Month: March 2009

Taking down Valdoon 1.0

I remember Valdoon first, from EQ2. In that instance. Where he just would NOT stop talking. You remember the one too, right? In Loping Plains? Well, last night I got to extract some revenge on him and I’m trying to decide where this persona was worse, in EQ or EQ2. 

In EQ Valdoon is located in a Lost Dungeon of Norrath raid. Specifically: Mistmoore Catacombs – The Asylum of Invoked Stone. Now, many people have heard of LDoN before and it typically garners a strong response. You either loved the expansion, or you hated it. I happen to fall into the first category, I loved LDoN. I find it a shame that people (typically) no longer do them. It used to be a great way to get groups. Now the dungeons are pretty much ignored, you can research all of the spells that you used to have to do LDoN’s for. I do have a few points that I used to purchase a ring so that I could put a type 3 augment into it (it’s a pet focus for my necromancer from Seeds of Destruction) but aside from that, there’s been no real reason. 

However. I’m blessed with having always played EQ with some amazing people, no matter what time I seemed to step back into the game. When I first started playing it was with a Beastlord named Fistinyereyes, when I returned a few years later it was with Nostalgia, and then again with Ninga and Ultann. Exceptionally lucky, I know. What’s even better is the amount of exploration and discovery I get to enjoy based on who I happen to play with. Ninga is always dragging our group off some place new – some place that most groups no longer do. Of course we do get to enjoy a good amount of the newest expansion as well (remember we just completed Oceangreen Hills progression not that long ago from SoD) but we spend a lot of time doing the older stuff too. 

So it was that we spent last night in the LDoN raid. There was nothing of particular value that we were after – but the mission did reward some pretty nice rogue gear by the end of it if we would be so lucky. 

There are two versions of Valdoon in this raid. You have to first kill the gargoyles that spawn much like you do in the EQ2 instanced version. Once these have been killed a fake version of Valdoon spawns. Now, if you’ve ever done LDoN raids before you realize how ESSENTIAL it is that you have alcohol tolerance up to as high as it can go. Pretty much all of the named (at least in Guk and a few others that I have done now) have an AoE that is based on your ability to handle drinks. If you have low tolerance, you will spend MOST of your time swerving around the instance, being unable to cast anything because it actually physically interrupts you, and feeling dizzy. This is of course how I spent my time because I’ve never worked on alcohol tolerance on any one of my characters. I believe it sits at a grand skill of 1. 

Once you’ve killed the first version of Valdoon it’s off to the second. Unlike EQ2 where you have to listen to his (very long) speech that drones on and one, this time you just kill him. Of course he does have a few other tricks up his sleeves as well. 

He has the alcohol AoE that goes off (and by the end of it I was worried my characters would NEVER see straight again) and he also spawns adds. He also has a large (ie: long) mez that’s unresistable that goes off. 

If his adds manage to get to him, he’ll life tap their essence and heal. He did this often. My girls ended up dying to him during the fight, but he was down to 5% or so and Ninga and Nocbot (the cleric) battled on like champs until finally when I thought all hope was lost, Valdoon fell. He dropped a clicky wizard item, a ranger bracer, and also the wonderful pair of gloves pictured on the right hand side. Why are these gloves so great? Well, the clicky can be used from inventory, and that was a HUGE bonus for Invis (my 73 rogue). That wasn’t the end of her fun though, of course not. She also managed to get a fabled blood earring of rage from Plane of Tactics yesterday and so did Ultann’s shadowknight, which was fantastic. We were trying to camp one for Ninga but alas he had to step out and missed the drop. While we were there Kameeko (my enchanter) also managed to get herself a very nice fabled shield. She’s been spoiled lately, she’s now sporting a fabled 1hb from Bastion of Thunder, a ranged item from Plane of Earth, and the shield secondary from Tactics, as well as a ring from Earth. 

