should be a smoothe transition. I'm just wondering why if they had a test server, why everything went so wrong?

    Friends of mine, with computers in the 1+ Ghz range, are having zone load times of 10 to 20 minutes in some areas of the game. That is completely unacceptable.

    The new system requirements are incredibly steep if you want to enjoy the game in its entirity (is that a word?) It used to be you could play the game on a Win95 machine with rather low speed and memory and a bad video card. Now all people who have Win95 and wish to play EQ will have to upgrade. That's right, EQ in its current state can not run under Win95. Even though if you go pick up an original version of the game, or the new trilogy, it will say Win95, but once you patch you are screwed.

    Another strange thing is that Sony/VI didn't release the information about dropping Win95 until just days before the new release. They virtually left all those Win95 users out in the cold. Upgrade or don't play. That's sort of a harsh attitude to have towards your clients.

    I do not have the system requirements for SoL, but I assumed everything would be about the same on my computer. Nope. I've gone from 45 second zone load times to 90 second zone load times. And for what? To see a new image of a skeleton that looks more lifelike? To see wizard's new familiars? To see better effects and textures? For all the effort that has gone into it, it does not seem worth it.

    There are ways to reduce the system resources that EQ requires, but they are not easily gotten at. Nor are they really documented. But they are there. You just have to look really hard.

    I'd liek to go out and spend $1,000 (Cdn) to buy a new computer system so I can run this game at a speed it deserves. But considering just five days ago I was running it fine, I don't think I should have to.

    Sony, Verant, you guys have the resources to prevent screw ups like this from happening. What happened? Did all of your employees lose what brain cells they had all at the same time? Did no one just stop for a second and think about what you guys were doing? Or were you so worried about new games like DAoC that you thought you had to have the best. And therefore screw over a lot of your loyal clients?

    /sigh

    /rant off

    [ Parent ]
    Nekkid Textures a BIG Bug (Score:1)
    by Georgia_RPGLore on Thursday December 06, @04:22PM (#2667202)
    (User #541907 Info | http://www.everlore.com/)
    There is also a huge bug that causes players to see each other as butt nekkid! The screenshots have been pouring down the pipeline all day long. I've tossed one of them up as the daily screenshot over at Everlore (everlore.com) and it's pretty funny to see such a hilarious bug become such a heated issue.
    [ Parent ]
    Ok a review of the review (Score:4, Insightful)
    by truffle (truffle@nospam.iname.com) on Thursday December 06, @04:23PM (#2667211)
    (User #37924 Info | http://slashdot.org/)

    I'm really not sure how this 'review' got undeserved space on Slashdot. I presume the subject was interesting, the words sounded appropriate, and voila. Hey, he's flaming Sony Online Entertainment, this must be news! Unfortunately, the reviewer is whiney, inaccurate, and the content of the review is sub par.

    First the required version of DirectX is 8.1, not 8 as the reviewer suggets. This is perhaps not a huge point, but it shows that accuracy of this review is not high.

    Second, the comments on graphics quality suggest the reviwer never managed to correctly configure his machine. Running on my fairly modest Duron 850 with a Geforce 2mx, I encountered beautifully detailed graphics, and smooth performance. I enjoyed several hours of just running around and looking at things. The new models for all the player races were facinating. The large textures improved the appearance of, well, everything. It was quite an experience to run through West Commons (a classic well known area of Everquest) and see the updated textures on the trees and grass.

    The remainder of the review is primarly a bunch of first-impression complaints that are not particularly accurate, well supported, or meaningful to non Everquest players.

    The only real value in this report is the comments that:
            - The quality of the release is not high (many bugs that prevent people from playing a game they have purchased)
            - When initially released, Sony was not able to handle the 'patch' load and as a result no one was able to play

    Everything else is fluff.

    If you're interested in seeing some pictures of Luclin graphics, there is a nice collection at Gamespot. The release graphics are actually higher quality than those featured here. One of the reasons I find so much value in this release is these wonderful new graphics.

    http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters/products/scre ens/0,11105,477597-177,00.html
    [ Parent ]
    Gotta make that X-mas Release (Score:1)
    by LordZardoz on Thursday December 06, @04:27PM (#2667249)
    (User #155141 Info)
    With many games, console and PC, publishers really want to make that all important X-mas release, so sometimes, a game gets rushed out the door. With console games, this usually takes the form of levels or features.

