Ellithia’s Estate – Creative Housing

Pictured above is the stats for my Norrathian Museum – I couldn’t help but laugh yesterday as I looked at the placed items – only 428 items register as part of the house count but there are really 712 items in the house already. With a limit of 700 that count. Basically what this says is all of my books (thankfully) don’t count towards my house limit, and by the time all is said and done, I will have over 1,000 items in my 700 item home. I’m excited about this, I’ve never had so many items before.

It was important to me to finish off the Champion of Bayle quest (beginning in Qeynos Harbor in the Inn) and the Champion of Lucan D’Lere quest (beginning in West Freeport under the crushed citadel) so that I could not only gain the titles, but have two new house items (the Soulfire replica and Claymore replica) to add to the museum. I’ve also gotten the frozen sword that comes from the Heroic Frostfell instance, and added that.

I don’t want my museum to become TOO crowded. Despite the fact that there are over 700 items within the home, I think I’ve done a fairly good job at spacing them. Pretty soon it will be time for me to start working on another home for a different character, and leave the museum to random ‘updates’ like adding books to the library, or a painting here and there. There’s still some display cases that could use items down in the basement, but aside from that, it’s a pretty good representation of “norrath” – or so I feel.

There are a few limited items that I wish I had not of lost over the years, so that I could add them. One would have to be the miniature griffin statue that we received for helping build the griffin towers a few years ago. I had one and lost it in one of my server transfers, at the time I thought nothing of it. Now that a few years have gone by I really wish I had it. There are a few other items like that, not that I can remember them currently.

I enjoy being able to look through a home that I’ve created and decorated and see my play history. I like that a piece of me in game tells a story, and that I can look through it and see five years of game play put into various corners. It’s a little creative outlet for me, and I’m very thankful that EQ2 has this feature. I wish more games had their players involved to such a degree. I don’t know what I’ll do when Sentinel’s Fate comes out, and with it a whole collection of new house items. I’ll just have to start over in a new house I suppose! Too bad we can’t own ‘country homes’ or something, so we can own more then one house per character – that would be a neat idea. Who wouldn’t want to escape to Maj’Dul to get away from the hustle and bustle of Freeport or Qeynos!

Thursday! Almost Friday, and almost the weekend. Have a great day no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath.

Gear and Books Galore

The little troubador managed to get some more T4 gear last night, even though I wasn’t raiding with her (the benefit of being Friends and Family in a raid guild), her hat which as you can see on the right is a fairly nice piece. While gear WILL be getting replaced in February, it’s still important to me to be able to have gear to make it through that content, or at least that’s how I feel.

Yesterday was a quiet day on the gaming front. I spent some time on Antonia Bayle picking up new player written books that I hadn’t already purchased, and adding them to my library. I’m very happy that I’ve broken the 200 book mark, and now I’m sitting on 214 player written books, written by more then 80 different authors. I’m not sure if I’ve got the biggest collection of player written books out there, but I think I’m fairly close. I need to start working on the other half of the library, which is to gather all of the in game books that are out there. That project will probably take forever, but I’m looking forward to it.

Aside from that, things are slow, which is not a bad thing. I’m still just preparing for Sentinel’s Fate in February, and I’m excited about it. In the mean time I’ll continue to work on alts, and play other games here and there.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

Glimps At Sentinal’s Fate – The Hole

Once upon an evening dreary, while I gamed, weak and weary,
Over many a dead void beast, I admired gore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a beeping,
As of some one gently sending, e-mail at my mailbox door.
“‘Tis some spam,” I muttered, “tapping at my e-mail door –
Only this, and nothing more.”

Presently my urge grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
I’d just check the e-mail,quickly, and implore;
But the fact is I was PvPing, and so gently mail came sending,
And so faintly it came beeping, sending e-mail at my door,
That I scarce was sure I heard it- here I opened wide the e-mail; –

These screen shots there. And nothing more.

(( Please click the images for full view, and enjoy! ))

66-70 on the Inquisitor

Well, the inquisitor reached level 70 yesterday, and it took about 10-11 hours (her time is posted on the left) an hour or two (maybe even more, but I’m just guessing roughly here) was spent in transit between my leveling areas, and putting things on the broker, and goofing off talking to friends. The rest was spent leveling. Yesterday I took Lithe (as my inquisitor is called on the Oasis server) through Vaults (Barren Sky), and to each of the islands in Kingdom of Sky (for the discoveries) and then finished up in Palace of the Awakened (which has a LOT of named and discovery in each room, especially on a server that barely has anyone playing the hours that I do). Sadly, it will probably take me at least another 12 hours if not more to make the 71-80 grind, as I have yet to find a way to do it ‘quickly’. One method that I’ll probably try (more for gaining shards in preparation of 80 and aa then experience) is to run through the TSO instances – at 75 she can start getting the shard quests, and at 79 she can get the daily double quest. Since almost every instance (minus the Guks and Fens) mentors to some degree it works out nicely.

Again, I wouldn’t suggest this method of leveling normally. It’s not ‘fun’ unless you’ve already done the content numerous times before and are just interested in preparing for the next expansion. It leaves your character without a lot of achievements, but as I’ve stated, that’s really not a concern of mine. I’m looking forward to having a level 80 healer (in specific) on Oasis again, since I have moved mine off (not that I regret moving them off, I just enjoy playing a healer). I should be able to gain enough shards to get a set of gear made by the time I reach 80, and then it will be time to work on my epic (which I don’t think I should have too many issues with) in time for Sentinel’s Fate.

I can still squeeze out a few levels before I have to do any quests, if I can help it, I want to avoid RoK quest grinding all together. I’ve got a few more KoS instances that I can do (Halls of Fate, and the other Bonemire instances) that should help a little. I’ve been out of vitality since day 1, so that makes things slower then I’d like, but they still move at a steady pace.

I suppose one of the ‘best’ things I like about leveling up in this manor is that I don’t have to dedicate a whole lot of time towards getting where I want to be. I see a lot of people upset that games don’t ‘start’ until you’re end game – and I want to state here and make sure people know that this is NOT the case for EQ2. There is constantly things to do at all levels and the only reason I am eager to reach the ‘end’ in leveling is because I’ve already done this 13 other times, and I want to prepare (yet another) character for Sentinel’s Fate in February. I think it’s important that people know there’s constant game play in EQ2, and it’s not all about the level 80 stuff that I tend to talk about on this web site. As a veteran player my views (and I have no shame in this) are biased.

I also managed to get a little World of Warcraft time in, as well as some LotRO which was quite fun. My hunter inched towards level 41 (and snagged it, after a friend ran me through Uldaman) and my minstrel is almost 27. Those seem to be my three ‘main’ games at the beginning of 2010, and it’s been going pretty well.

Today I plan on picking upĀ  my ipod touch (32g) from the post office, and then hopefully I’ll be pestering friends for app suggestions (grins) and playing with that most of the day, maybe I’ll manage to squeeze some work in too I suppose. I hope everyone has a fantastic day no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath!