Yahoo! had this to say about EverQuest II’s new battleground system:

First off, PVP will primarily take place in an instanced arena. It’s not going to be just deathmatch, kill-or-be-killed gameplay, though; apparently, alternate game modes like capture the flag, hold the line, and seek and destroy will be included, and SOE hints at some kind of custom game mode creation as well.

GameZone gushed about it, too!

First up is that PvP (Player-versus-Player) will be finally entering the world of Norrath (in EQII, at least) with arena combat. But the arena combat is not limited only to levels of a certain level (the level cap is going up to 60). Players of any level will be able to jump in and compete, if not as their avatar, then as an arena champion of a level that is appropriate for the players participating in the fight.

Gamespot has a deeper analysis of the EQ2 Battlegrounds:

The arena is one facet of EverQuest II’s new player-versus-player combat system, which along with dueling finally brings a smattering of PvP to the realms of Norrath. Players can request duels of other players at will, and there’s even a feature that allows bystanders to wager on the outcome of the contest if they so desire. Wandering around even the lowest-level areas, we found a number of players willing to drop their quests and challenge each other to short contests of skill. The arena is a feature found only in the city of Maj’Dul, and you can walk up at any time to set up the game of your choosing. There are three game types in the arena–team deathmatch, capture the flag, and destroy the idol–and you can easily set victory conditions, time limits, and whether you want to allow spectators outside the game to watch.

GameSpot goes on to note:

It’s a grand setup, but your chances of actually participating in these mighty arena contests probably aren’t all that high unless you’ve managed to already recruit a fighting force. The arena stands large and empty much of the time, particularly on weekdays, with the occasional player trying to fire up a pick-up game that has a good chance of petering out due to lack of interest. The arena seems to be a nice, if underused, player-versus-player outlet, but it’s hard to gauge the future of PvP in EverQuest II.

Long time EQ2 players may dimly recall that battlegrounds were added to EverQuest II back in its very first expansion, the Desert of Flames. You could go in either as yourself and play various CTF, zone defense or FFA scenarios, or go in controlling an avatar, which you could buy or win in groups doing adventure content. (This expansion also added dueling).

After the first few months, hardly anyone played the arenas, even though SOE would expand the arenas to Qeynos and Freeport to make it easier for players to participate.

The DoF arenas gave out nothing but fun and bragging rights. If you won a huge number of matches, you could win small banners for your home that marked your victories. In an Achiever game, a sense of satisfaction can never be enough. When players found there was no real advantage in doing arenas, they stopped doing them.

Now SOE has gone back to the drawing board.

Instead of arenas being open to people of any level, the new arenas will be available only to character level 80 and above. Instead of using avatars in order to make battles more about skill than gear, the new arenas will pit people in the best gear and abilities against people with lesser gear and abilities, or vs classes that are tuned more for a support role.

SOE looked at the Desert of Flames arenas and decided that their failure was not being enough like World of Warcraft.

The new arenas will (like WoW) award PvP armor, and (like WoW) will point out the imbalance of certain classes in PvP. In EQ2, ranged classes will have a powerful advantage over melee, which will lead to inevitable nerfs to ranged classes that will carry over into the PvE world. Classes with crowd control capabilities can expect to find those powers scaled way back, because it’s not fun to be rooted and nuked. And so on.

PvP servers came late to EQ2; SOE has (until now) always emphasized the excellence of their PvE gameplay to distinguish the EverQuest marque from other titles. Since PvP was not baked in to the game from the beginning, it’s never really taken off as a gameplay style.

Assuming the new EQ2 arenas copy well from WoW, we can expect arena fights to consist half of mad scrambles to kill anyone they can, and half of players trying to find a quiet place to AFK so that they can win their emblem/token/shard at the end in order to earn the coveted PvP armor that is the system’s main draw.

I haven’t heard anyone get really excited about the new EQ2 arenas, but maybe I’m not attending the right marketing meetings. If arena PvP is what players have been waiting for, I can’t see why they wouldn’t already be playing WoW, or Warhammer, or Call of Duty 4, or Counterstrike, or Left4Dead, or any of the dozens of other REALLY POPULAR games built entirely around arena team combat. For all the other games mentioned, you can make your character and be in an arena in ten minutes.

EQ2 is the only one that asks you to get 80 levels through PvE first.

