EverQuest 2 Week Part 2
EverQuest 2 week continues here on Epic Slant as I look at the various aspects that make up my favorite MMO! I’ve been playing for just over two months now and I’m still picking back up on all the intricacies that make up the game. It has been exciting to get back behind the wheel of one of the original Ferrels and take a spin through Norrath. A lot has certainly changed for the positive and the world has grown by leaps and bounds. This is especially true when it comes to pick up raiding and guilds.
Pick up raids
One of the things that has shocked me is the proliferation of pick up raids in EverQuest 2. At the time of my retirement raids rarely occurred outside of guilds and generally were viewed as quite negative. This was an old EverQuest mentality and we stuck by it. Time changes most things, however, and the World of Warcraft cuture is certainly at work. It seems that pick up raids are on the rise and that is probably for the positive. We haven’t had too much trouble finding folks willing to invite us to update encounters and that is good for casual players. A lot of great things are achieved this way and the non-hardcore crowd gets to see more content.
Occasionally, though, these raids don’t work out as well as the members would hope. Certain raids are very sensitive and even a single player not paying attention can waste hours of their peers’ time. I’ve also seen a lot of the “I want to be a raid leader” syndrome. This is when novice folks have attended a few raids and assume that leading is easy. A bad raid leader can certainly lead to failure. One of the attitudes that I’ve seen lately is the “we know you’re not maxed out” but still expect you to defy mathematics and do the same damage or healing that a top tier raider would. This is a frighteningly ignorant way to lead raids. Back in the day, we never expected new recruits to do anything more than show up and learn. I never talked down to a recruit who didn’t do as much DPS as Dresden. Dresden had gear and we were still trying to catch that character up. This is just one of many rookie mistakes in raid leading that I’ve seen crop up. Hopefully soon we’ll be the organizers behind these pick up raids and can tutor on appropriate leadership behavior. It is time to teach a new generation how the old timers raided!
Guilds
I’ve said in the past that SOE has done an exceptional job of supporting guilds even as they become less important to the MMO experience. Over the last couple of years EQ2 development has added guild halls to the game that feature all kinds of abilities that make a player’s life easier. At the same time the guild UI continues to be stellar and meet even my strenuous requirements. It really is necessary to state once again that EverQuest 2 is the gold standard for supporting player guilds. Every MMO should strive to copy this title in this regard. This has been a really nice change from games where I don’t have the tools I need to manage my guild. The frustrating part of this, however, is that I don’t really need to manage my guild these days.
Truthfully, this has been a rather difficult and sore spot for me. When my friends and I picked up Everquest 2 again we really had no intention of bringing the guild with us. At the same time, however, we’re looking to do things that require more than six or seven players. We’re still flagged with Iniquity guild tags and the idea of leaving that guild literally causes me emotional distress. Just the idea of removing Ferrel from Iniquity seems so foreign to me. Even though I have no intention of “bringing us back,” I don’t want to leave the guild. I also have no intention of recruiting. We have no right to muck about with the guild’s legacy. This is obviously a personal issue for us and not the responsibility of the game but it would be neat if there was some sort of alliance feature. We’re kind of stuck in a way and sooner or later something will have to give. Eventually we’ll work something out I’m sure!
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Tags: EverQuest II, Guild, Raiding
Oi. Ferrel! Sounds like the Pick Up Raid problems are very similar with the common grievances of Pick Up Groups that will always have people hounding the only way to work is with a guild being, “We don’t know whether or not you’re an idiot.”
Also, man up! You know you’ll need to leave the guild if you want to progress. An alliance is only burying an already existing issue, don’t you think?