Return of the Isle of Refuge

As mentioned in my previous post this morning, I was away for the week so the posts that went up on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday were written well in advance of their going live.  So my Tuesday post about the EverQuest II time locked expansion servers going live was working on the information I had at the time and lacked any immediate action on my part.

So I was pretty surprised to find upon my return that Daybreak had pulled a fast one and had actually put the Isle of Refuge back into the game for these servers.  I logged in and made a character… a barbarian berserker, which is my default EQII character choice most days of the week… and found myself, as Bhagpuss put it, on the boat and on my way to the isle.

Where are we headed Captain Varlos?

In fact, when you create a character you are back to the two original choices.  No Frostfang Sea or Darklight Wood options were displayed.

You have your choice between two identical islands…

I ran through the boat ride and landed on the Isle of Refuge, but stopped there.  It did appear that, if the whole retro isle experience wasn’t your thing, you could leave immediately as opposed to after you finished up the main quest chain.

The servers themselves seemed pretty busy for a Thursday night.

PvE seemed to be beating out PvP for the time being, and enough people were rolling in then that I ended up in Queen’s Colony 3 on the PvE side of the house.

I will have to devote some time to playing this weekend to see how the retro experience stacks up to my memories.

And there is an incentive to get into the game sooner rather than later.  Daybreak is offering a 16 slot bag to those who log in before August 7.

Subscribers Only

Given that you start out with a single 4 slot bag… where will I store all my stuff… that seems like a good thing.

Now to decide which trade skill to pick up.

Quote of the Day – The End of Smed?

Daybreak Games confirms that John Smedley will be taking some time off from the company for the near-term and transitioning to a different role to be determined. Upon finalization of his plans, further communication will be provided.

RadarX, EverQuest II forums

l go away for a few days and this happens.  While I was down at Pismo Beach watching the beach bunnies and avoiding the horde of German tourists… seriously, they were everywhere… only to come back home and find that Smed is out as the boss at Daybreak.

The Daybreak era Smed

There is plenty of speculation about why he is out, where he will end up, and how it may or may not relates to his run-in with Lizard Squad and the deletion of his Twitter account.

• EQ2 Wire
• Game Informer
• Game Politics
• Keen & Graev
• Massively OP
• MMO Fallout
• The Mittani
• Venture Beat
• Brad McQuaid
• Hardcore Casual

Smed was, of course, a pillar of the MMO development community who helped make EverQuest possible.  He was also a staple of “Quote of the Day” posts here and not universally loved, having run SOE and Daybreak through various controversial periods including the NGE, the transition to free to play, the current era of early access sales, and the sale of SOE to Columbus Nova Prime.  While he has fans both inside and out of Daybreak, not everybody will be sad to see him step down.

But that just brings us to the next question; who will replace him at the helm?

Smed was at least a gamer through and through.  Russel Shanks, another long time member of the Daybreak team is stepping up for now, but it is not clear to me if that is a permanent move of not.  So the next person running Daybreak may not be cut from the same gamer mold.  And while Smed stepping down may have had something to do with his online conflict coming home to roost at Daybreak, it could be about something else as well… something like money even.

Having worked for a company that was acquired by an investment group in the past, I can tell you that I was often reminded of that scene from Goodfellas:

Now the guy’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week, no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me.

This may be simply the first round of, “Fuck you, pay me.”  Or it could be something else.

What will Daybreak be without John Smedley?