Game Update #32 – EQ2

Game Update #32 February / 28 / 2007

*** General Gameplay ***

– The Fae Glide trait will no longer suspend when you zone into a dungeon while on a mount.
– Candle flames no longer go out on lower particle settings
– Items can no longer be looted into overflow using Tradeskill Harvest Bags.
– Adding items to collections now works when you also have that item in the bank.
– Fae should no longer be able to jump as high while wearing gnomish spring boots.
– Resolved some occasional time issues when switching zones (spell reuse timers, zone timers, etc).
– After years of humiliation the Boarfiend has been given some pants instead of just a loin cloth.
– Veil Hunters under the effect of Boon of the Veil will no longer continue to receive damage if they are killed in the Veil.
– You will now be asked to confirm leaving raid zones when you have a lockout timer.
– You can no longer queue spells while you are dead or knocked out. If you somehow manage to have a spell queued when you die, it will be cancelled when you resurrect.
– Using the /yell command in Emerald Halls, Inner Sanctum, Clockwork Menace Factory, and Freethinker Hideout will no longer break the encounter.
– To make his disciples more efficient in combat, Mithaniel Marr has reduced the size of the summoned Valiant Beast.
– Casting Escape in the ‘A Meeting of the Minds’ zone will now take you to Feerrott instead of Everfrost.
– The investigation skill should now only appear once you properly acquire it, which might take some investigation itself.
– Mentoring and deleveling should no longer cause you to go crash to character select.
– Mitigation adjustments from items and spells now offer protection and penalties much closer to the amount listed. Previously, lower level spells and items that granted mitigation bonuses would sometimes not offer any increase at all if the level difference was extreme enough. Now the bonuses scale properly by comparing the level of the item or spell versus the level of the player. For example: A level 70 Dirge casting the level 35 spell “Zander’s Choral Rebuff” will see an appropriate amount of mitigation decrease on the target now, whereas before that spell would have had no effect at all.
– Enemy Level is compared only once in determining mitigation adjustments and is now calculated before the mitigation diminishing returns curve is applied. This fixes situations where often plate armor’s longevity plummets much faster than lower mitigation armors against high yellow and low orange content.

*** Achievements ***

– Points spent in the Class achievement have been refunded.
– Achievement respec costs now start out at 10 gold, followed by 1plat and then cap at 10plat. 30 days after your respec the cost will reset to 10 gold.
– Obtaining the final ability in any Class achievement line will grant a new player title.
– Final abilities in the Class achievement lines have been reduced in point cost from 8 to 2. Point progression between rows of achievements have been adjusted to more evenly distribute the points between the rows and maintain most of the popular spec types that players had from before the update.
– The spell description for Cloaked Assault will now display properly after purchasing its enhancement achievement.

Bard:
– Coin Toss – Duration to trigger HO effect reduced from 3 to 1 second. Reuse time increased from 1 to 5 seconds.
– Harbinger’s Sonnet – Benefit is now directly tied to Selo’s without having to cast another spell, and slightly increase the non-combat movement speed.

Berserker:
– Perserverance will now double the in combat regen rather than adding 100.

Mystic:
– Enhance: Spirit of the Wolf – Reduced speed increase from 6% to 4%.

*** Spells & Combat Arts ***

General:
– Spells like Water Spirit that cause you to sink in water will no longer cause falling damage.
– Ammo will no longer be consumed when using a ranged combat art.
– Spell Casting time calculations will add/subtract modifiers before multiplying modifiers.
– Spell reuse will no longer exceed the amount it was prior to zoning or logging out.

Bards:
– Selo’s Speed of Sound, a new upgrade of Selo’s Accelerating Chorus is available at level 55.

Brawler:
– Increased defensive stance physical mitigation percent bonus from 20% to 25%
– Increased hybrid stance physical mitigation percent bonus from 10% to 12.5%
– Increased defensive stance minimum deflection chance from 7.5% to 10%
– Increased hybrid stance minimum deflection chance to 3.5% to 5%

Brigand:
– Double Up – Now works with Sinister Strike.
Conjurer:
– Plane Shift – Hydromancer pet’s size is increased. No more tiny water snake.

