EQ2 GU 51 It’s about freaking time…

From my twitter

amnerysRT: @everquestii: Hey all! Elements of Corruption (GU# 51) is planned to go live tomorrow! We’ll keep you updated. – Kiaraabout 3 hours ago from TwitterFox

everquestiiHey all! Elements of Corruption (GU# 51) is planned to go live tomorrow! We’ll keep you updated. – Kiaraabout 3 hours ago from TwitterFox

Alik Steel

EQ2 (AB) Guild name: Insurrection

I know that I don’t post one or two post a day like othere’s, But I am slowing down on my post till things slow down in my life.

I got in an epic fight with a named mob that goes by the name smoke. Smoke kicked my ass, and I am having to chip away at it a little at a time. It will take me some time, but I will stop smoking. I am cutting it down a little each week.

I am allso going to find out once and for all, If I will keep my job by 04/01/2009. I ask my boss “you are joking? I get to find out if I have a job or not on april’s fools day?” Damn thats going to be a sucky day.

In the mean time I am trianing a new cargo agaent. At the same time I was doing my yearly cargo test. At lest the test are over.

 

Ok I would love to talk about the guild ( Insurrection ), But there is things going on that could be great. I just don’t know how it’s going to go. Ok I got to say it, I was not going to talking about what is going on. But we have a few people from another MMO that is checking out EQ2 and our guild as there new game and guild. The thing is I don’t know how it will turn out. Now as far as I see, Things are going good, But thats me. I liked grouping with them and they all seem to be good gamers. They are very friendly and seem to have fun with us as we have fun with them. The flip side of it is that as we check them out they are checking us, and the game out. As any one who reads my blog knows that I am not happy with the way EQ2 is running. So things could go south because of the game being off, and not running like it should at this point in it’s life.

Now if every thing goes well, We like them, They like us. There could be many more people from the othere MMO guild that could cross over and join us in our guild. It would be a ready made guild stepping into our small guild.

The down side to this, and yes even if all goes well, There could be a big down side. This ready made guild is just that, And at some point the leaders of that guild may want to do there own thing. So when/if that was to ever happen, It could be a big hit on the guild. Now with me knowing that this is something that very well may happen, I will still wecome all of them into the guild.

 

We have allso lost (no not dead) one of our core members, He was running our guild web site, and ran into some things that just could not be worked out. I will, and I’m sure the rest of the core of the guild will miss him. I hope you find what you are looking for. Good luck man.

 

I have not made a level in so long I could not tell you when I last dinged. I am working on many faction quest lines, and have helped make the guild ding to level 34. Think we are only about 80% away from hitting guild level 35 and get our guild banker, and fuel merchent. If our guild has been super sized (thats like more than 6 people for us) by the time we hit guild level 40. We will do a poll for the next two.

 

Alik Steel

Jumping on EQ2 yet again

Seems like all I do now days is jump on EQ2, I realy don’t want to. I would love to brag on them more. EQ2 is still very much my main MMO, But and this is a big but, You seem to be falling apart on me. At this time you should be on top of the surf and riding high on life. So what’s the deal? Why are we having all this stuff happen? We have (counting last night) three oh hell’s in the last four months. Network Outage, Login Server Currently Down, and last night Connection Errors. You put that on top of my server Antonia Bayle having zone and spell lag. Granted it seems to get better from time to time.

You know and I know that people tend to forget the AT-A-BOY’s, and only remember the OH HELL’s, and I would love to give you a AT-A-BOY right about now. Just you seem to be doing every thing wrong. I was happey with what I reading on the test forums about the fighter changes, Now it seems you (being the EQ2 dev’s) are not going to fix that. Then you say that you want to be able to talk to us better, like in the Jerry Maguire movie where he asked “Help me… help you. Help me, help you” Fine I would love to help you, I just am not going to stop playing on my server. I do not want to go to test and play a bunch of stuff/time just to jump back on my server and have nothing to show. Maybe it’s a shit ass thing to do, but thats the way it is with me. Maybe if you made it where you gave rewards for people to test for you, Then I would. No I am not asking for any free stuff without work, I’m just saying you need to make it where there is a reason to play on it. Remember we are all paying money to play. I do not want to feel like I am clocking into work and having to pay for it. We the players would love to talk to you, So maybe you should come to us, The paying, playing people of the game. Come to our severs and ask. Make ingame polls for us. Because if you go by the forums you are missing most of your player base. I know only a few people that goes to the forums as I do. 99% of the people I play with has never went to the forums.

