Stargrace

Ding, 19!

Tom just wasn’t all there. Wait, not that Tom. Oh, not that Tom either. There we go, that’s the one. As he sang his tunes and started dancing around I turned and looked at Kasul. We were supposed to follow him? Was that even safe? It didn’t seem like it would be. Of course, good ‘ol Tom ended up leaving Kasul and I standing outside of a big deep cave with lots of creatures inside so maybe we should have followed him after all.

I was so close to hitting level 20 without a death. So close I could taste it. Then book one, volume one, chapter 11 came along. I died. I died a lot. I died from heal agro most of the time and when we went back to Bree broken and torn, my repair bill was 75 silver and I’ve never seen it that high before. I can’t even remember the number of times I died, but it seemed like I was always trying to make my way back to Kasul. Once we decided that there really was no way that we could complete the instance without a group or at least a few more people, we headed back to Bree to see what our options were.

We managed to gain almost two levels in the time we played. I am a little shy of half way to 20. I gathered together more supplies to craft with (story of my life) and contemplated switching to a cook because the food is quite handy, as opposed to a tailor where most of my gear seems to come from quests or drops and it’s far better then the items I can actually make myself. I’ll think about that more when I’m back in game again.

I’ve mentioned before how alive the world feels to me, and I’ll stress it again. As we were running through the woods it was dark, the music was scary and I FELT as though I was in the woods. As we fought our way through The Barrows and I looked across the rolling mountains with ruins scattered every which way, it just felt so atmospheric. Of course, there is also a lot of walking in the game which means I spend a lot of time trying to get from point A to point C (because point B would be silly!) and things are starting to get REALLY expensive (skills and what not) but I’m still having a great time. Were it not for the few items I’ve sold on the market I wouldn’t have even been able to afford my repair bills yesterday let alone my newest skills.

I’m looking forward to hitting 20 and finally getting some appearance slots although my hopes of ever owning a home are quickly diminishing, I have no idea how anyone manages to afford anything, especially since the home I wanted is over 900 gold and I learned that there is a thousand silver to every gold. The most money I’ve had on me has been 400 silver. This could take a while.

Me Tog!

(A random role player started talking to me in Darklight wood after I’d created a character there specifically to delve into a story of some sort. I have no idea who they were, but I just wanted to say thank you for reminding me why I love these games, and why I play. Whoever “Metog” is – again my thanks if you ever read this, hope they don’t mind me using quotes of our conversation).

How she came to be in Darklight woods standing in an outpost of some sort was a story for another time. All that mattered was the ‘now’ of the moment. She was teamed up with an Arasai who she had known for quite a few years and though the two looked like a highly unlikely pair, they worked well together.

As she spoke with the various commanders, her attention was drawn to an Ogre who was hopping about on one foot. He displayed none of the typical fear (or something that vaguely resembled hunger) when he looked at her and her winged friend, but sat himself down on the ground, smiling and drooling slightly.

“Heddo liddle people,” He said, a grin crossing his face. The Teir’Dal and the Arasai looked to one another some what bemused as they introduced themselves in turn.

“Gud name. Me am Tog. T O G.” He said, drooling even more.

The Teir’Dal only half listened as a Commander rushed up to her to give her more orders, her shoulders sagged slightly. She waved a hand impatiently at the Ogre who was rambling away.

“You dog? Well you don’t look much like a dog but if that’s your name then so be it.”

“No dog, Me Tog. Tog eat dog though, yum.”

She tried to pay the ogre the attention he deserved (could it even be said that he deserved attention?) much like one would with an unruly child. She warned him about stepping on the smaller folks who were gathered around as he clamored to his feet.

“Tog on step if Tog told to step. Blue people tell Tog an Tog do.” She found this intreguing. He was taking orders from someone, obviously. There must be a reward of some sort as well, so she tried to figure out what that was. Perhaps this was some mastermind test set up by her family, a trap for her to get her back home. “Den dey give Tog nice tings.”

Or maybe not. Maybe it was just greed.

“Food an sharp tings to smash stuff wit.”

Or survival. Either way, the Teir’Dal couldn’t be bothered with finding out more at the moment. She had things to do, and as always the night refused to stand still to grant her enough time to finish her tasks. She rambled off some excuse to be on her way, and motioned that the Arasai should follow. Medog Metog frowned a little, and moved out of the way of the pair. “Tog like to smash.”

Throughout the rest of the evening, the dark elf heard Metog’s voice muttering about one thing or another

“Scuse me. Blue people need ta make big doors.” he said once as he tried to bypass the elf entering a building. She sniffed in distaste but said nothing and gave him a brisk nod. For such a large creature he sure got around. There were other, more pressing matters to attend to that night but for some reason the image of the Ogre crouching through doorways and trying to catch fish with his bare hands wouldn’t leave her for the rest of the night and she walked around with a smirk on her face for no reason in particular.

Still No Shield, but lots of Fun!

Arysh (the coercer pictured above) is getting close to level 80 (finally) and she only has 70aa. This is what happens when you don’t do a single quest with a character (I think she has a grand total of maybe 20 completed) and only get discoveries when you tag along as a boxed character. Now that she’s getting up there, I’ll be switching my play style around some. I’ve had the coercer on the laptop dragging her around while I play the mystic in group – I’d like the coercer to have a better role and so I’m going to start putting the mystic on the laptop for healing / buff purposes and playing the coercer. Now, why on earth would I want to just drag my coercer around for 79 levels and not quest her? Pretty simple, I already have an 80 coercer + an 80 illusionist with epics. I’ve done this before, and doing the whole questing bit just simply wasn’t interesting to me at the time. It does mean I’ll pay for it now, but I don’t really mind that, either. It’s nice to switch things up a little.

The trio headed back to Obelisk in Moors. We had a fairly clean run aside from my laptop disconnecting randomly at the beginning. Reset the wireless router and I was good to go. The healer shield refused to drop (again) and the shadowknight / paladin one was what we got (again). It was still a fun run, and each time we do the zone it gets quicker. There was still a little time to waste afterwards so we headed to Vault of Eternal Sleep in the hopes that luck would stay steady and perhaps we’d get another praetor’s guard for the coercer this time.

Has anyone else noticed a decline in master drop rate? We’ve been doing instances pretty much every day and have yet to see a metal chest aside from the one that dropped the praetor’s guard yesterday. Not a single master spell at all has dropped from any named. Slightly discouraging, but understandable I suppose. I’m wondering if this is intentional, perhaps in preparation of implementing research npc’s that’s been talked about on the forums.

Channels on Kithicor seemed especially rude last night, I tend to phase most of it out but it’s been difficult. I’ve been spoiled by the EQ channels which are far more calm and relaxed. In EQ2 channels are flooded with people selling no trade fabled items to others who may not be able to complete the zones. In EQ this simply doesn’t happen, items that are left to ‘rot’ are announced as ‘free for all’ and whoever gets there first is able to loot it. In fact while I was playing EQ if anyone attempted to sell ‘rotting’ loot they were instantly set upon by the remaining members of the community berating them for trying to sell a piece of no-trade loot. Ah, how things have changed.

After Vaults I decided to call it a night, as I have a Wizard 101 article I need to complete today for Beckett and would no doubt be up early. I spent a good portion of the early evening playing W101 and had a blast, got my wizard Angela to level 17 and worked my way through the early portions of Krokotopia. I used to have a subscription to the game but I really wasn’t playing nearly enough to warrant the $10/m (which is a GREAT plan by the way if you’re actually constantly playing) so I decided to buy some crowns to permanently unlock zones for my account. If you don’t have a lot of time to play this is a perfect payment plan and I’m so happy to find an alternative means for the subscription. I’m not leveling up through content especially fast, and it basically reduces my $10/m down to $5/m based on my play times.

Hope everyone else had a fantastic evening, and are looking forward to the long Easter weekend!

EQ Hotfix Notes

HotFix 4/07/2009

*** Highlights ***

New Veteran Reward: The 11th year Veteran Reward has been created. Those who are eligible will now be granted the AA “Summon Clockwork Banker.”

Make poison has new recipes and items. You will find the instructions on new vendors.

A series of Rogue-only quests are now being offered by the Rogue Guilds of Norrath. Seek out the Poison Masters in your starting city for more information.

New types of Defiant armor have made their appearance across Norrath.

*** Items ****

Increased the bard instrument mod values on many SoF and SoD group and raid equipment pieces.

Created a method for converting the original roboboar to the shiny roboboar and vice versa. The polishing and rusting devices can be found on the Geerlok Clockwork Merchant in Crescent Reach.

Low-level Defiant armor will drop much more often.

New types of Defiant armor have made their appearance across Norrath.

Modified the Required and Recommended levels of the “Pet Proc” weapons from Fabled Planes of Power to be consistent. The Required level is now 75 for all of these items and the recommended level is now 79 for all of these items.

The Brell’s Party Plans book gives a bit more information about how to make the woven basket.

Irae Faycite Shard: Tjudawos’ Chant of Flame and and Irae Faycite Shard: Zeixshi-Kar’s Chant of Frost have been changed to increase the duration of their respective spells by 1 tick instead of increasing their damage. Their names have been changed to “Durus” to match other Type 3 augs of similar effects.

Modified the the naming of bard type 3 augs to be consistent with other type 3 augs.

Removed all casting times and mana cost from Earthen Mud so it will proc for classes without mana (and not consume mana of those with it.)

*** Spells ***

The Contact Innate in Battle Frenzy and Combat Frenzy now shares the slot with the Third Spire of Elements.

*** NPCs ***

Fixed a bug that could cause the Fabled Tribal Leader Diseranon to stop spawning in Vegarlson, the Earthen Badlands.

