Gaming – Page 402 – A Pixel Nomad

Time for More of Blightfire Moors #EverQuest #EQ

Crescent Reach was starting to look a little small, most of the encounters were blue or easier, so the decision was made to head to Blightfire Moors, which is also a hot zone. This zone is packed full of snakes, shrubs, and prowling cats. We set up a camp near the entrance to begin with, and picked off bog rats and rats until we completed two simple quests that were on a sign just outside Crescent Reach. Turning them in didn’t net very much experience, but it was still better than nothing.

Eventually we moved on to a small camp of gnolls. These came in packs of three and we were almost defeated numerous times but some how managed to pull through by the skin of our teeth. Leveling was going really well, and before I knew it my Barbarian Beastlord was 20, along with the shadowknight.

Once we had our fill of gnolls, we moved on to some wild cats. These were far too tough for us. They are social and before we knew it we had about 10 cats chasing us around. Poor Oger fell to their vicious bites twice, while I ran away like a chicken to the nearest zone line. Always saving myself. Thankfully I also had the healer mercenary, so I came back and gave him a rez. After two wipes at this camp we decided to move on to killer shrubs.

The shrubs were also social but easier to handle even when they conned red. A few more dings, and we both found ourselves sitting at level 25. Only 75 more levels to go before we reach the current EverQuest cap of 100.

I decided to explore the bazaar a bit, it has changed over the years. You can now set up a trader in offline mode, but it doesn’t work the way I thought it would. What you do is set yourself up with trader satchels like you would if you were staying online, and when you click the trader window to offline mode, it kicks you from the game. You are only allowed to have 1 character total per account in offline mode, and you can’t be connected to the game while you are offline selling. So it’s great before you go to bed, or if you’re going to work for the day, but not if you want to be around in-game or on another character. I haven’t checked to see if I’ve sold anything yet, but a handful of plat would be nice because mercenary costs are going up. I’m now up to over 2 plat every 15 minutes to hire one.

Even though I’ve “started over” on a new server, veteran players are at a significant advantage over a brand new player. See, veterans earn loyalty points the longer their accounts are active, and I’ve racked up over 5,000 of these points. You can use them to purchase bags of plat, gear, a character slot, and house items as well as a handful of other things. I love loyalty points and I think it’s a great motivational tool to keep your loyal customers feeling special. I did spend 500 points on a bag of platinum, and received 17,000 plat. That goes towards keeping my mercenary paid for. I also had a mount in /claim and a package of level appropriate defiant gear in /claim, so I took advantage of those. I’m still missing a lot of gear, but I’m not wandering around the Moors naked any more at least.

I think the plan is to stay at the Moors for a bit longer and then move on. I’m also going to begin crafting in Crescent Reach with the ‘free’ crafting they have for players to work their way to 50 in all tradeskills for no cost. These mimic the quests you can do at Abysmal Sea. It may also be time to find a casual guild to join, we’ll just have to see.

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

From 8 to 13 in Crescent Reach #EQ #EverQuest

Crescent Reach, our home away from home once the tutorial was completed. Now, I know traditionally you would start in your race specific home cities, but this day in age you can choose between that city and Crescent Reach, which has a lot of nice beginner quests and is relatively close to POK and other amenity, so that’s where we started out. The evening began at level 8, I had just picked up my very first pet spell. I finally felt like a beastlord. We decided to explore a bit and picked up a variety of level 1 quests that are available. This is also a new thing for EQ, as most of the game was played without any quests at all, and certainly not a quest journal (you can access it via alt + q) detailing all the steps. It felt a bit weird not scribbling down directions on scraps of paper that I would quickly lose.

The quests didn’t reward much experience, but we did rack up a handful of plat which was important to me because spells are going to get pretty expensive. We also got a few odds and ends of gear, although I’m still sporting a club I found on the ground. Because we’re starting over on a new server we’ve got no coin, and being able to afford spells later on may become an issue. Oger also realized he was going to need bone chips to summon his skeleton pet, so we spent some time collecting that.

