Stargrace

Wait, I won Something?!

This week and next week make up the crunch time before my next articles are due for Beckett MOG, so I didn’t spend very much time in EQ2 last night. I did get some nice time in Wizard 101, and once Wpus and Kasul returned from work (we can’t all play video games for a living!) we headed off to knock out a few instances before it was time for bed. We started out with Obelisk of Ahkzul – still aiming for that legendary healer shield that has yet to drop. How many months have we been doing this instance for now with no sign of the shield? I’m not sure, but it’s been a LOT. The instance is fast and it rewards a void shard so I can’t complain that much, but I’d still love to see that shield drop.

Afterward we wandered over to Anchor of Bazzul, this is a fairly simple and quick zone and it rewards two void shards at the end of it, making it quite worth while. Plus every so often the Gods of Norrath smile down on one of the group members – and a nice item drops. We got a lower level swashbuckler master which I’m sure was worth a great deal (congratulations Wpus on winning that) and the charm pictured to the right hand side also dropped. My illusionist has been under geared for quite some time. Not under geared in the sense that she’s wearing mastercrafted at level 80, but she’s only sporting T1 gear, owns 1 master spell, and only has 108 achievement points. She was power leveled to 80 and I’ve been slowly gearing her up ever since. It was no great surprise that one of her charm items is the caster reward from Everfrost with + spell crit on it, and the other charm was actually the mana battery which is a collection reward. No special stats at all and so I rolled need on the beautiful charm that dropped last night – what’s more, Wpus graciously declined, and I won it. Now, ideally I’d like an item that has + spell crit on it, I’m only sitting at 52% currently, and I have a long way to go. The stats on the charm and the 2% reduced cast time is very nice, and I won’t be complaining at all. We grabbed our two void shards and decided to head off to do the daily double before we called it a night, it was Deep Forge.

Deep Forge has never been one of my favorite zones. In fact none of the Lavastorm zones are that appealing to me. I’ve still yet to do the quests from the revamp (hey, maybe a goal for today!) and when someone mentions Najena’s Hollow Tower I visibly shudder. On the plus side as much as I dislike Deep Forge it is a fast zone and being the daily double meant we could get four shards from that one zone including some coin. Arysh also had not done the quest that rewards a fairly nice charm with +2 spell crit on it, so off we went. No deaths, and the final named dropped without too many issues (and also dropped that really horrible 2h hammer that always drops). Headed back to the hall to stash all of the no trade loot into my bank so I can transmute it one day in the future, and called it a night. Even though we didn’t play a whole lot, it was still fun and it was nice to finally get a nice upgrade.

Speaking of which. 20 more shards and Ellithia (the mystic) will own her complete set of T2 void gear (cheers) finally. Last night Arysh gathered enough shards to get her 2nd piece of T2 – pants. That just leaves the robe, hat, and shoulders left. I don’t even want to start thinking about how many shards that still is. I also worked on the TSO chapter quests a little bit, trying to inch myself closer to the rest of the guild. Hopefully we’ll be on chapter 5 soon where it makes us do all of the instances. Not my most favorite part, but it’ll be nice to be making some progress.

I hope everyone has an amazing week, I know it’s been filled with a lot of great stuff since E3 is going on right now and before you know it, Fan Faire will be on. I’ll see you in Norrath!

Exploring Ruin Falls (Level 44)

One thing Vanguard does not do for you, is hold your hand as you adventure. If you want to figure out where to go after being away for a while, it can be difficult. Especially if you’ve already turned in all of those rift seeker quests that rewarded you with pies that give bonus experience. Those quests used to tell you where to head for level appropriate areas. I spent a lot of yesterday spending money and flying around from place to place trying to figure out where I should be. At level 44 I’m too small for a lot of the higher places, and to big for a lot of the lower. I could head back to the Harbor but I’d already spent so much time there, it was time for a change.

Growlius suggested we head to Ruin Falls, which is located in the southern portion of Thestra. I’d been there once just flying through but had not completed any of the quests yet, so I found a rift stone and off I went.

There were only three or four quests that we could obtain right away but that was fine by me. We set off to kill some frogs first as we eased our way into the game and learned how to play together again. I’ve always loved the blood mage (there’s a reason why she’s my only level 44+ character) and they make a perfect duo with a dreadknight.

The area is all swamp land and we spent a lot of time slaying disgusting hag like creatures that looked like deformed trees with pus, I kid you not. Channels were actually quiet, although there was word of a Tipa sighting!

