Stargrace

Oceangreen Hills, and Ding 78

After the fall of the Combine Empire, the majority of humankind spread out and occupied the center of what was then called Tunaria. These humans lived in small villages upon the fertile plains of Karana and in an area along the western coast called the Oceangreen Hills.

I’ve owned Seeds of Destruction since it released in late October, but I’d never set foot in it until yesterday. Sure, I took advantage of the mercenary and I saw everyone off leveling and having fun, but I stayed firmly planted in current-day Norrath while that happened. First thing I have to say, the music is incredible. I wish there were a CD compilation of the music for SoD, all of it is great. The second you step into Time and head through The Void the music just rocks. When you stare off into the sky and see Veeshan sprawled across, dead, it’s just very humbling.

There is (of course) a progression chart for SoD, which you can find on Zam here. There are missions (both solo and group) given out for various factions as you work through the zones and repair Norrath. Such a daunting task.

We picked up some solo quests that reward faction and another currency, Chronobines. I’m not sure what they’re used for yet, but I’m sure it’s spells and / or gear.

We worked on:

Tabron Caulria:

Each quest involves the infected and diseased creatures that are found all over Oceangreen Hills. The second quest was a huge pain because it required some dust off of skeletons that simply didn’t want to spawn. As we adventured through we also managed to kill two named who dropped some pretty nice gear – nice for us at least. Items in SoD have +700 hp on them these days, so when the lower end stuff has 400 or so, it’s still nice (even though not amazing).

We headed over to the Filed of Scale shortly afterwards to check out the zone and see how hard things hit for. It’s always exciting for me to head to a new expansion that I’ve never played in before (granted, almost everything that’s been released in EQ for the past four years is relatively new to me still). The mobs hurt, they hurt bad. The zone itself was awesome though, armies lined up and about 400 npc fighting each other. We found a little section of land to set up a camp on, and spent a little time there before heading off to a hot zone where my necromancer managed to land herself level 78! I’m so excited about finally hitting level 80, I’m sure the climb to 85 will be very slow, but I don’t mind. For the first time ever I may actually hit the level cap in EQ. Scary!

My Welcome into Seeds of Destruction

You say, ‘Hail, Zebuxoruk’

Zebuxoruk says ‘So you have finally come, to see again the ignominious end of beloved Norrath. Can you hear me, Druzzil? Are you there, Solusek? I am free of my cage. The language of the gods is my own, as are my many thoughts, culled and refined from a thousand million years of ongoing imprisonment. Yet there is no mana to empower my will, nor worshipers to sustain me. Norrath has been destroyed, sundered into [dust].’

You say, ‘Dust?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘I saw many things as I lingered in my cage. Armies of the unsavory pantheon, and their ignorant opponents, tearing the world apart, breaching the passage of days from What Was to What Is. See noble Veeshan, sprawled dead in the heavens. See the clockworks of Time sprung and broken. The Veil of Order ripped away again and again, delivering [Norrath] and yet also destroying it.’

You say, ‘Norrath?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘The world has gone, the planes are fading away, and all of you are but orphaned echoes of a dead time, doomed to endless rebirth in the stomach of a beast whose length is measured in aeons. Still you’ll try to save what can never be saved, to redeem for yourselves a tiny amount of illusion that the universe is not as it is. Gaze upon the grave of Veeshan, the lifegiver dragon, and know the [truth] of my words.’

You say, ‘What truth?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘You have done nothing, yet you are responsible! For all of this! You, the innocent, for despite your denials you are powerless to preclude yourselves from involvement in the greater tragedy, the hideous fate which sweeps away all memory, all context, until only the echoes of that mighty struggle remain. Know that the [corpse] of Norrath still bears the many marks of your intervention.’

You say, ‘A corpse?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘So predictable, you mortals. Set a problem before you and you must solve it; give you a chance and you will take it. Even when you confront the grandest context of your actions, still you leap to action with hardly a second thought. Have you ever given yourselves to the possibility that perhaps death is a better [alternative] to eternal fighting, and endless destruction?’

You say, ‘What alternative?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘If I had known what the ultimate outcome would be I would never have tried to give mortals the secrets I discovered. No, that was indeed a mistake. But perhaps I listen only to the voice of my own purposes, perhaps throughout the unknowable length of my imprisonment, I have lost forever the ability to empathize with those mortals I once sought to [aid] with the powers of the gods.’

