Month: April 2009

Relaxing in Middle-Earth

For the first time since September, I played last night and had no graphic glitches at all. It was nice. It was really nice. Kasul, Tipa, and I headed to LotRO and spent some time slaying various creatures and progressing the epic line. Now, I’ll admit I didn’t spend that much time actually reading the quests. I normally do, I love reading all the stories and then I get to thinking about who wrote them and what inspired them and it just takes off from there. However; I was dealing with some real life background noise (ie: stress) and just trying to make sure I followed along, kept people healed, and didn’t trip over my own two feet very much. I was so happy that the new video card ran (and ran well) that I could barely do more then walk around in a half daze looking at everything.

I do remember getting quite a few pieces of gear upgrade. I got a new cloak, some gloves and even a really awesome recipe that only has a one time charge of some cloth shoulders. It came from one of the instances we ran, and I’d never seen it before. My tailor (explorer) is happily leveling away, and things are going well in that direction. 

Gozad also started playing on the same server as Nostalgia (our Kinship, now spanning three games officially, though you can find Nostalgians all over the place), not sure if he plans on continuing or not but it’s always nice to have another member. Our Kinship just reached rank 6, and we’re headed towards rank 7. 

I like to unlock the various deeds and see a mass accumulation of titles and little ‘unique’ bits to the game that show off the various feats my character has accomplished. Even if they’re the same titles that everyone else has earned, they are unique to my character and remind me about what I’ve done (or haven’t done) in game. The one Tipa is sporting (on her character Dera) is awesome, and completely fitting for the little hobbit (who I keep wanting to call a halfling due to EverQuest II). It was a wonder we didn’t step on her multiple times throughout the night. Elves may be slim and move with grace, but my Minstrel is wearing some pretty clunky items and I always feel like I’m clunking around instead of floating gracefully.

Monday evening should be the next LotRO meeting unless Kasul has changed his schedule around for that day (one never knows) I managed to reach level 16 and part way through it. We also started working on Book one Chapter five (I believe that’s where we’re at in any case) which has us running all over the place currently. I don’t own a mount (nor do I envision myself owning one any time soon) so it’s a lot of running. A lot. 

Over all? Having a lot of fun with the game. Of course, playing with great friends always makes games 100x better then playing alone.

So That’s What it’s Supposed to Look Like

New video card arrived in the mail today, and I’m REALLY happy with it so far. I boosted up my settings in EQ2 and headed to Lavastorm, which is notorious (especially of late) for its lag. There were only 60 people in zone, but I ran around on the settings in the screen shot with no issues at all. You can find the bigger version of it here. Honestly, even if things didn’t run better, I am happy just not to have those trees staring at me any more. That was creepy. 

I also downloaded the 7 day free trial of AoC today, though I haven’t given it a whirl yet I plan on it. Tonight, it’s LotRO – I think. Today has been an up and down sort of day. So many highs and lows. I don’t expect things to calm down until April 15th, so I’ll be counting down the days until everything passes. 

Happy gaming!

Bristlebane Day – and What is my Name Again?

It’s been one of those days weeks so far, you know the sort. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong? Here’s hoping it can only get better from here. My site has been down off and on over the last two days, but I think my host has it figured out. Sure wish they would keep better contact with me, but at least they reply at all. My new video card should be in today, and that’s a huge plus – my internet has been acting up and off for hours at a time, not so cool. Yesterday was ‘early birthday present’ day, and am now owner of a wii – already have a PS3 but I rarely use it. I like the activity of the wii, and I like the selection of RPG’s and other games. I got a game – Rune Factory Frontier – which I’m actually enjoying. Remember, I haven’t been a gamer all my life. I need to be eased into these things slowly! Basically I wander around (as a boy, but I can look past that) and I move into a little farm house. I flirt with girls (how fun), plant seeds, run around talking to people – and plant more seeds. Then I sell my harvests. Obviously there’s more to the game, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it so far. I know there’s a little bit of adventuring and even some crafting. It’s got a cute story, and it’s something I can play when I’m not playing PC games – which DOES happen every once in a blue moon. 

Aside from all of the real life stuff going on – yesterday was April Fool’s day, also known as Bristlebane Day for those in Norrath. I spent most of my time in EQ2 for once, though I did hop over to EQ to check out the new class specifications that were added to all characters. In EQ2 Wpus and I headed to Antonica to help out Blat Berisen out with an issue he was having. It is the same quest from last year, but I’d never completed it on my mystic before, so it was a lot of fun. Plus it was good to be roaming around in EQ2 again. NOT that I dislike EQ! Everyone always seems to read far too much into my words when I mention my game hoping (I am at this exact moment downloading the 7 day trial to AoC, don’t read anything into it!). 

Now, yesterday an announcement was made about new things coming to station access. Because it was the day that it was, the announcement was actually met with a lot of skepticism so take it as you will!

I’m torn over the new items which you can find here. EQ2 has never offered a renaming service before, nor have they ever allowed you to change your characters sex before. I think it’s a good service on some levels. Lets say a friend or a partner of yours decides they no longer want to play. You pay to move those characters over to your account, or you take over their account. Perhaps you don’t want to be known as Fluffy Bunny, the troll who lost all of her hair in a smelting accident. Now you have the opportunity to rename yourself and be someone more ‘in tune’ with your own character selection.

However. This also gives troublemakers a chance to ‘reform’ themselves. Be someone they were not before, giving players a difficult time in tracking them down. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I can see it ending up bad, some where. 

I’m also wondering if this will lead to more character sales – because you can now purchase a character and then transform them (at least outwards) to something you may actually enjoy playing. 

I’ve no idea of the cost of one of these potions yet, but I’m going to bet they’re quite expensive. Name changes and gender changes (oh great I can imagine the google hits that are going to head my way now) are not something that has (in the past) been easily done. I wonder what sort of stories people will have about this new feature once it goes live (it’s slated to be in game on April 7th at the moment). We’ll just have to see I suppose!

And if none of it’s real, well, at least I’ve helped to spread the fun!

Tonight is my LotRO night, and hopefully I’ll be playing it on the new video card. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday no matter where you find yourself.

More SoD Progression

Today is Bristlebane’s Day. April Fools. It’s also rent day for me and inching closer to my birthday (I’ll be 28 and don’t mind in the least for those curious) and it happens to be the day I won’t believe a word of anything I read online, because we all know how those articles can be. NOT that I am against having fun and games, but I’d rather watch and not partake. I know, what a spoil sport. 

Last night my trio dived into some more Seeds of Destruction content, and it was a very frustrating night. The quests we needed to do were flagged as solo tasks, but a few of them were so difficult there was no way we were about to finish it if we were solo. They were also some of the most annoying quests I’ve done to date.

I’m talking about the Bloody Kithicor chain of quests. The ones that make you run around the woods taking down named and then burning their house. Except the very first named you’re sent to kill has a fake in place – and when you kill him this updates for everyone on the quest. Then you kill the real version of him and he drops a piece you need to turn in to Lanys T’Vyl. Only one piece drops at a time. So we actually ended up killing him 6 times (the 2nd version of the named was red to me) and waiting for respawns in between. The fun didn’t end there though. You also need to ‘burn’ down houses – to do this you use a torch you’ve been given and click it on a wooden box you’ll find in the back of various homes. These boxes have a 7 minute respawn timer, and you need a few of them. You also need axes, with a respawn timer, and more chests, with more respawn timers. 

Not to mention the portion where you talk to an NPC and four or five mean mobs who hit for 1.2 or so each spawn and attack an npc – your goal is to keep him alive. That didn’t work out so well the first round. 

So I decided to do the quests another time while we completed them for Ninga and Ultann. Doing these quests unlocks further tasks along the progression, and last night I was just not in the mood to work on it. 

I was thinking back to a post that Cuppy made about questing in EverQuest. She’s exactly right. While questing to level is my typical method in EQ2 it was never my main method of leveling in EQ. I grinded in experience groups at camps, and that was what I was comfortable doing. This whole task method of progressing through an expansion and especially The Void because there are so many tiers is just something I’m not comfortable with. I enjoy having a puller, and sitting and talking with my group while we lay waste to things. I dislike being constantly on the move, constantly roaming around. It may sound odd, but I suppose it just comes from my perceptions on what is ‘normal’ for me to do in game.

That being said – I have no idea where the population of Drinal stands, but the players there claim it’s fairly low. In Bloody Kithicor there was only my group and perhaps three others. I realize the expansion came out in October (so it’s been a while) but I had expected a little more of a population. Though I suppose the decrease could also be attributed to fabled going on right now and people working on that. 

It was a nice quiet evening though, and that’s exactly what I was looking for. On a completely unrelated topic – good luck today Ninga! He has some fairly exciting real life stuff going on and I wish him the best. Hope everyone has a great Wednesday today, and don’t fall for any of that April Fool’s Day stuff!