New Attitude
For December 29th
By Julie Whitefeather

Hello again and welcome to another edition of  New Attitude.  This time I am a day late and a dollar short as grandmother used to say. But my friends, when you hear why you will forgive me - well, at least half of you will…read on.

 

The half that will forgive me are the half that craft.  This is the first time in any game, including Everquest 1, that I have caught the “crafting bug”.  Yes, as you can see from last weeks column, it all started so innocently with a few holiday crafts for my home.  Now? Well you know that the crafting bug has hit you when you find yourself saying “come on…just one more trade skill level!”

Crafting in some of the games I have played, like Ultima Online, and Vanguard were nothing short of painful.  While it is easy to see the similarities between the crafting system in Vanguard and  EQ2, the difference is that Sony did it right. Yes, I know there are probably some Vanguard fans who would say their crafting system is “more realistic” and the EQ2 system is too easy.  I would be remiss as a writer if I did not acknowledge the EQ1 crowd who seem to enjoy the challenge.  As for me, even a small thing like the recent change in crafting (seen above) where they put all the needed spells/icons for crafting right there on the page, durability on the left, is just what this little gnome ordered!

Knocking about Norrath - Gorilla my dreams

The new expansion Rise of Kunark has brought us  what is probably the best starting area in this game, or for that matter, any other.  Strong words I guess, but what is not to like? Take away that great game play, the fact that the city, Gorowyn, has no instances, and the mysterious lore and what have you got left?  Well, some of the best starting gear in EQ2 for one.  Like many of the rest of you, I am sure, I started a new character or two just to see what Timorous  Deep was like.  I liked it so much as a Sarnak I brought all my characters there - and that was no small task I can assure you, as some of those characters were on the good side of the battles in Norrath.  More about that below.

Just before Christmas I was in Frostfell Village with my Sarnak “Sisster S’ledgehammer” when I heard this:

 “Why is that baby stonechest gorilla following you around?”

“Because I adopted him,” I answered.

“How!?”

That has played out  more than once.   Now I see more people with baby gorillas following them, so here is how to get yours!

Kill 10 gorillas…

If you are not native to Gorowyn you will be coming from the docks. Enter the city, take the lift to the first level and make you way out of front gates of the city, past the breathing pools, to Gorowyn Beach Outpost.

 

Tell the nice Sarnak at the flight path that you would like the griffon to take you to Mok Rent. Once you arrive at the outpost you will see some small buildings across a pool of water. You are looking for a woman named Vaerha Farsight. She calls herself a “bio-parser.”  She might not have a small feather above her head to give you a quest. Talk to her anyway. She will give you a quest called “The Stonechest Tablets” - time to go  hunt some gorillas…

Leave the outpost  and  walk over the bridge leading into the outpost.  Just over the bridge and to your left you will find a troupe of Stonechest Gorillas. Don’t worry, they are quite peaceful - until you start to beat up on one.  She has you go kill the gorillas to collect the small stone tables they carry around  Return the stone tables to Vaerha and she will give you a quest called “matching tablets?”  She will give you a small tablet.  Leave the outpost again, cross the bridge and off to  your left you will find a small area with mother and baby gorillas against a wall - show your tablet to the mothers until you find one that gets excited and follows you. Then return to Vaerha again.

 

Vaerha tells you she is going to look at the tablets and sends you on your way with a vague hint - bring back anything else to her you think might be of interest.  Now is the time to go gorilla hunting again. Kill a few gorillas and eventually one will drop the body of a dead panther.  The dead panther will give you the quest “A curious carcass”.  Bring the dead panther back to Vaerha.

Now that she is done studying the gorillas by decimating there troupe, she tells you the smell rotten dead panther is a tribute. She hands the stinky thing back to you and sends you off to find the head gorilla.  Now is the time to make your way up the ramp at the back of the cave that olds the Mok Rent outpost - the ramp is marked by two burning torches.

Up at the top of that ramp, and across two bridges, you will find two Sarnaks hanging about by a stream.  Later on, if you do the quests you will discover that Ancho Mok’nok is little more than a genocidal maniac who wants to do in all of their enemies.  In the end, he gets to take a little “vacation” being the overworked psycho that he is.

 

Ignore the psycho for now and head up the stream that leads out the top of the mountain. If you are doing this quest below the level of 17, watch out - just outside the tunnel there is a “jungle khvara” (a lion with bat wings basically) that will make a quick meal out of a lower level player.  Just to your left at the top of a hill you will find a broken aquaduct.  On the left side there is a small ledge leading out to narrow beam crossing a chasm.  You must walk across to the next section of broken aquaduct. The brave adventure that you are (ok so I have wings on the character doing it here) you will not mind climbing out on the ledge.

