Hee! Hee! Hee! Can't Touch Me!

And now, at long last, my much-delayed post on EverQuest II's latest solo dungeon, the one that was added as part of this year's Tinkerfest holiday event. It goes by the official name of Innovation: Tinkerfest Trial and as the name suggests, it re-uses the assets from the Plane of Innovation.

PoI was originally added to the game as part of 2017's Planes of Prophecy expansion. There are arguments for and against the reuse of existing zones for new content but by and large I'm in favor of it, providing the new content is enjoyable, which this very much is.

It also helps when the ostensible reason for seeing the zone again makes sense, which it broadly does in this case. The set-up is that a Froglok called Boegie has applied to join the Ak`Anon Tinkers Guild, the first of his race ever to do so. In order to be accepted he has to pass a trial, proving both his technical skill and his innovative imagination. Where better to do that than in the metaphysical plane of existence that lies behind the very concept of tinkering itself?

The story is solid, the dialog amusing, the characters distinctive and the gameplay involving and entertaining. For any long-time EQII player it's pretty much bread and butter and meat and potatos and all the other food-based cliches you care to dish up. As I've said many times before, if you're the kind of player who likes the kind of quests normally found in EQII, this is very much the kind of quest you're going to like.

None of which would usually make it worth my time writing about it in depth, although it wouldn't be the first time I'd stretched an anecdotal account of a solo holiday dungeon to fill a whole post. In this case, however, I do have something unusual to report.

It's in the nature of a bug, or at least I think it is. I'm really not sure. If it is a bug, it's one I have so far failed to find any mention of on the official forums or the EQII Reddit or anywhere else Google can poke its algorithmical snout. 

That may mean it's not a bug at all or it may mean it's uncommon enough that no-one else has encountered it. It may also mean that this particular bug is one of those that players don't really like to draw attention to for fear it might get fixed before they've finished "testing" it.

Oh. One of those bugs, eh? Don't we have another word for that kind of thing?

I don't know. Judge for yourself. Here's what it does: it makes my Berserker completely invulnerable. 

For once I spotted it almost immediately. I have a tendency to miss things like this because I have all onscreen notifications of damage both given and received either switched off or hidden. When I'm fighting, I don't like to know any more about it what I can derive from the health bars of my character and my opponents. Anything else comes under the heading of too much information as far as I'm concerned.

When I enter a new high-level instance, though, I do excercise a modicum of caution. I pull carefully and observe the results. There are mobs in Visions of Vetrovia, supposedly intended for solo players, that some of my max-level characters don't feel fully capable of engaging yet. Not all of them bosses, either, Every time I find myself somewhere new I bear that in mind.

Consequently, I was watching carefully on the first pull to see just how much of my Berserker's health bar he'd have left after the first attack and how much healing the Merc would need to do. The answers, respectively, were "all of it" and "none whatsoever". 

The fight went on for a good while, maybe a minute or more. I had plenty of time to observe how things went. The situation remained the same: no damage taken, no healing required. I pulled a couple more mobs. Same thing.

I opened the Combat tab to see if I could figure out what was going on. "What?" turned out to be easy. "Why?" is still a mystery. As the screenshot shows, nothing the mobs could do had any impact at all. Everything they tried came back "fails to inflict any damage".

Those were just regular mobs, though. Surely the bosses would have more success? Only one way to find out.

I slowly worked my way through the instance, following the Blood, Sweat and Gears quest, occasionally referring to the wiki walkthrough for directions, since EQII Maps hadn't uploaded the new zone yet. I thought I'd have some issues with special attacks or scripted routines on some of the bosses but even though I could see the visual effects, quite spectacularly on occasion, nothing seemed to have any effect.

The only setback I encountered was when I walked into the Clockwork Shredder in the tunnels. It's a device rather than a mob and it patrols in the regular version of the zone as well as the Tinkerer's Trial so I ought to have remembered it's a scripted 100% guaranteed insta-kill. You're supposed to wait until it goes past then run along the tunnel and up another out of its way.