    PC games however, and especially MMPORGS, can and often are patched post release. In this case, I would guess that Sony really wanted a new EQ expansion on the shelves for christmas. What the fail to realize is that their decision can potentially backfire.

    The business model is subscription based. I do not know how such expansions affect previous subscribers, but if they are forced to upgrade, they will be angry. And if the user gets too angry, they will seek alternatives. A really badly handled expansion could do wonders for the sale of Dark Age of Camelot (which may be another reason Sony rushed the release in and of its self).

    END COMMUNICATION
    [ Parent ]
    DirectX 8? (Score:1)
    by InnereNacht (paulp@lappenintegrated.com) on Thursday December 06, @04:33PM (#2667306)
    (User #529021 Info)
    Actually, I've heard from quite a few reliable sources that DirectX 8 isn't incredibly stable, and that DX8.1 has seems to fix a considerable amount of problems.
    [ Parent ]
    Want to see an Evercrack player squirm? (Score:1)
    by AC-3 (macross at mail d ... s dot educational) on Thursday December 06, @04:40PM (#2667373)
    (User #47590 Info | http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~goldstar)
    Ask them how close they are to "beating the game" ... :)
    [ Parent ]
    personal experience (Score:1)
    by Deathtoll on Thursday December 06, @04:43PM (#2667408)
    (User #541010 Info)
    Even though I haven't bought SoL, I ran in to a couple snags playing EQ last night: First, it took the patcher a considerable amount of time just to update itself... and after that, the program was somehow unable to find any dns servers. Okay... exiting and subsequently re-starting did fix the problem, after a whole new barrage of updates. On the plus side, the new updater is much prettier than the old one. Finally, I got to play the game... since I haven't purchased the new software, didn't see much new, personally. I did notice that the model for the "decaying skeleton" was updated. It looked alot better, now, besides the fact that it had no animation for attacking. This did create the problem of a few people almost stealing my kill.
    [ Parent ]
    Help an Everquest Idiot (Score:1)
    by eclectric (online@eclectric.com) on Thursday December 06, @04:47PM (#2667444)
    (User #528520 Info | http://eclectric.com/)
    I've never played EQ. I never much saw the point. It seemed like a MUD with pretty pictures. Or I don't have the time to. I forget why. Anyway, am I to understand that when they release one of their expansion packs, you *can't* play the game anymore, unless you buy the expansion pack?
    [ Parent ]
    On Everquest... (Score:1)
    by Will_Malverson on Thursday December 06, @04:55PM (#2667507)
    (User #105796 Info)
    I played EQ for a little while earlier this year, from around February to August. It's a fun game, and I enjoyed it. The fantasy name policy keeps the worst of the 1337d00d names out, and the world is large enough that I was able to spend a few months in it and not see the whole thing. However, one thing eventually happened that completely destroyed the game for me. Pay attention, MMORPG developers:


    I was exploring an area known as the Hole, which is a deep hole. You can only go along a ledge on one side of it, and then into either a nearby city or off to a nearby forest. However, I discovered how to jump up onto another nearby ledge that I wasn't supposed to be able to, and began exploring around up there.


    Before long, I found a trench up behind where the normal players could see, and decided to jump in to see what was in it. It appeared to curve around beyond where I could see it. To be safe, I first deposited all of my items into a bank so that I could retrieve them if I died -- I was in exploration, not combat mode.


    When I jumped in, I realized that it didn't really go anywhere, and further, I was stuck. I couldn't get back out. There is also no 'suicide' function, so I was stuck. I paged a GM, but it took two days before anyone came to help me. I even tried to /msg other players to get them to come and kill me -- but, it's a lightly-traveled zone, and the only ones around were of races unable to make the jump I had.


    This event destroyed the illusion of the world for me. I was stuck in a noninteresting place, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Eventually, a GM came and teleported me to a safe location. However, I was never again able to get into the game, or care about my character's wealth or level. I canceled my EQ account about a week later.