Before I get started, I just want you all to know that I don’t have to do this. No, really. I’m about to be rich. VERY rich. I just got a VERY intriguing email….

i have a secured business proposal for you in the turn of US$85,000,000,00 and we shall share in the ratio of 60% for me and 40% for you. Should you be interested, contact me back.

I know this is on the up-and-up because it is written so horribly, and EVERYONE knows that the super-rich have no need to learn to read or write. But my mysterious benefactor had better invert that ratio. I’m holding out for 60%.

I’m happy to announce that the boys of Adventures in Monopoly are back, tanned and rested and ready to work, and they are bringing the Daily Blogroll back with them starting next month. I got burned out on MMOs for awhile….

This long holiday weekend was filled with lots of gaming goodness!

I don’t really want to burn out on Star Trek Online during its open beta. I want it to be fresh so I can enjoy my two characters when the game goes live. Here, @Longasc helps me take out an Undine who has been manipulating the Klingon Empire and the Federation into armed conflict all throughout the galaxy. after, we helped in the defense of Starbase 24. He had to go after that, but I continued on in an open group for Stop the Signal that ends up being yet ANOTHER Undine plot. I wonder if the Undine are going to be the big baddies of whatever raid content STO has?

Regardless, my sole goal in STO during beta is to explore the Klingon faction. My Starfleet ship is hanging, dead and abandoned, in space somewhere. But I know precisely where my Klingon Bird of Prey is.

It’s grounded on Qo’nos. See, the Klingons are all about the PvP. It’s not always against the Federation; Klingons are perfectly happy to make war among themselves. However, out of all the missions I could find, only one of them required leaving Qo’nos — and that was to explore a nebula where NPC Federation ships were milling about. I could barely (at the time) touch those. I tried to fly to Federation space, but was blocked.

In the end, I just returned to Qo’nos and queued up for every PvP mission I could find. On the space ones, I’d be in my space ship. On the ground ones, I’d be lugging around my disruptor cannon. And after, I’d be right back in Qo’nos.

Once I get level 11 and my ship upgrade, maybe I’ll try that nebula again. Otherwise, the PvP aspect of the Klingon faction seems very much like queuing for battlegrounds in WoW (and with EQ2, come the expansion). You just sit in the city and queue for stuff.

I very much hope Cryptic is working on fleshing out the Klingon side of things somewhat. PvP is fun and all, but there’s no CONTEXT. Don’t the Klingons care how the Undines are manipulating them?

I’m still rather undecided about the Star Trek Online business plan. Only two character slots? For a subscription game? People screamed bloody murder when EQ2 shipped with only FOUR (and it was forced to add more). On the other hand, Final Fantasy XI Online only had ONE — every other added a dollar to your monthly subscription fee. It’s clear Cryptic will be pushing the STO store as heavily as any Free to Play game does.

Why not just bite the bullet and GO free to play? I don’t know many people who wouldn’t find a spot for STO on their hard drive if it were F2P. Mark my words, in a year STO will be doing well, and it will be F2P.

Here’s another prediction: When WoW’s next expansion launches, Horde and Alliance will be able to speak to each other, group and so on. The Cataclysm will erase all the old feuds as they come together to save Azeroth itself. Crazy? Maybe. But I have been using the LFD tool to find dungeons both for my (relatively) high level characters (level 60 and 61), and for my lower level characters. And I just can’t tell the difference between them. I took my 25 Horde Tauren druid through Stormwind Stockade and Gnomeregan, and it was exactly like any Alliance group. All blood elves except one undead and a cow (me). Pally tank. Way back when, Horde groups would have orcs and trolls in them. Now, Horde is just a pale reflection of the Alliance. GJ, Alliance. You won by being more photogenic.

Sirhyl/Niiko and Noffin/Severan each made Death Knights on my server (Kirin Tor) to say hello and to prove that DKs weren’t all confused. We did a bunch of instances with me healing, and they went pretty well. We even did Hellfire Ramparts and, aside from not knowing how to get back to the instance after a wipe, we did okay.

I made level 58 (finally!) with my rogue and went immediately to the Outlands. I did a lot of the quests, got several nice upgrades, looked at my shiny new GearScore in the mirror and queued up for another dungeon. What, Dire Maul AGAIN? AGH.

Back to the Outlands. More quests. FINALLY, LEVEL 60! That gave me enough points in the Combat tree to get Killing Spree, where you jump from mob to mob, giving each one stabs of love to their waiting backs. It’s yummy. I got into a Hellfire Ramparts group, this time as a stabbity stabber, and parsed #1 on two of the bosses. I was very happy and I won a belt with space for two red gems.

