Stargrace

New Zones, New Gear

There were a lot of wars going on, and that was pretty much the extent of what I knew about this zone my group decided to travel to. It was fun to watch them all fighting with one another – not so fun when we were after a specific race in order to get some quest drops. We ended up giving up after a few hours of unsuccessfully killing eye stalkers in order to get their skin to drop. You would think that every eye has skin, but alas such was not the case.

The day was spent playing EverQuest and exploring zones I’d never been to. The druid managed to hit level 73 and then I started feeling nostalgic for the necromancer so I logged over to Minxes for the remainder of the evening. My two partners in crime and I decided to try to work on getting ourselves a few bits of fabled gear – a lot of it is too difficult for just the three of us to trio, but there were some drops we could certainly go after. Our first stop was Plane of Earth, which I had been to a few times before. We managed to get Aerrem the shadowknight 2h weapon that drops, and we got a number of the fabled rings (screen shot down below) for the enchanter, cleric, and necromancer. A nice ranged item also dropped for the enchanter, and another fabled ranged item for the monk. Once we’d gotten our fill of pretties from Earth, we headed to Plane of Water – which I had never been to before at all.

The zone is beautiful. Schools of fish that swim through the water made it feel so life like, as plants and other living organisms go about their business with ease. We decided to try and get the shadowknight swarm weapon to drop, so we went to work killing sharks. Lots of sharks. While we were killing, an Australian raid came through on their way to an encounter. Our fabled shark happened to spawn right when their mass of 20 people decided to swim through. Things got messy, and laggy. Not fun.

In the end the shadowknight did get his fancy sword, and I also got the fabled drop that allows me to work on an upgraded version of the gate necklace. It was a lot of fun and hopefully everyone had a good time.

I’m not sure what other fabled spawn, but I believe we’ll be looking into it. The encounters are up for a month (approx) for the 10th anniversary, so there should be lots of time for people to get the items that they want. The ring on the right is a fairly common drop, we ended up spawning the fabled that drops it 3 times in the hour or two that we spent clearing the outside of earth. There were a few other groups in the zone but I’m not sure where they were experiencing at, I didn’t end up seeing them.

It’s been wonderful to see everyone in game lately. A lot have returned to check out the festivities, and that reminds me! Some time I really want to buckle down and do the new quests that were added. If you do all 16 of the god ones, you’ll get yourself a shiny new roboboar which you can also turn in with a mount for a faster version. I don’t exactly care about the speed of the mount, but I would like one just so that I can sit and regen mana and still cast. Not sure if I’ll get all 16 of those quests done, but it’s a nice thought and a project to work on some time. While you work on the quests you also get a lot of potions, and about 32,000 plat since each quest rewards a bit.

We’ll see how that goes though. In the mean time, I’ve got to get back to work. Safe travels!

Questing, Leveling, Options!

One of the main reasons I enjoy EverQuest is that there is simply so much to do. While there may not be player housing (which draws me to Vanguard as well as EQ2) there is so much other stuff I never feel as though I have nothing to do. This also comes with a downside though – you can feel overwhelmed, like there is too much to do. If you’re a fan of alts (and lets face it, I can’t even pretend that I’m not) this may make you feel even MORE overwhelmed because of the desire to accomplish everything on all characters.

Take for instance crafting. It’s a long complicated process (that has gone through many changes over time) especially if you take into consideration the crafting trophies. Then there are also the aa you dedicate to the skills. Not to mention the fact that any character can learn all crafts (minus tinkering and things like alchemy and poison making). Countless hours go into farming supplies for crafting, and if not farming, well a whole lot of money goes into the process. That’s just one aspect of the game.

Questing is another complicated side. Have you heard of the quest Breakdown in Communication (also known as BiC)? It’s one of the longest quests in game and people worked for (literally) years completing it. Yesterday my group started working on a second one that came out with The Buried Sea for a hand augment. The quest chain is 39 tasks long. I think we got close to 10 of them done yesterday, maybe 8. Each quest rewarded a bit of bone that I assume gets combined into the final skeletal hand augment by the end of things.

What makes things even more complicated is that this quest in particular is a solo quest. If you do it in a group (as I was, with two others) it takes even longer because none of the drops are group drops. You’re not just looking for 10 ultra-rare bottles of rum, you’re looking for 30. It’s one aspect of EQ I wish would change to encourage grouping a little more.

