Category: Gaming

Yesterday was a really tough day. My little guy has been going through colic and yesterday was one of his more difficult days with it. Colic is just another word for ‘unexplained crying’ – where you’ve taken care of the basics for your little one, and they still cry, for what seems like no apparent reason that you can figure out. Burped. Bathed. Fed. Changed. Bounced. Walked. Talked. Sang. Swung. You try all of the tactics in your arsenal and for whatever reason your baby decides to keep on wailing. Sometimes for hours.

So that was Leo.

Then I found out my hematoma that I’ve been dealing with since September is once again infected. To be blunt this absolutely wrecked me. I’ve been trying so hard to heal up and get rid of this wound that I’ve had since my c-section that it just made me burst into tears to see it this way again. It took me three weeks last time to have my doctor finally prescribe some antibiotics and I’m not sure I even have the strength to go through that argument with him again. I have nurses coming tomorrow to look at things (they’ve been coming every two days and then twice a week ever since it happened) and I’ll see what they say.

To say I was in low spirits would be an understatement.

Then I received a very nice letter from a random person on steam, and along with it a game from my steam wishlist. This person had “known” me since I started writing about EQ/EQ2 many years ago (2017 will be my 11th year) and they wanted to let me know that they appreciated my posts. I don’t write a lot of controversial stuff, so my posts tend to remain without comments or discussion but I have always simply written for myself and the simple joy of writing. I have met some wonderful people through my blog over the years, and I have received my share of whispers and tells and notes from those who have followed along.

This note (and game) came at a time when I was feeling pretty low about things. We had heard that Carrie Fisher passed away, as well as the Author of Watership Down. 2016 has not been a kind year. In 2017, I’d like to see more kindness. To ourselves. To each other. To strangers. It’s kindness like the one I mentioned above that keeps people going, keeps them believing, keeps them pushing on when their day to day lives may be difficult.

It’s pretty easy to be kind in a video game setting, and that’s something I want to do more of moving forward.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

My necromancer hasn’t been around for very long but I already have a list of things I wanted to complete on the character starting with my fabled epic which I completed a few days ago. The necromancer epic is incredibly simple. It requires no factions and just a handful of old dungeons. Once I had the fabled, I went to the mythical. That one required Protector’s Realm, Leviathan, and Nexona from Veeshan’s Peek. I mentored down and completed them all solo without too much issue.

After that it was time to start Epic Repercussions, and that quest probably took me the most amount of time, but I got it completed this morning. Now the necromancer is set to begin her 2.0 whatever that entails. Since she’s “new” there’s lots of faction and language work that I haven’t done on her yet. I also want to work her up as a provisioner. I do already have a level 100 provisioner but she’s on Maj’Dul which isn’t much use to me these days.

I leveled the carpenter to 100, bringing my crafters to 5/9 at level 100.

Next up? Probably working on the signature line for the previous expansion. There’s an ethereal I can get if I complete both that signature line and the one for Kunark Ascending. I’m not sure how long it is or how complicated but hopefully it’s not too bad. I’m still using twark gear in my off-hand, so completing this and getting the ethereal would be really nice. Then it’s back to faction work in KA.

Busy busy!

This post is in response to one I read over at Inventory Full and it probably won’t offer any useful information at all, but I did want to explain how I manage my time these days in order to be able to complete what I can in EQ2.

I “play” roughly two hours a day. I put quotes around play because I’m actually in game all day long. I have EQ2 set up on my MacBook Pro which I keep beside the couch, and the couch is basically where I live as I nurse the newborn / his change table is nearby / Netflix is nearby / etc. So when I’m nursing or doing something else I can still watch chat and while I may not actually be moving my character around, I can type on-handed, or my husband can drag me around an instance and I can hit accept for loot. I don’t consider this actively playing though.