Most of the mobs we had to kill for the starter quests were only two dot (solo) mobs, but they came three at a time. Eventually as we progressed the quests we had to kill a few three dot mobs. When they hang out in bunches it’s hard to solo and we teamed up with a shaman who happened to be adventuring at the same time.

Once we’d completed the first few quests it was time to turn them in and prepare for the guild meeting that Safe Haven would be having. I tried to stay online for the meeting but alas about 20 minutes before it was due to start I was called away by real life and had to log off. Next time perhaps!

I’m still finding my footing in game, and still learning good areas to hang out. It’s difficult when I’ve been (semi) away for a length of time now, I would prefer to solo but rarely know of any good locations. I know they’re out there, it’s just a matter of me learning where to go once again.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend no matter where you spent your time, and here’s hoping this is the beginning of another wonderful week! Safe travels!

Festival of Unity – Why the Fuss?

I’ve been tweeting up a storm about the Festival of Unity on twitter, and yesterday was the opening ceremonies. If you’re not familiar with this event, it is a week long of celebrations that incorporates everything good including order, peace, and friendship. Those aligned with Freeport, Lucan D’Lere, and the other denizens of evilness are requested to disguise themselves or lie about their alignment which I find very amusing.

Why am I so excited about this event? Well you really have to be there to soak up the atmosphere. First of all it is BY FAR the largest player run event across all of EverQuest II. In fact I would even say it’s one of the largest events across EQII period. No, we didn’t crash any zones (that I know of) but there were well over 200 people clustered into Antonica for the opening ceremonies in the afternoon, with more showing up to partake in events and just mingle with their fellow role players.

This is a massive event with a LOT of planning and work put into it by players and employees of sony alike. In fact there was a Gnobrin spotting, as well as a Domino spotting. I tried to rush after both for autographs but alas their evade skills are far beyond what my level 12 dirge could manage.

The community of SOE gets involved by means of decorations for the fair grounds, which is incredible every year. This is the third annual festival, and of course Gnobrin out did himself. tents, cooking areas, merchant grounds, lights, flowers, everything was perfect.

If you’re not on Antonia Bayle but would like to listen to the public announcements (which are always humorous) and see what else is going on you are more then welcome to join their festival channel: /join antonia_bayle.festival. Of course if you’re like me the first thing you did upon hearing about this festival (since I no longer technically play on AB) is rush right out and create a character. Thankfully Malfi had some spare party clothes for me so my baby dirge didn’t have to wander around in her uncomfortable chain mail.

There is a calendar of events with times that you can find, as well as a map of festival locations. Not a role player? I’d still suggest checking it out. There are so many other stories going on that you don’t really have to have one of your own in order to enjoy the party atmosphere. If you’re a people watcher (like I am) it works out wonderfully. I heard so many stories last night from characters I have never heard of before, it was amazing. I plan on writing a role play introduction from my bards perspective later on today (depending on work, it is Monday after all).

I can not stress enough that THESE are the reasons people will play your game. The community. Sure, it is fantastic when the game itself has festivals and events but player run events on a massive scale such as this are simply astounding. The creativity that goes into it just amazes me every time.

So if you happen to be on Antonia Bayle this evening, you’ll want to make sure you catch the events! They start at 7pm EST and include Gnome punting, Antonican Idol (eep!), and Golden Lemming. The festival closes after a full day of fun and games on Saturday June 6th, so if you’ve never witnessed something like this before, make sure you head out that way.

Right where I Left It

If your Vanguard account has been closed for two months or more, you may find yourself with a free month currently. Until July 1st all VG accounts (that have been closed for 2+ months) have been re-activated, allowing players to experience some of the wonderful changes in game. If you were at maximum level, you’ll find that they’ve been extended by 5, with new places to explore, new loot, and new spells. If you’re of a lower level and never had the opportunity to explore the Isle of Dawn (which is a very pretty beginner zone) why not take the chance.

I met up with Growlius in game, a good friend and guildmate of mine. We didn’t go exploring but hung out in one of the major cities of Qalia which was just as much fun. Getting used to keys and controls is pretty simple because it follows EQ2 in many regards (at least my personal keybindings do) and the main difference is that you keep both offensive and defensive targets at the same time.

The guild I belong to on Vanguard is huge, I’ve spoken about them before (they have an EQ2 branch as well on Antonia Bayle) called Safe Haven. Yesterday was no exception to the rule as 10-20 people were around leveling, crafting, questing and just talking. It was great to see. They’ve picked up quite a few new applicants over the last weeks as well which is always wonderful to hear.