The Shredder's script bypassed whatever miraculous protection the bug (Or is it a feature?) was providing. My Berserker had to respawn back at the zone-in. Just an inconvenience, really. The final boss, Cogsteady Rhinocticus (A clockwork rhinoceros, as if you hadn't guessed.) also knocked me up in the air a few times but that didn't hurt in the slightest. Other than that, nothing landed a punch.

I found the whole thing delightful. Being able to run a new zone with absolutely no risk of getting hurt seems just about ideal. It wasn't like one of those super-hyper-overpowered scenarios, where everything dies to a single hit, either. Every fight took a significant amount of time, maybe a minute or two for each regular mob and anything up to six or seven for the bosses. 

I had to use all my attacks and pay attention because there were still things like power drains to manage and the bosses had huge health pools. Unlike the Berserker, the merc was taking damage, so I needed to turn the bosses and get them positioned away from him. I just didn't have to worry about scripts or jousting or jumping about and there was absolutely no chance of me dying.

It's taken me so long to get around to writing this post I had time to run the instance twice more. I thought I ought to find out if my odd experience was a one-time fluke so I took my Berserker back for a second go. Everything was just as before. No damage, no risk, no explanation. 

Things were so comfortable I did one boss with the puppy asleep on my lap, meaning I could only use the mouse. Didn't matter - I never needed to move. Then she woke up and wanted to play, so on the next boss I left my Berserker and his Merc on auto-attack and went downstairs to rough-house with her for a while.

When I came back the boss was at 80% and my Berserker and Merc were full health and full mana. It would have been very, very slow but they could have done the job without me. 

I finished off the instance and the repeatable quest. You need to do it six times before Tinkerfest ends to get the bracer that upgrades during the next two chapters of the Summer Jubilee. I hadn't been planning on doing that but now I think I might.

After that I thought I'd better check if the invulnerability bug applied to all my characters or just the Berserker. I took my Bruiser through the pre-quest and into the instance, pulled the first mob and... BAM! Normal damage.

If I was still on Test and doing my due diligence before submitting a bug report, I'd take the Berserker through a different VoV instance to see if the bug applied there, too. I did try an outdoor named with him and it definitely didn't work on that. He was lucky to get away with his life. 

I'd also take a caster through the Trial, my Necromancer probably. I might yet do that, just out of curiosity. On Live, though, I guess there's the question of whether repeatedly running the instance with unexplained full invulnerability constitutes an exploit.

Of course, I don't know for sure that it is a bug. It almost certainly is but EQII is a very complex game with a lot of variables and I can't say for sure that I don't have some buff or item or ability I've acquired at some point that's doing something it's supposed to do to make this happen. Seems unlikely but definitely not impossible.

In any case, the question of whether or not what the Berserker was doing was an exploit was rendered somewhat moot by the Bruiser's experience. Taking full, normal damage, he was easily able to clear the whole instance, bosses included, in less than half the time it took it the Berserker. At no point did he come under any serious threat, his self-healing and regeneration usually meaning the merc barely had to heal.

The Bruiser killed regular mobs in seconds and bosses in half the time his plate-wearing team-mate had needed. The whole thing felt like it was on fast-forward. Given the choice, I'd take the Bruiser without invulnerability over the Berserker with it every time, if I was thinking of running the instance half a dozen times for the event flag.

If the choice was between a slower run with no chance of failure or a faster one, where there was a significant risk of dying and having to rez or respawn, though, I'm not so sure. And if I was having to make the attempts under less than perfect circumstances, such as needing to stop suddenly or go afk at a moment's notice, then I'd definitely take the slow, safe option.

If the experiment has taught me anything, it's that I don't need any element of risk to become fully engaged with the content. It's something I've never been convinced by anyway. I feel the whole "risk vs reward" concept is a bit of a legacy artefact from a different era, if indeed it ever had any genuine validity to begin with.