I don’t pertend to know how to make new or maintain content. It just seems that the maintenance of the game is falling off the mark. If GU51 and/or the Fighter changes is taking to many dev’s from keeping the game running. Then please put it all on hold and get the game running at the level it should be at this time in the games life.

 

Alik Steel

I just did it!!!

I just had my last smoke, A co-worker and I was talking allmost two weeks ago and he told me about the new up-graded sin tax on smakes. As we was talking I did something that I had not done in a very long time. I added up how much money it takes me to smoke. Around $1,200 a year is what I have paid for some time now. That was a shock, I kill about 20 packs per week. I allway thought about what it would take to stop smoking. Now I know, Around $1,200 a year.

 

So as any one who has stoped or lives with some one who has stoped smoking, The next few weeks will be hell on me and every one around me.

 

Oh and if you are asking why today was the last time I smoked and not two weeks ago? It was because I had allready spent the money on two cartons and was not going to trash them, Or give them away. Allso, I think I need time to get my mind ready for this epic battle I am about to have with myself.

 

Alik Steel

p.s. It has only been about 15 minutes and I allready want one……This is going to hurt.

EQ2, What are you up to?

This came out on the 17th of this month, I just got around to reading it…

 LINK

 

“Recently we’ve been working on some changes to the fighter classes, particularly in the way that they manage hate. Our intent was to adjust these classes so that fighters would rely more on their taunts and abilities to gain and hold aggro and less on high DPS and hate buffs from DPS classes.

Why do we feel this is necessary?

Well, we’ve been talking since the last Fan Faire about how we’ve drifted away from the hate management and damage sink that tanks were originally intended to be.  With this, there has also been an increase in the DPS that tanks have been doing while in combat. This begins to impinge on the role that we’ve envisioned for the Scout and Mage classes, and we feel that moving forward we need to make some adjustments, as it is increasingly difficult for us to do proper and cohesive game balancing as the lines get more blurred.

We introduced this to the test server in early January and the response from the community was strong.   Recognizing that this is a very sensitive and delicate topic, we postponed the revamp for more testing and evaluation.

In the end, with all of your feedback, we’ve decided to re-examine the structure of the fighter revamp. 

What does this mean? 

For those of you on the Test servers, this means that there will be some changes coming.  The changes made with the initial release of the fighter revamp need to be removed.  However, rather than just roll back your characters to when we first introduced the changes on Test back in January; we’re going to need to split out the consolidated spells, which will reset them to Adept 1. We’re currently working on a plan to allow you to upgrade them to something higher than Adept 1, and as soon as we have the details of that plan worked out, we’ll be posting about it. For our Test Copy server, we’re going to need to wipe the entire character database, which will likely take several days. Once we’ve got that database cleaned, we’ll reopen that server and allow you to copy your characters back over as you wish.

For all of our players, this means that we’ll be reinitiating the adjustments to tank balance from a fresh point.  The difference is going to be in how we go about planning and communicating the changes, because we want, and need, to know what you think.

Our plan is to start an open dialogue with you, our players, and to get your feedback every step of the way.  This will mean more time in between updates, but we think that it’s worth it to get you more involved in the direction of the game.  We hope that you agree.  We realize we haven’t been stellar at consistent communication in the past, but consider this a big step towards this goal.

We are also looking at incentives to get more of you playing on the Test server, for further feedback.  We truly believe that if we can get more of you testing and contributing your feedback, we will know more about what you all want, what you all believe is best for the game.  We want to acknowledge here that this is your game, and many of you are the experts at various aspects of this game.  We want this to be a collaborative effort between SOE and its players.   When we get the details of the Test server incentives worked out, we’ll be announcing it on the forums and on EQ2players.  We’ll also be announcing the plan for improving our communication and creating an open two-way dialogue with you as soon as we’ve worked out all of the details. 

In the meantime, make notes!  We’re looking forward to collaborating with you.” -Bruce Ferguson

 

 

This is supposed to make you and me feel good. I do not see this as a good thing, It does not mater if you thought that the fighter changes was a good thing or bad, What this is saying is that the few will tlk for the many. The people that play on the forums 24/7 and like bitching more than they like playing is going to be the people that tells EQ2 how they should go about there game changes. I do not see this as a good thing for the game at all. I see this as a way for the few to be able to yell even more about how the class is not as good as the next, Never mind that there class may be the uber class of the game and not one class can com close to there’s. This will go very bad if EQ2 goes on with this.

Why am I saying this?

It’s because the people that realy play the game, There in the game playing, When the few that may only play an hour are two in the game per week get to say what WE the true players of the game want. No mater what we may or may not want.

