Stargrace

Closing in On 85 #WoW

While most of my friends have moved on from WoW and the shiny that was Cataclysm, I’ve decided to stick around at least for a little while longer. I really enjoy the relaxed atmosphere WoW brings to my gaming and I made a few changes to encourage this. I joined a guild, a rather large guild. Level 12 so far (thanks to efforts last night) with over 300 members. A lot of those members are no longer playing or have moved on but that’s fine by me, there were a comfortable 20 or so on yesterday. They claim to be ‘mature’ but can use crude humor, I’ve decided there’s no way any guild in WoW is mature, and the humor is fine I can block out pretty much everything these days. I was tired of being in a guild by myself, although I do still have one for alts and bank purposes.

That being said – I’m just a small jump away from having my first level 85 character, the priest. She is currently sitting at 60% into level 84, which is great. I think next I’ll try to get my paladin to 85, we’ll see how that goes. She’s only level 29 so that’s a much larger endeavor.

It’s so hard to keep up with all of the games I have on my plate right now, but I’m having a lot of fun. Lets see. There’s

Rift – pre-order access on the 24th
EQ2 – Dov on the 22nd
EQ1 – Fippy Darkpaw progression server
WoW – Gaining level 85 on my first character
STO – Lieutenant Commander (need to level more)
Sims Medieval – Out in March
Dragon Age 2 – Out in March
Little Big Planet 2 – Progressing along nicely
Magicka – Neglected, but love it
Wizard 101 – Checking up on my garden daily
EQ2X – Still looking for a guild there
A Tale in the Desert – Dabbling when I’m tired of killing
EVE – Not playing that often, just training skills
Guild Wars – On hold because I just don’t have the time
LotRO – neglected because of lack of time, but I will be back

I think that’s everything I’ve been playing lately. As if that were not enough! Ah well. I hope everyone enjoys their holiday weekend, I believe it’s Presidents day in the US, here in Canada, Monday is Family day. Make it a good one!

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Changes coming with Destiny of Velious #EQ2

As with pretty much every expansion, there are a lot of changes coming with DoV and I wanted to go over a few of them now that the NDA has lifted. Please keep in mind that these changes were in beta, and are therefor subject to change before being brought to live servers.There are more changes coming then these ones listed here, but these ones are the ones that popped out to me first.

Tradeskill pristine bonus being removed – that means for first time combines you will no longer gain a bonus. There is a very lengthy post about why this is from Domino over on the eq2forums. Basically what it comes down to is that some craft classes have way more recipes then others (in specific the ones that make skills, alchemist, sage, and jeweler). There for they would level up “faster” then other classes because of this pristine bonus. The article goes on to talk about how compensation will be given by means of extra experience awarded for crafting quests as well as writs. I personally think that this is a good move, of course on that same note I dislike change and feel that this is a pretty large one for the crafting community to swallow. Hopefully it all balances out.

Changes to stats – Another big one. Eq2wire has a great write up about what will be changing as far as itemization goes. Number one, gear will no longer have hit points or mana on it. I remember them trying to change this back in SF but it didn’t exactly work out and was reversed. Players will gain power through their primary stat only, so for fighters it’s str, scouts agi, priests wis, and mages int. Agility no longer has anything to do with mitigation or critical mitigation. Wisdom no longer has anything to do with resists. +spell damage and +combat art damage is being phased out.

Item Score (also known as Gear Score for those who may be familiar with the World of Warcraft term) has been removed.

Achievements – Curious about what your new achievements are going to look like? EQ2wire has set up a fantastic aa browser for players to look at.

I’m really looking forward to the in-game calendar, as well as being able to fly around Norrath. I don’t see an issue with having to be level 86 in order to complete the flying mount quest as long as there is also a crafter friendly version of it.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Let me know! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

** Edit ** Domino confirmed for me that there is indeed a crafter friendly version of the flying mount – fantastic!

Test Server Erollisi Day Party #EQ2

Last night I patched up the test copy server and headed over to join in the festivities and spread the love (so to speak) a bit with other players. Amnery’s graciously hosted an Erollisi Day event and explained that while she would have loved to hold a party on every EQ2 server, it just wasn’t possible with so many other things on the go. I realize it’s only too easy to point fingers and blame the lack of personal attention on community managers (since it is their job) but they too only have so many hours in a day in which to get things done. I was thankful for the party none the less.

There is a second party being hosted on the EQ2X server on Thursday February 17th at 9pm PST so if you didn’t get to make it to the test copy server but still want to celebrate you may want to head on over to the Freeport server.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Lieutenant Commander (Finally) #STO

When I look back at all of the games I’ve played I can’t help but make a comparison of the first 10 levels, even if the game is unlike any I have played before. While some games don’t have levels per say (EVE) there has still been an incredible difference in them. For example, I just finally hit Lieutenant Commander in STO – which equals level 11 in regular terms. It took me a fair amount of game play to reach that level, and it felt like it took forever. That means when I finally reached it I was even more excited than usual because it felt like I had to actually work towards the goal instead of just flying through the beginning areas. Besides, there was even a ceremony held in my honor! I tried to take screen shots but Cryptic wipes the chat bubbles when you print screen.

What’s the big deal about finally reaching Lieutenant Commander? Well, number one it means new ships! I have a choice of an actual ship instead of just the light cruiser I’ve been flying for weeks now. I picked a science ship, knowing absolutely nothing about them except that I get an extra science device slot. I also have room for a fourth bridge officer on said ship, although they must be science.

I also spent a lot of time customizing the ship, colours and shape are important! On that same note I spent some time redesigning my uniform, and changing a few character features. All of these little perks that make my character (and ship) feel more unique to me and more personal are great ways to hook me into a game that I may not typically enjoy. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t typically enjoy STO, but we all know how my luck with science fiction is.

I’m still pretty clueless about some things like how to judge what ship parts I want, and what sort of gear I want. Thankfully I understand the basics (I went with a medic kit, for example) and since I’m putting skills towards photons that’s the weapons I’ve got fit to my ship but I generally go by the “bigger numbers are better” method until I can get a better grasp on what everything does. I haven’t taken the new ship out yet, but I’m really looking forward to flying something new.

Until then, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Prismatic 1.0 and Progression #EQ2

With the Fippy Darkpaw EQ1 progression server opening on the 15th, I can’t help but wonder if there are any plans in the works for EQ2 to add some progression servers. I know there are a handful of progression guilds (especially on Antonia Bayle) that are level locked and working their way through old content, and I really think that this is something that players would like to see more of. After all, how many people actually did prismatic 1.0 ‘back in the day’ when Solusek Eye was a zone to be feared. When every giant saw through invis, and there was NO way to port down to the bottom to visit Darathar – and you needed to visit him a lot. Back in the good ‘ol days when you had to do ‘To Speak as a Dragon’ on each individual character instead of just visiting the Shady Swashbuckler in Nektulos Forest and purchasing the heirloom tablet. Ah, the good old days.

I mentored down with a guild mate and together we completed all of the quest chains for Prismatic 1.0 and then eventually showed up on the Isle of Dawn (which you will now never even get to see as a new player UNLESS you do Prismatic 1.0) to face Darathar. I took a video of the fight, but haven’t processed or uploaded it yet. Hopefully I get around to that before too long. The fights were pretty trivial. Level 90’s mentored down are still incredibly over powered, and it didn’t give me that old school “we’re all going to DIE” feeling that I got back in 2004.

It amuses me that we went through SO MUCH effort for a legendary weapon (and a title). At the time the prismatic 1.0 was the best weapon in the game. It requires 7 raids from start to finish, and that’s if you succeed at them all. It used to require more but there have been some changes over the years, like the beginning of the quest that you obtain from Maiden’s Gulch in Lavastorm is now heroic instead of an Epic x2. Maybe I spend too much time looking backwards instead of forward (there have been far more posts about what I ‘used to do’ in EQ2 then there have been about DoV for example) but that’s just how it is for me.

What do you all think, would an EQ2 progression server be fun or what? Maybe we can convince the folks at SOE to entertain the idea.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!