ECTmmo.com- MMO Blog: The Adventures of Kaozz...: Stellar Imagination

Imagine.

Over the weekend my cable decided to go out, no tv, no internet, very annoying. Luckily I could use my android as a modem (again). I'm starting to really dislike Comcast, especially the fact that they made me wait three days to come repair it. Hopefully tomorrow they will fix everything and we'll be up and running again, because if I can't sit in front of the boob tube and watch something while I eat my breakfast, one more time, I'll probably scream (at Comcast), not to mention I want my high speed internet back! Surprisingly it still is decent, the android, for everything except Second Life which takes forever to load things.

Anyhow, I did manage to play a few things over the weekend and today I wanted to talk about what interested me the most. It was mainly player created content or rather the player interacting with the environment, creating things for themselves and others to enjoy. I find that a lot of fun and if you let me decorate or design something I am hooked. I also enjoy things that other players create, a game that embraces this really opens up a lot of possibility and imagination.

I decided to poke into EQ2 and take a look at the player created dungeons. Some of these were really imaginative, I really love the idea of player created dungeons. While some were just rooms full of mobs for tokens, others had a lot of thought put into the design. My biggest beef is with the developer side, if I leave early or I just can't finish one because the avatar I choose isn't able to solo it, well, I get nothing for it. You only are rewarded when you leave through a certain (red) portal. There are two, one you enter through, which you can leave but you gain no rewards, then the other which cashes out all xp and tokens.

An EQ2 player created dungeon.

I also didn't care for some of the choices in classes, you get an avatar with some odd abilities sometimes, some cheaper than others (Spider mage- pew pew pew). I suppose some are more made for groups than others. Which brings me to my next point, you cannot tell which dungeons are solo and which are aimed at groups, unless the creator puts it in the title. As far as the players are concerned there is a lot of creativity within these instances. I think the highlight of trying these was encountering a mob named A Pajama Salesman, I had a LoL moment. The developers need to do some tweaking on these but so far it is a real treasure having this added to the game, how many games offer something so interesting and refreshing? +10 for you EQ2, in my book at least.

We also managed to make our way back to Everquest over the weekend, it is good to be back. I spent most of my time working on our new guild. We created a guild, purchased a hall and a neighborhood. I plan on working on the guild more in time, I'd like to recruit people to create a nice laid back family type guild. I had to have ten members to plop down our guild hall so I recruited from our army of alts then I was able to set it down and start working on it. For now I am just thinking on things, I might post up a recruit ad soon, you can find those in the guild lobby.

The guild hall is set in our neighborhood on a large plot. I loved decorating the outside, I still have some work to do but I think it looks rather nice so far. I also set up the inside and I was one happy camper decorating and setting up things for our little guild, I called it Stellar. I thought it was a nice name, not silly nor tacky.

Me! I love this mount that came with the latest expansion, VoA.

Having guild neighborhoods is really awesome, especially when you can have a guild hall there too. My only complaint is that the hall cannot be placed at the entrance of the neighborhood, it would be so much more impressive there than stuck in the back of the zone. While I do like the lot I just wanted it to be right there when you zone in, ah well, can't win them all.

And lastly probably the most interesting thing in creating things, for me this weekend, would be in Second Life. I created some staves, I made two and had a lot of fun doing so. I wanted a couple to wear across my back as you do in WoW, so I decided to make my own. I really love designing things in this game, the possibilities are endless. Everything in game is player created and the talent just blows me away. I think my favorites, well besides my avatar and plethora of clothing items, would be my mounts. I have so many vehicles I just love collecting these. I have a riding lawnmower, a tire with balloons that floats, cars, horses... Oh the horses! I found a new designer and a new fave for horses, I am so in love with those pretty ponies. I go for high fantasy so they suit me quite well.

But yeah, I love player created content and the chance to express one's imagination in games. I think those that offer the chance to will always be those games that are closest to my heart. You just can't get much better than that. Screw watching meters all the time, lets show some creativity!