I found the story engaging enough to want to see it through the first time and the rewards good enough to make me happy to do it several times more. It seems to me that's generally how things work in modern mmorpgs. I'd very much prefer to do story content at zero risk and I can't quite see how repeatable content gets more interesting or engaging by being made less certain to succeed.

Win or lose makes sense in PvP but in PvE it's just annoying. Who really wants to lose a fight with a mob? Even a boss. Especially if you know you're going to have to do it again and again. I get the appeal of group and raid PvE having failure states, the point being all that learning to work together and camaraderie but solo instanced content that no-one sees but you? It's not like your Merc or your pet's going to be impressed.

I'll be interested to know if my Berserker's invulnerability is eventually revealed to be a bug and if so what caused it. I suspect what will actually happen, though, is that Tinkerfest will end without me becoming any the wiser and if I do the instance again next year everything will be back to normal. 

Meanwhile, I'm going to swap to my Bruiser to do the other five runs I need. He may not be Superman but he's close enough and I know he's not going to be accused of cheating. Also it'll save me at least a couple of hours. Hey, my time is valuable, I'll have you know!

Let's Tink Again (Like We Did Last Summer)

Not to rehash my own joke but it's Jubilee weekend here in the UK and by complete coincidence (I'm guessing...) it's also the week EverQuest II kicks off its very own Summer Jubilee. There's a pun in there somewhere involving EQII and Elizabeth II, Q(ueen) but I'm not going to be the one to try and dig it out.

Summer Jubilee incorporates three events and the first of them is Tinkerfest (The other two being Oceansfull and Scorched Sky). Relocated from midsummer, it's been polished till it gleams.

Judging by what I've seen so far it's better than ever, impressive when you consider it was already one of the top holidays in EQII's extensive calendar. It's also long been one of my personal favorites. I read the official announcement with interest and enthusiasm. 

Credit for some of that has to go to new Community Manager, Accendo. When he first arrived I wondered if he might be a little brusque, especially after the exceptionally affable Dreamweaver. For all I know, he might be a regular demon in ding-dongs with players, always a risk (Just ask RadarX), but in prose he has a strong, confident style and a sense of humor that amuses me more often than not. I'll take it.

For regular Live servers, there's a lot to dig into, all of it handily detailed in the press release:

• New adventure quest!
  • Blood, Sweat, and Gears offered by Tickni Kerplooie at Gnomeland Security in Steamfont Mountains for players level 120+.
• New tradeskill (tinkering) quest!
  • Gearing the Competition offered by Navier Stokes at Gnomeland Security in Steamfont Mountains.
• New dungeon with solo and heroic versions!
  • Innovation: Tinkerer's Trial [Heroic] and [Solo]
• 11 New Merchant Items sold by Myron in Gnomeland Security, including a new mount!
• New Tradeskill recipe book, "Tinkerfest Blueprints 14.0” sold by Myron in Gnomeland Security in Steamfont Mountains. The recipes require Shiny Tinkerfest Cog obtained as quest rewards or harvested, and other low level harvestables as components.

Special Ruleset servers get whatever subset matches their current timeframe and whatever rewards don't break their local zeitgeist, as per usual. 

I'd like to say all the regular events, quests, collections and achievements are back as well but I'm not absolutely sure if that's true. There's a slight element of ambiguity in "Lots of stuff is returning for this year's event too including achievements, recipe books, collections, quests, and more." "Lots" isn't a synonym for "All" but I imagine I'm reading more into the choice of words than Accendo intended. 

I made straight for Tinkerfest Central - Gnomeland Security in Steamfont - where I hoovered up every quest I could find. Some of them I recognised, some I didn't, but that happens at most festivals, whether there's anything new or not. I can't remember every quest I've ever done in EQII. There must be thousands! 

