New URL (Ogrebear.com) Please change your feed/link

K i got my new URL up and running

Ogrebear.com

So update your feeds and links if you link to me. I'll keep this blog up for a week or so and then have it redirect to the new one.

Change of URL coming soon (not now)

I'm in the middle of buying my own domain and switching over to word Press. Sometime in the next week i'll announce the new url, and put a redirect i guess on all the old blog post here.

This is just a heads up to let you guys know.

Is a Harry Potter MMO Possible?

With the last book coming out in a month, and the 5th movie coming out again in about a month. And the fact that it probably one of the most popular book series ever. Is a Harry Potter MMO possible?

It might be, but it would be very very very hard to pull it off as a traditional MMO.

1. Everyone would want to be a wizard.
   
   If everyone is a wizard, or if 80, 90% of the people are wizard, it would work in a traditional MMO. But everyone starts as a wizard, with the same spells, but they have a choise which path of they will takes. They could be a tank type wizard, is Mage wizard, a healer type wizard, or ... meele type wizard, that one dose not really fit, but that way you wouldn't have a class problem where 90% of the people in the game are wizard. Each class could be represented by a house.
   


2. That lead to the second problem. Everyone would want to be part of Gryffindor or Slytherin. But that can work. Instead of having each house have a class. Make it that you can only pick Gryffindor (good), or Slytherin (evil). The other 2 classes will still be there are NPC, quest givers, and stuff like that. And you can pick one of the 4 classes, and make the evil class different than the good class. That 8 classes (2 of each type) and it is a respectable number of classes.
   
   So that deal with the, everyone want to be a wizard problem, and the faction problems. There still tons of problems to tackle.


3. How does leveling work? You'd want to keep the core of the story together, So there 7 grade in the Harry Potter books. starting the game off with 7 level, each level a grade. Wouldn't really work. The best i could think of would be making each grade level 10 level.
   
   During those 10 level while there will be tons of different story lines and quest, the major one could follow the story line of the book. So for the first chapter you'll start your new character at your parents house and have to make it to the train going to Hogsworth, and continue tell you have to face that dude at the end of the first book.
   
   It wouldn't be the only quest during those 10 levels. But (to use an eq2 term) would be like a heritage/hallmark type of quest. It would be the type that long quest, with many steps, with subquest that have to be completed, and stuff like that. But something a lot of people would want to do. It could be optional, or it could be required to do to get to the next grade.


4. How would the school class fit in? This one isn't as easy to fit in to the game. You can really force people to be some where at a certain time on a certain day of the week. My thought was to make the school class similar to faction. You go to a class, the professor, or maybe one of the students from one of the house will give you a quest. And when you do it you improve you grade in that class or something. The quest would follow a story line of that class. And maybe you can only get the class on a certain in game time on a certain in game day, so that it is special. But that probably taking it to far.
   
   I personly would make them kinda similar to the Gods in everquest 2. There a story line for each class. The story line spans from the low level and end all the way at the upper levels. So it spans the entire game. You gain special abilities that you can use sometimes as you progress through each class. In stead of just being able to pick 1, i think like all students they can have 6. But not all of them, (there 12 total subjects taught). But i would make the story line and quest much longer than the god quest in eq2.


5. Where will they level? This one again is not that easy. In the books they spend a lot of time in the school. Which doesn't work that well in an MMO. You don't want level 60 mob in right next to the starting area. You also want new areas explore. The school should act as a city in a traditional MMO would. If you follow the Harry Potter books, that kinda works out.
1. In the first book they don't leave the school, so have the first 10 level in and around the school
2. The second book they travel in to the forbidden forest, so that a good area for the second tier
3. Third book i don't think they really went any other new place, so that could be something new, like farther out in the country side and stuff.
   
4. The fourth book 2 other schools come to them. In the game, you could have Them go to the new school and have the schools like small out post with the srounding areas of thouse schools.