Dirge:
– Crypt’s Quiet – Increased triggered damage.
– Death’s Door – Increased triggered damage and percentage.
– Dissonance – Reuse time changed from 20 to 12 seconds.
– Noxious Chorus – Increased resist amounts.

Fury:
– The full description of the Fury spell Bristleskin will now display correctly.
Illusionist:
– Color Shower should now trigger procs correctly.

Troubador:
– Alin’s Keening Lamentation – Casting time changed from 3 to 2.5 seconds. Reuse time changed from 15 to 12 seconds.
– Arcane Chorus – Increased resist amounts.
– Elemental Chorus – Increased resist amounts.
– Performer’s Talent – Increased trigger percentage.

*** Items ***
General:
– The Spring Loaded Gnomish Stilts will no longer work while on horseback.
– Crude, shaped & worked versions of the Tailored Tranquil Dragon’s Breath Slippers now have the appropriate divine resist.
– The invisibility effect from Rhaondrilliis must now be activated to work, and can no longer be cast while under stun/stifle/mez. Casting time has been set to 2 seconds, with a reuse of 3 minutes.
– The tailored tranquil dragon’s breath blouse, shawl, pantaloons, mitts, cuffs, and cap should all now have the correct amount of divine resistance.
– The Circlet of Storms may now be transmuted or sacrificed.
– ‘Environmental’ is now spelled properly in the following items (and their effect text): Worn Arcane/Elemental/Noxious Environmental Suits, and the Full Body Arcane/Elemental/Noxious Environmental Suits.
– The worked version of the halasian boiling pot will now properly show the Handcrafted tag.
– The effect Dark Purpose from Band of the Chosen should now be functioning.
– The recipe for Ruinous Hesitation (apprentice) now consumes the proper number of rosewood and hanging root (5 each).
– You can no longer activate the Spring Loaded Gnomish Stilts while on horseback.
– Orb of Truth: When triggered, Healing Pulse will now heal the caster instead of adding additional healing to each heal cast.
– Orb of the Healer: When triggered, the caster of the spell is now the origin of Healing Wave.
– Dark Aura of Protection should now properly proc from Hoop of the Chosen.
– The ‘Arcane Feedback’ proc will now show the correct icon.
– The effect on the Blithe Bixie Cloak will now return power to the caster, instead of draining it.

Appearance Changes:
– Profession hats should no longer make you bald.
– The “Crested Mistmoore Shield” heritage item will now mount properly on the wall.
– “a small figurehead” house item should now place correctly against the wall.
– “a letter from the Dismal Rage” will no longer sink into the floor and table when placed.
– “a militia skull display shelf”, “a Coalition skull display shelf”, “a Dismal Rage skull display shelf” will now place properly when on a wall.
– ‘a Qeynosian wall sconce’ now places properly on the wall.
– The house item book ‘History of the Feir’Dal’ has an in-house appearance now.
– Many weapon drops in the Emerald Halls have been given unique appearances.

Tradeskill Related Items:
– All 1% tradeskill success modification items created through tinkering are now usable at level 20 instead of a range from 2 to 20. This will not impact characters who have the items, as to equip them, the character previously already needed to have the tradeskill class. This change, along with the two below should create a more level playing field for tradeskillers working through these levels.
– All 2% tradeskill success modification items created through tinkering are now usable at level 33 instead of a range from 33 to 41.
– All 3% tradeskill success modification items created through tinkering are now usable at level 54 instead of a range from 59 to 68.
– Tradeskill created Xegonite idols will now properly be equippable at level 62 instead of 67.
– Tradeskill hearths now have appropriate sounds when lit.
– The River Rock, Ashen and Sandstone hearths now all properly carry the ‘Handcrafted’ tag.
– The portable tradeskill devices may now all be used at level 41, rather than a range of levels from 41 to 47.
– Fixed a typo in the description for the Elaborate Stove & Keg prose.
– Crafting the pristine version of the Mechanized Platinum Repository of Reconstruction will no longer award one more xegonite than was required to make the item.
– Alder bookcases are now properly labelled mastercrafted rather than legendary.
– The last charge on the Gigglegibber’s Secret of Death will now work properly.
– The crude, shaped, and worked versions of the imbued adamantine warhammer now have the proper stats.
– Miscalibrated and Calibrated tinkered harvesting tools (such as automated shears) now require tradeskill level rather than adventuring level. This is consistent with the higher-level Overclocked tools.