You say, ‘What Aid?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘Know that it is futile to tamper with time. You gain nothing, for opening the timescape to your own intrusion opens it also for others. But you should know this, for you have already been through these portals hundreds of times, at least in my experience. What are You? What am I? The difference between us is meaningless. You are doomed to repeat the tragedies of time, and I am doomed to witness them. If you still choose to try and undo what has been wrought upon Norrath, I shall repeat these words yet again, yet again, yet again. ‘The Portals [beckon]. Do as you will’.’

You say, ‘They beckon?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘There, in times past, you may find ways to restore your [context], if ever it was truly that valuable.’

You say, ‘What context?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘The destiny of Norrath sits in peril as long as the enemy’s power is undiminished, in what was once called Oceangreen Hills. There must you re-establish the balance.’

So it was that I headed to Oceangreen Hills.

Veeshan’s Peak, and Epics

Yesterday I wrote a little about how odd it was to experience things in EQ2 first before finding them in EQ, and I had yet another strong encounter with this. It was only a few months ago that I did a dungeon guide on Veeshan’s Peak (EQ2 version) for Beckett, explaining the named encounters that you’d run into and a little bit about what it would take to defeat them – or at least what each encounter did (without giving too much away). I’d never been to Veeshan’s Peak in EQ – though I had killed plenty of Mistmoors friends so apparently I was amiable with the Ring of Scale. At least on my enchanter. The necromancer didn’t fair as well and after one kill (the dragon pictured to the left) she was agro to the entire zone. Hard penalties for killing dragons! Ultann, Ninga and I decided to head to VP and see if we couldn’t get a few clicky pretties that drop. I’m not sure about all the other servers but Drinal is pretty heavily camped, all of the PoP gods, and a good number of the Luclin named (Grieg’s End, the named in Umbral, etc) Trak is also pretty camped, as well as Seru and others. We did manage to find Maestro up, but no Innoruuk. Anyhow, it sort of helps that you take such huge faction hits for slaying dragons, as the entire zone was up with all of the named. We decided to only kill a few of the mighty creatures before calling it a day because it was annoying to camp fire around the zone in order to avoid as many faction hits as we could. Nocbot and Kameeko (the two amiable) stood far away and out of combat, while Ninga, Minxes, and Ultann pounded on the dragons.

We killed Hoshkar, Silverwing, and Druushk. The lute on the right was from Silverwing, and I giggled when I saw it. We didn’t have a bard in the group, but it of course made me think of the EQ2 halfling bard, the famous Tipa. It would have been a nice twink item for Ninga’s bard had we been able to drag him into the zone easily. The necromancer also managed to get herself a clicky staff, we all giggled at the graphic though, it’s just a straight wooden stick. Very drab compared to what we were all expecting.

Afterwards Ninga headed to bed (sleep is important) and Ultann and I decided to work on the enchanter 1.5 pre-quest. It would be easier just to finish doing the 1.0 I think. You need to head to Veksar and gather shards (that only drop VERY rarely from the mobs in the theater) and spawn the dragon. I remember doing this once before but the zone is now very grey to me and it was really slow. The respawns were also slow, and we spend most of the time seeing how large of a train we could gather and fight all at once. After a few hours there not a single shard dropped and I decided this morning it’s probably just easier to finish off my enchanter 1.0 then it is to do the pre-quest for the 1.5. Hopefully I can get all of that completed before too long, we’ll see how it goes.

I also did a little crafting yesterday, working on my spell research. It’s expensive. It’s long. I did get three skill ups with over 100 combines. I suppose that’s a good thing? I still love crafting in EQ but wow when you miss out on an expansion or two you really get left behind.

Today I believe we’re going to explore Seeds of Destruction a little bit. Not everyone had the expansion until yesterday, but now we’re all sporting it as well as the two boxed accounts. One thing we certainly want to do is to do the progression quests in order to upgrade the mercenary that we can purchase. I haven’t set foot in any of SoD yet aside from those mercenary, and it should be a lot of fun. That, combined with working on my enchanters epic of course. I’ve been working on that for so many years now it would be fantastic to finally finish.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Loping Plains, and Birthday Wishes

Some times it’s really odd for me when I’m playing EQ and I happen across a zone that I practically live in when I play EQ2. It’s odd because I’ve actually encountered the zone in EQ2 first, and then I feel like I’m going backwards and playing it in EQ. It’s a pretty interesting feeling, and one that I came across yesterday quite a bit.

