Sony had recently said that they would not be switching Everquest 2 over to the free-to-play model. Things change, as they say, and it is fairly easy to figure out why: Money. Companies are discovering that they can make more money using the free model and allowing people to purchase add-ons via an in-game store. The “gotta have it now” syndrome really brings in the bucks.

Studies have shown that a large portion of people who play free games actually end up spending more per month than they would if they paid a standard monthly fee. Free Realms, which is Sony’s first big for-free title, is a huge cash cow for the company. The game has millions of subscribers that press the “get it now” button at an amazing rate.

Personally, I think this is a good move. I will certainly play Everquest 2 when it does go free-to-play. It is a game that I normally wouldn’t play because I can only afford so many monthly game fees.

This is a surprising development, and I look forward to seeing how it turns out. I will be there when it begins.

–Wolfen

Vanguard has many races and classes, so the decision of what to play has been on my mind. I played a ranger almost exclusively during my main Everquest days. In fact, I have played a ranger/hunter style character in every MMO I have tried. The one exception is Lord of the Rings Online where I played a Champion, although I did dabble with the ranger a bit. So I naturally lean towards playing a ranger in Vanguard.

The thing is, I wouldn’t mind trying an MMO from a different perspective. The sorcerer and blood mage intrigue me. There’s something about a sorcerer simply sitting back and hitting the “BOOM” button every now and then that pulls at me. On the other hand, one of the roles of the blood mage is being a healer. As the byline of this blog states, I’m a hardened veteran noob and I’m not sure I can trust myself with healing duties. It is, however, a very interesting take on the typical mage class.

I suppose that I will have to try a few of them and see what sticks. I want some solo ability, which points to something like a sorcerer or druid. Necromancers are not my style. I do have a few days to ponder on this since my new computer won’t be here until sometime next week. Until then, I will keep posting my thoughts on various MMO things.

–Wolfen

Since I’m going to start up Everquest 2 and Vanguard again, I wanted to get a beefier machine. I don’t like to play games on lower settings and I was worried that Vanguard would be a problem. That prompted me to order a desktop PC with a stronger video card. I have built my own computers for years, but this time around I went with a pre-built solution. Computers are so inexpensive these days that it wasn’t worth my time doing all the parts/pricing research that usually goes into my building a custom PC.

It didn’t take me long to find a decent PC at at great price. I ended up purchasing a HP Pavilion m8200n Multimedia PC from Amazon.com for $669. The specifications include an AMD X2 6000+ processor, 3gb RAM, 500gb hard drive, TV tuner, etc. The included video card is very weak, so I found an Nvidia 8800GT 512mb card on sale at Best Buy for $250. This system is certainly not the best, but it’s a fast computer at a cheap price. The bummer for me is the estimated arrival date isn’t until January 2nd, so here I am waiting for it. But, soon enough, we’ll find out how well it performs with these games.

–Wolfen

I suppose it’s a strange day to start a blog, but it is as good a day as any for me. As a bit of introduction, my online gaming name is Wolfen. I am a 38 year-old casual gamer who likes to play MMO’s. This blog will chronicle the playing of certain MMO’s from a casual playing point of view.

For a bit of my history, I started playing online games with Everquest. I played it starting with beta and continued to play it for more than five years. After that, I quit the game, returning rarely to play from time to time. I am currently playing it now. I have played many more online games as well. Those include Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Vanguard, Planetside, and others.

Two games that I will be picking up again will be Everquest 2 and Vanguard. My plan is to report the current-day newbie experience in both games and see what has changed since these games first launched. This may not sound all that exciting to you, but I’m curious to find out how casual friendly these games can be. We all know that World of Warcraft is the god of casual games, but I want to see how these games compare. Should someone even consider starting up with one of these two games? We will see.

I was fartin’ around in Everquest last night and ran across some Frostfell NPC’s in Qeynos. Who knew that Santa was an ogre?

Ol’ Santug gives out a couple of quests. One of them sends you off to kill invisible grimps that drop pieces of his Naughty and Nice list that he lost. The reward given is a single use breastplate that turns your character into an ogre. Seeing my ranger as an ogre was a neat novelty, but having only a single use was disappointing.

So, my first post is done. I will be starting up EQ2 and Vanguard very shortly after the first of the year. I have a new computer on the way that will allow me to run them better than my current machine. This will be especially true for Vanguard, which is high on graphics and low on optimization.

–Wolfen