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Daybreak went ahead and opened up a time locked server for EverQuest 2 last week and so of course I found myself on the Isle of Refuge with a new baby coercer. All I kept thinking about was what on earth I thought I was doing. EQ2 had been ‘my game’ since it released. I wrote about it more on this 10 year old blog than I did any other game. I met friends in the game, and formed lifetime bonds. Heartache. I raided for a few years before determining that I was no longer interested in it, mostly because I didn’t have a ‘main’ character and I felt lost. Me and EQ2, we go way back. I never had dreams of recapturing how things were ‘way back then’ because lets face it things change and once you know how to do something in a video game you can’t exactly forget it and pretend that you never knew how but what I was hoping for involved a populated server, with a crowd that wasn’t bent on soloing all of the content along with their mercenary. That has been the roughest issue with going ‘back’ to EQ2 – or any game for that matter. People are content to play on their own, or only with people that they know. They’re rarely forced into situations where meeting new people or grouping up must occur in order to progress.

I created a coercer hoping that maybe (if I was very lucky) I’d be able to find others to play with, and perhaps meet new people to play with. So far the attitude of other players on the server is very different than what I experienced over in EQ1 on the progression server. Everyone seems pretty excited, happy, and most of the chat is filled with questions and people reminiscing about how long it has been since they played. Others are playing for the first time, there’s nothing quite like a brand new market and everyone starting at zero to inspire others to give it a shot. This is true for every single game I’ve ever played. Give players a fresh slate, and they will come in droves. I heard an amusing quote from someone stating that Daybreak took away our loyalty points, our fast experience, our mercenary, and all the work we have done in the past – and we thanked them for it and came to the server in masses. They’re right, too. The idea makes me giggle.

I also created 8 alternate characters. Crazy, right? Well, I’ve always been a crafter and I imagine I will once again (if I decide to stick this out, we’ll see). I enjoy being able to craft everything I want for my characters, and it gives me something to do. Even if it is slow.

Right now my coercer is level 21, and she’s a level 20 provisioner. I haven’t found a guild to join yet – well, that’s not exactly true. I did join a guild but they ended up not being a very good fit. No one was on except recruits and even then people did very little together and didn’t talk much at all. I decided to move on. Should I be less picky? Maybe, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing to be picky.

Leveling is much slower than the EQ servers. No one has reached level 50 yet, but there are some mid 30s and maybe some 40s. I know this post has been all over the place, but I’m hoping to continue posting on a regular basis and talk about what I’m actually doing in game (quests, etc). I haven’t been regular with my blog posts for a few months since there’s just always so much going on. Maybe this is my chance.

Xanadu’s Problem with Spawns

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I own two deeds, one in the South Eastern section of Xanadu, and the second is North Central. Each deed is completely unique from the other, and I use them for different things. The Northern one is for my priests to hang out at, it has a large area for animals, fields for farming, a robust kitchen, and the deed is completed so the priests need to only be concerned with repairing things and making sure there’s 30 days of upkeep stashed aside.

The Southern deed is still a work in progress. This deed is constantly changing and I haven’t decided what I actually want to do with it yet. It has the larger mine, is closer to my alliance members, and functions very nicely.

That being said, there is one distinctive characteristic that the Northern deed has that the Southern one lacks, and that is aggressive creatures. In fact when I used my ‘get info’ skill to tell me about the aggressive creatures in the area, the Southern deed showed absolutely ZERO aggressive mobs. Meanwhile, my second deed displayed 239 mobs on track, and that was after a handful of players had been hunting in the area. The lower portion of Xanadu has been well known for the lack of aggressive creatures while they seem to swarm the further North you go. There’s a seven paged thread on it active on the forums, but no word about whether or not this issue will ever actually be fixed. It has been a problem since Xanadu opened.

I find it frustrating that in order to get any hunting done you need to either attack the non-aggressive creatures that are around, or you need to own a hunting lodge (or completely move) to the Northern parts of the server. If neither of those options suit you, you can always go hunting on another server, but of course that takes up even more precious time.

It shouldn’t be this difficult to get aggressive creatures spread throughout the server and I really hope one day we see a solution. In the meantime, I’m thankful I have two deeds.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Even When You’re Experienced, It’s Dangerous

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Oh Wurm. I decided I’d go out hunting for a bit. I wanted to re-stock some natural substance supplies and so I decided to take a large cart so that I could fill it with corpses. My character has over 70 fight skill, drake armor, and a weapon that has great enchants but could use some improving to take it to a higher level (hence why I’m working up my weapon smithing). Problem is I completely forgot that carts move much slower than just plain riding a horse. That, and I didn’t have my best speed horses attached to it. So when I was tired of beating up critters I decided that I would just “run away” from anything that was following me. Nope. That most certainly did not work.

What I ended up with instead was over 6 trolls chasing me, along with their friends which included various spiders, hellhounds, crocodiles, bears, wildcats, and scorpions. I decided I would just stay on the road I was traveling and that hopefully I would run into a settlement that either had a gate, a guard tower, or a templar, but no, the entire road that went on forever was devoid of any of these things. As you travel on an incline you also move even slower, so eventually I just gave up and let the inevitable happen. I just could not shake the creatures that were tailing me.