Once on the small bit of broken aquaduct make your way to the end and drop down. There you will find the main gorilla, the head honcho, the tribute taker himself - the king of the gorillas, King Grugla. Now is your chance to get rid of the moldy panther you hauled up the mountain side. Believe it or not the king and his buddies are excited to get it.  In return for the rotting dead panther King Grugla gives you a baby gorilla that is as cute as a button. I would say the King needs to get his priorities sorted out.

If you  have wings, now comes the easy part - jump off the ledge and glide down. What? No wings? Then you have to climb down. Lucky you.  Bring baby gorilla back to Vaerha. She tells you “return to me in a few days”

This is the point at which I initially said “A FEW DAYS IS SHE NUTS! WHAT AND BRING HER THE BROOM OF THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST?”

Fortunately for compressed time and the powers that be, she will only make you wait 15 minutes. Go have a drink, make yourself a sandwich, whatever. Come back in 15 minutes. Eventually Vaerha explains to you that the gorillas  have a high infant mortality rate (and a high mortality rate period thanks to  her) and are very protective of their young. She tells you that when a baby gorilla is orphaned (and guess who orphaned said baby gorilla in the first place) that the king redistributes the baby as he sees fit. When you presented the dead panther to the king she tells  you that you were saying “you are willing to work for the good of all gorillas, not just yourself” and that you are accepting responsibility for the child.  So….tribute, or bribe, one of the two. One way or the other you are now a foster parent!

Great moments in gaming…sort of

This week I have to soft of odd moments in gaming.  The first one I sort of expected.  My first impressions of Freeport was “Gees for a tyrannical dictator the place is filthy, would it hurt someone to pick up a mob and a bucket now and then?”  And if you think the place is filthy ABOVE ground you should see the sewers. Realism? They made me want to vomit they were so real.  One merry day during Frostfell I decided to try out a new race/class combination. There I am making my way from the high rent district of Freeport - the east side - when I encounter this woman in West Freeport.  What does she say? Merry Frostfell? Happy holidays? Nice ta’ see ya? Nope.  She looks right at me and says “half right and half wrong.”

If it weren’t for the great amenities of Gorowyn (like no instancing as well as the bank, housing, crafting and broker being all in one place) women like this would have driven me away anyway…sheesh.

The second moment is just sort of an odd one. I was out mining in Butcherblock Mountains when I came across this guy…

 

At first I thought he might be dead. Then I thought, okay maybe he’s an umpire in some sort of game of gorilla baseball and one gorilla just slid into home plate safe? Is his teacher making  him stand that way as punishment? Who knows…only the devs know for sure.

Gnomercee, no prisoners - the evil that (virtual) men do…

*cue theme music from the movie pattion*
*a lone gnome walks out on stage*

 

“Now, I want you to remember that no b’tard ever won a war by dieing for Freeport. She won it by making the other poor dumb b’tard die for Qeynos. All this stuff you’ve heard about gnomes not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of a war, is a lot of horse dung. Gnomes traditionally love to fight. All real gnomes love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball player, the toughest boxer. Gnomes love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Gnomes play to win all the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a gnome who lost and laughed. That’s why gnomes have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to gnomes.”

Okay, so somewhere George Patton is probably rolling in his grave.

However, when people find out I am a nun they often have odd images come to mind. They tell me they see me in my “penguin suit” (habit and veil) in front of the computer late at night playing games.  They expect me to play a healer and abhor violence.  On one occasion when a player in Eve Online found out I was a nun she got so miffed she told me to get off line and go meditate.  The notions of what brings people to a videogame are sometimes a bit odd.  As for me, I used to play console games but once I played my first MMO I was hooked.  Playing in a persistant world with thousands of other players somehow makes the game MATTER.  But those same conditions that bring together players from all over what Marshal Macluhan used to call a “global village” (made reality by the internet) also creates the opportunity for violence (albeit virtual) against another human being, not just pixels - for behind every player character is a real person. The starting point for any discussion in virtual violence is, of course, the person engaging in the violence in the first place.

Why do people play evil characters?

