Stargrace

More Fan Faire Details (EQ2)

One site that seems to have been over looked this Fan Faire (at least on twitter) is the EQ2 Wire – you may remember them from last year, they were the ones frantically posting all of the guild hall information, and they were fantastic in keeping things up to date. Take a peek over at their site for an in depth (although not always flowing) look at what is to come for EQ2. Some of the changes I noticed right off the bat that I wanted to mention here are:

Certain new adornments recipes will be muter only

Extend eof and kos trees
50 more AA points
250 cap

End abilities at bottom of eof and kos trees will be combinations instead of additional buttons

Aa xp slider

Spell ranged melée heal taunt crit merged to just crit
Double attack and RDA merge to just DA
Each class has crit coefficients
Same gear adds diff crit % for diff classes

Reduce mitigation types to
Physical. Elemental. Nox. Arcane

Consolidate common self buff lines

Gear scaling system — old gear scales down

Druid heal over time with expiration heal for groupmate
Druid should be viable healer

No need to bring 8 support classes
Raidwide buffs for chanter and bard
Illy time compression 4 ppl – 1 per group

Summoner debuffs spell dmg
Rogue debuffs melée dmg

All of these changes will be on test for a long time

May make T9 version of some TSO dungeons

Mythical will not be #1 weapon. It will be usuable in another way.

Ore nodes will respawn as ore nodes
Gem nodes will respawn as gem nodes

Summoner dumbfire pets will just be a spell with a debuff, won’t be something that has survive.

Heal over time is third place behind wards and reactive heals, so Druids are getting another component to heal over time.

Let enchanters do crowd control on raids

Stonebrunt mountains

End of the void storyline

What happened to the Erudites and Odus

Ratonga lore

Contested dungeon
The Hole
82+

3 different wings. Spawn in the middle.

Raid mobs in new zones will have a choice of difficulty so no zone will be completely unbeatable

Some mobs will have multiple loot tables

No new deities with expac

Guild level 90
More amenities and more slots

2 overland zones
1 contested zone similar to sanctum of scaleborn
12 group instances

Level by grouping or soloing

Be able to clear instances and then progress to the next zone.

New Halas free download gu55
Streamlined new player experience
Rework thundering steppes

Will see Erudin and Paineel explained in new expac

Shouldn’t be any one class that is required to raid

Swash and brigands pick up some of each others class abilities.

Upgraded quest window

Auto mentoring system
Hail an NPC in the cities to mentor in 5 level increments
No aaxp bonus

Aaxp slider

Be sure to check out their notes for the rest of Fan Faire, but it looks like some pretty great things are headed EQ2’s way eventually. Now we just have to play the waiting game.

Now We Know

Fan Faire had their big release last night, and I caught parts of it on twitter this morning and watched the video since I was unable to at that time. Now we know:

EQ2:

– Odus will be the next expansion, including the starter city of Halas
– Level cap going to 90
– Auto-mentoring (I’ve always said trivializing your content is a bad idea) inc with GU53, as well as shard of love
– Doesn’t come out until February (not cool)
– 3 months between GU’s
– Character transfers via station cash for $25 (best announcement of the night personally)

I was disappointed that Vanguard was not mentioned this year (nor was it last year) if anything it would have at least been a nice tidbit for those who play the game and attended Fan Faire (Joodah and your crew, I’m looking at you).

I was also sad to hear that the new 51/50 EQ server is only open to those at the moment attending Fan Faire, which means achievements and discoveries go to them. Those people who perhaps could not afford to go but who have been loyal EQ customers for 10 years now can play later when it opens for the public in a week. I understand the need and desire to give ‘swag’ to people who are attending your events, but everyone is already getting auto-access to beta, and free copies of both EQ and EQ2. What more did they really need?

Bitter, I know. If I were one of the people at Fan Faire I’d be all over that stuff, but I’m not.

I played very little yesterday, but today is looking better. I’ll post more when I have more to say! In the mean time I hope everyone is having an amazing Saturday and a great weekend in general.

