I’m not sure what attraction Monsters & Memories has for me. It’s easily as punishing, if not more so, than 1999-era EverQuest. I haven’t noticed experience loss on death, yet, but that may just be because I’m still very low level. And likely to continue to be. Experience is very slow solo (but possible!), money is hard to come by, and with crappy gear to no gear and spells that can be lost when you die, it’s just… not for the fainthearted.
M&M set up new servers. A couple for the US east coast, one for the west coast, one in Europe. All characters were copied to all servers, but since my first three characters lost all their gear (and spells) to death, I went with the one character that survived that early leveling gauntlet, Etha, the druid.
You get money in the game by killing stuff that has loot you can sell. That may seem obvious. It’s the “can sell” bit that was important, there, because vendors will only buy from you the sort of things they sell. That tailor does not want your snake fangs. (Who does? The cooking supplies vendor! But good luck finding them!)
After I killed enough rotting skeletons and fire beetles to afford some spells, I returned to the city, bought a dot and a nuke, and headed out to explore, maybe find a group.
I’ve said many times that there’s a real correspondence between locations in M&M and those in classic EQ. This, for example, is where you’d expect to find the specter tower in the Oasis of Marr. The ghouls that were there in this world were red to me, as was pretty much everything around here. I was barely level 4 after hours of grouping in the previous test.
After I was done exploring, I put on LFG and soloed for a few minutes before getting a group offer on the evil side of town. The goodies, like me, are bound to the West Gate of the city. The baddies are bound to the North Gate. So I had to find the North Gate, which was much harder than I expected. I did eventually make it. The group was a mix; a shadowknight for tank, ranger for pulling, an enchanter, a couple necros and me, the only healer. And the only heal I had at the time was Minor Heal. I couldn’t afford the two level 4 upgrades, Lesser Heal and Touch of Nature, a heal over time.
So there may have been a few deaths, a few OOMs, but a decent amount of experience. I got a few armor drops, very much needed, and some other loot when I could stop medding long enough to loot a corpse. I don’t think I got very much coin at all.
I did have enough when the night was over to get those two spells I mentioned, but I am very far away from being able to afford to get even all my level 1 spells. This tracks with classic EverQuest, but that’s one of the things that maybe they don’t need to do. I think modern EQ makes new spells very cheap, but the more powerful versions of those spells cost more, are rare drops, or are crafted from raid materials. But everyone at least has the spells.
In fact, EQ, EQ2 and every modern MMO has fixed all these things and streamlined and balanced the entire newbie experience. So explain to me why I’m looking forward to my next chance to play? (Oh yeah: ding level 5!.)
It’ll be interesting to see if this is a nostalgia-fueled short term thing or if you end up getting sucked in for the long term.
I can definitely tell this one is not for me, though. I don’t think I ever got past level 13 in launch-era Everquest. Though I think I hit 13 about a dozen times but kept dying and losing levels. 🙂
I think I enjoy the pace it has — a couple hours every few weeks. I don’t feel I have to show up every night.
I thought about playing, then forgot the test was on, then remembered again in time to get a few hours in on Saturday (Sunday was out.) but in the end I opted not to bother. I also still find the old 1999 gameplay loop compelling, when I encounter it, but I’m coming to see that as something that ought not necessarily to be encouraged, like eating donuts just because they’re so cheap or downloading every new, free MMORPG I hear of because “At least I’ll get a post out of it”.
That said, I didn’t realise characters were persistent between tests. That does put a slightly different complexion on things. And if they ever get to some form of “Always Up” then all bets are off.