Most had blue feathers indicating repeatable content, something that's probably going to turn out to be important given the new Jubilee currency, the Copper Jubilation Medal. I had a good browse through the inventory of the Jubilee vendor I found, hanging around the East Freeport Docks later. Anyone taking this event seriously is going to need hundreds of medals to buy everything they want.

The rewards are very tempting, too. Lots of great housing and appearance items as always but also some very nice stat gear, at least for a solo player. The big ticket item is the 340 Resolve bracer trailed in the original announcement but there's also 300 Resolve gear for all armor classes. I imagine there'll be a full set of that by the time all three events have arrived. 

There's also a dog. That got me wondering if there had been dog pets in the game before. I'm sure there must have been. The dog model has been in the game from the start. I imagine they've always been there but I just never noticed, me being more of a cat person. 

Now we have a dog of our own I'm seeing dogs in all kinds of places I never saw them before, like on my lap while I'm trying to play EQII. It wouldn't matter so much if she didn't like to rest her chin on my mouse arm. 

Fortunately, EQII is relatively easy to play one-handed. I managed to grab all those quests and pick up a load of the Shiny Tinkerfest Cogs lying all over the place. The cogs are the Tinkerfest-specific currency, the event having vast amounts of buyables independent of the Jubilee. No doubt the same will apply to the other two festivals so it's just as well the quests reward both kinds. 

As soon as Beryl changed position, allowing me the use of both hands, I mapped to the other center of Gnomish activity, the Dropship Landing Zone in Moors of Ykesha to look for the the portal to the new, non-combat instance of Plane of Innovation. I wanted to do the tradeskill quest given to me by Navier Stokes back at Gnomeland Security. There's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in Tinkerfest, always was, but even without All Access travel perks it's easy enough via the handy temporary portals the gnomes install for the occasion.

I've been around Plane of Innovation many times but sightseeing always feels better when nothing's trying to rip your arms off. I had time to look at the architectural details for once. 

The quest itself was very good, assuming you like EQII quests, which, obviously, I do. I'd pretty much have to, still to be playing after all these years. It follows the classic gather, craft, install sequence, where you spend ages wandering around picking up materials before knocking them into something on a local crafting device, before following a glowing trail around the zone, sliding the doohickeys you've created into the correct slots.  

No-one could claim this kind of content is challenging but it sure is relaxing. As a very, very bad tinkerer, I appreciated the huge Tinkerfest crafting boosts, the absence of negative effects to counter and the easy skill-ups. I didn't notice whether the quest was repeatable but if it is I might grind it out a few times until the recipe goes grey, just for the tinkering points.

There's a narrative thread relating to the possible induction of the first ever Froglok to the Ak`Anon Tinkerer's Guild. I found it oddly intriguing. It started me wondering just which races are capable of tinkering these days. I have a suspicion it's all of them. I know it used to be a purely gnomish skill back in EverQuest but I can't recall whether Ratongas could always tinker in EQII or whether that was a later concession.

Of all the races, you'd think the most obvious candidate after Gnomes would be Dwarves. I don't believe I've ever played a Dwarf in EQII, or not for any meaningful amount of time, at least. Frogloks would come a long way down any list I ever made but then I try not to think about frogloks at all if I can help it.

I'll have to give it some more thought as I work my way through the rest of what Tinkerfest has to offer. Next up is the new adventure quest, Blood, Sweat and Gears, followed by the Solo dungeon, the Tinkerer's Trial.   

I hope that one's not too tough. I always think holiday instances should be lenient but if the drops are competitive with current content it'll probably have to be at least as challenging as a regular Visions of Vetrovia instance, probably more so than the ones in the basic storyline since they're already beginning to fall behind.

I don't have all that long to get everything done, either. Even though the Summer Jubilee runs all summer (Well, duh!) Tinkerfest is only with us for a couple of weeks. The gnomes shut up shop on June 15.

I'd better get on with it, then.

You Wait Seventy Years For A Jubilee And Then Two Come Along At Once

I was going to skip posting today for the very good reason I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to say. Well, I did have a few ideas...