 

EQ2 if you truely want to find out what WE THE PLAYERS want, Make it where we can talk inside the game. I would like to point out that most of us true players of the game have guilds and friends in the game and have very little time to log into the test server to try out new changes. For the few people that realy do play on the test sever for the betterment of the game, I thank you. But very few of you are on it, So there is very little true testing.

 

The last thing that I see, Is something that I did not read at all. Not the first thing about GU51. Does this mean that the fighter chang is out of GU51, or does this mean that you(EQ2) will be pushing it back over and over till the next expansion. Ok that last part is a little over the top and it has only been 3months for this, But it just feels like a very long time. EQ2 take the damn fighter changes out of GU51 and send it on out for the live severs. And go on and play with this fighter change as long as you wish, Just don’t let the few change the game for the many.

I for one, Was happy that you was going to turn the hands of time and start trying to put the classes back to the way it was at the start. Tanks, being tanks and the othere three types doing what they was made for. I like the thought of a mage being the biggest blasters of the game, and tanks taking all the heat of the battle. Souts being sneaky, and Healers saving our ass. It’s not like that now. You have classes on all four type that can Heal, Tank, DPS. For the most part you(EQ2) have come close to killing off most of the mage classes and tanks (not the SK, that would be the uber class that can do it all) in the way that the game is. So yes I was realy happy over what I was reading on the forums about where you was going with the fighter changes.

 

This has been a knee-jerk response

 

Alik Steel

My comment to the The Nosy Gamer post on PvP

my comment for “The Nosy Gamer” post: PvP and Me

First off, I am a lot like you when it comes to PvP. Except for a short time, When I was with the Pwngage Brother’s show guild on a PvP server in EQ2. By the way the show did a podfade a long time ago. Any way it started off with just a few of the fan’s of the show getting together and playing around with each othere. Soon after that the show host started joining us and we started off just looking for Freep’s to hunt. Yes, We was all good side of the game.  All from Qeynos  and started hunting in the commonlands. We allso locked off at level 18. At our peak we was two full groups, Not in raid, But did work as one. We was useing a VOIP to get our hit’s just right. At our best we killed a level 38 ( I think ) with just one group, Still no idea how we pulled it off. I din’t think that we would even be able to hit him.

We allso would have people join us on our monday night hunt’s. Like Brent from VW, Matter a fact if you like you can watch one time that he went out with us. Over on GAX is where I have the Video. The video show’s brent dieing, but only becouse it was a lot higher person we were after. Brent is a very good player and we all had a lot of fun when he came out to play with us.

We had a great run of two or three months. May have even been as long as five months (long time ago) and it allways happened on monday night.  Close to the end we even betraded so that we could go after every one. But VG was in open beta and was about to go live and we started having poeple drop out, Then one of the show host left for VG and that was the end of it. It was a great time and I would do it again in a hartbeat if I could be apart of a group(s) like that again. I think maybe the reason it was so great was that we only did it one night a week for just a few hours. I think it was three hours every monday night.

So I think even if you don’t like PvP or just parts of it, You would find it a lot more fun when running around with a good group of friend all doing the same thing. Even getting ganked seemed to be fun when it happened to all of us togethere.

 

Alik Steel

Looking for a book that I can’t remember the name of…[EDIT] found

I need help, plzs help me out. There is  a book I read a good 10 years ago that I can’t remember the Name of, Not only that I can’t remember any of the characters names in the book. What I do remember is just bits of parts of it it. Here is what little I remeber (Othere than remembering it was very good)

I beleave this was writen by a woman back in the 1930’s or 1940’s. (it may be not even close to that time frame)

The main character was a woman that takes over a railroad co.

She (being the main character) befriends a man that comes up with a new metal.

The country (USA and maybe the rest of the world) is in a depression of some type and starts trying to take things from rich (as I remember it was maybe more from the people that get things done) and give to the othere’s that did nothing for it.

I allso remember something like poeple keep saying things like ” It’s not my fault”

Later on the Woman and her new (the man) friend find a new type of motor or engine. It does not run, and is missing parts, So they go looking for who makes it.

The story goes on and every time they come close to finding some one who knows something about it, They come up missing.

In the mean time the goverment is taking more and more of the companies from them.

Close to the end(or it seems close to the end) of the book you find that all the mover and shakers of the world is all living in one place, and letting the rest of the world go to hell.

In the end it seems that the main character (the woman) goes back to help fix the USA ( or the world) to come out of the depression.

Does this ring a bell with any one?

Alik Steel

[EDIT] Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for the email’s

Here is the info I was looking for: Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ [1957]

Damn it, EQ2 GU51

Damn, Not going live for weeks. read it and weep!