If I’m not in the mood to quest nor to craft there’s always just plain leveling. Already at the cap of 85? No worries, there are a LOT of achievement points to obtain. Afraid of not being able to catch up? Since the points now scale based on how many you already have it’s quicker then ever to gain a few. Especially if you are in a hot zone.

Simply exploring some place new is great too. Just watch out because you may find yourself lost (as I do, often) or being chased down by large groups of angry critters.

The only time I find myself floundering on what to do in game is when I’m personally feeling restless and that’s simply because there is so many options I can’t settle on just one. Give me a game that offers me multiple venues to explore and that’s the game I’ll end up sticking with the longest even if it’s a combination of questing and pvp and crafting or some other weird combination. I’m sure the main reason for my choices comes from the fact that I have quite a bit of spare time to play these games. People who are a little more restricted in that aspect may dislike the fact that there are so many choices and so many paths to take. A game with fewer options can easily become appealing if you’ve only got time for so much.

Enough with the rambling! The druid hit level 72 yesterday, exploring through The Buried Sea working on the hand augment quest and then hanging out in Valdeholm for the evening. The enchanter is practically level 79, but I just didn’t have the patience last night to try to gain the last 3% she needs. When you’re watching the experience bar it seems to just stand still.

Today? Crafting, aside from some real life chores. I’d really like to get my halfling tailor her craft trophy and there are of course numerous other side quests I’m looking forward to doing.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Quests and all the Rest

Admittedly a large portion of my time in various games has been spent questing. I enjoy quests, even the ones that tend to be a grind. What I don’t enjoy, is ONLY questing (example: Ruins of Kunark) in order to progress in a game. I like a mixture of things, be it quests, experience grind (just good ‘ol plain killing) crafting, and simply hanging out. It’s all of these things combined that draws me into any MMO. If I start to feel pressured to do one thing or another, chances are I’ll end up giving the game up.

Yesterday was spent doing a combination of things in EverQuest, as well as peeking my head into some Spellborn, though I didn’t have much time to do anything before I had to go out for a few hours. First I spent some time hanging out in Stoneroot, and my little halfling druid managed to inch her way to level 71. Friends make this type of grind so much easier, I burned my lesson of the devoted and we were set. Drachnid fell every which way. It only took half an hour or so to get the level, and then the group broke up a little. Next? It was time to work on my epic. Now, I had given up on the epic the day before in frustration because the Bloodgill foragers that I needed decided to spawn inside of the walls of a building. Not fun. Today we hoped that would not happen – but if it did we would be prepared. You can order your pet to attack by text command rather then a target, and that’s what we did. It worked, thankfully. My little Bobo (name of my druids bear) headed into the wall very brave like and calling him back caused those foragers to head right for us.

I thought that would be the most difficult portion of the day, but alas it was not. Once I’d moved past a few more steps it was time to play Hide and Seek with a bunch of Goblins in Frontier Mountains. This requires you to first make a disguise, hang out in the front of the Temple of Droga, wait for 7pm game time, and then use the disguise, mention starting a contest, and then the King sends all these Seekers out and a few Hiders. Your job? Kill the correct Hider, before the King says the game is over (30 minutes).

Well dang. I ran around with track going and managed (with the help of Ninga of course) to kill a good portion of Hiders, but it was not the specific one that I needed. 30 minutes passed by and I lost the game. Unhappy that I’d lost and the disguise at the beginning only has one charge so you have to start way at the beginning again – I decided to call it a night. It’s always better to step away during those frustrating times (I’m sure lots of people have stories like this) then risk getting upset in game.

It was fine by me of course, I have a few books I’ve been neglecting and I ended up spending the rest of my evening playing scrabble on yahoo which was something I haven’t done in years. Today my mood has calmed some and I’m not quite so cranky at having to start all over. Not that I’ll be doing it again any time soon, teehee.

I’ve been trying to plan out my schedule game-wise for the next three weeks. Not for my personal game play, but because I have a few Beckett Articles (few = 5) due in early April (not to mention my birthday is coming up, dang I feel old!) and I have a review for MMORPG that needs to be completed. I love the way I have a few weeks of quiet and then everything comes all at once. Typically it begins with me emailing my editor about a separate issue and then the casual ‘Oh by the way, we need it a week earlier and we need five pieces not two’ comes into the conversation. I am quite used to it now, and it’s actually something I adore about this line of work. Gets the blood going!

In any case, I hope everyone is having an amazing weekend and enjoying some of that nice weather if you’ve been so blessed. Hopefully I’ll get some more game time in this weekend, I’ve got a few projects on the go that need some work first.

