Is it time to leave Norrath?
Eight years. That’s how long I’ve been in Norrath. Granted, the last three have been on and off because of WoW, but that’s a long time to spend playing a videogame.
In Everquest, the best accomplishment you could make would be making it to the Plane of Time. For those familiar with the questline to get to Hyjal and The Black Temple in WoW, this would be the equivalent. I never made it there because I played EQ so casually that I didn’t care. Also, the grinding in EQ was so slow that you could spend days in there and still never ding one level.
The day before Everquest 2 was released, Lindyen and I had run a few instances of LDoN. That night I had a sinking feeling that it might actually be the last time I spend in EQ1 regularly. I was right. The next day, Everquest 2 showed up at my local Gamestop and despite a few glitches on Day One, I was enthralled by the game. This is what Everquest should have become. Better graphics, better quest logs, better guild support, better everything. Eventually I became disenchanted with the game and quit due to its ridiculous leveling grind and terrible combat support.
So if you quit the sequel to an MMO you played for years, where do you go? Well, needless to say I went to WoW. WoW made MMOs fun again. No hideous grind, a decent combat system, a small but workable quest log, and good lore to read about. That was February of 2005 and I didn’t log into EQ2 again until June when I moved my character to the EQ2 server that allowed you to sell you character through SOE and quit the game.
When I heard a few months later that SOE had fixed a lot of the terrible things about EQ2, I decided to go back to it. I loved the Norrath of EQ2. I think that everyone at least once should romp around Antonica with the music on. It seems silly, but the one thing I missed the most about EQ2 was its night sky. It wasn’t some crap slapped together with MS Paint like in WoW, it was a beatifully rendered night sky, complete with meteors, twinkling stars, and an obliterated moon that turned on its own axis.
Going back to EQ2 with all the problems fixed was a wonderful experience. I took off from WoW for a while and got a character to 50 in less time than it took to get to 33 the first time around. I found a guild of wonderful, smart, hilarious people which I still miss. Looking back at some of the screenshots I took back then, we had some damn good times.
Then one day, people started to leave the game.
“Where’s Tommy?”
“He left for WoW”
Huh.
A few days later:
“Where’s Laura?”
“She left for WoW”
And the guild started to fall apart. I wound up joining another one but the people weren’t AS smart, AS funny, or AS fun to be around. I slowly started losing interest in the game because I lost interest in the people I was with.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago….I log into the game to find that myself and a lot of people were booted from the guild we’ve been in since 2005. The reason? The guild decided to kick everyone that wasn’t a hardcore raider, regardless of how long they’ve been around. Now, in WoW that’s no big deal. In Everquest 2, your guild has a level, just like your characters do. Your guild “dings” when guildies run special quests called “writs” for your city. Every 10 guild levels, the players in your guild can buy better and better items. When you kick those people from the guild, it’s like kicking people that built up a company and saying “FU” to them as their ass lands on the sidewalk. A lot of us made a big stink about it on the guild’s forums. No longer can we buy big houses or titles for our characters, or some of the nice things that we all helped the guild get to. The consolation prize? A guild full of non-raiders that has to start at guild level 1. it was a goddamn insult. Now, I’m in a hardcore raiding guild in WoW and I do a WoW podcast. There’s no way I’m coming back to EQ2 on a regular basis, but there’s absolutely NO reason why you can’t keep the people in the guild that have been there for years.
I logged into EQ1 the next day and the guild I’ve been in there for four years completely disbanded. The leader’s gone, the members are gone, and one person that was on my friends list sold her character. Not that I had any ideas of going through the Plane of Time progression anytime soon, but it was nice to see familiar faces after so many years. These were the same people that all helped each other get our Tier 1 epics. Good times, believe me.
So now both my characters are homeless in games that they spent years in. Is there any real need to stick around anymore? I have nothing to show for my efforts in EQ1 except the title of “Naturewalker” and an epic scimitar. In EQ2, I have a house I can no longer afford (due to getting booted from the guild) and a guild full of people that are more concerned about keeping people because they raid instead of the fact that we’ve known each other for two years.
There’s only one thing keeping me in both games – nostalgia. Being able to wander around North Karana in EQ1, or Antonica in EQ2. My house in EQ2 was such a damn accomplishment, it would be a shame to give it up. Sure, if I cancel my account the house is still there, but I can’t afford it anymore. I was debating on selling my character and just saying goodbye to Norrath once and for all. It’s not an easy thing to do when your monthly fee to keep the characters around is very cheap. If I decide to, I’ll be sure and take a boatload of screenshots and post them here.
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Comments
Your house will not get more expensive when you leave a guild. You could not buy the same one again but the house you bought while in a high level guild will stay yours at the same price.
I was in the guild that you were in, in wow – you know, the one that kicked people out. Without going into details those were sad times indeed. I am less active in WoW because of it.
I had a similar experience of going back to find the old guild gone, but in my Ultima Online days. Only some of it was due to people “going to WOW”. Some of it was due to too much guild drama.
As to going to EQ2 from EQ1, I played in EQ1 but quit because of how hard it was to level up (amongst other non-game factors). When I started playing EQ2 it was after so many of the problems I heard about were solved.
My solution to the guild people is a group called “The Older Gamers” (TOG). 14,000 members strong and crossing console and mmo games. They are a great bunch of people.
In the end, spending a bit less time in WOW was like getting out of the virtual house. It got me interested in writing about areas of the gaming industry other than just WOW. So now I write for Virgin Worlds as well as for World of Warcraft Chronicles. Taken together with TOG they are my silver lining behind the dark cloud.
Julie Whitefeather
Wow. It sounds harsh, what’s been going on guild-wise at least with your characters in both EQ1 and EQ2, and I can understand your thoughts on leaving. However.
There’s always hope, that things will change, and get better. True, it takes time to find a crowd that is just (if not more) enticing as your last one, and yes, it hurts that you’re removed from a guild for not being an ‘uber raid focused’ player. But there’s still so many wonders out there, so many amazing people, and places to go.
I’m sorry to hear you can’t afford your home any more in game, though that one I find a little difficult to swallow as I have numerous 5-room and 3-room homes that I keep up without having the guild level 60 tag. Especially with the new homes in kelethin and Neriak that require no status and are just as amazing and large (also no required guild levels).
I hope you find whatever you’re searching for, none the less. With RoK only a few months away, I think you’d be surprised at the numbers of people returning.