The group also headed to Plane of Fire to see if we could not get the final fabled piece I needed for the gate necklace – and it dropped without too much issue at all! Now I need to pick up the container before fabled ends, and then I need to get started on the regular version of the necklace. Once I’ve completed the regular necklace I can turn in the 5 pieces for the fabled version. It will be a very nice upgrade to Minxes and while I may not actually need the gate portion I’m still excited. I’ve always loved doing these types of quests. 

Yesterday was also busy on Drinal as it was the location to the 10th anniversary party for the evening! I hope everyone had a fantastic time, and enjoyed all of the firework goodies that they got! 

It’s been really busy in game lately, and I’m still loving every minute of it. 

See you in Norrath! (and Middle Earth, tomorrow!)

Sverag, and lots of Planes

Yesterday was another combination of things in game. I decided to stick with the necromancer and the enchanter. The first portion was spent in Sverag, Stronghold of Rage. 

Part of the Plane of Rage, access to this stronghold is gained by breaking down a door in the wall surrounding the tower of Razorthorn in The Devastation. Which faction of mobs you encounter in Sverag depends on which faction “controls” The Devastation. They do not get along with one another, and can be any of or a mixture of: 

Barbarians (Furies of the North); Bolvirk Giants (Legions of Sverag); Drachnids and Spiders (The Venom Swarm); Dwarves (Stormbreaker Furies); Evil Eyes (The Irebound); Kobolds (Wildfang); Ogres (Bonecracker Furies); Orcs and Goblins (Redfist Legionnaires); Shiliskins (Deathshed Legion); Trolls (Blood Furies); Vah Shirs (Furies of Shir); Werewolves (Ragefang); and Zombies, Spectres, Knights (Ravenous Undead) 

At the very center of this stronghold is Razorthorn, the Tower of Sullon Zek, host to numerous tasks. Most mobs see invisibility, travel in packs, and hit for a wallop. The experience in a well-balanced group, however, is quite worth the effort in establishing a camp here. – Zam

This came out with the Prophecy of Ro expansion, and we spent a few hours there last night waiting for a named who drops an augment that would really be nice for our fellow shadowknight (a weapon augment I believe for that nice swarm weapon we got him the night before). Alas, the named we needed decided to be reclusive and didn’t spawn. It was fun to watch the npc’s all fight with one another though. About half way through our camp the Drachnid invaded, and we had 20-30 of them on us all at once. Not through any real fault of our own as we didn’t spawn them or even agro them but they were the invading force and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thankfully, a monk, shadowknight, and necromancer could feign through the invading army. The enchanter didn’t fair so well and was smushed part way through the first invasion, and I believe the cleric gated out just in time. Oh, and the monk didn’t actually feign, he decided it would be smarter to put on his gate hammer and escaped to The Overthere. Sneaky!

Afterwards we decided to try to find some more fabled to take down, and we headed to Torden, Bastion of Thunder. The zone was not too camped, but all of the ‘good’ fabled were. We did manage to find one up, and it dropped a new 1h weapon for the enchanter, a nice one at that. There were a few other items in the zone I would have really liked but we decided to head to Plane of Air next, and then following that, Plane of Fire. Why those planes? Well, I really want to get myself the fabled gate necklace. It requires having completed the regular necklace which I can do any time (although it will take a good amount of time) and it also requires 1 fabled piece from each plane as well as a container – which you can only pick up during fabled season. I have 3/4 pieces so far, the final one I require is the one from Plane of Fire. There was a raid headed through the zone when we showed up, and then afterwards it was quite camped so we didn’t stay long. Not to mention by the end of the evening I was feeling quite tired and so I decided to call it early. 

There’s still so much to do in game that I haven’t even started yet. I do want to do the anniversary events before they are gone for another year, but keep getting side tracked with other projects. Ah well, I suppose there are worse things that could be going on in game aside from being too busy!

Emotional Price Tags – How much is your character worth to YOU?

I was hanging out in EQ2 checking sales and the like when I happened to notice the comment on the right – the one at the bottom of the screen shot where the person was talking about how much they would sell their EQ2 character for if they were ever offered. It got me thinking about the monetary value of characters – not from the perspective of say, selling them on the bazaar for real life money – but from a personal perspective. An emotional price tag if you will. What exactly are our characters worth to us? For myself in particular, it was a difficult thing to think about. Why? Because I have so many characters spread throughout so many games. I had to look at it on a game-by-game basis. 