Finally it was time to burn lesson and get a few levels. We’re still working on the bears and pumas, but eventually graduated to the harder skeletons and alligators. I almost thought I was going to get a new beastlord weapon (remember, when a mob is holding a weapon you can physically see it in a lot of cases) but it ended up being a quest piece instead. Hopefully I have a bit more luck getting a weapon tomorrow.

By the end of the experience buff running out we were 13, I had a bunch of new spells, and also a handful of hero’s forge armor. This stuff is for appearance slots that EQ added not too long ago. The problem is you have to unlock the ability to wear hero’s forge armor per character, via the marketplace. I have not yet decided if I’m going to unlock it on this new character, but it’s looking like I probably will. I have a surplus of station cash at the moment, and I do like the gear. I’m just reluctant because it’s per character, and I’ve already purchased the ability to wear appearance gear on a character that I haven’t been playing.

I’m looking forward to moving out of Crescent Reach and onto a new zone. I haven’t any idea what the hotzones are these days, but I do plan on looking into it. That will probably be the next adventure, we’ll just have to see!

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

Hedge Mazes and Gazebos – Oh My #WurmOnline

I’ve been spending some time working on my deed Mystic Cove, that’s the coastal deed on Deliverance. I tore down a bunch of horse pens that I had in the back after deciding that I didn’t want to breed a lot of animals there (I do horse breeding at Cirque instead) and took down an old wooden well I had, and placed this fancy new fountain. Then I created an arched 1×1 building over it, and ta-da, gazebo. I attached some torch lamps to the corners to light it up, and then proceeded to pave the surrounding area with a nice cobble path (in the screen shot above, it’s still dirt). I made a nice winding path around the gazebo and out the back gate, planted a willow bush and a few rose bushes, and I still have hopes of some time adding a small hedge maze in the area. The problem is hedges need 5 sprouts of the same tree per hedge, so that’s a lot of harvesting sprouts. I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

In other news, I also finished the shipyard building that was on my dock. This was my first multi story project, and while it looks like nothing more than a square building 4 floors high with a 1×1 stone building on the very top surrounded by castle walls, I’m still quite pleased with it. Moumix has been busy with real life so there have been no ships built there in quite some time, but when I get the urge at least there’s a nice area completed.

I’ve recently taken my 3rd character Faralithe over to the Independence server to “deed sit” for a friend who has been whisked away due to real life. She’s repairing bits and bobs that need looking after, while he’s getting ready to move. The deed is lovely and it’s a nice change of scenery when I spend most of my time these days on Deliverance.

My next project is to collect the materials required to build a guard tower at Cirque, there’s a lot of wild animals that come visit up there, and Arysh doesn’t have the mighty 70 fight skill that Stargrace has, although she does have a very nice rare steel weapon. My masonry is about to hit 60 which is pretty nice, although not quite as useful as some other skills it does help to be able to improve forges, ovens, and stone altars to 70.

Almost Happy Birthday EverQuest #EQ

It’s coming up on EverQuest’s 14th birthday, this March (16th, to be exact). I always like to delve back in around this time of year to see what new things are going on as far as birthday events, and this year is no different. Well, it’s slightly different. I managed to convince a friend to also return to the game with me this round, and so we decided to start on a completely new server, from scratch.

I looked at the SOE status page to figure out where we should play, home server is Drinal. After a bit of debate we decided to go with Firiona Vie, the roleplay server. This server is a bit different than regular ones. Number one, characters are created knowing their ‘home’ languages, and no others. That means in order to communicate in group you need to learn other languages first. So the first few moments in game were spent making macros so our characters could talk to one another. There are some other differences on the server, like items not carrying the ‘no trade’ flag, and the ability to place those items for sale on the broker.

The general channel was bustling with over 400 people which was really great to see. A quick decision NOT to complete the Mines of Gloomingdeep (again) meant that we were off to Crescent Reach at level 2 (I wanted to stick around the tutorial long enough to pick up the skull charm that characters can get).

While we are starting on a new server without an influx of older characters to provide us with bags, gear, and coin, we do have the knowledge that we’ve acquired over the years. As well as veteran rewards. This really came into play tonight. We turned on our lesson of the devoted which is a boost in XP and hired two mercenary (one each). A dps and a healer. It wasn’t long before we were level 8 – and I purchased my first beastlord pet. Oger is playing a shadowknight.