Since the necromancer is now 77 it was time for a new (fighter) pet spell. She’s got a level 75 rogue, and she’ll get another level 80 rogue once I finally make that climb. EQ has switched over to an EQ2 method of spell progression for a little while now, each spell used to only have one tier. Now they have three tiers. The first one is vendor sold. The second one can be crafted, or is researched. The third tier is raid dropped (from what I understand, I could be wrong about this) and I’m not sure if it’s from turn ins or simply from a pure no trade drop or what. I doubt very much that I will ever see a tier3 spell in my little necromancer life time, teehee.

The good thing about this is that number one, tier1 is still always an upgrade even if it is slight. Number two, pets don’t come in tiers. They’re just vendor sold rank1 and that’s all there is to it. In my necromancer way of thinking, her pet is just another (free) dot. I’m not a magician, or even a beastlord. My pet (even with aa) will not compare – but it’s nice to have a free dot, especially while I’m kiting. Anyhow, as I was saying, my level 77 pet is vendor sold and that’s how I found myself heading to Plane of Knowledge, then to Ak’Anon and from there – Loping Plains. It’s a zone I’ve spent countless hours in while playing EQ2 but had never set foot in while playing EQ and so the experience was quite surreal. Ultann (resident magician) summoned me to the vendor I needed, and a short bit away were the exact same alligators that I remember from EQ2.

I decided to try my hand at kiting (and hopped the mob didn’t summon) was all proud of myself for taking down a dark blue frog (remember, I’m still not quite used to soloing) and then was promptly eaten by another frog that added during the fight. Those things are deceptive, they hurt!

Ah, such is the way of EQ, and the reason why I love it.

Next Monday marks the 10th anniversary of this game, and I’m hoping people come back to give it another try, even if it’s just for a month. It certainly would not disappoint me to read nothing but EQ blogs for a whole month (or even longer if people are enjoying it). Fabled should also be put in game soon (rumor is Wednesday, since that’s the closest patch) and I’m looking forward to being able to farm some (even though I’m a little concerned over how camped it’s going to be). I’m really hoping that EQ and EQ2 offer some free character transfers sooner rather then later (I simply can’t afford to pay $50 to move characters when I have a virtual army of them) so that I can move my Kithicor characters (and friends) over to Najena (EQ2) and so that I can move around the various characters I have in EQ who are strewn all over the place. While both games have done this in the past, I know it’s probably unlikely, but that’s my birthday wish, teehee. When you have alt-itus as much as I do (and lets face it, I do in a BIG way) things can get pretty messy.

After Loping Plains the group broke for a while, Ultann headed off to see The Watchmen so Ninga and I headed to Nagafen’s Lair to play alts. The paladin is now level 43 with the ranger and bard close behind at level 42. I was trying to aim for 46 so they could all head to Plane of Time, but the experience has slowed down some what and I decided to take a break to make a birthday gift for Ultann (HAPPY BIRTHDAY). I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, and that this week is nice and relaxed.

Safe travels, and see you in Norrath!

Wandering through Runes of Magic

I admit now, there is very little I know about Runes of Magic, aside from what I have read over at Mystic Worlds (which is all very fantastic information might I add). What I do know, is that it headed into Open Beta, and is free to play. They do of course have an online store where you can buy lots of stuff but I haven’t looked into that too much yet. I think this is quite reasonable since they do have to make money some how, and as of yet I haven’t really been forced to pay anything at all. Granted, I am only level 6.

So my brief impressions so far. It’s fun, it’s colourful. I don’t care for the overhead text too much yet (it really really stands out from the world and distracts me) and the game has a VERY familiar feeling to it if you’ve played World of Warcraft. It’s actually been great for me and a lot of fun because I already have a ‘main’ MMO (or a few) that I play, and I don’t actually subscribe to WoW any more. I like having a ‘free’ alternative to that for when the urge hits me.

So far at level 6 I’ve gotten the hang of combat and crafting, and my class (a priest), made some friends in the general channels who were talking about EQ. The community that I’ve met have been friendly and helpful, answering lots of questions in channel. Families talk about their adventures and their memories of other games which I really like. Since I’m only level 6 and have barely delved into the game I don’t have much to say about it (yet) besides those few bits. It’s not something that will ever be my ‘main’ game of choice, but it’s a great little side path for myself at the moment. We’ll just see how it goes I suppose!

Hope everyone is having an amazing weekend, no matter your game of choice.