I spent some time wandering around the city marveling at performance since I’ve gotten the new video card. I had no issues whatso ever, no crashes, no lag. It was very nice. I’ve always been a big supporter of VG even during the rough times, and I doubt that will change any time soon.

I haven’t noticed the RMT that was implemented in game at all. From what I understand the majority of players do not even use it, preferring to do things ‘the good ‘ol way’ which is through a lot of hard work. The craft channel was bustling, and people seemed to be in a general good mood. I still think the community atmosphere of VG is the best out there, right along side EQ’s community. I quickly glanced through my quest journal getting familiar with the tasks that I had been on so long ago. Maybe I’ll finally inch my way to level 45 so I can begin working on some swam armor. We’ll see!

Taking in the View

We (the guild of three plus one) may not have done as many instances yesterday as we did on Friday, but we sure did have fun – and still managed to get a fair amount done. While the boys headed off to Crypt of Agony for yet another ‘sad panda’ run as they’ve been termed (meaning no, the farseer did not drop, and nor did the cardiocutter) I stayed behind and played some Vanguard on the PC (more about that in another post). Afterwards we headed back to Evernight Abby to complete the bits that we didn’t do the night before because it was getting too late and I was feeling quite under the weather.

Well, lesson learned. It’s a bad idea to kill the first named in a persistent zone leave, come back, and think that you can complete the rest of the zone without any issues. Apparently killing the first named unlocks another named in behind the coffin room – and that closed up once we left the zone. We ended up missing him all together. After doing Guk the night before this zone was a breeze, and also a lot of scripted fun. During the later portion you turn into a vampire yourself to defeat the final boss, and you have to run away every time he calls forth the sunlight. You (as in the group) all also have to aquire special vampire moves that you use on him during the fight. LOTS of fun. We wiped once because I wasn’t curing the main tank when he got snared just before the sunlight hit, but once I started taking care of that it all went much easier.

I don’t remember anything of note dropping, but it was the daily double (or as my server calls it MoTD – mission of the day) so we got a fair amount of shards from it. Oh, also if you kill the key mob and then log out you lose your key and that extra shard too. Not impressed.

Having completed that zone and the quests from Loping that were associated with it (there are a few and they all reward really nice items) we took a bit of a break. Folks had real life to attend to (gasps, it happens some times!) and when we met up later in the evening we headed directly to Obelisk of Ahkzul and Anchor of Bazzul. These last two zones would give me enough shards to finally purchase the T2 breastplate for Ellithia (mystic) leaving only one more piece to obtain – the shoulders (and they’re a whole 27 shards so that will be a while). This also allowed me to finally get my 5 set bonus, which is a 2.4% chance to proc 15 seconds of 15% heal crit chance. Nice, but would have been nicer on a warden. My 5 set bonus used to do with overloaded heals but they changed it some time ago.

The coercer needs 5 more shards in order to get her 2nd piece of T2 gear. It feels like it’s taking forever but I have to remember that she shares the account with the bard, who was hording shards for a bit to get a few pieces of her T1 gear too. If I had not of been trying to gear up two characters on the same account at the same time it would have been a lot easier.

We keep checking on Venekor to see if he’ll drop a trophy for us but he’s apparently pretty camped on Kithicor. As the evening wore on I decided to stay put in the guild hall and work on transmuting some more (shudders) while the boys headed out to do those guild raids that no one does any more. They did all of the ones available I believe, and while they’re not a great deal of guild status unless you actually have 12 people, we did move along a little, and then of course there was achievement experience for defeating the named and completing the guild writs. I’m not sure if any armor molds or craft materials dropped, but I always thought that this was one feature in game that could use a serious overhaul and maybe more people would use it. I don’t even really know of any guilds who take advantage of the guild raids on a weekly (or 3 day as lock out timers go) basis. If you do, let me know!

All in all it was a nice day with a few instances and lots of fun. I got a few bits of upgraded gear (legendary) as did Wpus, but I think that was it. The really nice stuff still eludes us for now. It’s bound to drop sooner or later if we keep running the zones though! At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Today the Festival of Unity begins at 3pm EST and you’ll find me there as Pensato on Antonia Bayle. There’s also a guild meeting later on for Safe Haven in Vanguard, so I’ll more then likely be boxing the two events, hehe. I’ll see you in Norrath! Or Telon!