    [ Parent ]
    Everquest Review: Verify! Don't Speculate! (Score:1)
    by maxcray (ccn@olenska.hn.org) on Thursday December 06, @04:58PM (#2667527)
    (User #541911 Info)
    > if you dare to run the new expansion you will
    > have to have at least 256MB of RAM just for the
    > core functionality (they provide a way to back
    > out most of the new UI stuff for those who have
    > 128MB of RAM, but I'm told its almost
    > unplayable);

    You were told wrong. It runs fine on 128MB. You
    do need to turn off the fancy graphics, but even
    so the graphics are better than they were, which
    is plenty good enough.

    In fact I know someone who is playing succesfully
    post expansion with only 64MB.

    > I've yet to see the new race, as I assumed that
    > everyone would be starting those characters and
    > the server would be quite slow in those zones.

    If you are going to take the time to write a
    review why not take the time to find out for
    sure?

    The new zones are not slow and work fine. They
    are very interesting and different. I recommend
    that you make yourself a Kitty!

    There were problems with the patch, but the latest
    patch fixes most of them. The upgrade was
    significant so it is not surprising that there
    were problems, but it looks like everything is
    going to be ok.

    Max
    [ Parent ]
    A Real Review? (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @05:04PM (#2667571)
    I think this review could have focused on the actual upgrade process more. This is Eq's third major upgrade, and as far as that, they should have learned a few lessons along the way.

    The upgrade this time came in two forms: the revamping of the game engine, and the addition of SoL zones.

    The SoL zone addition was quick, easy. That they learned with the two previous expansions (kunark and velious). You stamp the zone files onto CD (three this time) and the users install and register. Voila, new zones.

    The real news this time was the game engine upgrade. They moved everything to a new engine, with lots of new XML functionality, which in turn requires a lot more hardware to play. And there's the real story, if this is a "news for nerds" story at all... How do you take an existing game, with hundreds of thousands of people in it, and upgrade its engine? What can you force people to do in terms of a hardware upgrade? More ram? More HD space? Better video card?

    Remember, we're talking about subrscribers here - people that pay Sony every month so they can play Eq. At what point is it ok to say "If you don't meet X hardware standard, you can't play."?

    In this case, Sony raised the bar rather high. Minimum is now 128mb of ram, a Nvidia Geforce card, and I think around a 500mhz processor. Quite a bit steep for a game I was able to play with a K6-2 233, Voodoo 3 2000, and 64mb of RAM. And that's now minimum specs.

    Let's face it - in a few months the bugs in the interface, the "features" they were supposed to add that didn't make it, and the "memory leaks" will be forgotten. What won't be are the people who were paying to play, up until Sony said they had to upgrade past what they were willing or able to afford. And there will be a lot of those cases.

    Those of us lucky enough to have the hardware to play it (I play on a tbird 900, Geforce 2gts 32, 512mb ram) will get to enjoy all the new features - I've been playing it steadily and have had few problems yet. But for those who don't... well, it seems Sony is saying "Tough Luck".

    Kraegar
    [ Parent ]
    Thanks for the review... (Score:3, Interesting)
    by pinkpineapple on Thursday December 06, @05:09PM (#2667617)
    (User #173261 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    ...and so long to the fishes.

    I'm glad to read that this release is not so great. Why? Not because I work for the competition, but because Verant literally kicked me out after wrongly claiming that I was "cheating." Class action law suit anyone? I heard that I am not the only one in that boat.

    I have been with the system since the beginning. I went thru their buggy eervers, buggy releases, awfull support, you name it. You have it. It appears that they made their decision when some sysop was logged in (which is something exceptional as they usually are not here when you need them, like when all your objects disappear because of long lasting bugs.) So the guy sent me a message to verify if I was in front of my machine while I was feeding the cat or on the johns. And since I didn't reply right away. The next thing I got was a mail to get lost. No proof of what they were claiming is shown, unless they scanned my machine and they would have find nothing wrong.What followed was a message exchange (think replies one week after my original message), ending to nothing, nada, zip!

    Verant is the Sirius Cybertronics company as Douglas Adams defines it in the HGTTG book. A company whose complain department covers the landmasses of the 3 first planet in whatever solar system. A company so badly managed that the bulletin board needs to be censored by customers of them who can't get their hw working, connection to their servers, drops, items lost, crashes bugs. Remember their intent for scanning software on your PC. You should have read the BB.
    That was fun!

    I won't be able to get my character back, neither pay their subscription every month. In one way, I should tell them thank you for curing me from this habit of login and meeting friends from all around the world I was talking to every night.

    Hi guys! If you wonder where I have been, you know now. My ultimate request to Verant was to be able to log one last time (even if they judged me guilty for something I didn't do) and let the people I had fun with daily online know that I wouldn't come back. I have still to read a reply from Verant support. It's been 3 weeks now...

    PPA
    [ Parent ]
    Still Waiting for EVE Online (Score:1)
    by jonr (si.xetrov@rnoj) on Thursday December 06, @05:38PM (#2667777)
    (User #1130 Info | http://www.vortex.is/~jonr/)
    EVE Online [eve-online.com] is designed to be Elite [clara.net] of the 0's (can you say that?) Remember Elite? The classic from 32KB 4Mhz BBC computer. I spent countless nights playing that one.... Please make it feel like Elite...
    [ Parent ]
    Compatibility Blame? Where does it lie? (Score:1)
    by -Grover (GroverDOA+SLASHDOT@aohell.CcccOmmmmm) on Thursday December 06, @06:03PM (#2667935)
    (User #105474 Info)
    Actually, I think it is the consumers problem.

                In the EULA you click on every time you load the game, in every published EQ manual, and all SOE documentation regarding requirements it CLEARLY states, and I know I'm paraphrasing here... "Requirements for the game may change at any time to keep up with current technologies." "This is our game and we can do what we want. If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, get lost." I know EULA's are just clickthrough garbarge, but the message is there. SOE is going to continue to supply the demand of hardcore and casual gamers with rich content, beautiful graphics, and amazing gameplay, even if it is at the cost of lower end systems no longer being able to run it. They didn't make this move until after M$ said that Win95 is no longer supported by them. SOE needed DirectX 8.1 to put in the new graphics, 8.1 does't work with 95, and that meant no more 95 EQ users.

                Is it your problem your problem that your OS is 7 years old, or you're running a video card made for the original Doom with horrible 3d acceleration? I would venture to say yes. The OEM for Win95 no longer supports it, so why should SOE? Besides, in 6 months no decent games will support those garbage cards anyway, Verant and SOE are just leading the pack requiring upgrades.
    [ Parent ]
    Troll me baby! (Score:1)
    by ChozSun (choz_sun@hotmail.com) on Thursday December 06, @06:11PM (#2667998)
    (User #49528 Info | http://www.chozsun.com/)
    System:
    Windows 2000 Pro SP2
    Athlon Thunderbird 1.33GHz
    512MB DDRAM
    Visiontek Geforce3

    Connection:
    DSL

    I had to go through the exact same runaround to try to get on from 3pm to 7pm on Tuesday.

    To best explain what I feel about EQ:SoL, I repost part of my statement from Everlore.com:

    "Before Shadows, I felt okay about EQ (even as the leader of Solace de L'esprit http://www.eqsolace.com/ on Luclin). I felt EQ was a prelude to Neverwinter Nights (much like all movies this year are just a prelude to LotR, but I digress).

    They talked all summer about the cat people, the classes, the horses... yah yah yah. Whatever, don't care. I actually did not plan to purchase SoL until the screenshots of the models started rolling in. The naked gnome looked promising but I was dying to see what a Half Elf Female would look like (which they did not release). The more and more screenshots they released, the models were so great looking, I thought they were tricked up 2D pictures.

    Now I was hyped. I wanted the new graphics so bad I could taste it. Tuesday night around 8pm CST, I had to scramble to pick up my jaw off the floor. My Half Elf Ranger in basic Banded Mail look fscking hot! I was so damn sexy and cute that no one could talk to me.

    I did not do the standard "make a kitty and lagged down Luclin" because I did not care. None of the other features compared to the beauty of the updated models.

    Sure, there wasn't much difference in the outdoor environement, I won't own a horse anytime soon and I got time to level a kitty but since SoL, I play in 3rd person view and I would go to no windows if I did not have to watch for text (and health, mana, etc).

    For me and my money, I would have paid $30 for my armour not to look like poo brown. The designers and developers outdid themselves by a long shot.

    If you have to wh0|23 yourselves to the men and women of your town to save enough money to upgrade your OS (why in the world are you running Windows95 is beyond me) and/or hardware, DO IT!"
    [ Parent ]
    Quick question... (Score:2)
    by Omerna (omerna@home.com) on Thursday December 06, @06:32PM (#2668103)
    (User #241397 Info | http://www.slashdot.org/)
    I saw one poster say (not exact quote, but close) "but they've only had 36 hours and have already fixed most of the major bugs with one patch"

    This may sound like (somewhat) of a rant, but if they only need 36 hours to fix most of the major bugs Why didn't they start 36 hours earlier a year ago and get it right the first time? Have everyone on the team stay late an hour for a week or two. I realize they have release dates etc., but in any other industry releasing something this bad would absolutely KILL your marketshare/ sales. Nobody would buy it, and thousands of people would be screaming for their money back.

    Anyway, my real question was why, after so many games do developers still get this wrong? Why don't they learn from past mistakes and get it right the first time? Not only will they accomplish the same thing as with multiple patches, but they'll get major kudos from everyone who doesn't have to madly patch to try to get into the game!

    If someone can explain this to me please do, in all serious (not being facetious) if there's a reason I'd like to know.
    [ Parent ]
    Another viewpoint (Score:1)
    by Synn on Thursday December 06, @06:33PM (#2668110)
    (User #6288 Info)
    I've played EQ since before it game out in March of 1999. Started in Beta around November of 98, so I have a little insight on the game's evolution.

    EQ uses their own engine which was built with the voodoo 1 card in mind. This has been the same engine they've used up to the latest expansion.

    EQ has 3 expansions today:

    Ruins of Kunark
    Scars of Velious
    Shadows of Luclin

    EQ does not require any expansion for you to play. No expansion requires a previous expansion to play. Together they make a huge game. In 2 years of play, I'd say I've really explored about half of the game(and that doesn't include SOL in that figure).

    Since the game engine up to SOL was written back in 98, with a voodoo 1 as the target, there were HUGE limitations on where they could take the game.

    SOL changed that. They redid all the textures in the old expansions with SOL, 3 cds worth, and upgraded their engine to use the new Direct X 8.1 API and incorporated a whole new bunch of core game mechanic changes they can use to enhance gameplay.

    If you don't upgrade to SOL you don't get the new textures and graphics, but they have to force the new engine on you so they can give you the new features.

    Problem: Microsoft is dropped Win95 off their supported list, so the new Direct X's won't support it.

    So EQ no longer supports windows 95 as well. There's no real way around that. But barring windows 95 you can continue to play EQ on your old slow system without SOL.

    And for SOL's "stability"... the release night hammered the patch servers. By day two the hammering stopped and everything was smooth again.

    Should they have increased their bandwidth for that 1 night and added XXX more servers? Some think so, I don't. It would've been a waste of resources to handle that 1 time surge of traffic.

    And the game itself? It's been decently stable. There are lots of bugs, but most haven't affected gameplay any. The bugs that are affecting gameplay they're hammering out in daily fixes.

    I've played EQ off and on for 2 years and see enough to want to play for years more. Not many games can do that.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    This is a refelction on the sad state of gaming (Score:1)
    by grendelkhan ({grendel} {at} {itookmyprozac.com}) on Thursday December 06, @06:54PM (#2668215)
    (User #168481 Info | Last Journal: Sunday September 02, @01:23PM)

    Remember when the first thing you did when you bought a game was play it? The only games I've bought in the last three years that didn't require a patch before I played it were Black and White, and Unreal Tournament.

    Where has quality control gone?

    [ Parent ]
    This release was shameful (Score:3)
    by DrXym on Thursday December 06, @07:22PM (#2668322)
    (User #126579 Info)
    Verant well and truly screwed up this release. Until last week their EQ client was a solid if workmanlike piece of software. In that space of time, it has turned into a bug infested piece of crap, with glitches, crashes, and frequent downtime.


    And you don't escape any of this if you don't upgrade to Luclin. No, EVERYONE is suffering this. Worse yet, EVERYONE has been forced onto DirectX 8.1, despite this breaking the system requirments pledge that it runs on Windows 95.


    There are a lot of shills on the usenet groups who are bleating that if you don't like it you should go elsewhere. What they don't realise is most people EQ the game, but think the administration of EQ stinks to high heaven. The amount of downtime is totally unacceptable. If Verant ran a proper ship it wouldn't nearly half as much and fiascos like this and last week could have been avoided.

    [ Parent ]
    Worst Upgrade Ever (Score:1)
    by twfry on Thursday December 06, @09:14PM (#2668746)
    (User #266215 Info | http://www.tomfry.com)
    Actually people should realize that there are a lot of us who have just be effectivly kicked out of the game. This upgrade did not work for either of the video cards in both of my machines. (Well they work but the graphics have enough bugs to make it unplayable) And they are Rage Pro's, not very new but still decent. Everquest seems to not care that lots of people meet the hardware requirements for the older versions and have been paying good money for some time. I know this is ranting but I'm sort of ticked off with thier 'support' right now.
    [ Parent ]
    A Good Forgotten Realms MUD (Score:1)
    by kakibesar (kakibesar@mailcity.com) on Thursday December 06, @10:14PM (#2668970)
    (User #72526 Info)
    Here's a good Forgotten Realms MUD for AD&D enthusiasts and those that won't bother to fork out money to play Everquest or DAOC.

    telnet sojourn3.org 9999

    Here's the info I stripped from MudConnector.com:

    In May this year Sojourn opened its doors again after being closed
    for some 12 months. Initially there were no plans to reopen, but it
    turns out the admins didn't want it to die and they spent half a year
    making things better and developing new stuff before
    opening again.

    Sojourn3 has a long tradition, it is one of the older muds out there.
    The player base peaks at around 160, but the mud just opened and as
    more people return or learn about it this should rise still. The
    players are generally older and mature.

    The mud is based on AD&D with two 'sides': good and evil. However
    there is no pkill, but there is also very limited interaction between
    the sides. You can trade or sell equipment, but you cannot group and
    the hometowns are off limits to the other side. role playing is
    optional and you can do so if you like. You won't find players by
    the name of Killer or Exterminator, nor will you find Driztt or
    Gandalf. Names have to be unique and original and fitting to the FR
    theme and race. The goods consist of barbarians, halflings, elves,
    gnomes, humans, mountain dwarves and half-elves. The evils have
    trolls, illithids, ogres, duergar, yuan-ti, orcs and drow elves.
    Every race has its advantages and disadvantages, the evils generally
    having stronger races with better innates (regeneration, levitation,
    ultravision) but this is offset by their increased dificulty, some
    racial drawbacks and smaller player base. The sides are not carbon
    copies of each other, with certain classes available only to the
    other side, requiring different approaches to zoning and grouping.
    The world is also very different, every race having its own hometown,
    and the evils generally living in the southern regions of the world
    and the Underdark. The classes are warrior, enchanter, invoker,
    illusionist, cleric, druid, psionicist, rogue, elementalist,
    paladin, antipaladin, bard and shaman. Every class here is unique
    and to successfully conquer the bigger zones you need a good mix
    of these.

    The mud is huge, dare I say it, I don't think there are other muds
    this large out there. There is no 'map' as on Duris for example, you
    walk from one place to the other through single rooms. The layout is
    based upon the AD&D world of Faerun, with the icy mountains up north
    to Waterdeep in the middle, to Baldur's Gate and Calimport
    in the south and Zhentil Keep and the Moonsea to the east. Evermeet,
    the Moonshaes and the Chultean Peninsula are accessible by ship or
    spell. You really get the feeling you are in the realms, the
    atmosphere and detail is incredible. There are a great many zones
    and they are all unique, non-stock. They are the heart of sojourn,
    and they are all very detailed. You won't find a smurf village here,
    only zones which fit the AD&D theme. Nor will you be able to walk
    from one side of the world to the other in 5 minutes, far from it
    indeed. The zones range from low level XP to ultra-hard high level
    EQ zones which are done very rarely. Every race has its own hometown,
    and some of these are a great indication of the standard of the
    zones. For example Ghore, Hyssk and Ixaarkon are wonderfully
    detailed and will keep you quite busy for your first few levels.
    Aside from the prime material plane, there are also other planes
    such as air, fire, demi, astral and ethereal. Each of these houses
    hard-to-reach zones, and getting to the planes is a challenge in
    itself since only a few classes have access to the spells needed
    to get there. The planes usually are not a safe place to stay at
    either... There is a log of a rarely done fight from a hard zone
    so you

    Read the rest of this comment...

