One Druid, Many Worlds

#1 – Inventory Juggling – The Bank Version

I think I spent three hours playing this EQ2 mini-game over the weekend. The tradeskill revamp of LU24 was a good excuse for me to go through the 8 containers of harvested items I have collected over the last 6 months and see what was still useful. There was much rearranging and and organizing. I can now find whatever harvestable item I need for whatever tradeskill alt I am on. Yet I still don’t feel the need to tradeskill. Do I win?

#2 – Inventory Juggling – The Adventure Pack

You’re deep in a dungeon and your inventory is full. A metal chest drops. What do you destroy in your inventory to make room for possible legendary item? The corpse loot that may be worth good coin to a merchant? That food you might be able to live without til you get back to town? The status point loot that’s been collecting in your fourth pack? Whatever you destroy will be gone forever with no guarantee that you will /random above a 3 for the big ticket item.

#3 – Guess The Pick Up Group Efficiency

Does the main tank hold aggro? Does he call his pulls? Does he position mobs for the scouts? Do the scouts/mages wait for the MT to get aggro before popping off their highest damage ability? Does the healer conserve mana for actual heals? If you don’t play this mini-game correctly, your evening’s entertainment could be short lived.

#4 – How Much Can I Take From The Guild Vault Without Getting In Trouble?

This is a mini-game that tests your laziness. As a L70 provisioner you could whip up a stack of drink for yourself, or you can save the time and just grab a stack out of the guild vault. But last night you took out an Adept book for an alt that you swear you are going to be playing more. Sure, you threw in a stack of Glimmering Flowers, but does that balance out the 5 Harvesting Timer Reduction items you happily plundered?

#5 – How Long Can I Hold Off Going Back To Town To Repair?

Until you’re naked.

What mini-games do you like to play?

I blame EQ1.

You see, when EQ1 was created, there was no concept of “the raid.” Some players in beta wanted to kill a dragon. The devs felt it should be a monumental event and threw in just two when the game went live: Vox and Nagafen. People wanted more so raid content was specifically designed for every expansion and became the hallmark gameplay for this early MMOG.

Fun and phat lootz for all, right? Well, not if you lived outside the East Coast of America. Early EQ1 raid content wasn’t instanced (that concept hadn’t made its way to MMOs yet.) All raid content was ‘contested’. If another guild on your server beat you to it, your evening entertainment was limited to begging for a spot in the UGuk froglok assassin camp. If you were serious about raiding, you had to be able to log on by 6pm EST to get to it before the other raiding guilds on your server. This forced West Coast raiders into East Coast raid guilds which meant you had to either be a student or self-employed to be on at 3pm PST every day.

This situation got worse when the Planes of Power EQ1 expansion introduced killing certain raid targets a requirement to access big, badder and better-loot-dropping mobs (and I’m not talking about cloth caps here.) This is when it got ugly. Once the best raid guild on the server killed the Bottleneck Raid Target (BRT) and received access to better zones, they would make sure said BRT’s stayed dead so no other guild could get access to the keyed zones (I’m looking at you, LoS.)

Then along came instancing. Every guild gets a shot! Huzzah! And hurrah! And all that. Now important raid targets were available whenever a guild could get its members to stop farming for their alts.

So, gentle reader, tell me this: with the majority of raid targets no longer contested, why are there are so few Late Night PST Raiding Guilds in EQ2?

The majority of raid guild available to us are either EST (see problem above) or Asian/Australian (raids start at 1am…). Why aren’t all of us day-job-working, small-children-raising, divorce-averse West Coast players forming our own raiding guilds and farming our way to glory and phat lootz? Why are we still scraping together dicey pick up raids or agreeing to spend time with the in-laws in exchange for permission to raid midday on the weekends?

The answer is: We should be forming these guilds ourselves. It’s upon us now to change our own mindset and realize we have the tools to create an online experience that fits our life. Our passion for online gaming can now co-exist with our desire to balance the other activities in our life. We just have to choose to embrace it.

And pray the kids don’t wake up when the raid target is pulled.