Afterward I returned to the Plaguelands to continue work on my Scholomance key. With Killing Spree and my new Outlands gear, those undead looked really confused as they dropped meatily to the ground.

Thanks for all the advice on uberfying my rogue :) She is VERY fun now!

Sirhyl was getting a hankering to try EverQuest 2 again and asked if I wanted to Recruit a Friend him and come along for the fun. Sounded fantastic to me! I had a level 14 Fae berserker that I hadn’t done much with since I sneaked her into the Labs once a few years back. Sirhyl made an Inquisitor, and we headed to Timorous Deep to see how things were going.

With the mentoring bonus, the 200% recruit a friend bonus and the 40% holiday weekend bonus, it didn’t take long for Sirhyl to catch up and rocket past my level 14. At the end of the run, I was level 31 and he was level 30, and we finally finished a long, LONG haul in Splitpaw, getting the glowing azure shard that lets us return there anytime. Now we can do the instances.

The Arena and even the Trials of Harclave were kinda tough at 30 when you’re dressed in level 12 armor and weapons, by the way. It was a lot of fun when we were able to do the final instance together.

My Hobbesian cleric and the rest of the Sunday night crew met in Dungeons & Dragons Online again to do all the instances over once more in Hard and Elite. We all wanted to go to Stormreach, but none of us wanted to head over before we’d wrung all the loot favor points adventure we could from Korsha Island.

The henchmen hirelings were a huge help. Each of us brought one along on the elite missions, and we all figured out how to get hirelings to rez and rest at shrines, and all of us had fun being dead. Those adventures are NOT EASY.

There was a bit of fun, though, when a group of mobs knocked me unconscious. They would considerately stand around me while I would bleed away closer to death, then miraculously start struggling back to health, heal to 1 hit point, stand up, get knocked down, bleed, start healing, stand up, etc. This went on three times before they finally just up and killed me, all while the rest of the group was trying to fight their way back to me.

At the end, some of us had enough points to buy the Son-To-Kor expansion (whatever the correct name), but I didn’t. I hope to earn enough doing normal-level missions in Stormreach. I was considering buying the Drow race and restarting as a less grim-looking cleric, but she’s level 3 and I don’t feel like leveling all that up again. I’ll just have to make do with her looks. I SWEAR there’s more than a little orc in her.

I got some EVE time in there, too! But more on that later.

Have a great day!

It used to be such a happy place. True story: I started EQ2 as a happy resident of Baubbleshire. I joined a roleplay guild on Antonia Bayle, settled down for a happy time in a happy land and –

– and then I saw through the facade. These people weren’t happy. They were miserable. That little kid who screamed constantly of gnolls — why wouldn’t anyone help him? The cheap grins that masked the terror every one of them lived with. The false hope that Qeynos’ thick walls would keep the bad things away. It was a sham, a fraud, and I couldn’t do my part any more. I couldn’t live with the lies. I couldn’t go to bed in my haffer hole and trust that the guards in their shiny silver suits could keep me safe.

I betrayed Qeynos and moved to Freeport. This was before the easy, solo betrayal quests; I had to spend three days killing five hundred orcs and a bunch of rare bosses before they’d let me in. I joined a lot of groups, met a lot of great people. Each and every one of them were kind, helpful, and unflinching companions in the face of the great evils that grip the Shattered Lands.

When I finally proved myself to Freeport, I was handed the keys to a small hovel in Big Bend, where the slumlord teased me mercilessly — until he found out I had friends in high places, anyway. I was HOME.

That’s what Freeport means to me.

Deathknell Citadel is as emblematic to Freeport as the mage towers are to Qeynos. Floating above the city on beams of powerful magics, it was a symbol of power and a challenge to the forces that would pull it down. It was my first glimpse of Freeport, back in the time when a level 15 character would face death many times on the long trek through the Thundering Steppes and Nektulos Forest.

SOE pulled it down. Not because of a challenge to Lucan’s authority or a mystical shake-up in the city’s centers of power. No. They did it because they HATE FREEPORT.

Back in EverQuest, the great cities of Oggok, Qeynos and Freeport stood fast to protect Antonica from enemies of the south, west and east. They did their jobs unflinchingly; bravely; without reward or notice.