What it comes down to is time management. It takes approximately one hour to grab the quests and run through every solo and advanced solo dungeon in KA (it takes myself as a necromancer and my husband as a wizard this amount of time, your time may vary). That leaves one more hour for whatever else happens to catch my fancy that isn’t group related, because on Antonia Bayle at least there’s no way I’m going to find a group in that time or complete a dungeon. Normally I just end up crafting or running through older instances. There are so few people on Antonia Bayle that the Jarsath Wastes PQ has failed multiple times now since the recent changes (the statue stays kneeling for less time than before). I do still manage to complete the PQs a few times a day though, since I’m logged into the game all day long and they respawn every two hours (approx). I complete each of them maybe three times. I typically leave my character in the guild hall transportation room or in JW / Fens in order to be right where the action is when it goes live. I can do all of that one handed, or have the husband move my characters for me.

Do I think the expansion was worth the cost? For the basic version, yes, I certainly do. I’m getting more than my monies worth out of it and I think the value is great, especially because there IS a lot of content – it’s just content that you have to repeat, every day. How many times do you want to run through the exact same solo / advanced solo dungeons before you get bored of it. The signature line takes my characters two or three days to complete, and I have 7 level 100 characters. I was also disappointed that Daybreak didn’t add any bonus experience or any Frostfell sales over the holidays, it just felt very un-festive.

That being said, there’s lots of things I’m not currently working on that I should / could / will one day work on. I need to complete the Thalumbra signature line on a few characters still. I kept up with crafting on that one, but not adventuring. I still haven’t completed all of the Frostfell quests. The Mushroom Grotto event was a bust (for me) since it doesn’t last enough time, and of course the holidays are busy for everyone.

With the spare time that I DO get in game, I make sure I know what I’m doing and I run off and do that right away because I don’t know how long that time will last. Lately that includes farming one very specific solo dungeon when my timers are up because an item there sells on our server for 150k (charm with 1k potency). I could really use that sort of cash.

Anyway. That’s how I’m spending my time these days. Again please do feel free to drop me a hello in game! I’m on Antonia Bayle as Stargrace / Quails / Mousical – it may take me a few to respond if I’m not actually around but in most cases I have no issue watching the chat scroll by. Helps to make me feel a bit more human instead of a constant milking machine…

Happy gaming! No matter where you find yourself.

I mentioned in my previous post that I don’t have a lot of free time and that what free time I do have is pretty sporadic, so I can’t really LFG in EQ2 to any great extent. The thing is, I WANT to play more, and I want to do group content, and I want to experience all of that. I just can’t, at least not right now.

So how do I progress my character in the meantime?

Well, in Kunark Ascending that means a lot of solo and advanced solo dungeons. Over and over. I pass the gear to my alts, and when the alts are full I salvage or transmute it.

It means doing the signature line, getting my ethereals, and then working on ascension which is pretty easy because it just requires experience. Doing the public quests in Jarsath Wastes and Fens of Nathsar contribute a huge chunk of that daily.

Then there’s faction grinding (pretty boring) key quests (timed, I can’t always do these), and the crafting grind which includes more factioning. There’s collecting status and leveling the guild, and – well. That’s about all I’ve found to do, aside from some meta achievements like running old zones, collecting shinies, or trying to make coin. Truth of the matter is that without the time to dedicate to first finding and then completing group dungeons there’s not a whole lot I can do. This game isn’t like world of warcraft, with queues and LFRaid. It’s one thing I really miss about WoW. No matter how much (or how little) time I had I felt as though I could still experience a large portion of the expansion and I didn’t have to dedicate more than an hour here and there to it. In EQ2 there’s no way for me to participate in any raids at all and so most zones are places I will only see if they turn them into a non-combat zone (has happened a few times, Daybreak is pretty good at re-using zones).

Does this make me sad? Does it bug me that I paid for a subscription to a game where I can’t actually experience all of the content it has to offer?

Not really. I knew what I was getting into. I knew I wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to it that I might once have had. It won’t always be that way, either. In the meantime I’ll live vicariously through those who are doing the group content and go back to my crafting.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!