And so on


So there can be levels and new area to explore and stuff like that. But the school would be the center, the city, of the MMO.

EA owns the rights to the game.... and doing a google search of EA MMO's first page is titled EA Sucks At Making MMO's. And honestly seem to stray away from them. But with the success of WoW, and the popularity of Harry Potter. I wouldn't be surprised if there hasn't at least been talk at EA to make a Harry Potter game similar to WOW. Since if they get even 1/2 the 8 million people WoW has they still walk away with 60 million a month in subscriptions. There best selling maddem games only sold 3.5 million copys at 50 bucks a copy that only 175 Million (and that total). In 3 months with 1/2 the subscribers WoW has they would make more money.

So i think a Harry Potter MMO is possible, it all comes down to if EA is capable of making an MMO that isn't crap, which i doubt.

Ever have one of thouse days

I woke up late, my jaw hurt, my head hurt and i was ready to rip open the first person that got near me.

.... And as i write this the internet goes out.... again....

Back to waking up, i woke up so late. I spend most of the day bitchy. And then at 510PM... im sitting in my room, knowing i had something i had to do about this time. Not able to remeber, i go to my room turn on eq2 and log in my alt.

With in 5 second of logging in i get a tell. Ogre, your not coming to the raid?

Raid?? I almost sit there wondering WTF going on.. and then it clicks. We raid Thursdays at 5pm... O shit

I rush on to Ogrebears, find out where raiding Freethinks, and i'm in South Qeynos. So i rush to the top guild leaders house on the server, enter his house and use his flower to Greater Faydwer. For those who don't know Emerald Halls has a Special carpenter recipe that make a flower that has 3000 or so status reduction on it and ports you to Greater Fay. Very useful!! Find out who has them!!!

So i get to the raid... We zone in we kill the first name we head to the second name.... And since this was our first Freethinkers raid since the tinkered item. It back to figuring out a good strategy with her. We kill and whipe a few time, But we get her to 25% and it looks like where going to kill her the next time and.....

Team speak goes quite..... the game chats goes quite... Lot of people are logging out of Aim, All signs up the upcoming apocalypse that is know as, the internet going down.

Which has been happening a lot the last few days... So i'm bitchy, i'm mad, and my internet went down.... Instead of ripping a ATT customer service agent to bits. I went and had some ice cream, and Fudge brownies.

Ice cream and Fudge brownies.... Is a cure, for everything!!! depression, anger, war, hiccup, terrorisms, You know name it... Ice cream and Fudge brownies and Solve it.

Super Secret live update 38

We just got done with live update 35, so why am i talking about live update 38? Because rumor has it, that the super secret thing a few devs have mentioned in interviews on eq2players and else where in the last month or 2. Will be coming out in that live update.

I believe this rumor to be true. As if SoE keep there 4 week per update. RoK will be live update 41, and 38 would be right between Neriak, and RoK update.

So what could be in this super secret live update?

My guess that it will be content for the 60-70 range of players, mostly because out of all the player group, they are the most likely to cancel the subscriptions and wait tell RoK comes out to start them up again.

Also i doubt it would be a full fledge raid zone like Labs or something because in 3 month it will be trivial no matter how hard it is.

So the most likely thing this is heroic and solo content for the level 60-70. Maybe an island is discovered off the cost of Norrath some where. Maybe some hidden part of a zone that we have always wondered where it would go opens up? What ever it is, i feel it most likely will be an out side zone and a dungeon, full of quests....

Though i could be totally wrong, and it could be that new mapping system . We have until August, for that.

SoE is afraid to advertise!

I believe SoE is afraid to advertise for Everquest 2.

Before Everquest 2 came out SoE had a HUGE advertisement campaign. They even put ads in movie theater, before Lord of the Rings about Everquest 2. Tons of money was spent, on these ads, and the worked! In the first month Everquest 2 reached close to 400,000 subscribers. Which was fast, took over a year for eq1 to get 200K.

