Author: Stargrace

Faydai is my gnome necromancer conjuror, currently level 53 she’s not played very often. She’s also my level 62 sage, which is where I get the most use out of her. I liked her better as a necromancer, so I’ll probably betray her back in the future. For now though she resides in the Baubleshire. I’m not sure why I even made a gnome, I think I liked the glasses and the hat she’s wearing. I typically group up with her, she’s done a few quests. Her name used to be Willamina on Najena, and I’ve transfered her a few times now from server to server. I miss role playing with her, she used to be quite.. unique. She’d talk to her undead pet and raise a lot of eyebrows. Again it’s been some time though, so I’ve sort of stuck her on the shelf in the mean time.

Yamini is my halfling assassin ranger, who just finally came home to Qeynos. Her name means night, though I forget where I got that from now. I always have such an issue coming up with character names. She’s also my alchemist. She’s level 48, and will probably stay there for quite some time, I’m in no rush at all to level her. She’s a 51 alchemist, and I love being able to make my own potions and poisons, a very handy trait. Her home is Baubleshire.. err.. well it used to be, I think I forgot to relinquish the one she had in Big Bend, go figure. I love the ranged attacks, and the class is a nice change from my typical healers and mages.

Qutey posing in Nettleville Hovel, waiting to speak to the constable

101 quests completed, and the little monk has hit level 15, almost 16. She’s also 98% through her 7th aa, almost hitting 8. I’ve been having an enormous amount of fun with this new character, just doing my own thing and attempting quests that I haven’t seen in a very long time in zones that are pretty much deserted now even with the server being as populated as it is. How many people remember the making it manifest quest in the crows resting place? With the sword of destiny series in game it send you there, the home of Fippy, but the instance itself has been around for quite some time. The quest rewards you with a pretty nice legendary tunic that was actually a slight upgrade from my mastercrafted leather.

I haven’t delved into too many quest zones with her yet, she’s played around some what in Antonica doing a lot of far seas requisitions and some of the easier ones, but a lot are too high yet. I did take her around the Down Below, and did a few quests in there (including the tunic one). Went out last night and watched Shrek3, that was a lot of fun, looking forward to seeing Pirates3 next weekend. The weather is beautiful and days are wonderfully sunny.

Crafting and other characters have pretty much been on hold while I relax and play my monk. I’ve been setting aside all of the coin she’s made from questing and loot in her bank, seperate from the coin she carries around daily. For some reason I want to keep track of how much coin you can make in this game just from simple questing. She’s up to 21g and some change so far, not too shabby for just getting started. Of course she is very nicely geared up but most of what she’s fighting is green anyhow. Qutey also finished the gnoll language and is almost done the lore and legend. Her home got a few more pretties, a pet cage and a few more books. More updates as the day goes on I’m sure!

Qutey, fae monk.. think she’s 7 here, floating her way over the cliffs in Butcherblock

I decided to start a new character yesterday night, wow what a surprise. I went with a fae monk, I absolutely love feign death and I wanted something that has solo capabilities because I don’t plan on grouping with her at all. At level 7 I left Kelethin and headed to Qeynos, knowing from the start that it was not where I wanted to spend the majority of my time. I learned a few new things. Well, I already knew fae had glide. I realized how much I love it though. I made it through Butcherblock with no agro and no deaths, floating down to the water off of the cliffs that have killed many of my other characters. You can see the docks off in the distance, much fun. I also learned that there is a Kelethin / Qeynos citizenship quest. If you’re from Kelethin and want to live in Qeynos (obtaining the call of Qeynos spell and the bind point spell) you do not have to betray. . . This was news to me, I had no idea. It also works the other way around if you want to switch your home from Qeynos to Kelethin. Apparently there will also be these sorts of quests for Freeport to Neriak and vice versa.

The quest reminded me of the end portion of the regular betrayal quest. I had to go pick up garbage from the Antonican Highway. Once I’d finished that I had to speak to some guards, and then speak to a few more people, and then pledge myself as a citizen of Qeynos. I worried about what would happen with my call spell but it was replaced for me and I also got the bind point skill automatically. Very nice feature. If I decide that Qeynos is no longer the place for me, I can move back home to Kelethin with the little monk. In the mean time, Qeynos will do.