Once I died and revived myself back at home (minus all gear, horses and cart) I decided to go back, and this time I’d take my fastest horse. I didn’t bother with any gear, this time I knew I’d be able to out run anything that was coming after me. Since I had pretty much already cleared the path, it wasn’t too hard. It did take me a good 20 minutes to run back out to where I had died, but in the grand scheme of things I didn’t mind. Sure, I could have summoned my corpse back using karma – but then I would have lost the horses. What I decided to do instead of taking the very slow cart all the way back home was to unhitch my two horses, and lead them while riding my fastest. This allowed me to gather up all of my belongings, and leave behind a mystery cart for someone else to find (and it’s packed with corpses but nothing else). I simply did not want to risk dying again. Each time you die you lose a bit of skill, and I had had enough.

After a long adventure with nothing at all to show for it aside from my bumps, bruises, and lost skill, I made it back to my deed. Needless to say I’ll be sticking closer to home in the future, and I’ll kill as I go instead of trying to out run all the things around my place.

Adventures with Nahjo

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People on Xanadu have taken to calling one of the latest religions Nacho, when referring to Nahjo, and I can understand why. Make it much easier to remember and say! In my post yesterday I mentioned that I was contemplating swapping my Fo priests over to this new religion. The most important thing is that this re-sets your faith (favor, mana) and you have to start over again. First you have to become a follower and raise it to 30, then you can be converted to a priest and continue raising it from there. That’s where I’m at now. I found a priest not too far away from home and sailed over last night. They converted me without too many issues, and I headed back home.

Actually the hardest problem with being a follower of Nahjo was creating an altar. I can’t create a metal one because those require blessing (which requires a priest), and the stone altars can only be created in an area that doesn’t already have a priest ‘domain’ in play. I eventually settled on an area inside my mine. Above and below ground counts as two different areas, so you can place an altar in each. Since neither character is a priest it means I can do the mundane things that priests are unable to do (like continue items) at least for the next few weeks. By the end of the day my faith was sitting at 7, a nice start.

Magnaron statues are the statue of choice for Nahjo followers, so I created a few of those and handed them out to my characters as well. Aside from standing around making sure I get my prayers in, there’s not a lot for these characters to do *yet) so I swapped back to my main character and began working on my natural substance.

I created 300 healing covers and raised my skill from 32 to 37, and am looking forward to reaching 50 eventually. The skill levels up pretty easily so far, but I expect that will slow down. It’s a great use of the few thousand animal bits I have in a bulk storage bin on deed though, and I’m hoping to make some really awesome dye over time. That does mean that my support beam project is slightly on hold for a bit, but I’m still hoping to create the side materials used for it. No matter how ‘done’ I ever think I am in game, there are always so many things to do. That’s one of the great things about Wurm Online.

Not a Game for the Impatient

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I have some goals in Wurm that I’ve been trying to accomplish, and because I am a naturally impatient person, I’m finding them more and more difficult. For example, I made the decision to swap my Fo priests over to one of the newer religions, Nahjo (or Nacho, as they’re calling the deity on Xanadu). Nahjo priests can cast strongwall as well as genisis and courier. That means that if I could eventually level up my faith (and thus favor) I wouldn’t need all three of the base priests to do what I want to do, I could just keep my Vynora along with a Nahjo (or two, for linking). The problem is that in order to swap my character’s religion, I need to find an actual follower and have them convert me. Then I need to have a priest convert me when I hit 30 faith (in a month or so). Finding people who are in proximity to my priests and who are on at the same time as me is a daunting task, especially when I want things done yesterday.

Skills are another thing that raise incredibly slow – which is one of the reasons I love Wurm but also tests my patience. The game is certainly not for everyone. For those who are willing to put in the time, the rewards are fantastic (IMO, as someone who enjoys the game of course).

Speaking of yesterday, my main character (Stargrace) is in a bit of a bind, which should get sorted out by the end of today hopefully. I recently made a friend 11 sets of tools for alts, joined his village and used my karma to port there to deliver them. Then there’s a 24h waiting period before you can join another village, so I’m waiting for that to pass so I can port myself back home. I really should raise my meditation skill high enough so that I can port myself every 12 hours without using karma (path of knowledge). It will take me quite some time to get it that high, but had I been doing it all the time that I played Wurm I’d be there already. I just dislike having to meditate, for whatever reason. Most of my characters stop when they’re on rank 7.

Once Stargrace is safe and sound back home, it’s back to working on support beams to reinforce the mine that links my deed with those of my main alliance team. We have an enormous tunnel that links our deeds (though it is not yet completed) and portions of it keep collapsing, so I’d like to get that fixed before too long. Aside from that, it’s just general skill leveling going on while I wait for the impalong to begin. I haven’t decided if I’m going to bring any raw materials yet, but I’ll probably donate some depending on what they need.

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