Recently I talked to an old friend from an online gaming guild on MSN messenger, and the guy really got me into wanting to play some MMORPGs again. He had recently resubscribed to SquareEnix’s popular multi-platform MMO Final Fantasy XI and appeared to be having a ball. Now I had played that game several times before, and it just never quit clicked with me. I always found the level of progression to be a bit to monotonous and the game itself to be relatively sleep inducing. Throwing FFXI out of the picture, I was left with one choice – Sony Online Entertainments pioneering console MMO Everquest Online Adventures.
I am one of the few loyal MMORPG gamers still left out in the dark ages of dial up internet (only until this March) so my choices of games were quite limited. My old favorites such as Everquest I & II, Lord of the Rings Online, and World of Warcraft had long since dropped their support for most dial up connections and I was left with relatively few options. EQOA is one of the few MMORPGs that still runs well on dial up in addition to the fact that it is on the PS2, meaning that I didn’t have to worry about poor performance. When I put those aspects into perspective, the choice was obvious.

My biggest obstacle concerning this journey was the scarcity of players across each of the servers. This game was first produced in 2003 back when Everquest was the reigning king of PC MMORPGs and when World of Warcraft was little more than a twinkle in the eyes of gamers everywhere. The game, unlike FFXI which was ported to the PC, also was developed for a now obsolete gaming system which meant, for one thing, that the game can’t even be considered current generation any longer. Secondly, the game seems to loose more and more players each and every day as just a quick glance at the game’s official forums will prove. In addition to that, every guild that I ever joined in EQOA was lively during my time playing, but after I would take a break for several months, the guild would be all but dead. All servers but the most popular server – Castle Lightwolf – have become ghost-towns. Freeport, the largest city in both square feet and player population, once averaged around fifty people in the zone across all servers. These days Castle Lightwolf is the only server that still retains such a number. All the other servers struggled to have anywhere from ten to fifteen on peak playing hours, but while each server had a noticeable drop in population, the recent death of all other servers has actually served to strengthen that one solitary server that still retains some hint of acitivity.

As players from unpopular servers such as Marr’s Fist, Proudpine Outpost, Direnhold, and Feran’s Hope left the game, the remaining players saw fit to leave as well only to start anew on Castle Lightwolf. This accomplished two things. The first of which bolstered the population of an already popular server thus extending the game’s life as a whole. Secondly, this new influx of players brought about a steady increase of experienced, low level players which vastly improved the ailing low level population. The experienced players also served to efficiently guide the few legitimate low level players still left in the game. Surprisingly, the fact that the players left the other servers actually made the game more fun and more like it was before so many players began to leave. The following text will serve as a recap of my first few days in the new world of Everquest Online Adventures:

As I logged in, after spending a great deal of time remembering my randomly generated password, I immediately laid eyes on that ugly armor in which my level 35 ranger was forced to wear. It was a dark red suite with scales that could hardly be seen thanks to the hue of the items. My helmet was of the same color, but it had a giant spike on the top that made it look like a red Hershey’s Kisses. As the loading screen disappeared, my deadly giant strawberry set foot on the world of Tunaria (the world wasn’t referred to as Norrath at that time) for the first time in almost a year. The first thing I notice was that, of course, my guild was now dead. I must admit to not being totally concerned or overly sad because I wasn’t sure if my time in EQOA was going to even require me to find a guild, and, by their very nature, guilds in EQOA don’t have that same personal feeling of closeness that guilds from computer MMORPGs have. Console players have always had a reputation for being less refined than computer players and that old idea holds true in Everquest Online Adventures more than almost anywhere. After having made the discovery of my dead guild, I realized that I was nowhere near any civilized area of the game world. I quickly activated my return home spell and landed myself right smack in the middle of Freeport, the meeting place of all EQOA players.

My first wish upon entering Freeport was to try and find an XP group so I could make some progress. I threw up my LFG flag, stood myself upon one of the chairs by the Freeport Arena (small platform under a small tent) and began reading a novella that had been assigned to me in my Advanced Placement English Literature class – Joseph Conrad’s literary classic Heart of Darkness that from here on out will be jokingly referred to as the abortion, with all due respect to Mr. Conrad.