Getting to level 10 was easy enough. I hung around the Peat Bog and Forest Ruins, and did every quest I could get my hands on. Once I hit 12 I turned off my combat experience, I decided when I made the monk that I would do a different type of grinding with this character. I gave her a set of mastercrafted gear, some rare dollies for the charm slots, rare weapons, and a bandolier. I also upgraded her skills to adept3, after all what fun is an alt if you can’t completely twink them out. I then set off to quest. Leaving my combat experience turned off. She hit 5aa easily enough, and is now level 14.. not bad at all for someone who doesn’t have combat experience on. She managed to get feign death, leaving her at a comfortable spot. I’ve completed about 70-80 quests on her, which is not too many yet. I want to finish off the few she has and then venture into the sewers to do more, on both the Qeynos and Freeport sides. I also want to take her back to Kelethin (damn it why didn’t I pick up the druid portal bush when I was there!) and complete the quests that I skipped over on my hasty departure to Qeynos.

I typically level up all my alts very fast. They hang around in the 20’s and 30’s long enough to farm RoV and CoI and RE, and then I boot them up to the 50’s with Obelisk. I box almost constantly on them. I don’t want to do that this time. I want to explore the content a little more in depth and play along quest lines that I’ve never seen of or heard before because I’ve been busy on my “main” characters. Will the monk ever get anywhere? Who knows. For now, she’s settled into a nice 1 room Inn located in the Baubleshire, some books and other knick knacks (a lab flask, what a wonderful quest that was!) scattered about, half unpacked. We’ll just have to see how things go.

I have.. a new toy and I absolutely love it. On the left hand side is what looks like your very general track window. But that’s not all, of course not. This track window is a little more unique then most. Instead of tracking mobs and NPC, it tracks harvesting resources. What’s more, is that as you can see by the ? and ! on the page, it will track shinies.

Where does such a wonderful item come from? Well, easy, it comes from tinkering of course, which is the funnest tradeskill I have attempted, even though it’s also the most annoying in so many ways. It uses so many dang resources I’m lucky if I get 20 skill ups off of 5 hours worth of harvests. Though I suppose that’s not so bad.

The gnomish divining rod – great for tracking harvests

Now, there is a little trick I use when I use this item. You can specifically track the items listed if you want, but that will close the track window and waypoint to your destination, meaning you have to wait two minutes before you can track again. Actually, the two minute count down is from the initial use of the machine. Anyhow, it’ll mark your map with an X on the destination.

But.

What I do, is travel through the zone with that track window open. See, tracking can work a number of ways. It can work alphabetically, it can also place all named mobs first for you no matter their distance in the zone, and it can also track by distance from you. If you run around the zone (lets say Feerrott for example since that’s where Stargrace has been playing with this machine) with the track window open, and see a node on track that you’re looking for, you can pretty much just gage how far away from you it is by the distance down the list. As you get closer to the node you want, it’ll raise up on the list until the closest node next to you is the one you want, and by that time it’s easy to find it and harvest it.

If you see no nodes in your area that you’re looking for (For example, take a look at that list, there’s no ore listed at all) you can travel around keeping track up until you DO see some ore on the list, and then just maneuver your way around until the ore is closer to you or until you see it and can harvest it.

There are of course downsides to this. Number one, people don’t like "cherry pickers". They’re the harvesters who leave all the "gross" things up like poor discarded shrubs, and quite often trees, and pelts. Taking just the metals and roots as their loot. It’s not fun to walk through a zone and have nothing at all up to harvest except things that are not for your craft. I typically do harvest everything except fish (I’ve never managed to even work that skill up… I know I know bad of me!) but some times not many people are around and I just want something specific.

Not to mention the fact that the harvest tracker is also great for finding those ? and !’s that are scattered through out Norrath. Especially in those zones where they’re hard to come by, Antonica and Commonlands where there’s just so much space to cover. Or the zones where they seem a little more rare, or well, just any zone for that matter.

So yes, I am enjoying my new toy and all the uses I have for it so far. Tinkering was a great choice for my "main" character illusionist. I have a transmuter already, and actually transmuting is not that useful. Because even if you work a transmuter up to 350, you need an actual specific crafter to make the adornments of your choice in most cases. The transmuter just makes the items the crafter uses. Does that make sense? My transmuter makes powders and shards and infusions, and then my other crafters take those and craft them into adornments specific for that class. One reason why I love having a lot of crafters, I can rely on myself for adornments and don’t have to fork over a lot of money to others to make the items for me. Anyhow, I hope everyone else’ weekend was absolutely amazing, on a personal note, the ottawa senators (where I live) made it to the Stanley Cup finals, and the city is super excited about that. I’m not the biggest hockey fan out there, but it is my city after all, so I have to show a little support *grins* sorry to hear about those leafs Cordanim.