Monsters & Memories Stress Test Day 2

Yesterday around noon central time the Monsters & Memories Stress Test kicked back up and players were once again allowed in to give the servers a workout and get a sneak peak of what the developers had been working on.  I have to tell you that Day 2 went a lot smoother for me than Day 1!

Whereas I was constantly dying on Day 1 and eternally lost, on Day 2 I was able to memorize my skills, put them on the ability bar, and start to really kill some stuff. Those skills being available made a ton of difference.

Killing skeletons! This is the way!

Not only that but I actually finished my first Beastmaster quest, which was to collect 2 teeth each from rats, bats, and jackals. Once I had all six, then all I had to do was press combine to make a new necklace. Running back to the Beastmaster Trainer and handing it in produced my first magic item, the Beast's Initiate Cord.

My first magic item from the Beast Master Intro Quest

By the end of my play time (before my family ripped me away to have a movie night watching The Amazing Maurice), I had reached level 3, trained up dual wielding, and memorized a spell that would turn me True North. 

I can't tell you how much I wish a Day 3 of Stress Testing was happening so I could go back in and track down the Beastmaster Spell Trainer. I took a screenshot of him because I was sure I would need to reference it again to locate him, but as I was playing, I completely forgot that I had even taken the below screenshot and failed to ever find him again.

LOL! He's clearly standing in Saltwater Park or whatever it's called. DANGIT!

I did have some fun exploring while looking for the spell trainer though and really walked the extents of the sprawling city, even the parts that I was clearly not supposed to be in because none of the buildings were even finished. They were still greyboxed and no NPCs were in sight.

Hello Sunrise! How I missed you! I was awfully lost in the dark for a while.

By the end of my play session I was selling vendor trash to the hidden vendor I found and stashing stuff into my bank. I know it seems weird, but it felt good to be completely confused in "New Everquest" all over again. Gauging from the /ooc chat in game, it appeared I wasn't alone in that feeling either. 

We'll see if I feel the same way come next stress test / pre-Alpha or what have you, but for now, my general feelings are BRING ON MORE MONSTERS & MEMORIES! HUZZAH!

Happy Dueling

Monsters & Memories Stress Test 1

I've had my eye on Monsters & Memories since it was announced. In fact, I joined their Discord server right away when I heard about it, and then after a month or so, I realized I couldn't keep up with chat and promptly left. This was way back in, what, 2020? 2021?

Anyway, yesterday I caught wind from Shawn Lord's LinkedIn that this weekend they were holding a couple rounds of stress testing, and I decided to download it and give it a shot. (I used to work with Shawn back at KingsIsle.) 

Of course there were all kinds of padded warnings that came along with their stress test:

"PLEASE NOTE: By registering for, downloading, or logging into Monsters & Memories, you acknowledge your understanding that this is a technical "stress test" of an early development build and not a pre-alpha, alpha, beta, or any other form of test indicative of the game being in a ready-for-release state."

There was even more padding after you installed about the state of the game being buggy and not ready for prime time, BUT there was no NDA or any kind of gag order. In fact, there were people Twitch streaming their gameplay last night.

Oogaooga the Ogre Beastmaster

The game in its current state feels very much like a love letter to Everquest and classic MMOs, and it was every bit as confusing as that first time you logged into Everquest and had to kind of figure out what it was you were doing. At the same time "/attack" worked just fine . . . so it felt instantly familiar.

Of course I got my butt handed to me by a beetle the first time I tried slash attack

The real fun of the game didn't seem to be attacking things right at first anyway. The city behind the gates you spawn at was sprawling and impressive in its size and maze-like qualities.  Just like in Everquest, this was a city you could get lost in.

Looking out upon half of the city late at night from up on a ledge

Eventually the server I was on crashed out, and I had to hop on a second server and try again. While I was there, I finally figured out how to scribe my spells into my spellbook, but I couldn't quite figure out how to then transfer my spellbook spells over to my ability slots to cast them. I wandered the city a bit with my new Gnome Beastmaster and then logged out for the night. 

Somewhere in here, there's a quest giver waiting for me to put a note in his inventory box

I'm glad I was able to add my bandwidth to the stress test. There's another stress test for a few hours this afternoon as well, so I may jump on again. Either way, it was interesting to see so many people there pining for the old days in Everquest to be new again. Can't wait to see where Monsters and Memories is a couple years from now.

Happy Dueling!