Despite our knowledge of the game, and veteran rewards, things were still tricky. Oger died once due to an over excited bear, and I decided that I’d summon a miniature Bristlebane who promptly gave me wine and bread – and like a fool I took a bite of each. This poisoned me with a dot which normally wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I had switched out my healer mercenary for a tank one, and I was unable to switch back unless I could be in the “resting” position in game. You can’t properly rest with a dot on you. I couldn’t cure it with my low level cure disease, so I slowly bled away until I died.

Still, it was a great adventure getting to level 8, and I’m excited to see where this takes us. EQ holds a very special place in my heart, and I’m constantly trying to get others to come back and play with me. Who knows, maybe this time it will stick.

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

Games I’m Currently Playing #EVEOnline #GW2 #WoW #WurmOnline

I’ve got four games on my plate lately, and I can’t help thinking about what each one adds to my over all ‘wants’ out of an MMO.

First, I’m still playing Wurm Online. Sandbox game where you can shape the world around you, but the game requires a LOT of time and dedication and that time only rises if you incorporate things like animals into game play. See, animals need food. Grass eventually becomes packed, and thus animals can starve. Also everything in-game aside from your personal inventory can decay. If you take off for a week it’s not that big of a deal, but any longer and your virtual items in game are going to suffer. Lately this has been more and more of an issue for me, feeling ‘tied’ to a game is a good way to make me not want to play it. I shouldn’t feel like I’m going to lose my time investment if I have to step back from playing for a little while. Still, this game just reaches out to me and it’s held my attention far longer than I would have thought when I first started playing.

Second I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2. I think this game is fantastic, especially since it has no subscription in order to enjoy it. Buy the box, and play it like a single player game if that’s your preference. Of course then you get to level 80 and realize that there’s no way for you to do dungeons unless a mass of your friends are playing OR you PUG them. Plus these are not your typical dungeon where everyone has a role and can act on it. There are no tanks no healers you’re all just bodies and it can be a whole mass of confusion and a lot of deaths. It’s a game where (imo) there’s a lot of ‘go go go’ constantly happening. There’s very little relaxing I can do, if I want to harvest I’m going to have to engage in combat, there’s typically always a mob or event going on by every node I come across. Beautiful lands, with a lot of puzzles and vistas, and yes I could work on zone completion in the cities, but it’s still not the quiet I look for.

I’ve recently resubscribed to EVE Online using some plex I had stored up. EVE scratches my sandbox urges as well as the quiet time I look forward to, or exciting ‘go go go’ time if I feel like it via PvP and missions. It’s almost the perfect game for me, except as much as I love EVE I’m not a giant fan of science fiction – so I still prefer to have a fantasy genre game on my plate. Today I’m making a run out to my PI planets to collect all the goods I’ve been stock piling, and then I’m going to put a few more manufacturing jobs active before I begin doing some missions. I’m almost able to finally fit the heavy missiles on the Tengu that I want to use, but in the mean time it’s back to my old ship until those are ready.

Finally I’ve decided to resubscribe to World or Warcraft. I know, an odd choice when I’m playing two sandbox games and a non-subscription game, but WoW is like a comfortable sweater to me. It’s ultra causal and you’d never wear it out of the house, but it’s great for those sleepy cold days where you’re huddled down not doing much of anything. In other words it fits the ‘relaxed’ bill that I was looking for above. I can solo some dungeons if I feel inclined to do so, I can PUG dungeons and raids (which I frequently do), work on alts, craft or harvest, etc. It’s not new or innovative, but some times that’s just not what I want. Plus pet battles are just plain fun.

There are other games I still dive into here and there, like Vanguard, but I’m not currently playing them on a steady basis, so I didn’t count them in this post. There’s also a bunch of single player games I’ve been enjoying such as Sim City (March 5th can’t get here fast enough!), The Sims 3, Triple Town (a cute puzzle game from Steam), and Skyrim. Of course there are always a handful of games I wish I were devoting more time to, too. Those include The Secret World, Pirate 101, and Lord of the Rings Online. Sadly, there are just not enough hours in the day to play them all.

What games are you playing lately? Share below in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.