I read Paeroka's post on How to Return to LotRO, which mentioned the boosters we all got for the anniversary, so I thought I might log in and use one of those and see how it went. I got as far as character select once and the login screen three times (I'm tabbed out from it now.) but every time something happened to make me back off before I could get any further. Usually something dog-related.

Then there was Belghast's post, the one he called "New World Has Improved Significantly", a sentiment with which I don't disagree but about which I felt I had something to say. Then I thought about it and realised I'd probably said most of it the last time I wrote about the game.

There were even a few things I might have contributed to the discussion arising out of Blizzard's thrashing about as they try to increase diversity and reduce toxicity but that would have required some serious thought and I wasn't convinced I was up to it.

I'd just about decided to take a pass on the whole thing for the day, when I logged into EverQuest II to do set my  remaining Overseer missions and saw a new link in the patcher. It said Welcome to EverQuest II's First Annual Summer Jubilee!

Excuse me? 

I clicked through and this is what I got:

A whole new way to enjoy your summer and gain access to exclusive items.

We're proud to announce the launch of our first annual Summer Jubilee! This event lasts all summer long and will incorporate Tinkerfest, Scorched Sky Celebration, and Oceansfull Festival where players can earn Copper Jubilation Medals which can be used to purchase exclusive items.

There's a whole lot more, naturally, explaining the event in detail:

Live Servers

• Jubilation parades can be found in each of the player cities, pathing near the event merchant.
• Jubilation merchants can be found in each of the player cities exchanging event exclusive armor, house items, recipes, instruments, and equipment for Copper Jubilation Medals.
• Copper Jubilation Medals are heirloom and can be gained by completing most Tinkerfest, Scorched Sky Celebration, and Oceansfull Festival repeatable content.
• Daily Mission for each event dungeon end boss and can be updated in either solo or heroic.

Special Rules Servers (Including Varsoon)

• Start earning Copper Jubilation Medals during Tinkerfest and continue earning them through Scorched Sky Celebration and Oceansfull Festival.

And a lengthy section on the upgradeable bracers you can get that become more powerful the more events you do in all three of the summer holiday events:

Along with the Copper Jubilation Medals, we’re also adding in Golden F'Aestival Bracers. They're huge, they're shiny, and best of all, they're pretty powerful especially if you complete the Summer Jubilee event! How do you get a pair? Just log in during Tinkerfest and complete the event dungeon, Innovation: Tinkerer's Trial, six times. Once you do that, you'll have your new, Mythical bracers and ready to take on Scorched Sky Celebration and Oceansfull Festival.  

If you're interested in what they look like and what the stats are it's all there on the website at the link above. Suffice to say, the fully upgraded version clocks in at 340 Resolve and I'm currently turning cartwheels if I get anything over 295.

I'm assuming the Jubilee replaces the familiar Summer Ethereal event that's been running in the same slot for many years, although nowhere does it actually make that explicitly clear. I suppose the two could co-exist but I very much doubt that's the plan.

This looks much more inclusive and better-designed to me. Tying everything in with the existing holidays and expanding all three of them seems like a great idea.

Of course, great ideas also need great implementation so I'll reserve judgment until I get to try them all out. Tinkerfest is already up on the Test Server so I'll at least read the forums to find out how that's going, even if I don't log in and test it for myself.

It all kicks off on June 2, which just happens to be the same week as Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. I know where I'll be celebrating...

Moral Equivalence: EQ2

Yesterday I did the Tinkerfest Public Quest on my Inquisitor. I wasn't planning to, she just happened to be in the zone when it popped and it's fun so she did it. And this dropped.

It's a huge, huge upgrade for her.

Also, it looks fantastic and it's totally her style.

In case it's not clear, the little red dot is the headpiece.

It would also be a very significant upgrade for my Berserker, who is my main character in EQ2. Yes, I think I do have to admit I have a main, in this one game, at this particular time.

This is what he's currently wearing. And I only just realized it's cloth.