Item Sets:
– The first bonus from the Necromancer Spirit Siphoning Set, Focus: Abate Life will now remove 200 power cost instead of adding.
– The Coercer EoF Force Itemset focus Impetus now adds 10dps, instead of haste.
– Coat of the Requiem – Focus: Luda’s Nefarious Wail II has had it’s damage modifier increased to 160.
– Robe of Dark Arts – Focus: Void Distortion II has had it’s damage modifier increased to 100.

Ammo:
– Ammunition just became less mysterious! Examining ammo will now show damage, range and accuracy modifiers.
– All store-bought ammunition now has a max stack size of 100. Previously it fluctuated between 99 & 100 depending on level.
– All tradeskilled ammunition now has a max stack size of 100. Previously it fluctuated between 99 & 100 depending on level.
– All tradeskilled ammunition recipes award 25, 50, 75, or 100 items depending on the tradeskill success.
– All tradeskilled ammunition should correctly show up as ‘HANDCRAFTED’ rather than ‘UNCOMMON’.
– Specific to arrows, the following changes have been made:
– Store-bought arrows have the lowest damage potential, range and accuracy.
– Ranger summoned arrows have mid-line damage potential, range and accuracy – these arrows have not changed from their current state on live.
Tradeskilled arrows now have the following properties:
– Broadhead arrows: High damage, low range, low accuracy, slashing damage type. (These arrows were formerly known as hunting arrows.)
– Bodkin arrows: Medium damage, medium range, medium accuracy, piercing damage type.
– Field point arrows: Low damage, high range, high accuracy, crushing damage type. (These arrows were formerly known as rounded arrows.)

*** Adornments ***
– You can now place adornments on imbued tradeskill weapons, armor and shields.
– No tradeskilled or store-bought ammunition may be adorned. All tradeskilled arrows should now have the ORNATE flag to reflect this.
– The initial damage on Flickering Molten Bindings has been slightly increased.
– Reduced the damage over time on the Sparkling Molten Bindings to be more in line with the other heat damage bindings.
– The effect on the ‘Xxxx of the Magi’ adornments will now properly state ‘Xxxx of the Magi’ rather than ‘Xxxx of the Pontiff’.
– Fixed an issue that was preventing adornments with procs triggered on casting from working.
– The Finesse of the Pontiff line of adornments should now properly reduce hate around the caster on successful heal casts. Note: The effect will only trigger while the caster is in combat.
– The Focus of the Pontiff line of adornments will now properly return power to the caster.
– The adornment ‘Reinforced Splint’ should now properly display as a legendary adornment.

*** Quests ***

New Quests:
– A quest line to go from Kelethin citizenship to Exile has been added. If you are level 10 or higher speak to Saelir Varryn in Greater Faydark.
– A quest line to go from Kelethin citizenship to Qeynosian citizenship without betraying has been added.This quest line begins with Duryo Valstat in South Qeynos.
– The first chapter of the Swords of Destiny quest line has been released.
– Shareth D’Frexin could use your help to retrieve something he lost in New Tunaria. He was last seen lurking about above the waterfall in The Greater Faydark.
– There is now a tradeskill tutorial quest for characters starting in Greater Faydark.
– New Lore and Legend Quests are available for Brownie, Bugbear, Clockwork, Kobold, Minotaur, and Werewolf.

Existing Quests:
– A goodly number of quests that involved heroic feats are now properly marked as heroic quests in the quest journal.
– Quests under level 10 will no longer give achievement xp.
– Greater Faydark (Kelethin): Whittier should now offer his quest again if you decline it the first time.
– Heritage: Cloak of Flames: Juna will now offer another Inert Leather Cloak at any time during the quest that requires it.
– Antonica: Attack of the Killer Bear: The Windstalker Grizzly will once again properly spawn.
– Beholders now count as Evil Eyes, as they are eyes… And evil… They will update the Evil Eye legend and lore quest and the mastery strike awarded from that quest will work on them.
– The quest items required for’The Heart of Gnome’ will now be removed from the player when the quest ends, as they should be.
– Bonemire: The Flame of the Corpse Candles: It is now possible to catalog the sated corpse candle for this quest.
– The quest “A Fallen Beauty” (both monk versions) may now be completed, even if the target NPCs have despawned. Simply speak with Jin Li again.
– The quest ‘Relics for Elurad’ is now flagged as heroic.
– Crystal and Stone golems now give auto update credit for Golem Lore and Legend quests instead of Elemental updates.
– All drakes in Kingdom of Sky are now considered drakota.