“One evening as I was lying flat on the deck of my steamboat, I heard voice approaching – and there were the nephew and the uncle strolling along the bank. I laid my head on my arm again, and had nearly lost myself”…..hey, there’s a fly on the wall!……….. “in a doze, when somebody said in my ear, as it were: “I am as harmless as a little”- Awesome! group invite! I eagerly accepted the group invite in anticipation of all the experience points that were calling out my name. “Hexbones,” the said. “We’re killing Hexbones.” I had barely made it outside of Freeport when, as groups in EQOA often do, they announced that they had decided they were tired of killing Hexbones and were just going to log for the nite, thus my short journey was for naught. As a result of this, I stole away back to Freeport, threw up my LFG tag, picked up the abortion, and began reading again.

” The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there – there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were – No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know”……coming soon

Several months ago, Christopher Daniels went on a long hiatus after loosing the X-Division title to Chris Sabin. For a long time we didn’t hear anything out of him until a series of video packages began airing every week on Impact. In those video packages we kept hearing about how Christopher Daniels was intending to get in touch with a “higher power” and how he wanted to set his sights on a much bigger prize than the X-Division title. Unfortunately, upon his debut, we didn’t get that. Instead, Christopher Daniels made his return by attacking another X-Division wrestler and for the longest time, seemed intent on feuding with the exact same wrestlers he feuded with before he left. A few months later, however, the wrestling world was delighted to learn that Christopher Daniels would be engaging in a feud against the legendary icon Sting at Slammiversary.

Slammiversary would come and go almost as fast as his “feud” with sting, which doesn’t really even deserve to be called a feud. I like to think of it as more of a “conflict of interest”, but that’s really here nor there at the moment so allow me to get back to the topic at hand. Excusing my slight diversion, after Slammiversary TNA decided to rehire Elix Skipper and reform Triple X, a dominant heel stable in the early days of TNA. Daniels fans were outraged to find out that he wouldn’t be continuing his feud with Skipper, but they were excited when they heard about the return of Triple X.

As it would turn out, however, Triple X reformed at the Ultimate X match at Hard Justice and then TNA proceeded to do absolutely nothing with the stable and even less with Daniels. In all of the illustrious reunion of Triple X, the only notable occurrences involving them happened to be a poor X-Division title feud, an Ultimate X match with no build (heck of an oxymoron), and one odd looking video package shortly before Daniels was “fired” from TNA. Shortly afterward, Low-Ki wanted out of TNA, and Elix Skipper began using his old theme music. That was the end of Triple X, and what a huge impact they made!

Earlier in the previous paragraph, I mentioned that Daniels was “fired” from TNA, and for those of you that don’t know or can’t remember, Christopher Daniels participated in that wonderful “Feast or Fired” match at some TNA PPV that I can’t remember the name of, and despite many people thinking he would get a title shot of some kind, he received the briefcase with the pink slip and was hence forth “fired” from TNA wrestling.

Now obviously this was merely kayfabe and Daniels wasn’t really gone from TNA wrestling, but it still left a bad taste in the mouths of many as most felt that Daniels was worthy of a title opportunity and not a storyline that would have him be absent from TNA. In truth, however, it wouldn’t have been very much of a change as Daniels was rarely featured on the program anyway, but the whole ordeal just added unneeded insult to injury.

After Daniel’s kayfabe “firing”, rumors began to swirl around the internet on just how his X-Division legend would make his return to TNA. At first it was reported that TNA was going to run a homeless angle, then it changed into a proposed NJPW invasion, and lastly internet reports began to say that Daniels would cease wrestling as the Fallen Angel and return as his alter ego, the eccentric masked wrestler Curry Man.

I had seen some of Curry Man in various independent wrestling promotions and youtube videos, and I thought he was a pretty funny character. Sadly though, that was the extent of my enjoyment. I wasn’t really looking forward to his debut on TNA Impact and hoped the rumors were false.