Things Break

After spending two days in bed due to a particularly nasty gallstone attack I’m feeling far better, and able to sit at the desk again which makes me exceptionally happy. I have completely changed my diet (no meats, no dairy, no sugar, no coffee, clear liquids only, etc) for the next month in an attempt at preventing these attacks completely until I can have my ultrasound and doctors can determine whether or not I need my gallbladder removed. Since the attacks are directly related to what you eat and how much cholesterol is in it this is about all I can do. For anyone out there who has dealt with gallstone attacks before you have my deepest sympathy, this is some of the scariest stuff I have ever had to deal with.

I spent the majority of yesterday (when not sleeping) playing Sims 3 and although at times it chugs a little slow on the laptop it runs fairly well. I learned a few new things.

First of all, my sim-self has a fairly small starter house. Deciding to throw a party with as many people invited as she can possibly add is a bad idea. A very bad idea. The majority of people showed up to the party and then spent a few hours all crammed into my kitchen while my sim-self stood there holding a plate of pancakes, unable to move. People told me I threw a pretty cruddy party and I had to agree, I couldn’t mingle and by the end my sim-self bladder was about to explode. Oh, and thank you whoever it was that broke my sink, because that was just what I needed!

My sim-self also quit her job, after taking on numerous ones in an attempt to find her calling. She tried to be a criminal mastermind for a little while and found the hours too annoying. Plus my first day there the boss asked me to stay late and work for some mafia leaders. I took up gardening which is a pretty neat feature in the game that I enjoy a lot, and promptly quit my job. Why not just create my own farm and sell that at the local grocery store! My meager seeds were not enough though and I headed over to the neighbours house to harvest their plants too. Then I used their garlic, onion, potato, and bell pepper seeds to cultivate my own plants, giving me even more selection. They won’t even notice that they’re gone.

Speaking of which, my sim-self is a kleptomaniac, so if things are missing, well. I can’t help it!

While selling veggies at the local grocery store is fairly good money (I was making 200 a day or so) earning money was still pretty slow. While my sim-self is not THAT hung up on material things, the extra coin is pretty nice, so she took a part time job at the book store a few hours a night. This still gives her lots of time to work on what she wants to do, including a grill-a-thon that the town held in the community park – I was SO CLOSE to winning! Off by one serving of hotdogs and if it wasn’t for the fact that my sim-self had to use the washroom so badly she ignored all other commands, I would have won.

I have noticed one drastic change for me in playing Sims 3 vs. the other sims games. In all of the other games I was a builder. I enjoyed creating and designing the houses far more then I ever enjoyed actually playing a character in game. This time around it’s the opposite, I have spent little to no time building aside from adding a garden and little upgrades here and there – almost all of my time has been spent following my little sim-self along and watching her life. It’s interesting to me, and something that I would not have guessed would change.

The achievement system within the game also appeals to my gamer self, and I find myself aiming for lifetime rewards and goals, something that I previously wouldn’t have cared about.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a few hours, and I’m looking forward to seeing what trouble I can get into today!

Oops, I did it again

I resubscribed to WoW, even though it has been almost a year since I last played – I know, I know. WHY. Right? Well, I have reasons (I always do) so here they are. Number one would have to be the fact that for the past two months I’ve been suffering from gallstones which are exceptionally painful. I have one more month before I can even be considered for an operation to remove my gallbladder, in the mean time I have good days and bad days as everyone who has read my blog knows (I try not to vent about it but it happens, I’m sorry). The day after a ‘bad day’ is spent in bed for the most part, recuperating. Laptop is thankfully never far from my side (notice this post has no screen shot? A sure sign that I have been dealing with health issues and it’s not just pure laziness) along with lots to drink and a warm kitty watching over me.