Safe travels!

Brew Day Fun!

Who says there’s no such thing as flying pigs? Wandering around in Norrath today I managed to complete the Brew Day quests before they were vanquished for yet another year. Before I headed out to do these quests I did also manage to get a few guild writs done, inching Nostalgia further along level 42. Since I’ve been playing EQ lately, I haven’t really been in EQ2, but I know the guild is (for the most part) self-sufficient and regular members (Tipa, Kasul, and Ecor) know that I tend to bounce around from game to game depending on where my whim takes me for the month. Looking through the guild hall I decided I should try to get back into decorating a little bit of it too some time.

Today though, today was all about the booze. Or rather, walking around in a booze enhanced state where everything was blurred and I didn’t have to wonder (for once) if it was my video card acting up (again).

I headed to the Commonlands on Silhouette (the coercer) and zoned into the Bar of Brell. It’s a special zone that you can only gain access to this time of year. There were a few new quests to pick up as well as the quests that I’d completed yesterday. The best part about these quests of course is the fact that they (typically) reward a choice of house item.

The quests listed above were the ones associated with Brew Day, and I loved doing each one of them – in particular Snoogle’s Presentation, because it rewarded me with a pink elephant plushy that I added to my (fast growing) collection of plushies.

The reward from Ale Goggles was very nice too, I added a fancy looking jug to Silhouette’s table and had a lot of fun doing the quests. Logging in to LoN (Legends of Norrath) also rewarded me with my free loot cards for today – in EQ2 it was a vision of the void (which you may remember being similar to the vision of fury) that makes black darkness shoot out your eyes. In EQ the item is a blue crystal staff that shoots of some particle effects. I’m not sure if today is the last day to claim items, but I believe it is so don’t forget!

After placing all of the new items in my house I took a glance around a few of the half finished housing projects I have ongoing (and have had ongoing for quite a while now). I need to get Goudia’s home done some time, I created an amazing little miniature library for her and then left the rest of the home relatively bare. I’ve always loved the housing in EQ2 and I doubt that will ever change.

Anyhow, it was great to wander around Norrath 2.0 today, and I hope everyone is having an amazing Friday! Here’s hoping the weekend is just as fantastic.

Deadly Dragons

There is nothing quite so majestic as a dragon, nor as terrifying or exciting. Nothing that I have found in my travels, in any case. Yesterday as myself and the human monk traveled through the frozen lands of the Western Wastes we happened across such creatures. Many of them in fact. It does not matter how many of the great creatures you either slay nor admire, each time they will give you reason to pause in your tracks. The monk acted as though he had a personal vendetta with each and every one of the creatures, tearing at them with his hardened claw-like weapons. Myself, I watched from a distance. While I did not have anything personal against these great creatures nor was it my place to interrupt.

Yesterday was spent working on the druid 1.5 pre-quest for the most part. It was actually not too bad, involved a lot of foraging which I sort of assumed. The drops were not quite as rare as forum posters made them out to be (at least for me) and on our way through the Western Wastes (since servers had been taken down for 6 hours just prior) we came across 6-7 fabled dragons all lined up in a row. Of course they all dropped nearly the same thing, a fabled talisman, but it was still nice to be able to partake in some of the fabled activities without having to elbow other players out of the way.

After completion of the 1.5 pre-quest I decided to begin working on the actual quest itself. I didn’t get very far though because when I approached the Lake of Ill Omen where I was to spawn three Goblin Foragers – they spawned directly inside of a wall. They didn’t path, and I had no way of reaching them. Instead of bothering support with my epic woe’s I decided to call it for a bit. Frustrated? Sure, slightly.

Afterwards with some guild mates we decided to work on the PoR missions that reward spells and auras. I felt pretty much useless as my druid has 10 levels of spells lacking (that I can not find in the bazaar at all, not to mention with fabled season well under way spectral and ethereal parchments are more difficult to obtain) so I sat around and tried to do what I could and not die, which is always a bonus. Afterwards we headed off to another mission in North Ro, where I ended up looting some piece I shouldn’t have because the same person needs to turn in all four pieces. This was not mentioned in the mission any place and I couldn’t have really foreseen it, my night ended on a some what sour note in any case.

On the plus side, today is Friday! I hope everyone has an amazing day and finds themselves in awesome stories with mighty battles. Most of all, I hope you all write about it, because I certainly love reading it.

See you in Norrath – or where ever I end up this weekend!