As myself and my guildmates tore into Update 46 yesterday, several of us noticed a few potential issues which may not (or may) have been intended.

For one thing, the storms in the lower level areas (like Forest Ruins and the Peat Bog) were absolutely overcamped by level 80’s who were clearing through the tempest touched creatures with impunity, often while lower levels sat around trying to snipe the occasional creature themselves.  I quickly realized I was part of the problem (as I was one of the level 80’s there) so I removed myself in favor of some of the Enchanted Lands storms (where NO ONE was camping the creatures).

Before I moved, I noticed that the voidbeasts which spawned would never fight the level 80s who had spawned them, and sometimes it seemed they would jump the lower levels nearby instead!  After observing for a bit, I realized that all the high levels had to do was to use the potion on the tempest touched creatures to “cleanse” them…and then, once the voidbeast spawned, they’d simply /yell to break the encounter, forcing the voidbeast to return immediately to its spawn point (i.e. - the creature it had been possessing).  It was a ridiculously easy way to avoid fighting voidbeasts with every cleansing, and allowed players to quickly move through the quests without having to worry about actually having to fight anything.

I’ll admit that I started to use the /yell technique myself.  After all, why fight through hoardes of mindless voidbeasts which provide little challenge or surprise if it can be avoided altogether.

Another potential issue noticed by one of my members was that mentored characters who cleansed a tempest touched creature would still spawn a voidbeast relative to their actual level, instead of their mentored level. I personally don’t see this as as large an issue, especially since the voidbeasts, regardless of level, can be just yelled off anyway.  I suppose if someone was looking for a way to fight the beasts at the appropriate level though, this could be seen as a rather annoying bug.

I’ll be running Runnyeye 2 tonight with some guildmates, and I’m rather looking forward to the run.  If the difficulty is close to what we saw on Test, I imagine this could be our new non-raid home for at least the next month or so.

Update 46 was pushed to live servers today.

Here’s the Quick Rundown:

• * The Gathering Tempest event is now live.
• * Runnyeye: The Gathering is open for business.  This is a new level 80 group instance version of Runnyeye.
• * New carpenter items (including cloak tapestries).
• * Rhino mounts no longer bounce the screen.
• * Healers no longer remove charm from pets.
• * Poisons can be set to automatically reapply now
• * PVPrs can shrink once more
• * Named in most higher level group dungeons now give status points

Full patch notes can be found in SOE’s official forums, or below the break.

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It doesn’t take very long to find a few choice words regarding SOE’s new “Living Legacy” promotion from existing customers:

“But wait a second, what about those loyal customers, who never left. Or what about those people who subscribed last month, or the month before, still ‘recently’ returning.” - Stargace, MMO Quests

“In a stroke of a pen, SOE signed away any reason at all to explore or try difficult dungeons.” - Tipa, West Karana

“Yeah, I sound bitter. I do think the Living Legacy program is fantastic, but I cannot for the life of me see why they didn’t include rewards for those who are currently playing Everquest II.” - Jaye, Journeys with Jaye

Even on the official forums, it doesn’t take long to find more than a couple of long time customers who feel left out:

Qupe: “Let me get this straight: Loyal and existing subscribers who chose to CONTINUE playing (and paying for) Everquest 2 get absolutely nothing via this promotion?”

Auroz:  “Ditto to the fact that it just plain sucks that people who have QUIT or people who ‘recruit’ for this company get rewarded and the people who have been playing the enjoying the game actively with no cancellations.. get snubbed.”

Lunah:  “After all this time I am to be punished and not get the ingame items or game time that people who gave up on eq2 are getting?? And yes before you ask I find it an insult that the loyal customers are being slighted with this.”

Striothia:  “As a loyal paying member of EQ2 since its launch (even the months I didn’t play) this is yet again another kick in the pants to loyal customers. Its not that your trying to get back customers, its not even that your using in game items to do so. Its that these items will now be completely exclusive to returnees that your customers that have stuck with you all the way will never have obtainable.”

I could certainly continue with dozens more similar posts, but I think we all get the point here:  a not-insignificant number of some of SOE’s most loyal customers are feeling left out in the cold.

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For several years now, I’ve been shopping at the local co-op here in Minneapolis.  Every week or so, I walk down to this store to buy my produce and soup, my milk and eggs.  It costs a bit more than the big chain stores here in town, but I like co-op a little bit more.  They may not stock the same diversity of goods or the same brands as the big box stores, but I like the quality and attention the member-staff provides, and I happily pay my yearly dues to keep my own membership current.  Other members pay off their dues by putting in hours at the co-op to work registers or stock the shelves.

Unfortunately, most of the people in my neighborhood do hit the chain stores, though.  As the years have gone on, more of more of the folks who had been shopping at this co-op have moved on to the big chain with their glossy ads and lower prices.  As the economy softens a bit, I think the co-op is feeling the pinch.

Now, if my co-op were run by SOE, they’d probably start handing out free memberships to entice former members to come back, which isn’t a bad idea.  They’d probably throw in some free fruit or coffee cards as well, which is also good.  They’d probably offer a couple of discounts on future shipments of premium produce as well, which I can’t fault them for.

However, if my co-op were run by SOE, I can’t help but wonder if they’d start special limited edition t-shirts or canvas backpacks to those former members…all while completely ignoring those of us who’ve been long time customers the whole time.

Luckily for me, my co-op isn’t run by SOE.  Members who’d been with them long enough were given free t-shirts and backpacks, too.  I even scored a couple of temporary membership cards that I can give away to friends or family to get them to come into the co-op for a visit with all perks of full membership.  In addition, the co-op now sponsers a couple of specials each month where long time members (like myself) get extra discounts on coffee, tea, or baked goods.  I even got a special “blue” membership card to signify that I’ve been with them longer than 5 years.