Last week’s Impact, in my opinion was fairly mediocre. The wrestling aspect of the show was as good as it always is, but I had several issues with the show. For one I didn’t like Jay Lethal mimicking Shawn Michaels and his “lost smile”, secondly I hated Johnny Devine getting destroyed by Samoa Joe out right after winning the X-Division title, and thirdly The Rock and Rave Infection went from looking like jobbers to jobbers with horrible characters who are addicted to Guitar Hero. I wasn’t sold on the show and neither were most of the fans in which I talked to.

        The segment with Curry Man came on, he did his little dance, and suddenly ninety percent of the fans I talked to proclaimed that show to be the greatest Impact in history. Curry Man and his ridiculous dance was loved so much by the internet fans that they totally forgot about all the other crap they just sat through and were mesmerized by a guy that resembled a giant pizza. I, however, was not so easily pleased with this over-the-top comedy character.

        The fact that so many of the people that bash TNA for their silly storylines and joke oriented characters being the ones that are going crazy over Curry Man really strikes me as quite odd. Upon racking my brain for a solution to the problem I came up with a surprising solution. I really hate to bash the internet or use the term indy darlings, but I can’t help but believe that the only reason internet fans love Curry Man is because he was an indy wrestling gimmick. TNA can have AJ Styles running around in a bunny suite and the internet acts like the idea the worst thing ever (which it is), but when they have Christopher Daniels dancing down to the ring in a mask with a bowl of curry on top, the idea is the greatest idea ever. Curry Man is no different from AJ in a bunny suit, Kurt Angle in a psychiatric ward, or Stone Cold Shark Boy. Curry Man is simply yet another way to illicit a few laughs and cheap pops from the crowd.

TNA has some element of comedy in almost every element of their show, and I racked my brain trying to figure out just how to take any of their stars seriously. AJ Styles, once the crowned prince of TNA, has been reduced into nothing more than a stuttering, idiotic country hick all for the price of a few laughs. Chris Harris, shortly before leaving TNA, was reduced to nothing more than a chronic complainer all for the price of a few laughs. Even Kurt Angle, TNA World Heavyweight champion and the biggest star on the show, has been reduced to nothing more than an idiot once again all for the price of a few laughs. Laughs bring smiles to faces, but they don’t bring dollars to the table folks. I don’t pay money to see running jokes and neither do wrestling fans. That much is evident in TNA’s stagnant PPV buys.

Despite all of this, TNA continues to add more and more comedic touches to every aspect of their program. In the past few weeks we have witnessed such great segments such as the coronation of King AJ Styles, Kurt Angle proclaiming himself to not be the sharpest knife in the shed, the birth of “Stone Cold” Sharkboy, and now we have Curry Man. Daniels, who once had an interesting multidimensional character is now reduced to nothing but a break-dancing joke.

        The fact that so many of the people that bash TNA for their silly storylines and joke oriented characters being the ones that are going crazy over Curry Man really strikes me as quite odd. Upon racking my brain for a solution to the problem I came up with a surprising solution. I really hate to bash the internet or use the term indy darlings, but I can’t help but believe that the only reason internet fans love Curry Man is because he was an indy wrestling gimmick. TNA can have AJ Styles running around in a bunny suite and the internet acts like the idea the worst thing ever (which it is), but when they have Christopher Daniels dancing down to the ring in a mask with a bowl of curry on top, the idea is the greatest idea ever. Curry Man is no different from AJ in a bunny suit, Kurt Angle in a psychiatric ward, or Stone Cold Shark Boy. Curry Man is simply yet another way to illicit a few laughs and cheap pops from the crowd. Curry Man, by himself, is no real issue, but he’s only another addition to a long list of reasons why I and many others can no longer take TNA as a serious alternative to World Wrestling Entertainment television programming, and it pains me for fans all over the world wide web to bash TNA so hard for their over-abundance of comedy angles, yet then turn around and go crazy of Curry Man. How can we expect TNA to every listen to anything the internet has to say when our beliefs are so schizophrenic. There can be no double standards, people. If we want to grab TNA’s attention we have to stand up and say “Hey, this is crap no matter who’s behind the mask.” Let us not get to caught up in our love for Daniels’ indy gimmick, but let us realize that TNA already has way to much for us to laugh at, and they cannot afford so much comedy in absence of real, engaging storylines.