>
3. The "content" based events/quests/lore & history has been skimpy at best.
Granted, it's very difficult to provide RolePlay Lore when there are so many
Duuuudz who wanna kill it and loot it. But where is the incentive for
players to do otherwise? Where are the tools to facilitate GM events? And
they may not have the resources to make dynamic events actually work - ie
why bother if there is no money in it.
>
Very true, Sylly. Verant has marketed EverQuest as a Massively Multiplayer
Online Roleplaying Game. It's certainly MMO, but I'm not so sure about the
RPG bit.
Players in EQ don't roleplay. The game has become (at most) Quake with
roleplaying elements between battles. "Lawks, my good sir, thou didst surely
get a sound spanking from yonder Sarnak. Prithee, I should heal thee."
Lore is hinted at in the game, but all the lore and history I've read is on
*websites*! Why? In an interactive game such as this, we should have
access to the lore through libraries, NPCs and GMs.
There's no denying that cynical names such as EverCamp, EverLoot, EverFarm
etc etc have more than an element of truth about them. If you ask someone
why they're going on a Dragon Raid, they'll undoubtedly answer along the
lines of "um, because he drops the Horn of War, DUH!" and not something like
"I rallied my guildmates and these brave souls to slay Nagafen in revenge
for razing my home village to the ground and killing my family. His death
shall be a relief to us all."
EverQuest has taken the capitalist side of real life and put it online.
There's some days I feel like a donkey chasing a carrot. But like the
donkey, I don't have any particular reason to go after the carrot other than
"it's there."
However, if you're happy with that, then welcome to their world.
Think of any (good) P&P (pen and paper) RPG - Vampire: The Masquerade, SLA
Industries (wow!), Paranoia, Star Wars etc. What do they all have in
common? What's the one essential thing that makes them work? STORIES! And
GMs. EQ GM-run events are largely a joke. Sure, there's some interesting
plotlines thrown in, but we have no idea how it fits into the big picture.
It's like watching an old 50's serial show - if you missed last week's
episode, too bad; the story goes on without you, but you don't get the
two-minute recaps when you tune in next.
I got hooked on EverQuest for what it promised, which it has delivered very
little of. Add that to the ever-growing pile of carrots.
I bought Vampire - Redemption last week. It may not be MMO, but it's
*definitely* an RPG. The sheer brilliance of being able to Storytell (GM)
online with a group beats anything EQ can do atm.
I'll continue to play EverQuest, mainly because I have friends in the UK who
play and it's a great way to keep in touch since I moved over here.
And those carrots are addictive. ;)
Hmm... carrots... that reminds me, it's lunchtime. See y'all inna bit. ;)