EQ 'Shadow of Luclin' -- Pretty Graphics, Ugly Release

ajs writes: "EverQuest isn't a book or a movie, but a work of fiction that's kept a 400,000 member audience enthralled for months is worth a closer look. The most recent update to EverQuest, Shadows of Luclin, is out and of course much of the subscriber base is flocking to be the first to kill the big bad ... whatevers that lurk in the long-lost moon of Norrath. My review touches more on the release than the software, since I think that's what's truely interesting about this industry right now. But to sum up: if you play EverQuest, wait a few days or weeks and then give this a spin ... it's a ride." Read on for the rest of his account.

For starters, everyone reading this should understand that persistant gaming of various forms is here to stay. EverQuest will likely be around for at least a few more years, and its successors will probably take over the gaming industry for several reasons: first, they offer a different and more lucrative revenue model; second, they offer some intriguing secondary revenue possibilities; oh, and third, there are the players who actually seem to enjoy adding more social elements to their gaming ;-)

EverQuest has been a rocky road since day one because the people developing it have never truly understood their market (this can be evidenced by how many customer service policies have been reversed over time). Now, on the eve of their most hyped release, they have done the unthinkable: They released a product which has substantial crash-to-desktop bugs and made the update process so painful as to be impossible for many players. Now, with Quake you'd say "that's awful, but they'll fix the bugs and players of the old version will be fine for now". With EverQuest, everyone gets patched at the same time, and no one can play until it's done and works.

To give some examples: every player is now required to run Microsoft's DirectX8; Minimum memory and processor specs have gone up, and if you dare to run the new expansion you will have to have at least 256MB of RAM just for the core functionality (they provide a way to back out most of the new UI stuff for those who have 128MB of RAM, but I'm told its almost unplayable); 512MB of RAM is suggested!

Ok, so what was the first day like? Well, the servers were down for most of the day, when they were supposed to just be down for a night. Then, when they came up, it seems that Sony did not provide enough network bandwidth for the patching storm that ensued, so no one could patch (and thus, no one could play) until a crittical mass of players gave up and went to bed.

Worse, the patching program was intolerant of the network failures and would leave droppings that would prevent subsequent attempts to patch. I required 2 reboots, 5 file deletions and 2.5 hours to finally patch and run.

"So, how is it?!" you ask? Well, it's a whole lot better than it was, but it's really still not there yet. The graphics are actually disorienting because of their quality and the new hardware T&L acceleration from DX8. Turning around makes you feel like you live in the land of smooth scroll. The facial feature selection for humans is very nice, but for the Iksar (the lizard race), it's rather sketchy, and not much different from before. Horses are cheaper than some had suggested (8,000 platinum minimun). New models for summoned pets and other character-related models like "wolf form" are very slick. The new zones seem to stress their size quite a lot (it's hard to accept that humans would build on such a scale).

I've yet to see the new race, as I assumed that everyone would be starting those characters and the server would be quite slow in those zones.

There are some problems, though, and I think Verant should have held off on the release until they were finished. First is the much anticipated Bazaar zone, where players will be able to become merchants (to some degree which is not yet clear) and sell their goods automatically. This functionallity is off, and still being worked on.

Second, there appear to be a number of bugs. Teleportation while in the new zones was supposed to take characters to a central zone ("The Nexus") from which they could then teleport to their destination. (Currently, that's not the way it works: 10-20 seconds after teleporting, everyone in our party except for the person who teleported crashed to the desktop with no warning!)

There are some problems with spells. Someone pointed out to me that low-level wizard spells do not animate at all, so its hard to tell that your wizard is actually doing anything in a fight.

Overall, I'm going to give this release a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. It's pretty and in a month, it will likely be the best MMORPG on the market, but again -- it's just not there yet. This release hurt a lot of players who didn't even want to buy the expansion yet.

Some key resources for those who are trying out Luclin are:

• The zone connection map on eqatlas.com.
• Also, Allakhazam is adding items and quests as fast as possible to keep up.
• Expect lots of news on Everlore and the Everquest Realm on castersrealm.com.

Enjoy!"

Comments

There are players and there are whiners

[TBone]

The whiners started up 2 weeks before, complaining that Verant/Sony said, back when EQ was released, that you'd never have to replace your computer to continue playing. Well, the new requirement of DirectX8.1 (not Dx8 as the review says, but 8.1) forced a bunch of people to have to upgrade theor video cards. You know what though? Suck it up, your Voodoo3 hasn't been supported for almost a year and nas no company behind it any more, why would you expect Microsoft to support it in Dx8?

And then the revised Luclin specs were released about 2 weeks before launch. Suggested specs went from 256M to 512M. Hardware T&L recommended, required if you're not running a P-III or better. And the new install requires an additional 1G (yes, 1 gig) of disk space to install all of the new textures and character models to. Oh, and you can't play Luclin on Win95 any more.