In any case, WoW is one of those games that runs on anything, which I appreciate. Sure, EQ2 also runs on the laptop, but I ‘m used to boxing in that game and I feel like half a person playing from the bedroom and not the pc. No fault of the game to be sure, it’s just my personal view. Also, being confined to my room means I don’t have the wonderful gaming selection that my PC has, so I’m restricted. I have EQ2, EQ, WoW, W101 and Sims 3 installed on the laptop and they run wonderfully. You can expect that with so much time to do nothing, I get bored, easily. This will also help a little.

I’ve played WoW off and on since release. I’ve never gotten a character over level 50 and I’ve never been end game in any sense of the word. I’ve never made much money, and I’ve always found it amusing that the ‘easiest’ game out there was also the hardest for me at least in terms of leveling. Probably because I’ve never had a steady guild or known anyone else who was playing. I love pvp (but can’t run WAR on the laptop) and while it is HIGHLY doubtful that I will play for more then a month (it’s about all I can handle at a time) it does fill the gaps of my gaming needs for now.

I just need to decide what I’m going to play, and where. I have some characters on Uther (44 priest and my 50 hunter) as well as Ravenholdt, or maybe I’ll just start some where new fresh. I always felt like WoW was the sort of game where it really was too late to start over anywhere new, but I guess we’ll just see.

No, I’m not giving up EQ2, or EQ, or VG or any of the other games I play, but if you see a post or two about WoW or notice my xfire time I didn’t want anyone to think I had betrayed over to the dark side or some such.

In other news, Fan Faire starts today. I’m incredibly jealous. I hope everyone has a safe and fantastic time, I’ll be cheering from the sidelines!

Progress

Yesterday was one of those rare days when the members of three plus one are all around – and it was great. I spent the morning creating a new necromancer for no other reason then the fact that I could. Her name is Stargrace on the kithicor server, go figure. I used my paladin to power level her until the down time, and managed to reach level 20 hanging out in Fallen Gate.

In the afternoon the four of us decided it was about time we started working on our TSO chapter quests again, and so we finished off chapter 4 which required going into Obelisk of Lost Souls (the level 40 zone) a few times and then headed back to the Moors to pick up chapter 5. This one requires you to head into a number of TSO instances for updates. We meandered our way through Obelisk of Ahkzul (no, the shield did not drop, is it even real or just a myth?) just for fun and then decided we would head to Veksar, since it was the daily double (MoTD if you’re from Kithicor).

We had a few issues with the zone, but nothing extreme. Not a single upgrade dropped, I was hoping the healer charm would show up at the end.

I happened to spot my level 74 coercer charm M1 for sale for 50p on the broker, and Ultann purchased it for me (I’m broke, dang alts) which is fantastic. I have purchased both him and Wpus masters before, it’s just one of the pleasures of gaming with friends. The master charm is not any different then the level 64 version I was using aside from the amount that the mob regens, and the duration of the charm. I’m exceptionally happy to have it though – the spell researcher is currently working on enraging demeanor for me, so 50p was a huge bargain.

These researchers are also why the spell was so cheap to begin with, I had seen the spell sitting for sale for a few weeks now at 100p with no bites. For 100p I’d rather just wait the 30 days. 50p is pretty affordable for such a fantastic spell (my bread and butter while soloing and exploring a few specific zones).

The Norrathian Museum also added a few more books to its collection, which really made me happy. Taymar created a character on Kithicor to pen me a novel as well as the banker of one of Kithicor’s raid guilds, I had to giggle. I have 13 unique player written books in the collection and I expect it to grow.

Aside from that it was a quiet night. In the evening Ultann and Kasul offered to help level up my baby fury, an arasai that I’ve taken a shining to. We started out at level 23 and in Fallen Gate, before too long I was level 38 and in Runnyeye before I had to call it a night and get some sleep. I love alts, nothing new there. The baby fury has only a handful of aa and she’s wearing practically no gear but it’s still fun. I’ve got an unused 75 fury on my recruit a friend account, but I don’t expect to do anything with that third account now that the month if game time I paid for is up.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Wednesday, and that everyone going to Fan Faire has an incredible time. Hopefully next year I’ll be there too!