For example, EverQuestII. My characters (I have a lot) don’t have the greatest of gear. They don’t have raid gear, they don’t have mythicals. They have a LOT of hours dedicated to them though, and I put a lot of time and care into each one, especially the ones over level 80. Of course I’d never sell them for real, but if I were to associate a price with the account in general, it would probably be somewhere around the $10,000 mark. Keep in mind this is an emotional price tag. Do I honestly think my account is worth that much and would I really sell it for such an outrageous price? No, of course not. It’s simply what the account is worth to me. 

Wow, why on earth so high? Well because of the memories and years associated with it. Those characters are not just characters to me. It’s not that easy to part with it. I know that if I ever DID sell them, I’d be remiss for the rest of my gaming time. Constantly wondering about those characters I gave up. Lets say that the person purchasing the characters decided to strip them all, or betray, or change crafts and basically erase the hours and hours of work that you had already provided. They have no emotional attachment to the account, so feel no qualms in doing this. It’s not just a character that I’ve created and leveled up – not for that game at least. It’s five years of my life, five years of friends (and family) of ups and downs. Yes. I place an emotional price tag on the character. That’s what it is, it’s not what I actually think the account is worth because lets face it no one is going to pay that – but it’s what I personally think the account is worth to me. 

Now take a different game, lets say Vanguard. I’ve put in only two years of time and have significantly less characters. I’m a few levels away from the cap. I have a good guild there but no steady friends who continue to play. The account is worth less emotionally to me then my EQ2 account. The price I associate with that one is significantly less. 

I didn’t play EQ as much as some others. I played for a solid year before EQ2 came out and then switched games. I’ve played EQ off and on since then but I don’t have the history that others may have. I expect that their emotional attachment to the game and to their characters would be significantly higher then mine – now, if you’re not currently playing the game and have no desire to ever return to said game do you lower your emotional price tag? I’m really not sure. 

Those were my rambling thoughts of the morning in any case. I’m always interested in people’s thought process, and would love to hear any comments anyone may have. I’ll post a regular gaming post in a little bit!

New Zones, New Gear

There were a lot of wars going on, and that was pretty much the extent of what I knew about this zone my group decided to travel to. It was fun to watch them all fighting with one another – not so fun when we were after a specific race in order to get some quest drops. We ended up giving up after a few hours of unsuccessfully killing eye stalkers in order to get their skin to drop. You would think that every eye has skin, but alas such was not the case. 

The day was spent playing EverQuest and exploring zones I’d never been to. The druid managed to hit level 73 and then I started feeling nostalgic for the necromancer so I logged over to Minxes for the remainder of the evening. My two partners in crime and I decided to try to work on getting ourselves a few bits of fabled gear – a lot of it is too difficult for just the three of us to trio, but there were some drops we could certainly go after. Our first stop was Plane of Earth, which I had been to a few times before. We managed to get Aerrem the shadowknight 2h weapon that drops, and we got a number of the fabled rings (screen shot down below) for the enchanter, cleric, and necromancer. A nice ranged item also dropped for the enchanter, and another fabled ranged item for the monk. Once we’d gotten our fill of pretties from Earth, we headed to Plane of Water – which I had never been to before at all. 

The zone is beautiful. Schools of fish that swim through the water made it feel so life like, as plants and other living organisms go about their business with ease. We decided to try and get the shadowknight swarm weapon to drop, so we went to work killing sharks. Lots of sharks. While we were killing, an Australian raid came through on their way to an encounter.  Our fabled shark happened to spawn right when their mass of 20 people decided to swim through. Things got messy, and laggy. Not fun. 

 In the end the shadowknight did get his fancy sword, and I also got the fabled drop that allows me to work on an upgraded version of the gate necklace. It was a lot of fun and hopefully everyone had a good time. 

I’m not sure what other fabled spawn, but I believe we’ll be looking into it. The encounters are up for a month (approx) for the 10th anniversary, so there should be lots of time for people to get the items that they want. The ring on the right is a fairly common drop, we ended up spawning the fabled that drops it 3 times in the hour or two that we spent clearing the outside of earth. There were a few other groups in the zone but I’m not sure where they were experiencing at, I didn’t end up seeing them.

It’s been wonderful to see everyone in game lately. A lot have returned to check out the festivities, and that reminds me! Some time I really want to buckle down and do the new quests that were added. If you do all 16 of the god ones, you’ll get yourself a shiny new roboboar which you can also turn in with a mount for a faster version. I don’t exactly care about the speed of the mount, but I would like one just so that I can sit and regen mana and still cast. Not sure if I’ll get all 16 of those quests done, but it’s a nice thought and a project to work on some time. While you work on the quests you also get a lot of potions, and about 32,000 plat since each quest rewards a bit. 

We’ll see how that goes though. In the mean time, I’ve got to get back to work. Safe travels!

Questing, Leveling, Options!

One of the main reasons I enjoy EverQuest is that there is simply so much to do. While there may not be player housing (which draws me to Vanguard as well as EQ2) there is so much other stuff I never feel as though I have nothing to do. This also comes with a downside though – you can feel overwhelmed, like there is too much to do. If you’re a fan of alts (and lets face it, I can’t even pretend that I’m not) this may make you feel even MORE overwhelmed because of the desire to accomplish everything on all characters. 

Take for instance crafting. It’s a long complicated process (that has gone through many changes over time) especially if you take into consideration the crafting trophies. Then there are also the aa you dedicate to the skills. Not to mention the fact that any character can learn all crafts (minus tinkering and things like alchemy and poison making). Countless hours go into farming supplies for crafting, and if not farming, well a whole lot of money goes into the process. That’s just one aspect of the game.

Questing is another complicated side. Have you heard of the quest Breakdown in Communication (also known as BiC)? It’s one of the longest quests in game and people worked for (literally) years completing it. Yesterday my group started working on a second one that came out with The Buried Sea for a hand augment. The quest chain is 39 tasks long. I think we got close to 10 of them done yesterday, maybe 8. Each quest rewarded a bit of bone that I assume gets combined into the final skeletal hand augment by the end of things. 

What makes things even more complicated is that this quest in particular is a solo quest. If you do it in a group (as I was, with two others) it takes even longer because none of the drops are group drops. You’re not just looking for 10 ultra-rare bottles of rum, you’re looking for 30. It’s one aspect of EQ I wish would change to encourage grouping a little more. 

If I’m not in the mood to quest nor to craft there’s always just plain leveling. Already at the cap of 85? No worries, there are a LOT of achievement points to obtain. Afraid of not being able to catch up? Since the points now scale based on how many you already have it’s quicker then ever to gain a few. Especially if you are in a hot zone. 

Simply exploring some place new is great too. Just watch out because you may find yourself lost (as I do, often) or being chased down by large groups of angry critters. 

The only time I find myself floundering on what to do in game is when I’m personally feeling restless and that’s simply because there is so many options I can’t settle on just one. Give me a game that offers me multiple venues to explore and that’s the game I’ll end up sticking with the longest even if it’s a combination of questing and pvp and crafting or some other weird combination. I’m sure the main reason for my choices comes from the fact that I have quite a bit of spare time to play these games. People who are a little more restricted in that aspect may dislike the fact that there are so many choices and so many paths to take. A game with fewer options can easily become appealing if you’ve only got time for so much. 

Enough with the rambling! The druid hit level 72 yesterday, exploring through The Buried Sea working on the hand augment quest and then hanging out in Valdeholm for the evening. The enchanter is practically level 79, but I just didn’t have the patience last night to try to gain the last 3% she needs. When you’re watching the experience bar it seems to just stand still.

Today? Crafting, aside from some real life chores. I’d really like to get my halfling tailor her craft trophy and there are of course numerous other side quests I’m looking forward to doing. 

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!