What people fail to grasp is that Luclin is an expansion, and a complete revamping of the original game at that. No one is required to buy Luclin to keep playing. You will still see the new characters and new equipment without it, you just can't BE one of the new characters, or go to the new locations. Loading character models, which is where the memory hit comes, is configurable - you can load all, none, or any combination in between. Many people are reporting very acecptable performance with 256M. And DirectX8.1, while bleeding-edge, is a FAR improvement over 8.0a - bug fixes, performance boosts, the whole lot. We covered the video card already. And as far as Win95 no longer being supported (it's still supported for the OLD version), well, check out Microsoft's home page people - 95 was end-of-lifed on November 30, 2001. That was last week.

The servers _always_ suffer after an outage when everyone is trying to reconnect every 30 seconds, waiting for them to come back up. And as far as the patch running long, most of you numbnuts can't even run Windows Update and keep your own computer running right, let alone manage the patching of a 1,200-computer server farm within 8 hours.

You claim Verant should have done more testing before release. You have no idea now many variations of motherboards, chipsets, video cards, sound cards, network connections, and whatnot there are. It is physically IMPOSSIBLE for a company in today's technology world to be able to anticipate every software interaction on every hardware platform. It always amazes me when Verant stages a patch that doesn't cause lots of problems, adds lots of new features, and frankly, only inconveniences you. If not being able to play for a day is such a big loss for you, drop me an E-mail, and I'll refund the $0.33 cents you lost for that day because you're too lazy to get off your butt and go outside to see the sun (AAA MY EYES). Just leave me a credit card number for me to run the refund onto :-P

For what Verant is doing, they manage to do it really well. You claim the release of Luclin was a failure. Perhaps you forget the 2 recent MMORPG releases. Remember Anarchy Online? That was gonna be an EQ killer. So was World War II online. I don't htink I've heard anyone mention them in months now. THAT was a botched release.

Considering what you're getting, IMO Verant is doing a great job. If it's that much of an inconvenience to you, maybe you should take a break and watch TV for a few days, talk to some RL 'toons', go to the mall, clean off your desk, say hi to your parents for the first time in months.

I just have two words to describe Sony and VI

[Demonikus]

Fucking and Pathetic.

They have had many months in which to perfect the release of SoL, and when it came time to release it, they were not prepared. This I might have suspected from a smaller gaming company. But we're talking about Sony/VI.

They have a test server to try out their new implementations so that when the time comes to update new patches and expansions, it should be a smoothe transition. I'm just wondering why if they had a test server, why everything went so wrong?

Friends of mine, with computers in the 1+ Ghz range, are having zone load times of 10 to 20 minutes in some areas of the game. That is completely unacceptable.

The new system requirements are incredibly steep if you want to enjoy the game in its entirity (is that a word?) It used to be you could play the game on a Win95 machine with rather low speed and memory and a bad video card. Now all people who have Win95 and wish to play EQ will have to upgrade. That's right, EQ in its current state can not run under Win95. Even though if you go pick up an original version of the game, or the new trilogy, it will say Win95, but once you patch you are screwed.

Another strange thing is that Sony/VI didn't release the information about dropping Win95 until just days before the new release. They virtually left all those Win95 users out in the cold. Upgrade or don't play. That's sort of a harsh attitude to have towards your clients.

I do not have the system requirements for SoL, but I assumed everything would be about the same on my computer. Nope. I've gone from 45 second zone load times to 90 second zone load times. And for what? To see a new image of a skeleton that looks more lifelike? To see wizard's new familiars? To see better effects and textures? For all the effort that has gone into it, it does not seem worth it.

There are ways to reduce the system resources that EQ requires, but they are not easily gotten at. Nor are they really documented. But they are there. You just have to look really hard.

I'd liek to go out and spend $1,000 (Cdn) to buy a new computer system so I can run this game at a speed it deserves. But considering just five days ago I was running it fine, I don't think I should have to.

Sony, Verant, you guys have the resources to prevent screw ups like this from happening. What happened? Did all of your employees lose what brain cells they had all at the same time? Did no one just stop for a second and think about what you guys were doing? Or were you so worried about new games like DAoC that you thought you had to have the best. And therefore screw over a lot of your loyal clients?

/sigh

/rant off

Re:Quick question...

[matrix29]

(The lead programmer is a good friend of mine, he's been basically at work every moment he's been awake since September.)

Good! Tell him that his incompetent efforts have pretty much driven me away from buying SONY products (they don't give the slightest damn about their customers) and totally ensured I will NEVER purchase a VERANT product again.

15+ hour days? For continual Betaware? Bullshit.

Do they think they're Microsoft and immune from the effects of their own incompetence?