Prepping for a raid in Everquest on June 21st, 2002.

If you happen to roam around the MMO blogosphere and news sites, you might have seen some hints and whispers about the possibility of Everquest 3 being a reality.  Some say that has been in production for years while others think it will never be made. People seem to be split on the idea of Everquest 3 seeing the light of day. Personally, I would welcome another Everquest title into the marketplace, but only if it was created in a certain way.

I have mentioned before that the original Everquest is and always will be my best gaming experience of my life. Be that as it may, I can’t see myself ever returning to Everquest, even though I have friends who would like to see me return. The reason is game mechanics. Back in 1999, Everquest was the best game you could play. During those early years, the game played mostly as you thought it should. Due to the lack of other MMO games on the market, we gamers did not have a large frame of reference as to how things could be done.

Other games did eventually come on the market, with Everquest 2 being one of them.  It met with lackluster success at best. It did improve many things over the original version, but it also left many things to be desired in gameplay and UI experience. It took World of Warcraft to show all of us how an MMO can be done right.

If Everquest 3 is indeed on the horizon, I would like to see it play like a cross between WoW and Lord of the Rings Online. Give us a UI that blows our socks off. One that is super simple to start using yet easy to delve into the deeper parts of what is possible. I would also like to see the game go in a much different art direction than current Everquest games. The environment does not need to always look super-realistic. I want the designers to use their imagination and surprise me. Show me something that has not been done before and let me see it without needing to buy a new computer to experience it.

Everquest 3 should take me back to its roots. Don’t take me to a future reality or magically transport me to a moon. Show me the “old west” of Norrath, one that I envisioned in my mind as the game taught me about the Combine Empire. A world more barbaric and yet more civilized at the same time. In other words, show me the lore I have only read about and never seen.

Is there room on the market for another Everquest game? It is difficult to envision three Everquest games operating at the same time. Original Everquest turned 10 years old this year. It obviously is still making a profit or Sony would not keep it running as long as it has. EQ 2 has more subscribers, which one would think brings in more money than EQ 1. Should Sony shut down EQ 1 to make room for EQ 3? It is a tough call, but as they say, it all comes down to money. Just how profitable are these older games? Would a new version generate more revenue?

I hope that Everquest 3 will be released. I also hope that they do it right. Only time will tell.

The problems with Windows Vista are myriad and well-known since the day it went on sale. Subsequent updates and service packs have done a great job at getting the operating system running as it should, but the stigma of performance and compatibility issues continue to harass Microsoft.  In fact, the problems are so well-known that even the government has heard about it.

The state of Texas has banned the use of Windows Vista on all government computers. Senator Juan Hinojosa, Democrat, says “Windows XP is just fine, thank you very much.”  Who knew the government was tech savvy? Microsoft sees it as a slight against the company.  I think they should see it as an opportunity to fix their software.

To be fair, a fully patched Windows Vista does run much better than it did when it launched.  My biggest gripe with it is that it is still a memory hog.  I once had a Sony Vaio with Vista Home Premium on it. On a fresh boot, with only minimal start-up programs running, it still used almost 2GB of RAM before I launched any of my programs. That is ridiculous.

There are many ways to protect your computer. You can use anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall software, but have you ever considered power protection? It is one of the most over looked areas of a computer setup.  The video below will talk about power protection for your computer and what you can do about it. As with all upcoming content on this site, it will be explained in an easy to understand way that bypasses all the geeky terms and specifications and gets to the point as to why you should or should not use something.

You might have noticed that the name of this blog has changed.  I have decided to slightly change the focus of this blog so that I may talk about more technology than just MMO games. I would like this blog to be a place where non-geek technology users can come to get easy to understand information about technology in general.  I will still write about my experiences with MMO gaming, but I will also mix in other tech subjects as well.

So I welcome you to the new Casual Tech Notebook blog.  I hope you will enjoy what you find here.

Kevin

The newbie introductory instance in Lord of the Rings Online ended with me defending the town of Archet while it was under attack. The bad guys were driven off, but not before the town went up in flames. This is a good example of instancing done right. When you exit the instance and enter the game proper, Archet is a burned out town from that point on.