What's more, he's been doing that PQ himself, on and off, when he remembers, hoping to get an upgrade (not necessarily that one, there are other possible drops) but so far he's had no luck.

Tinkerfest ends today. I don't really have the time to try for it again and even if I did the chances of it dropping are vanishingly small.

And here's my dilemma: is it ethical to take the Automated Targeting Eye away from the character who got it and give it to the character who needs it? Who am I to make that decision?

At the moment the Berserker has it in his bags but he hasn't equipped it. (He had to borrow it to take the comparison screenshot. Well, that's his story). He also has this amazing robot rhino (although it's my Warlock riding it in the picture).

The Berserker just bought the rhino with 300 shiny tinkerfest cogs he got by sending his pack pony out gathering. It's a fantastic-looking mount but it's a ground mount only. Is that a fair trade?

No, of course it's not. It is a heck of a mount, though.

Going to have to think on it. Perhaps the Inquisitor will just decide to be magnanimous. She is a gnome of the cloth after all, even if she does wear plate. And smite people a lot.

Or maybe the Berserker will get lucky in Fabled Guk. I hear there are some great drops there.

We'll work something out. We're a team, after all.

Under The Radar: EQ2, DCUO

Syp is a great ambassador for the MMO genre. He's enthusiastic, curious and indefatigable. He's the most entertaining writer at MassivelyOP as well as, with his Game Archeologist series, the most informative.

When it comes to Daybreak Games, though, he does seem to have a bit of a blind spot. The introduction to a recent post on games we haven't heard much of for a while (the DBG title in question being Planetside2) reminded me of the kind of call you might get from your mother six weeks into the second year of college - "Are you okay? Are you sure you're okay? Is there something you're not telling us? You never write, you never call...we worry about you!"

It is true that DBG seems less interested these days in pushing new product to a new audience. The focus seems to be much more on dishing up a familiar diet to the customers they already have. It's interesting to learn that DBG's PR department "hardly ever (read: never) sends out notices these days"). Radio silence for the media, while, for those of us actually playing the games, there's a steady stream of information and new content.

This week brought a couple of new developments to DBG's portfolio, one a major and long-awaited revamp, the other a small tweak to a holiday event. Guess which impressed me most.

The big ticket event was the sweeping change to the way stats work in DCUO. I can't remember how long ago this was trailed; it seems like years ago. I remember I'd just made a fresh character on my new All Access account. I was enjoying leveling her up but as details about the extent of the revamp filtered out I decided to mothball her pending the patch.

By the time that patch finally arrived I'd forgotten so much about how the game worked that any subtleties buried in the new systems were utterly lost on me. I logged in, got lost in the JLA Watchtower as usual, then made a complete hash of choosing my new powers and abilities.

I ended up putting all my points into my travel options. Fortunately, in DCUO travel powers are also fighting powers, so I can still function. It's not the character I was planning on playing though. Lucky I finally found a mailbox to collect the free respec token granted to subscribers. I'm going to need it!

The game seemed busy, especially given most of the action takes place in instances so the huge majority of players are never visible. The Watchtower resounded with explosions as players dueled each other, or pretended to. The hallways of the Metropolis PD stations were alive with heroes zipping in and out. It's always hard to judge but DCUO seems healthy.

EQ2 may not be quite as insanely sprawling as EverQuest but as it approaches a decade and a half of continual growth the in-game real estate is far too large for anyone to assess the population at a glance. Periodically, certain events cause critical masses of players to coalesce; the launch of the Fallen Gate server was one such occasion and to a lesser extent so is every in-game Holiday.

Mid-summer means Tinkerfest, one of my favorite Norrathian holidays. I would have made time to log in for the gnomish festival even if nothing had changed since last year but as it happens there was a very big addition to the blueprint for 2017.

Public Quests got off to a shaky start in EQ2 but over the years they have become a core part of gameplay. "Any PQs up?" would probably head the list of "Things people ask in General Chat" these days, closely followed by "Can I get an invite?" as each zone hosting an active Public Quest fills to capacity.

I love PQs. In every MMO I play they are an absolute highlight: Dynamic Events and World Bosses in GW2 Invasions in WoW, Rifts in Rift, even FATES in FFXIV, it seems to me that this is the gameplay MMOs were invented to provide.

EQ2 doesn't have a huge number of PQs but they're being added all the time and they are getting better and better. The new one that came with Tinkerfest is top-notch.

It's called Hack & Slash and EQTraders has a great write-up. I won't go over that ground again. If you play EQ2 at all, log in and go do the PQ before it vanishes next week. If you don't, read Naimi Denmother's piece and wish you did.

I've said this before but it very much bears repeating. Whatever may be going on behind the scenes at DBG and however much certain customer-facing representatives may appear to lack any of the necessary skills for that role, when it comes to adding free, fun content that inspires me to want to log in and play, the EQ2 team has no competition at all.

Every holiday event they step up to the mark but this time they really hit the ball out of the park. It's not just the quality of the events and quests themselves, which is uniformly high, but it's the rewards. They are almost always truly desirable.

I can only dream that one day ANet might come up with a Living Story episode that includes a single item I actually want. It could happen. I guess. For Tinkerfest this year, for the most determined we have the big ticket reward from Hack & Slash, the Spidermech Defender familiar (which I can't link because no-one's made one yet).

For everyone else we have a slew of house items, cosmetic pets and plushies as well as the regular PQ armor drops and a new helmet. I got a house pet from the very first one I did and I was as excited as if I'd had an Ascended Weapon crate in GW2 - more excited!

Since then I've done the PQ twice more and received a plushie and an excellent furniture item with a revolving turret. This is what I want!

What's more, the event itself is an absolute hoot. PQs in EQ2 are very hard to screenshot because they are, without exception, a chaotic jumble of players, mobs and explosions. My personal heaven in  other words. I would absolutely do this particular PQ multiple times even if there were no rewards I wanted because it's thrilling, exhilarating and hilarious.

Returning to where we began, it's also very busy. I have no idea how many people are playing EQ2 these days and even less can I estimate whether however many it might be is sufficient to keep the game profitable. What I can say is that, from the perspective of a player, the game feels vibrant, bustling and very much alive.

I do wonder sometimes why I play anything else.

Gone Cogging: EQ2

Boy, is Tinkerfest popular this year. I'm used to Norrathian holidays drawing a crowd. EQ2 players are a tolerably cheerful bunch as MMO players go (raiders excepted) and they do like a party.  Throw in something to collect and you'd have to run 'em off with a cattle prod. Even so, this particular Tinkerfest seems exceptionally busy and there aren't even any new quests. I found one that I thought was new but it turns out I did it last year. Bummer.

So what's the big attraction? Well, it's mounts, isn't it? For the first time the gnomes have put their tinkered platforms up for sale and they do look good. Naimi Denmother has pictures of all of them along with details of everything Tinkerfest, old and new.

Kajigger is a technical term

 I do like a nice hovercar but I have a lot of ground mounts and I probably wouldn't use another. The chance of a new one certainly wouldn't drag me back from fragging werewolves in Carpathian Mountains and put me to grovelling for cogs. And smart as the hovercars are, I doubt they'd bring out these crowds.

No, it'll be the Wings. Oh yes, wings. Wings were introduced into the Station Store with some controversy quite a while back. Not nearly as long ago as I'd "remembered", as it happens. Had you asked me (and why wouldn't you?) I'd have said we'd had flying wings for a couple of years. Then perhaps I'd have remembered that we couldn't fly at all until the Destiny of Velious expansion and that didn't arrive until February 2011.

How much???

According to TAGN, which is almost as good a Journal of Record for the Everquest games as Allakhazam and a lot more entertaining, the first wings that actually let you fly appeared just under a year later in January 2012. They cost $20 in the Station Cash Shop then and they still do.