All in all, these extra perks don’t really amount to much.  It isn’t costing the co-op all that much, but it went a long way to making me feel appreciated for making the extra effort to shop there while other people in my neighborhood drive over the big chains.  Though I also hit the big chains from time to time, I’ve found myself spending more in the co-op lately.  I guess that’s my own way of saying “thanks” right back to them.

I’ve been leading my guild for close to 10 years now.  Throughout that time, I’ve learned a thing or two regarding the ebbs and flows of activity levels.  One thing I’ve learned along the way is to be constantly aware of a few times of the year that will naturally result in lower activity.

The end of spring is one of those times where you’ll start to see a dramatic drop off in nightly attendance.  Oh sure, your die-hards will be on no matter what’s going on, but as May starts to wind down and June starts up, I know that I’m going to start seeing some of my more consistent members suddenly not logging in as much as they used to.  I may even lose a few members to inactivity over the next month.

Come late August or early September, I’ll start to see a resurgence in activity levels again, but till then, I’m sure I’ll start seeing some issues with group formations or even raid starts.

Though there’s certainly no real way to prevent this from occuring, there are several actions that guild officers can take to mitigate the effect this will have on your memberships.
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Though we earlier reported that the upcoming Everquest II expansion looked to be called “The Shadows of Odyssey”, it would seem that the trademarks for USPTO listings 77451534 and 77450867 are now showing “Everquest II The Shadow Odyssey” as the name of choice.

The url for www.theshadowodyssey.com (and www.theshadowsofodyssey) is now redirecting to www.Everquest2.com. 

Everquest II’s Update 45 has finally gone live today.  Unfortunately, like many of you, I’m stuck at work for a few more hours till I can go home, patch, and start playing around with the all the new fixes and features.

In particular, I’m REALLY interested to see how my broker sales are doing, since I’ve spent the last couple of days buying up rare metals on the broker which were selling for ridiculously low prices (because no one was using them to create high end crafted armors or weapons, because there was no real market for either) in order to resell the items for a significant mark-up now that the new weaponsmithed items are live.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned, I’m stuck here at work for a few more hours till I can check on those sales.

It’s at times like this I wish I could view my broker through the EQ2players.com service.  Even better, I wish I could adjust prices in that way.

Have you ever used any variation on the expression, “If it wasn’t for my guild, I wouldn’t still/even be playing this game”?  Have you ever considered buying a new game just because one of your guildmates or officers mentioned they were going to play it?  Have you ever moved from one game to another, just to keep up with your guildmates?

Over the weekend, I was able to get into a couple of very good conversations with some old friends regarding the influence of guilds.  A few of these friends mentioned that their entire guilds were looking to try out Age of Conan, or that they’re looking to wait for Warhammer Online.  A few even mentioned that even though they weren’t currently interested in their current game, they keep logging in because they feel their guilds “needs them”.

What about you?  How important is your guild to your nightly gameplay?  If your guild switched games, would that affect your decision to keep playing the game you’re in now?  Would you be likely to move with your guild?  Even if you weren’t necessarily interested in the game they were moving to?

Our Question of the Week of May 12, 2008 is this:  In regards to your gameplay choices, how influential IS your guild?

We look forward to hearing your answers.

For anyone who hasn’t been paying close attention to the upcoming Warhammer Online MMO, they recently released a considerable amount of information about the guild system for Warhammer Online. This includes a short video located here, and the grab bag questions from their April Newsletter. Here is my favorite question from the grab bag.

Q: What kind of advantages will a guild offer to players beyond chat and finding groups?

A: Beyond the standard features such as guild vaults, cloaks, and guild merchants, we’ve added a layer of game play into our guild system that goes above and beyond standard communication and grouping needs. Guilds gain ranks just like players do, and not just for bragging rights. At each guild rank, guilds gain rewards that benefit the individual guild members and the guild as a whole. Some of the rewards even enhance the role of the member and guild in PvE and RvR.

In addition, the Living Guilds system is designed to offer maximum control and organization to guild leaders without requiring them to make it a fulltime job. A robust set of tools for organizing members and guild leadership, as well as fully integrated messaging and automated news systems, makes it easy to keep tabs on your members. And the guild calendar makes it easy to organize events within your guild OR within your alliances.

It looks like Warhammer Online will contain a number of features that I am surprised we haven’t seen from a major MMO yet. It looks to contain an in game calendar and news system, which is a really good idea. Every guild I have ever been a part of has scheduled events of some nature for the guild as a whole. Everything from Raid nights, to create a new character night, or silly stuff like a new character race from point A to point B. Then with a news system in place, you can let anyone who wasn’t able to attend know what they missed out on, or how the Sunday raid went. Hopefully some other MMO’s will pick up on these features sooner or later. I would love to see an in game calendar for EQ2.

It seems that those expansion files released with the Test update weren’t all that early after all.

According to the French version of SOE’s EQ2players.com site, players will see the return of the god Rodcet Nife in Update 45.  In addition, it appears that the Void will be invading Norrath in this upcoming update, fueling speculation that the upcoming expansion (rumored to be named “The Shadow of Odyssey”) will be centered around the Void. 

The relevant text was here (translation below):

L’événement de Rodcet Nife sera en live avec la mise a jour 45.
Un mystère volontaire entoure cet événement et tous les suivants seront de plus en plus impressionnants menant vers des invasions de grande envergure des créatures du Vide à travers le monde pour toutes les niveaux.

Translation:

The event of Rodcet Nife will be in live with the placement has day 45.  An optional mystery surrounds this event and all the following ones will be more and more impressive leading towards large scale invasions of the creatures of the Void throughout the world at all levels.