Tradeskill Related Quests:
– If a character deletes (accidentally or otherwise) any of the ‘Seeking a Profession’ (II to IX) tradeskill quests, they can now return to the questgiver and continue with their progress again.
– The quest ‘Seeking a Profession IV’ now requires a level 3 scroll be scribed (Light Strike) to match the quest level, rather than the level 5 scroll, Arcane Bindings.
– The tradeskill tutors for the Seeking a Profession IX quest will now properly tell players that they will need a Fashioned Lead Hoop instead of a malachite ring.
– Citizens of Kelethin may purchase the note to begin their tradeskill tutorial from Raclika. New characters will receive this note automatically upon logging in.

*** Tradeskills ***
General:
– The merchants Newman Hines and Garfa Gillgrinder will now properly sell incense for new crafters going through the tutorial.
– You will now get a failure message if you do not attempt to counter a tradeskill event.
– Numerous corpse items that claimed to be useable in crafting have had their description changed to remove this legacy data.
– You should now see an interrupted message when you move while transmuting.
– The tradeskilled cobalt hearths were renamed ‘ashen hearths’ to avoid confusion with needing cobalt clusters in their creation.

Commisioned Work:
– If a lore component is required for a recipe then the character commissioning work must provide it.
Recipes:
– The level 28 alchemist recipes (apprentice & adept) Essence of Barrage are now named Essence of Berserker Barrage to properly reflect the combat art they make.
– Fixed an issue where level 60 fighter spells created by alchemists wouldn’t properly return their rare components if combine completely failed.
– The recipe for Elddar’s Grasp is now correctly flagged as a level 64 recipe.
– Level 60 sage recipes in the volume 59 books for priest apprentice spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 sage recipes in the volume 59 books for priest adept spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 sage recipes in the volume 59 books for mage apprentice spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 sage recipes in the volume 59 books for mage adept spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 jeweler recipes in the volume 59 books for scout apprentice spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 jeweler recipes in the volume 59 books for scout adept spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 alchemist recipes in the volume 59 books for fighter apprentice spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– Level 60 alchemist recipes in the volume 59 books for fighter adept spells will now properly use 51-60 components/fuel instead of 61-70.
– The recipe for the Xegonite Wall Sconce now requires the use of a forge rather than a woodworking table as the other sconces do.
– The prose for the Metalworking art ‘Anneal’ now accurately reflects the effects of the spell.
– The prose for the Tailoring reaction art ‘Stitching’ now accurately reflects the effects of the spell.
– Tailor made crude/shaped/tailored/pristine woven etched leather armor now properly has a wisdom bonus instead of an intelligence bonus.
– The recipes for the Ornate Cambric Rug and the Horned Leather Rug now require a loom rather than a woodworking table as other rugs.
– ‘Old Fashioned Dwarven Wire’ now has an appropriate description.
– The recipe for cambric rugs now requires the use of a sewing table (or loom, if you prefer) rather than a woodworking table.
– The recipe for Amplify (Adept III) now correctly calls for copper instead of lapis lazuli.

Recipe Books & Scrolls:
– The Apprentice Blueprints 0.001 recipe scroll now has a slightly better progression for new tinkerers. The recipes inside the blueprint pack were all slightly reduced in level so that new tinkerers will have a recipe to create that doesn’t start out at ‘Very Hard’.
– The recipe for Minor Lucid will now properly show up in the level 4 artisan books instead of the level 3 books.
– Woodworker Essentials volume 24 now contains recipes for cold, disease, divine, magic, poison and mental imbued ash wands.
– Advanced Woodworker volume 25 now contains recipes for disease, divine, heat and magic imbued fir wands.