*** Quest ***

A series of Rogue-only quests are now being offered by the Rogue Guilds of Norrath. Seek out the Poison Masters in your starting city for more information.

*** Raids ***

Corrected the faction issues in the Queen Malarian raid.

Beware the clockwork devices in the Plane of Innovation! They pack a lot more punch during the Fabled times!

*** Tradeskills ***

Wood strips recipe will now return the planing tool on success and failure. Additionally wood strips will now stack to 20, allowing the recipe to give you 4.

Make poison has new recipes and items. You will find the instructions on new vendors.

*** AA ***

The 11th year Veteran Reward has been created. Those who are eligible will now be granted the AA “Summon Clockwork Banker.”

The Advanced Pet Discipline AA and Animation Empathy AAs have been modified to match the new pet control functionality.

Modified all 3 ranks of the Monk AA Five Point Palm to properly credit the Monk who used the Five Point Palm ability with the damage that results from this effect. You should now see a damage message, etc, indicating that the target took damage from the Player that cast the spell, rather than having the target of the AA silently do damage to themselves.

Removed the Endurance cost from the Monk AA lines Eye Gouge, Stunning Kick, and Crippling Strike.

*** Zones ***

Guild Banner summoning has been turned on for Solteris (note that all usual restrictions apply).

*** Pets ***

Guard and follow are on separate buttons again. Guard and follow states are independent of stop and sit. Stop and sit are overrides for guard and follow. Pressing guard or follow when stop or sit are engaged will automatically turn them off.

Changed the behavior of the stop command. It is now a toggle-able state. When activated, your pet will stand still and stop attacking, but remember who it hates. Stop can be turned off manually, or is automatically turned off whenever follow, guard, attack, qattack, or back off are used.

Added the greater hold state (ghold). Greater hold is granted by pet discipline. It works very much like regular hold except that regular hold allows opponents to be added to the pet’s hate list when the pet already has opponents on its list. Greater hold only allows NPCs you specifically add via attack or qattack to be added to its hate list. Hold and ghold are mutually exclusive.

Pet help has been updated with the new information about these changes.

*** Miscellaneous ***

Fixed a crash with certain custom UIs with custom hot bars.

Fixed a problem that caused the quest level ranges for quest givers to not be displayed under their name.

Lockout timers can once again be sorted in the expedition window.

*** UI ***

Optimized the raid window to get rid of the long pause when opening it when there are a large number of people in the raid.

A new update in EQ has me excited – especially the 11th year veteran rewards and all of the rogue only quests and new poisons. Yum! Also curious about that new defiant armor.

EQ2 Hotfix Notes

Hotfix April / 7 / 2009
GENERAL

An issue that was causing UI icons or elements to look blurry and low-quality has been resolved.

An issue that was causing low-quality textures on player characters after switching from third person to first person view has been resolved.

EVERNIGHT ABBEY

Marcus Thex should turn aggro now once all five clan leaders have been slain.

ITEMS

The Dancing Satyr has learned how to dance and is anxious to show off his new moves.

Bite of the Wolf will now trigger properly and apply to the warden.

Restitution Master 1 should no longer drop from spell tables.

The Signet of the Flame Disciple has been changed from +3 spell critical bonus to +3 spell critical to be more inline with the other quest rewards.

Vampire and Void Bane proc stacking has been fixed such that additional pieces of gear will increase the damage and proc rate, but will not add additional procs. This is the originally intended functionality.

The Stone Tower void shard jewelry set now has Deflection Chance as its 3-piece bonus instead of deflection skill. The block and deflection bonuses should now be roughly equivalent.

Corruption of the Elements should now proc on offensive spell casts.

MYSTMYR MANOR

Rhul’maldis should no longer occasionally never respond to the volatile liquid.

PVP

An issue that might cause no infamy gain when multiple players are attacking a single target has been fixed.

SPELLS

Tortoise Shell will once again work properly on group members

An issue that would cause Surging Tempest to get into an unusable state has been resolved.

TRADESKILLS

The Advanced Armorer Service quest now requires the new improved version of fulginate kite shields.

Scholars’ volume 12 books now once again contain recipes for idols, symbols, tomes, and orbs.

Jeweler Far Seas writs now correctly accept the new secondary items.

An issue where Adornments would disappear when upgrading or imbuing items through tradeskills has been fixed.

WARD OF ELEMENTS

Najena should respawn when players watch the flythrough then leave the instance and return.

Aiden’s banishes have been re-timed to be closer to the beginning of a land phase, giving players more time to get back to the tower.

Aiden’s adds have been linked into sizable groups instead of all in separate encounters.

Digg should no longer chain-kill players that die and are rezzed during his fight.

I’m glad to see the changes being added today, especially the warden epic portion, that one was causing a lot of anger for some druids out there. The fix to Evernight Abbey is another good one, I wanted to write about that dungeon for a guide but it was quite frustrating since for the weekend it wasn’t functioning properly.