    [ Parent ]
    Lucin bugs and DAoC (Score:1)
    by m0zone on Thursday December 06, @10:16PM (#2668974)
    (User #309569 Info)
    i dont own lucin But i have 2 stuck chars in vel due to there patching

    it also has laptop users buged. amd chip sets runing k6/2/3 some p3 chip sets all buged. no jokes it locks up your comp win2000 has amem leak when runing eq it seams

    tnt2 ge2 v3 v4 v5 radeon video cards are also buged or cause people to crash or 5 min zones times even with updated drivers

    from size of chat room invasion on eq and msg boards i am guessing few thousand has bugs was a good 70 people trying to get there char moved due to stuck in one chat room on eq

    i dont own lucin but kunark/vel is buged . del zone files / game files /useTnL=fasle does not work its not peoples systems with bugs its eq
    It was a lame roll out some monetsers dont have skins and look like humans .i had a wizard summon a new taunt pet next to me and a large human poped out . bard songs Do not play root does not work at times . gate was casueing people to crash to desktop . group buffs dont work . npc's are naked Lots of naked wood elf npcs roaming around in some areas everlore.com has goofy screen shots THIS was a bad way to go about things

    on DAoC has casued alot of people to leave eq
    no joke RZ server i play on has no one at times Gfay has top 15 people in zone at prime time.
    RP server has 1 person in Gfay at times. DAoC has takein its toll on eq much of a toll they dont tell you how many players are on eq servers anymore

    GMs are telling people to get new drivers or buy new video or upgrade my video card is 3 days old and computer is uptodate wtf 1 mth lifespan?

    m0zone
    [ Parent ]
    EQ Nude Mode! Best client side bug yet! (Score:3, Funny)
    by EvilBastard (headguy@evilbastard.org) on Thursday December 06, @11:06PM (#2669149)
    (User #77954 Info | http://www.evilbastard.org)
    Best bug found so far - it seems all the new textures and models for clothing and armour are occasionally not being drawn. It is not known yet if this is the fabled "bonus" for signing up for the game early.

    Boy those skinners really need to get out more.

    On the bright side, if it's a bug, surely you could duplicate it with a simple client side memory resident program.

    And, of course, once you have written said program,you could sell it on Ebay for only $139.99 and make yourself rich from 13 year old boys.

    Topless Female Elven Paladin [earthlink.net]

    Topless Female Barbarian Shaman [earthlink.net]

    Naked Female Half Elf Warrior From Rear [tkagiro.com] and Front [tkagiro.com]

    Naked Male Elven caster with carefully placed spellbook [tkagiro.com]
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Shadows of Luclin = SOL (Score:1)
    by Vaystrem on Friday December 07, @01:03AM (#2669454)
    (User #761 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    anyone else find that ironic?

    lol
    [ Parent ]
    Everquest Nude (Score:1)
    by Atroxodisse on Friday December 07, @02:36AM (#2669615)
    (User #307053 Info | http://www.matrixit.net/)
    Speaking of bugs...EQ Nude. [ezboard.com]

    This game isn't good. People just get addicted to it and can't stop playing it. I played it for more than a year and I finally realized I wasn't playing it because it was fun, I was just playing it. Every release since the original has had major flaws, bugs, features that were left out etc...

    Verant's customer service is so horrible that I do not want to ever purchase a product from them again. Which is sad because I really want to play Starwars Galaxies...hopefully they have a different team working on that one.

    This is supposed to be a roleplaying game, but Verant has gone as far as to discourage roleplaying, not only by their actions but by their words. Yeah I'm bitter...
    [ Parent ]
  • 30 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
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