Sorry, except for Freeport. Some quests had you calling out Lucan and killing him — while the shiny Bayles of Qeynos went on their merry way. Aside from the occasional refugee problem, Oggok, too, managed to stay strong against the tireless depredations of lizard men from the Temple of Cazic-Thule and the horrors of the Gate to Fear.

But Freeport… Freeport was a wide-open city, full of life, color and happiness. Even the halflings of Rivervale found a home there that Qeynos never offered them. People would gather by the gates to trade languages; meet on the docks to share tall tales of travels across the Ocean of Tears and of the mysteries found in far Faydwer. The bank in North Freeport was a well-regarded trade center.

Then the Plane of Magic opened, and desolation spilled from that horrid cesspool of a plane and destroyed fair Freeport forever.

Freeport changed from a colorful, open, simple town to one of dirt and grime, a place no respectable person would ever go. And aside from people seeking entry to the Plane of Magic, nobody did, ever again.

The rebuilt Freeport of EQ2 was a place of wide-open spaces, broad streets, meeting places, a place of friendship and intrigue and mystery and tall stuff to jump from. Now SOE is tearing the place apart.

Don’t let the cruel wizards in San Diego have their way with our fair city. We must band together to save our home. Save Lucan. Find ways to rebuild Deathknell. Don’t let them do to modern Freeport what they once did to its predecessor.

Let Qeynos take the heat for once.

We were hacking a Serpentis radar site in EVE last night, and it was a good site, too. A bunch of Gallentean Starship Engineering datacores that will come in handy, a skill book that Toldain needed, and other stuff which is now cooking on the market… but Tranquility shut down to prepare for the Dominion expansion going live today, so I headed to EQ2 for some fun.

And I actually got a group!

I started out the night with a quick Chronomagic daily quest, which last night was the Ancient’s Table in the Pillar of Flame. I’ve always liked “Ancients” for the great experience — I made a couple of levels on my troubadour in an afternoon there. It was also a little bit dull; you just go in there and kill everything until the boss spawns. I think at one point there was a time limit to ensure the Ancient Cyclops would spawn, but now, maybe just clearing the zone is enough.

Dera and I used Chronomagic to mentor down to level 70, enough to turn the quest green but not too low that we couldn’t finish it. Troubadours are not the world’s best tanks. Someday I’m going to have to try it with Dera tanking….

That done, I swapped Dera for defiler Etha and set out to do the EQ2 fifth anniversary event, the Hero’s Dream, on its last day. Not much to it; you talk to some people in North Freeport, and are sent to awaken a man who has fallen into a magical sleep. The wizards attending him warn that any who touch the man themselves fall into a slumber from which they never wake, but we heroes are made of sterner stuff, and so we enter the man’s dream.

He wants us to gather the broken shards of his soul from various dreams — the Tower of the Moon from Desert of Flame; the Halls of Fate from Kingdom of the Sky; Karnor’s Castle from Rise of Kunark; The Estate of Unrest from Echoes of Faydwer; and the Palace of Ferg’zhul from The Shadow Odyssey. All retuned for the solo player, and none too challenging for the troubadour, but the defiler was having trouble pushing out enough dps to make it worthwhile.

At the end, Thumore D’armer was set free, with hints that we may know of him in another form. Knowing the EQ devs love of anagrams, it doesn’t take much letter fiddling to guess that Thumore was actually Morell-Thule, the Lord of Dreams, so I imagine we’ll be seeing more of him fairly soon. In our dreams, at least.

And he gave a really cool statue of the Qeynos Claymore, which I placed directly in the middle of my scale model of Archer’s Wood :)

Though it was late, there was a group looking for a healer for the Shard of Love! I logged Dera in and asked for an invite. When I got it, I admitted that I didn’t have my mythical (not even my fabled epic!). They laughed :) It felt good not to be immediately judged on my lack of gear. The Shadow Odyssey expansion so often seems like all the bad parts of WoW’s achiever mentality infecting my favorite game and driving away all the casual people.

We flew through the instance, met Mithaniel Marr, watched him greave over his sister once more. It was a lot of fun. It’s nights like that that remind me of everything I love about EQ2. But I know that if I ever went so far as to look for a group as an 80 inquisitor — or an 80 troubadour — I’d only get abuse for my lack of AAs and high end weapons and armor. I don’t expect this to get any better with the next expansion.

Tonight — back to EVE to check out Dominion.