Stargrace

The Heroes’ Journey Continues (The Ruins of Old Paineel)

Right now my paladin/monk/berserker character is level 46, with 155aa – it’s almost time to unlock Kunark. There is no cap on aa but now that I have 150+ I do lose the bonus experience, and until I defeat Nagafen and Vox, 50 is my level cap (I have 100% going to aa at the moment). I believe the guide says I should be reaching 250aa before going further, but I am really only loosely following that anyway.

The first 150aa were done in Castle Mistmoore, where we continued to level until around 40, then we went off to search for new lands. We’re currently parked in The Ruins of Old Paineel – also called ‘The Hole’ by most players. The encounters here are significantly more difficult than they were in Castle Mistmoore, with a LOT of casters who wear damage shields. I’m doing my best to land stuns on everyone but unlike Castle Mistmoore I can’t pull 10+ red mobs here and expect to survive. Things are starting to slow down, which is what I expected. There really isn’t any rush at all, so we’ll probably stay here for a few days and reach our 250aa, then level to 50. Once that is completed, it will be time to take on Nagafen and Vox. I’m excited for that fight. The unlocks are account wide, so that will give my alts access to Kunark. I’ve been thinking about creating a mage/x/x combination, having pets doing most of the work for me might be nice.

Right now there is 50% experience bonus due to the April Fool’s event that took place yesterday. All of the character models and players were flipped upside down (there was an easy fix on discord for anyone who didn’t want to remain this way) – the bonus lasts until Sunday, which is lovely.

It’s not exactly the same thing as playing the original EverQuest, but I’m enjoying myself, it’s nice to hang out with my husband in game like we used to back when we were just starting to get to know each other. I enjoy reading everyones stories in /ooc, the game typically has around 3000-4000 playing at any one time and it feels very full of life.

As always, happy gaming – no matter where you find yourself.

A Day in Castle Mistmoore

I’ve been playing THJ EverQuest EMU for two days now, and it has taken me some time to settle down with a selection of classes that I actually fully enjoy but I think I’ve finally found my combination. I didn’t want to be overwhelmed with having to purchase spells for three different classes, so I remade and I’ve been playing a berzerker/monk/paladin combination that seems to be everything I was looking for, at least so far.

My husband is still playing his berzerker/monk/rogue combination, and we’re currently level locked at 30. The advice from most is to lock here, and reach the current cap of 150aa before proceeding, so that’s what we’re doing. We created a respawning instance of Castle Mistmoore (this has a 2h timer, everything respawns but you won’t get any big named, the other version is a despawning version, big named will only spawn once, and I believe that instance is on a 14h timer). We can then farm the entire instance just the two of us – and experience happens to be zone wide because you’re in an expedition. While the husband is at work or doing chores, I can continue soloing the zone, and vice versa.

Right now I’m sitting at 82/150 aa earned. There’s also a gear leveling system, so we’ve been taking advantage of that. As you earn experience, any piece of gear (minus augments and bags) that you put in your ‘power’ slot, will level. Gear can come in 3 different flavours, the base version – an enchanted version – and a legendary version. It takes a long time to reach the legendary version of a piece of gear. These items can also drop in their base/enchanted/legendary versions, and you can sell them. I’ve been slowly working on my gear so that all of it is enchanted, and then I’ll contemplate working some to legendary (again, long process). I’m also thinking of starting some tradeskills, because why not.

The players on this EMU are lovely and helpful. All chat goes to the OOC channel which is also replicated on their discord server, so if you have a question about pretty much anything, you can search discord because chances are it has already been asked.

Once we reach 150aa we’ll go back to leveling and attempting to reach level 50. Our ‘big’ goal is to take down Lord Nagafen, and Lady Vox. We’ll see how that goes. It’s required to unlock the next stage of progress, and I’m pretty excited about it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Restless

I’m not sure when I played EverQuest last, but it was probably a few years ago. When a friend started talking to me about The Heroes’ Journey, an EverQuest EMU, I was interested. I’ve never actually played an EMU before – and a lot of that is because of the moral decision associated with it. SOE/Daybreak/Whoever they are now have never taken down the numerous EMU that have been around over the years (doesn’t necessarily mean they approve), and they even officially endorsed P99 at one point in time giving them legal permission to run. If they’re OK with it then why shouldn’t I be. Anyway, we’re not here to debate the ‘should we, shouldn’t we aspect of the game.