To begin with, ask yourselves, what is evil?  To some, evil is simply anything outside the mores of what the rest of a society does.  In the 1984 Charles Bronson film, “The Evil that Men Do” is about a vigilante that goes about killing the badguys outside the law.  This has, in fact, become a common theme in the media.  The viewer is lead to believe that the bad guys “have it coming”…or do they.  One distinct characteristic that Everquest 2 has that many other games do not have are classes that are labled good, evil and neutral.  This is sort of a throw back to the old Dungeon and Dragons days.   Even in the real world, however, the saying goes “one man’s traitor is another man’s patriot”  In EQ2 the new race are called Sarnaks and are considered evil.

“Evil?” I asked mself. Really? I went to Gorowyn as my butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth saccharine sweet fae.   Not only where the residents of Gorowyn not rude but the first thing any NPC asked me is if I wanted something to drink.  I could buy at the shops, and use the crafting machines. The only thing I couldn’t do was buy housing.

Real people in the virtual world…

In Spring 2006, Trinity offered a class called Games for the web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-Line Games”. I am unaware if they still offer the course. Here is a quote from the introduction to the course:

“The popularity of these virtual environments is staggering. At any given moment, at least 90,000 players are interacting with one another in Norrath — the fictional world of Everquest. According to a study conducted several years ago, the world of Everquest is the 77th richest “nation” on the planet with a per-capita GNP that outstrips China and India (Castranova, 2002). Others estimate that more than $900 million in virtual assets were exchanged in 2005, with a projected market that exceeds $7 billion by 2009. With game characters and virtual objects fetching thousands of dollars on eBay, sweat shops have been set up in developing nations to service this micro-economy (Dibbell, 2003).” - Dr. Aaron Delwiche, www.trinity.edu/adelwich/worlds/

I found it incredibly interesting that  that Dr. Delwiche used an MMO to study human behavior. The mmo that he used in Spring of 2006 was EQ2.

One of the papers written by a student identified as “Sarah C” was entitled “Playing as evil characters”  Now the fact of the matter was that the author interviewed a handful of people - not what anyone would consider “statistically significant” - but it engender some interesting thoughts.

Playing a character…

Okay the simple fact of the matter is that while people my drive the pixels  very few people actually play the character.  How many people have you met who actually roleplayed a character? Have you ever played on a role playing server? I have and still do.  If you try and roleplay on the average roleplaying server people will look at you like you have suddenly grown a third head - the second one being extraneous in the first place - ask any two headed ogre.

Decisions, decisions…

The decision to play an “evil character” is usually based one of several game mechanics such as the atmosphere in which the character lives - who wouldn’t want to move to Gorowyn and live inside a volcano?  Some people chose to play a particular character just because of the abilities the character has, like the fae and gliding before it was possible to play an Arasi  (an “evil” fae).  Other people, such as myself, chose to play evil characters simply to explore the lore. This is the whole reason that I “rolled up” a Sarnak – I wanted to learn more about their lore “first hand” so to speak.

One bad apple…

But this leaves me wondering what of decision that go simply behind those of game mechanics? But what of people who truly do play evil characters? What of those to whom the anonymity of the internet allows them to do as they please to who they please? The truth of the matter is that when you have some 90,000 people all in the same relative place and the same time that there are going to be a few people who are just out to make themselves feel good by making other people feeling bad.  Take a quick jaunt around any pvp server and you will meet people like this in droves.  The point is, any significantly large barrel will hold more than a few rotten apples and the occasional wacko.

Playing the role…

I have acted on stage professionally at one point in my life. I even have a degree in theater. All that said, one of the actors I have come to respect the most is not anyone with “sir” before their name because it was bestowed upon them by the Queen of England. The actor I respect the most is Johnny Depp.  Mr. Depp  seems so engrossed in a character that when he plays a role it would be nearly impossible to tell it is the same person from one movie to the next if you didn’t know about it ahead of time.  As few people who actually roleplay a character, the virtual world does have it’s occasional virtual “Johnny Depps”.

But how do you tell the difference between someone who is simply playing a role and someone who knows that there is a real person with real feelings on the other side of the pixels? The answer is that it is difficult. The truth of the matter, is that even if someone is “playing a role” that it can go too far without meaning to go too far.

Is violence virtual?

To me, one of the most exciting moments in modern film is when the first battle scene begins in the movie “Gladiator”. In face the popularity of gladiators in ancient rome reached such a zenith that at one point a law had to be passed forbidding nobility from becoming gladiators and endangering their lives. To the ancient Roman a gladiator was like a rock star. So  you might ask yourself, who wouldn’t want a taste of that for just a few brief shing moments?

But for that answer you will have to wait until next time.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather