The problem with playing an older game straight from CD like Lords of EverQuest is that these kinds of games go to production before they’re actually finished. Long lead times, that sort of thing.
I think that’s what must have happened here. The SOEGames.Net patch servers have long since been taken down, and the game I am playing here is whatever was on the disc and nothing else; I am very much assuming that if I’d been able to patch up this game, that it would have fixed the issue with the “Contention” map in the Shadowrealm campaign.
The goal of this mission is to set up a base camp in the Rujarkian Hills — a place mostly known for its orcs in EverQuest. Even though orcs have gone missing in the world of Lords of EverQuest, they still get places named after them. My lord, upon being told that the map is under contention between a tribe of goblins and a tribe of gnolls, suggests building the base right at the top of the hills, in a place called Rujark’s Throne. Since our pitiful force is no match for the combined might of two armies, my lord suggests allying with one of them.
There are scattered units standing around that we can pick up, as well as Dungeon Siege-ish pack donkeys that don’t seem to serve any purpose aside from being attacked by NPCs.
After losing several units to random bands of goblins and gnolls, we come to a gnoll leader who promises the aid of his people if we’d take out some elementals. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make his people any friendlier to us, and we are forced to kill many of our erstwhile allies on the way to and back from the elementals. Once we have his alliance, we reason that his substantial army will be ours to command… but no.
I am forced to use what platinum I have to build a base in an incorrect location just to get enough units to take on the goblins myself. I then find out there’s a Dawn Brotherhood base in one corner of the map, and they’ve decided to start draining all the plat mines on the map, and they’ll send out occasional raiding parties to keep us on our toes.
I don’t have the plat to take on two armies on my own, so I use a cheat to get more plat so I can finish this buggy map. I kill the goblins — thanks for the no help, gnolls. I kill the Dawn Brotherhood. I set up the base they specify on top of the Rujark Throne and… nothing. Nothing. I explore the map and find a boss in front of a temple and I expect that at some point we were supposed to fight this, but nothing. Nothing I can do can progress the quest.
I looked around for some patches this morning. There’s some available on pirate sites, but (a) I didn’t pirate this game, I actually have the disc in the original box, map and everything. And (b) I’m not comfortable with applying a patch from a pirate site. I was hoping to find it on some official site, but… for now, the game is unplayable.
Yes, I can use another cheat to skip to the next map, but it was not my intention to play the game in this way.
Is this even an RTS?
I am not an RTS player, but from what little I do know about the genre, you and the enemy both start from your starting areas and then build your forces, find the enemy and then start scouting and skirmishing and stuff.
Here, the enemy starts fully built out in every map and knows exactly where you are. Their units have higher levels and are just better. I have to do continual hit and run strikes, killing one or two enemy units and running away to heal. It’s a very slow and frustrating way to play. They have infinite units that apparently don’t require plat (although they do harvest it, I think mostly to make sure I can’t get it). Every single unit of mine is precious and must be preserved, because I need every bit of plat I can find.
It’s an asymmetric game, and I have the short end of the stick. It’s incredible that their higher leveled units don’t cause more trouble, but perhaps it’s because I haven’t run into any of their lords yet.
I dunno. I would like to finish at least this one campaign, but I’ve already hit a critical issue. I don’t know how this game ever made it out the door in this condition.