I patched up, and read a bit about the server before diving in. Unlike P99 this EMU is focused on giving players a good solo/small group experience – while disallowing things like multiboxing. Every character is basically three classes in one (hence my screenshot above which is my Shadowknight / Monk / Beastlord character). There are a few other QoL changes, you can create respawning or not respawning instances so you don’t have to compete with everyone else, you can trade just about every item in game including epic components, and you can enable AA at level 1 (you even get a few QoL AA for free). There’s a progression to the server, you have to accomplish certain goals to unlock the next expansion/content – and they have two methods for this. You can choose the ‘Hero’ path (which includes things like killing both Vox and Nagafen), or the ‘Explorer’ path, which includes collecting some specialized items and turning them in to an NPC.

So far? I’m having a lot more fun than I was expecting and I’ve just reached level 16. I started playing EverQuest when Luclin was released, so that’s the expansion I’m most familiar with. I leveled up in Shar Vahl, headed out to Mistweaver’s Thicket, then headed to PC to grind in the caverns a little bit. There are about 3,500 people playing at any given time (at least this weekend while I’ve been playing) with some 14,000 people total involved since its release.

I don’t know how long the interest will last, but in the mean time, it’s nice to be playing. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Bring on the Comfort Games

Way back before I had kids, I started streaming – I even did it on a fairly regular basis! Then life happened, and the years passed by. I haven’t streamed on any sort of reliable schedule for almost 8 years (coincides with the age of my oldest, gasp). I’m hoping to change that, and I’ve said this MANY times before and it has never actually stuck, but that doesn’t stop me from trying (again, and again).

I’m aiming for 3 days a week, following a Friday/Saturday/Sunday schedule. I’m looking at a time of 8pm-11pm EST (I’m actually Atlantic, so this would be 9pm-12am for me) or MAYBE some early morning streams (we’re talking 4am-6am EST). Those are the times I’ve got ‘free’ in my day. I’m planning on doing variety streams with no static game set (that could change) and sticking to my ‘comfort’ games (my comfort may not equal yours, and that’s OK too) like EVE Online, Wurm Online, World of Warcraft, Euro Truck Sim, and other games like these.

I’m hoping I can hold myself accountable because this is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while now, but time is always an issue. I don’t see that changing any time soon, so we’ll see how it goes. In any case, it should be good cozy fun. One of the more annoying parts is just setting everything up. Sure, there’s OBS, there’s my stream deck, digging out the microphone I have, making sure my computer can run everything – and then there’s also the fact that I want to stream Eve, and snipes are a thing and I have to be mindful of any chat on display so a large portion of my screen is blurred (per the screenshot above). It won’t completely prevent folks from dropping in on me, but I am hoping it should help a little bit.

Anyway. I haven’t decided which week I’ll be starting my stream attempts on yet – so check my twitch page if you’d like to be notified.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Back in Signal Cartel

The end of 2024 was really difficult for me and my family, a lot of stuff was going on and so I let my EVE Online subscription lapse, and stepped away to deal with all of that. I didn’t have the mental energy to explain to others how hard things were, so I didn’t post about a leave of absence to Signal Cartel, although I should have. The corporation has a process if you want to rejoin. It involves you being out of the corporation for a certain amount of time, first, based on how many days you were there. Since I had 280+ days in the corporation, I had to wait 60 days before I could reapply.

So that’s what I did. In the meantime I continued to live out of my Wormlife Freeport (still living there actually, really like it a lot), did some mining, missions, and just got back into the swing of things. I only had to wait about 1 month before I was able to reapply, and the process after that was incredibly smooth.

I’m now settling into things again and I’m incredibly happy to be a part of the family that showed me I can actually play this game the way I want to. It feels good to be back.

Fly your way! o7