Just a week or so after Everquest 2 came out Wow had an open beta. And there was the mass exit from Everquest 2, the game was in horrible shape, and people left for greener pastures. But those people didn't just leave quietly. They bitched, the moan, about how bad the game was, on how SoE just wanted your money. Essentially creating a HUGE negative image for Everquest 2 that lingers tell today.

Since then SoE has turned the game around and has made it extremely fun. And have slowly turn the image of the game around. SoE is afraid to harm the new image of the game, and they saw what happened last time they marketed the game. Tons of new players came to the game, didn't like it and created the negative image that has hurt the game.

Also back in 2003, and 2004 when the game was coming out, there where not many MMO blogs, or podcast. Now there are many out there. And this is almost like a new form of advertisment for SoE. As long as they can make a fun game that people like. Bloggers and Podcaster who play the game will talk about how they like the game. And I think for the last year or so SOE has watched EQ2 number rise with out having to pay for advertising.

So i do think SoE is afraid to advertise as they don't want another round of EQ2 bashing that went on during 2004, and 2005. And i believe they feel that blogs, and podcast of people who enjoy the game will get people to play the game. As people are more likely to trust a blogger or a podcaster that they like than any advertisement SOE can put out

The newbie Experiance tier 2, Darklight Woods, and Greater Faydark

So Part 1, had my fury going through Antonica, and my Coercer going threw Commonalnds.
Part 2 is my my Dirge in Greater Fyadark, and my Warlocks in Darklight Woods

Greater Faydark


This was the first time i actually have played threw all 20 level of a character in greater Faydark. And i have to say it as fun. Unlike the Commonalnds and Antonica the quest are more linear. You at one camp and then when you finish there you move to the next one. I know some people don't like it when it is linear. But it seem to be much more fun. There less traveling. You can do multiple quest in the same area, and not have to run from one place to another. And with out a linear path a story line would be harder.

I do have some some complaints about Greater Faydark though... the 17-20 range, seemed like it was lacking. I found my self running out of quest i could do and having to kill thing to get to the next level to see if i could do the quest. Since XP is 3-4% a kill at 17-20 it isn't that bad. And there plenty to mob to kill in that range so it goes by fast. Also there a lot of drops which is nice. So it didn't feel like a grind.

I also change the look of my character to be a little less emo, so it didn't look like an Arasai. I still don't like her looks... so i'll be probably changing her appearance again

All in all i enjoyed it, and was a fun area.

played = 11 hours
Aa = 8
quest completed = 68

Darklight Woods


i didn't talk at all about this guy last time as.. i hadn't made him.. But here is DarthOgre. I orginaly wanted to name him DarthVader. But you know i'd have to petition my self for violating the name policy. So i chose DarthOgre. It appears in my guild a few people use Dark, or Darth or something like that followed by there main character name for there alts form Neriak. So many it is a Trend.

Darklight woods.. OWNS. I can't describe how much fun i had with this character. It might of been cause he a warlock, or that the zone was very linear, or the fact that there where a lot of quest. But i just had fun. More zone like this SoE.

Now there are some down sides. When you leave this zone to nek Forest your not entering the low 20 part of nek forest... your entering the mid 20 area with red, oranage and yellow con mobs. There also no griffon tower near by in Nek Forest. So you really have to exit from the commonlands and then go to Nek Forest that way.

My wish is SoE know this, and is redoing that 1/4 of Nek Forest to be a small 20-25 area, where they will have new camp, new quest and all that fun stuff. (As honestly i never on any of my alts travled over there).

Time Played = 14 hours
aa = 10
quest completed = 88


All in all Darklight wood is the best tire 2 area.
Greater FayDark and the Commonalds i'll have to put as a tie for second.
Antonica....... it doesn't deserve to be ranked. Antonica is on Notice.

Fay Pride Parade, and civil unrest

It was just another causal day in Qeynos. I was just leaving my house in South Qeynos to catch the boat to the main shipping docks at Nektulos Forest, to head out to Faydwer. As i got closer to the docks i heard the commotion that was going around. It had appeared that the Fay that left there city of Kelethin to live in Qeynos had come out in numbers. Why, maybe because people stare at them when they walk around the street with house brightly colors wings. Or rumors that the Qeynos guard has been threating to clip there wings. And rumor that the Overload has already cut of all the wing off all the Fay that venture to his kingdom.




As the day worn on, people who supported the fay, and people who wish they go back to there far off homes started to get restless. Fights broke out between the 2 sides. Before a full out riot could break out and ran over to the docks as the my boat was about to leave.

The Newbie experiance Tier 2, Antonica and Commonlands

Antonica and commonlands to vastly different places. The commonlands is a vast flat savanna, similar to the African savanna. Antonica is a lush hilly grass lands, like, um lush hilly grass lands....

Commonlands



Zarok my Coercer went through the commonlands as i was leveling up my alt army (4 alts starting in each of the newbie areas.

The Commonlands has tons of quest, i was able to pretty much just level by doing the quest with out needing to do any griding at all. While it has tons of quest, there wasn't a lot of arrmor upgrades, and by level 15 Zarok was still 1/2 naked, and was starting to have problems soloing even conned mobs. I was forced to mail zarok 1 plat to fill in slots that where still empty, and upgrade a lot of the slots that didn't have that great of arrmor in them.

Other than that snag the commonlands was a fun zone for an old world zone.

Total time played = 23 hours
Total AA = 10
Quest complected = 98

Antonica



Antonica what can i say... I feel sorry for any new person starting the game that has to level through Antonica. Lots of quest that are labled solo are really heroic. Some of the series quest are broken. Becasue of this there are not to many quest you really can do. XP for killing mobs sucks. by level 18 or 19 i was getting 1% per kill of a while mob with vitality, in darklight you where getting 3-4% a kill with vitality.

After level 16 i didn't really have any quest i really could do so i was foreced to gride my to 20. At the end of the day Antonica suck. It need to be look at baddly. More quest need to be added. XP for killing mobs need to be raised. Quest need to be labed correctly.

Honstly at time i wanted to just stop and never play this charater again. NO other tire 2 zone made me feel like this. The other 3 i had fun honstly, this one i wanted to quit.

Total time played = 17 hours
Total AA = 7
Quest complected = 67

The month of May

All i can say is WOW! (not the game). Before this month i was getting anywhere from 500-800 page views a month. This month i got over 10,000 page views. The huge hump at early May was from my pictures about Neriak. But since then i've been able no normally get 250 views a day, Which used to be like 1/2 a month



Another surprise was where these visitors lived. Before this month 95% of my page hits where from the USA. Now it about 75% form the US, and the rest from other country's. And Moscow is




Browser wise IE and Firefox where dead even this month. With some weird funky browser appearing at the bottom.. gzip...wtf??
Most of you use some sort of boardband as well.. and 21 of you... have optical and probably can download at 20 or 40 or 50 mb/s





The top sites that i get hits from seem to be about right.. but, i don't get where I'm getting a City of hero's following, never played the game or mentioned it. (though all the hits went to the Neriak picture thread).



Lastly Google. It feels weird actually being on the front page of google for some of these search terms. I've never had a web site, or a blog actually make it on google first page. But to be on the first page for over 100 different eq2 terms, is just amazing.

And the different sites that link to me, i don't even know how they find me.. Like today I've gotten over 200 hits from wowinsider.com for my interview with a plat farmer. Its amazing to me, as i almost always talk about eq2, and yet i get linked to form tons of different games forms, like wowinsider, and the cityofheros forms.

And i don't even go out and and promote my blog either. The most i normally do is submit to eq2-daily.com if it eq2 related, and if its something about new content with picture i make a post or replay to one that has started with a link to my pictures. I'm just studded at the amount of visitors I've had.