 

Froech

EQII Producer

Joined: Nov 8, 2004
Messages: 121

 ”As many of you know, we’ve been working on Elements of Corruption (Game Update 51) for some time…there really is a lot of good stuff coming, including new zones, new raids, new quests, a revamp of Lavastorm, the list seems endless. However, we’re not quite ready to release it. I know many of you were expecting us to do so this week or next, but at this point, we just need some more time to spend working on it so that it’s just right for all of you. Please be patient with us while we finish polishing the update, and as soon as we have a good date that we can ship out all of this exciting goodness, we’ll let you know.

Also, for those of you who are trying to claim the item as promised in the Beckett’s magazine promotion, it will postpone that item as well. We hope you understand, and certainly appreciate your patience.”

 

here is the link

 

Alik Steel

One of my pet peeves

I’m a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to this pet peeve.

 

Game or game companies haters, They are the people that you read all the time. No mater what game you play, If you go to the forums, or any fansite you will find this. You can even go to places like MMORPG or Massivrly and read in the forums/comments and find the haters on there. If you start looking you will start to see that in a lot of casses that it’s only a few poeple that is doing most of the hateing you read.

Blogs is a real bad place for the haters, You can find blogs that are made just to blast games and/or game companies. At the start of my blog, When I was trying to find my way, I even blasted a few games. I din’t feel like I was. But this was what I was doing.

Now when you log into the your MMO you will find a new type of game haters. Some of the haters may be hard to find because we are use to hearing it from our friends and we realy don’t even pay attention to what they are saying, and yes I do find myself doing this as well.

Tell me if you have ever heard some one say this ” Damn WOW players”. I think that is the one I hear the most, and to my shock, is one that I am finding that I say more and more. I don’t know if this is said in all othere nonWOW MMO’s or not, But I bet it is.  I am use to hearing slang all the time and useing my on slang words like “buddy” I use this as every ones name. Man or woman I say it all the time in a greeting to people, or when I say goodbye to them. I allso use “babe” all the time. It’s my way of saying friend. “look here babe” “here you go babe” “what you looking at babe”. I have tryed to stop saying it, but it allways seems to crep back into my every day talk.

When you hear some one say something over and over you some times start useing it yourself. Not because you want to. It’s because you hear it so much that it’s in your mind and it can slide out at some point. Like “damn wow players” meaning some one has done something that you din’t like. Like I said I know that I am a hypocrite for saying it myself, but I hear this all the time. At lest a few time a week. Makes me think, What does wow players say when some one does someing that they don’t like. “damn eq/eve/lotro/war players” or what I bet will happen at some point is that some one in the game wow will say “damn wow players” and get jumped on for it.

 

Like Rodney Said, ‘Can’t We All Just Get Along?’

I don’t think that there will ever be a time when there will be no game haters, Not as long as there is two or more games. So it looks like this will be one pet peeve that I will have to live with.

 

Alik Steel

What’s going on in my real life

I am startring to feel like this blog is becoming a eq2 info blog, I hope I can chang that a little. EQ2 is my main game and I do go looking for info about it and feel I should let you all know any good or bad info I find out. So I will keep doing that, but I think I will try to add a little bit of my real life in here as well.

Now as for me right now, I am on a tight rope right now with my job. Some time this month I will find out if I get to keep my poor little low paying  job or not. With the way the US  is looking, I think I want to keep this job. I have been asked a few times about if I will be told a week or two before I get layed off, or as I like to call it “YOUR FIRED”. No I want, at the end of one of my work days, If I am going to get layed off, They will hand my the pink slip as I clock out. and that will be that.

What I will do, I have no idea, Just like all of you, There just is not that much out there for job hunting. I will have a little time to say good bye if this does happen, but I don’t see me being able to keep my internet if I loose my job. Not so long ago I went over a year with out the internet, so I know I can do it again if I have to. No I want like it, and I will loose touch with a bunch of you and that will hurt me. But when you got to say what bills are payed, Power, Water, Gas, and Food bills come first.

Any way I have a 50/50 chance of this not happening as well. I even have a small chance of coming out of this with  a pay raise, Not hold my breath on that.

 

On to the next, I have a neck thing, I was told it’s whiplash and nothing I can do to get over it. About 8 years ago when I was a truck driver, I had to come to a stop on the interstate. I made the stop and had a good 30 feet between the car ahead of me and my truck. Then the big truck that was not watching the road slamed into me at about 75pmh. His cab went under my trailer and he was hurt bad. I was slamed into my sleeper of my truck. Hurting my neck. Now for no reason at all I get bad neck aches, with head aches. It gets so bad some times I can’t even play my games. And right now it’s building up on me so I am going to cut this off now.

 

Alik Steel