Writs:
– The 59 jeweler normal & rush order writs ‘My Precious!’ now display the proper icon for the nacre orb.
– Woodworker tradeskill writs which previously called for 150 arrows or thrown items now call for 600. This is the same number of pristine combines as before the recipe change. Where applicable, the writs also reflect the correct new name of the arrow type (broadhead or field point).
– Woodworker tradeskill rush-order writs which previously called for 75 arrows or thrown items now call for 300. This is the same number of pristine combines as before the recipe change. Where applicable, the writs also reflect the correct new name of the arrow type (broadhead or field point).
– Fixed a typo in the ‘A Little Rusty’ & ‘A Little Rusty (Rush Order)’ tradeskill writs.

*** Zones ***

Butcherblock:
– Dragoon V’Riv is no longer charmable.
Crushbone Keep:
– Players should no longer become stuck behind the flour sacks at location 32, -1, -41 in Crushbone Keep (no matter their size).

Crypt of Thaen:
– T’Rath the Usurper is no longer charmable.

Crypt of Valdoon:
– Players that go linkdead in the Crypt of Valdoon will no longer zone into Loping Plains when logging back in.

Emerald Halls:
– The Ancient Grovebeast in Emerald Halls will no longer make an untimely exit.
– Rare Tradeskill recipes can now be found in Emerald Halls.

Freethinker Hideout:
– Malkonis D’Morte will no longer abide cowardly behavior.

Kaladim:
– Kaladim ring events have had their termination timers removed.

Laboratory of Lord Vyemm:
– Uustalastus Xiterrax in the Laboratory of Lord Vyemm should no longer become stuck with both absorption shields up at the same time.

Lesser Faydark:
– A nasty werewolf spawn has been moved further away from a revival point in Lesser Faydark in order to avoid … unfortunate accidents.

Mistmoore Castle:
– Fixed an issue causing certain vampires in Mistmoore Castle to reaggro on you if you zoned out and back in.

Mistmore Catacombs:
– Werewolves in Mistmoore Catacombs should now drop corpse loot.

Pillars of Flame:
– Foresting in the Pillars of Flame will return the correct number of items gathered to the chat box.

Solusek’s Eye:
– Members of the Drednever Expedition in Solusek’s Eye should no longer attack pets.

Steamfont Mountains:
– Adventurers can now sell their loot to the Bloomhedge sisters and Lola Punwicket in the Steamfont Mountains.

The Caves:
– The creature dens in the Qeynos caves no longer report incorrect text about the object lessening to the chat box.

Thundering Steppes:
– Elowys Laceleaf in Thundering Steppes should have quest icons now.

*** PVP ***
– You can no longer charm a mob that is fighting a player if you are not grouped with them.
– Various crafted poison should now have proper chat window notification when used against players in PvP combat.
– In level limited zones, players will no longer be able to heal those outside their level range unless they are grouped together.
– Level ranges for the zone will now also display in chat when you zone and within the map window.
– The stun effect from Rain Caller has been reduced to 1 second in PvP combat.
– A number of spells such as Spores will no longer trigger when you are attacked by a player unless you engage the player that attacked you. This will prevent these spells from inadvertently limiting your ability to zone in PvP.

*** Classes & General Combat***
Dirge:
– Increased weapon autoattack damage to match Rogue tables.

Troubador:
– Increased weapon autoattack damage to match Rogue tables.

Guardian:
– Increased weapon autoattack damage to match all other Fighters tables.

Paladin:
– Increased weapon autoattack damage to match all other Fighters tables.

*** Poisons ***

– Increased other poison damage to better compete with Caustic Poisons.
– Hemotoxin – Increased tick count from 5 to 7. Damage per tick and total duration remain unchanged.
– Vitality – Small increase in damage.

*** Pets ***
– Pets will no longer run in-place on boats.
– All pet commands from Entertainment pet spells have been removed.
– Pets will no longer display in the tracking window.
– Tinkered temporary pets should no longer fail to cast when the last charge is used.