The first few quests are of your standard newbie type. I was sent out to kill diseased boars and a few spiders outside the Archet gates. I was whacking spiders around the Sprigley farm when I discovered their cellar. This is where my memory fails me because I can’t remember if this was in the game during the initial launch. I can only assume that it was.

When I entered the cellar I discovered underground caves full of spiders. I roamed around a bit and eventually came across an elite spider named Iornaith. The room this big spider called home was full of baby spiders but they did not attack me. I engaged Iornaith in battle and was easily victorious.

As it turns out, all of that was wasted time. I made it back to town only to be given a quest that would take me back to the caverns. I was tasked with finding a missing dwarf named Bali, and I found him near a cave entrance that turned out to be the rear entrance to the Sprigley cellar. Bali barely escaped the spiders with his life. His companions were not so lucky. He sent me into the cavern to find his dead companions and retrieve some journal entries from them. The bodies were wrapped in cocoons and were found in various sections of the cave. Once that was done, another quest sent me to kill Iornath, so I went back and slayed the big spider again.

Things have been easy so far. My character has not come close to dying, which is either good or bad, depending on how you look at it.   The Guardian class has been fun so far.

I saw this and thought I would share it with others. Show this to your girlfriend/wife and earn those hard to get brownie points.

I started up a new character in Lord of the Rings Online just days before the new Leaves of Lorien content was added.  Since part of the expansion includes a “new player experience,” I thought I would go back and see what the differences are.  So, I rolled up another Guardian with the same race and starting area and logged in.  I didn’t see much of a difference.

The introductory instance is exactly the same as before. I did not notice any changes to it whatsoever.  It is still a good way to get started with the game, but where are the changes?

Once out of the starter instance, I arrived in the town of Arhet again. The first few quests are exactly the same as before.  The first difference I noted was when I went to train at the Guardian trainer. I was given a new combat skill and I was told to go over to a training dummy nearby and try it out. This short quest wanted me to take a swipe at the training dummy and then return to my trainer with news of my success.  It was easy enough to accomplish. The training dummies are lined up against a nearby wall, so I ran over, targeted one, and used my new skill on it.

Something else I noticed that I did not remember being there are the marsh flies located around the small lake near the hunter’s cabin. I also found a quest NPC behind the cabin that hired me to go out and slay a few of them.  The reward was some colored dye.  I also found an elite Marsh Fly Queen, and I was surprised that no quests had me run over and take her out. I took her down anyway but it dropped useless loot.

The experience points I gained were maybe a  little higher than before, but not by a huge margin. Everything else seemed to be unchanged.  We’ll see how it goes once I leave the starter instance.

I love my iPhone.  I have used a large assortment of cell phones over the years, and in my opinion, it is the best phone ever made.  Even with its missing features, it is the most robust and easy to use phone in the world.  With the announcement of the upcoming iPhone 3.0 software, it has just widened its lead.

Today Apple listed many of the new features coming to the iPhone.  Chief amongst them are copy, cut, paste, and MMS messaging.  Yes, you can argue that other phones have had these features for years, but now that the iPhone has them, why would you want to use those phones?  They are also opening up the API so that developers can create turn-by-turn direction applications, so expect to see some cool GPS navigation software to pop up soon.  I also like the fact that they are introducing the landscape keyboard to other applications, mainly the Mail application that needed it badly.  SMS gets it, too.

There is only one glaring omission to the iPhone feature set and that is that it still won’t be able to play Flash media. I don’t understand their reasoning for it because every iPhone user in the world would love to have that ability.

There’s too many new features to mention here, so head over to Apple’s preview site and see for yourself.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the game that changed the MMO world.  It is difficult to believe that it was more than 10 years ago since I first logged into EQ’s beta server, and in doing so, changed my gaming world forever.  I have said it before, but no other game gave me such enjoyment and satisfaction.  Playing Everquest introduced me to an amazing game world filled with amazing people, both good and bad.  I still enjoy many of the friendships that began while playing EQ.  The accomplishments, failures, good times, and bad all add up to the best times of my gaming life.

Sony is celebrating this anniversary with special events, media, and stories.  You can see what they are offering at the official 10th anniversary site.  Check it out if you feel the need for some good ol’ nostalgia.  As a bonus, here are a few old school Everquest screenshots of my own.  Click the thumbnails for a larger version.