No-one's looking, grab it!

I've always fancied a pair but I'm not crazy enough to spend real money for them. Not twenty dollars of it, anyway. 500 cogs, though, that's a very fair price. A lot fairer than the bottom-floor ask of 50 gold a cog the gougers are asking on the broker. No wonder it's busy. That's how I came to spend more than two hours this morning grubbing up Shiny Tinkerfest Cogs from all over Norrath.

The Blue Batonga

I did try yesterday but it was far too busy. Three ratongas to a cog is no fun. It was still busy this morning. I tried and abandoned Inventor's Outlook in Freeport, Gnomeland Security in Steamfont, the Drednever Crash Site in The Bonemire and Dropship Landing Zone in The Moors of Ykesha. All being picked over in a frenzy by elves, arisai, even ogres. In the end I settled for Indigo Hollow in Neriak on the grounds that most goody-goodies won't or can't go to Neriak. Another advantage is that the Neriak authorities keep their gnomes penned up in a very small corner so the cogs don't roll too far. Makes them very easy to pick up.The cogs, not the gnomes.

I'd listened to two radio plays and a comedy show before I had my 500 cogs. Painless, even enjoyable. I've always found gathering in MMOs relaxing. Then off to buy my wings. I chose the blue ones to go with my blue pirate outfit. Ok, a ratonga with wings is technically a bat but I fly like a bird!

I'm halfway to my second pair already.

Hey, Take A Little While - EQ2

Tinkerfest is here again
The skies above are clear again
So let’s sing a song of cheer again
Tinkerfest is here again !

Tinkerfest, finest of all Norrath's public holidays! How happy we are to see you! How much longer than one short year seems the wait for your annual appearance. How all too brief your stay with us when at last it arrives.

The crowds gathered in breathless anticipation as the hour approached. And passed.

Pardon me. I didn't realize it was formal dress.

Had the gnomish alarm clock failed to go off? Had Bristlebane finally defeated Brell in an arm wrestling contest and become the Gnome owner he'd always believed he was born to be? Would there be no tinkering til Bristlebane Day and nothing but clockwork whoopee cushions in the new blueprint?

Or had SOE chosen this most hallowed of holidays to trot out their party piece yet again? Ladies and gentleman, a big hand for the Mr Bean of MMOs, the one company incapable of organizing a drinking contest in a Dwarven alehouse, I give you Sony Online Entertainment. At least one of those words always spoken with an ironic intonation. Probably not the first one.

Time passed. News came there none. The crowds grew restive, then restiver (is that a word?). The discovery that one of the gnomes in Gnomeland Security was killable led to repeated and entirely unjustified reprisals. If in doubt, kill a gnome. It's the Norrathian way.

Sorry mate. Not my department.

The four celebratory aether races continued. The gnomes responsible for those had miraculously assembled them both instantaneously and on time. They had no comment to make about the ongoing absence of their tinkering compatriots. It was Hamlet without the Prince, Queen without Freddie. It was bloody annoying is what it was.

Adding insult to injury since 1999

 Some eight and a half hours past the scheduled time, with no fanfare nor even a Broadcast "Better late than never", up popped the gnomes. Just at the exact time the Sunday shift would have arrived at work, sat down at their desks, checked their messages and... "Geez! Can no-one do anything right? FFS, ok, give me ten minutes to finish my coffee and I'll sort it".

I've lived in Norrath for a dozen years. I'm British. I grew up in the 1970s. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Seriously.

In case you're interested, Tinkerfest is here until August 8th. Or until someone remembers to switch it off.

In other news, Qeynos got revamped. You may have missed it. Even if you were there. Since I waxed apprehensive then relieved about Freeport, I felt duty-bound to visit Qeynos, to take some screenshots of the changes. I went but I couldn't find any. Wilhelm did, sort of, so go look at his.  

And a No Prize (remember those?) for the first person who correctly identifies where the post title comes from.