*** UI ***
– More items should be interactive with your default mouse click action without having to use the context menu, such as the pillars for the Intercepting Stones quest.
– Bag Windows are now resizable, re-shapeable, and now have options to modify the icon size and padding.
– If you use an Escape ability with a quest reward window showing, the reward will appear again after the zoning screen closes.
– Switching between ProfitUI and Default should no longer cause false version warnings.
– The recipe examine and tooltip text now contains the minimum and maximum number of items created.
– Chat command history will now persist between client sessions.
– You will no longer see “YOUR heals YOURSELF…” YOURSELF has been replaced by YOU.
– Questgivers that have a different faction than you do should no longer incorrectly show a quest icon above their head.
– When loading a set of hotkeys, any items that were in the hotbar when the configuration was saved will now load properly.
– You can now change the channel numbers in game using /setchannelnumber

. You must /camp out to save the settings, /exit or /quit may not save your changes.
– Equipment slots that are blocked due to adornments are now shown grayed-out in the tooltip and examine window.
– While using the broker, when you click on the ‘Advanced Search’ button the cursor focus should automatically jump to the ‘Advanced Search’ window.
– Examine info for items with castable abilities will now show any health or power requirements to use them.
– NPCs that change names will now update the target window if they are targeted when the name change occurs.
– When someone uses /afk , their response text when receiving a /tell will be “I am away from the keyboard, ” instead of just “”
– The tooltip of the “replenish” button now shows the remaining quantity and price instead of max stack size.
– Items in the interior customization window of your home will sort correctly by price.
– Several windows will now reset their filters when closed or after zoning.UI Authors: The embedded browser used for the petition window is available for your custom use. You can use /browser to open a URL directly like this: /browser forums.station.sony.com/eq2

Faction.. faction.. and yes! More faction!

Isn’t he just the cutest little thing?!

Took my necromancer through some simple Tanvu quests, managed to get to the portion where you need to prove your faith, and do a number of tasks, around the level 9-11 range. Half way through the quests, once I’d completed the very first portion for the Master and was on my way to complete the quests for the second Master, the faction suddenly changed, and needless to say they don’t look too kindly on me. I’m not even sure which faction these new quest givers are on, but I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say that they’re on the Lao’Jin Student faction. Which is currently sitting at a grand total of +17. A ways to go yet. Looks like I’ll be spending the next few levels killing the Ra’Jin in the stronghold just past Tanvu, since killing them not only boosts my Tanvu faction, but also that student faction.

Someone asked me why even bother with faction, why not play a race where faction grinding is not an issue (ie: Why be a dark elf and go through the hassle). Well. I actually feel slightly more accomplished this way. After all how many dark elves do you see wandering around Tanvu? The continents are huge, so I’m guessing you’ll see very few. I’ve seen a few orcs, no goblins yet though. So it gives me a small sense of being unique. I know I’m not, others are faction buffs too, but it’s fun for me none the less. 201 dynamic faction is not so unreasonable that I cringe (yet) at the idea. My only issue is that I wish quests rewarded faction, 99% of them do not.

As an amusing side note. This weekend, is double adventure exp weekend in Vanguard. The same weekend that Unrest is set to go live on EQ2. Coincidence? Conflict of interest? Slightly.

A different type of grind

A little tired of playing my blood mage lately, so I’ve switched a little to my necromancer. I didn’t like the dark elf starting areas, so I moved her to Tanvu. Of course being a dark elf, she’s KoS (killed on sight) to just about everything out there, so I had to do some faction grinding once I left the teleporter. A few things in Vanguard that I like regarding faction. Number one, teleporters are not KoS. So even if the city is, the porters are typically on a dock away from anyone else, and I won’t get squished trying to get to another continent. Another thing I like, you can actually work your faction by doing WO’s (work orders) – all of the npc for crafting are on their own factions, and they start as neutral to you. It gives you another way to work your factions up. Instead of doing that, I wanted to kill my way to non-KoS. You need 201 dynamic faction in order not to be KoS. So that’s only 201 kills (unless you’ve made the faction worse). I grinded away on easy little level 4 mobs out by the Tanvu starting area. In two hours I had the required faction, and I decided I may as well start doing all of the little quests, extra coin, boost up my quest count, and some items to sell, as well as working a bit more faction. I also like the fact that while I did work my Tanvu faction up, it did not lower the faction for my own home town. I know you used to need 501 dynamic faction, and I’m glad they changed it.

I picked up reaping and skinning, working those a little bit as I did those little quests. Figure I may as well be a tailor. Make some bags for all of my alts, and gear to wear. My duo partner and I had a sort of falling out, so I logged off early for the evening. No fun to play a game when the majority of the time is spent fighting.

The Rp server I’m on is fairly populated still, and I like that. If the population stays the way it is, I’ll be happy. If it shrinks though that would be a fairly bad sign. EQ2’s “unrest” zone is due the 2nd of March, so next Friday. Not sure if that will help to bring players back to the game or not. Lucan really needs to merge with AB for the population to flourish. Too many people have left that game over the past few months.

So while I cool my heels (heals?) on the blood mage, I’m going to craft a little (hopefully) and maybe play some alts. We’ll see how it goes.

Hrms.. that doesn’t look right

Satia, in.. some sort of weird military goggles?

The above image is what happened to my screen once I’d gone through one of the ‘invisible’ zones yesterday morning, the whole screen turned to a nice bright pink, with a dark blue sky. Relogging fixed this issue, /flush failed though. It’s these issues and more that are going to hurt the population of Vanguard. When you log in at character selection, it says the population of each server. Out of the ones listed – only 3-4 are ever flagged as high, on the weekend I watched to see what it was like, no difference from the week days. I’d have expected the servers to be jam packed with people it’s only been a month since release.

Of course it’ll be interesting to see who stays once that free month of play runs out (mine should be up within the next couple of days, though I do have station access starting for both EQ2 and Vanguard as soon as it does). Etching knives work again, some saws do not. Crafting clothing was not being recognized at all. Every day there is a restart where small issues are fixed (with no patch notes, so we’re never sure what exactly is being fixed) but in all honesty, I don’t think Vanguard is going to survive. It will be a pleasant game for people to play with a small population of those who were fed up with EQ2, but I expect a majority will move on to other games. Not saying that I hate Vanguard, just that people are getting tired with paying for this beta version of the game. They could have had something really great, it’s a shame that they had to rush to release.

I didn’t play much yesterday, completed one quest and then logged off for the day. I wanted to get some diplomacy and crafting done, we’ll see how it goes.

A much better day

Rask, fast asleep after a long day of questing

Today was a far better day. Thanks to some tinkering from Shadowgeist, my computer finally doesn’t hate Vanguard quite as much. I also didn’t spend the day bickering with Rask over petty things that don’t matter. He and I spent most of the day questing around the Misthaven area, and Satia hit 20 (he hit 21, grats!). I really wish we could hold more then 20 quests at a time, I’ve had to delete a whole bunch to move onto the new ones in order not to be left behind. A very annoying thing to do. Especially since some times I’m worried I won’t be able to get the quests again (such as diplomacy ones). Speaking of diplomacy, I’ve pretty much done nothing but quest and level the past week, so it’s been put on hold. As have my beloved alts, but that’s alright I’m sure I’ll get back to them. Today’s big news: Etching knives work! People are happy. Yes, my crafting has been at a stand still too, what can I say.

I attempted to make a bard today, curious about how they work because in my Tsang dungeon group one joined up and they can do some pretty cool things. They’re complicated. You compose your own songs (you can even write the title and description for each song, wow how is that for in depth role play!) the only issue is – no one teaches me HOW to compose these songs. I managed to play around with a little flick and twitch of buttons but how do I even know how many songs I can play at once? Is there a limit? One “main” portion of a song at any time with a choice of secondary accompanying pieces? Seems to be something along those lines. Until I can figure it all out, I think I’ll attempt to level my psionicist – maybe. Still so many choices. The bugs and graphic glitches seemed like just a distant memory today, hanging out with my friend (and not fighting) was certainly a huge bonus. I’m happy, it shows what can I say. It’s a huge difference to go from playing at 10-15 FPS (max, in an open field, third person) to going and playing at 30-50 FPS (in that same field, in third person). The largest difference is in town. I still stutter at times but I know now it’s not me, everyone has those stutters on occasion. Especially with those “invisible” zone lines.

Geregor: I saw you today in Silverlake! I buffed you and you shouted thank you as you rode by, I sent a tell and told you hello but didn’t get an answer, so maybe you were in a rush. Always nice to see though! I was on Satia.

Anyhow. More updates tomorrow, for now, some sleep!