Category: Gaming

The Difference in Servers

When player-written books first came out, I had grand hopes of putting together a library in my Norrathian Museum (a work in progress) that was filled with player-created books instead of the usual ones that everyone finds (aside from a few select volumes). The books have only been out a few days now, but so far only one other person aside from my guild mates has placed any books for sale on the Kithicor server. Whether this is because people are just shy with sharing their work, or it is because they’re saving it all up for some big boom, I’ve no idea. There are 17 pages of blank books for sale, and 2 written books, both from my guild mates (one pictured above).

Now take a look on the Antonia Bayle server – which I realize also happens to be the most popular server, but it’s got pages and pages of user created books for sale. I would LOVE to be able to fill my library with these books, so if anyone is interested in creating a character on Kithicor and penning a book for me to add to my library, I will pay for the blank notebook.

I would also (no idea if this is feasible, it’s probably not) LOVE to have some unique one of a kind books penned by our resident community team members (I’m looking at you Kiara!) to add to this library. People of note from the game, friends, anyone I can possibly find to add to this library. It’s more or less for sentimental value to me, but I would really appreciate it. If you happen to pen a book, or want to pen a book for me to use in the library, you can find me in game as Ellithia or Arysh – and if you don’t currently see me on, send me some mail and I’ll send you a blank book in return that you can mail back to me. You don’t have to actually level the character, and you’re welcome to delete afterward, but I would really love a user generated library with unique stories.

Last night we attempted Mistmyr Manor for the first time (the first time all together, that is, and the first time over all for me) but Ultann was feeling ill so just before we hit the library we had to call it a night. I picked up a nice cloak for Goudia (she was needing one badly) and a piece (or two) of vampire bane gear for the coercer. Even though the stats are not that great I do love being able to proc against them. Especially since I always put the mystic buff that increases proc chance on my coercer. The joys of boxing!

This weekend should be fairly quiet. I’m crafting a lot of the new hex dolls and bandoliers in order to be able to make some future purchases. I haven’t any masters for sale and I pretty much transmute everything else I get, so this should help out a little bit. Of course, not creating so many alts would also help out. Ah well!

Time to see if the Grotto event is in game yet! Safe travels, and see you in Norrath!

A New Way of Loot Distribution for EQ2

When GU52 went live, a new method of loot drops also happened to make its way into a few instances in loping plains – drops from the final named in each of the instances. When I saw these linked on 70-79 I was drooling along with every other person out there.

No matter what day it is I always seem to hear about people clamouring for smart loot. How what they wanted never dropped. How they would love to have a selection of loot to choose from, so that at least SOMEONE would get something.

Now we have that choice (at least in three encounters).

These lock-boxes give players a choice of fabled items that were previously dropped from the named. I’m sure it’s still exceptionally rare, BUT it’s nice to beat an encounter, see a fabled chest drop – and NOT have to see the loot get transmuted or sold to a vendor.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the equipment grind we all have to do. I don’t mind when some random loot from some random zone doesn’t drop but I do dislike it a great deal when we work REALLY hard on an encounter (and in fact a zone) and nothing at all drops that anyone can use, and the one bit of fabled gear that did drop was already owned so we spent all that time for nothing. I realize that these grinds are just a part of the game, and if we didn’t have to wait forever for certain pieces of gear we’d all be utterly bored and have nothing to do – but I love this idea of giving us a choice of gear.

I’m hoping that this new method of loot distribution continues through future encounters, or maybe some form of smart loot gets implimented. I understand that without the grind we’re all left uber and with the feeling that we’ve ‘beaten’ the game, so it may be best to hold off until an expansion has been out for a few months, but it would also be exceptionally nice to have the option NOT to have something rot if and when it finally drops.

I don’t mind if I personally don’t get an upgrade, but I really want the items to be useful for someone at least. My turn will come. Some day.

Order of Rime – Icemare (and other happenings)

If you’ve been exploring the new ‘monument and might’ content at all (or if you’ve been listening to channels) you’ll have heard the excited voices crying out about the ‘new Order of Rime mount’ pictured above. Actually, there are two, one is a large creature like the ones you get from TSO via shards, and the other one is this beautiful icemare with ice particle spell effects. If you’ve heard about this mount you have probably also heard everyone curse and swear over the HUGE amounts of faction you need in order to obtain this mount. On Kithicor some people quested from 5pm until 2am (straight) in order to get this mount. No, it wasn’t me (I still have not experienced much of the new content, more about that soon). The mare is beautiful, and I’m looking forward to obtaining one – but – it’s also 40p and I have been having a difficult time making money lately. I’ve been purchasing spells for my characters (masters) which has been a lot of fun but also very expensive.

Emperor’s Athenaeum and The Crucible

Wpus, Ultann, Kasul and I (the guild of three plus one) headed to Jarsath Wastes last night to attempt the new instance we found there. It was said to be the difficulty of Crucible which we have done many times before – but – I think it is quite a bit harder. At least the golems we found throughout the zone certainly were harder. We managed to get the first four named down without too much problems once we had discovered the ‘tricks’ but when it came to the area where there is a crowd on either side (Drago I believe) the lag was beginning to cause huge issues for us. We didn’t realize until after we wiped a bunch of times and left the zone what the ‘trick’ to that encounter was (calming the crowd, anyone?) so we headed off to The Crucible for our final instance of the night. I did manage to get Arysh a neck upgrade from Athenaeum which was nice, but it would have been better had we finished the zone. There are just some things we can’t complete on the first try with only four of us.

Crucible was kind to us, and it dropped a very nice symbol that Arysh and Wpus rolled gainst each other for. Wpus of course had his loaded dice, and ended up winning – afterwards Wpus and Ultann headed to shard of fear and managed to get a bloodthirsty choker to drop which I was given for my troubador (thank you)! Now I just need to get one for the coercer, and I’ll be set. We have better luck in those zones if I don’t go along (plus I was VERY tired).

Bits and Pieces

Thanks to EQ2 traders, I know to be on the look out starting the 20th of every month for the ‘moonlight grotto’ events that will be making their way through EQ2. These are small mini events that reward players with some neat house items and a lot of fun. To read more about the event, please be sure to check out the article here. I’m excited about all the house items (as always) and I’m looking forward to these neat events. The aa experience increase has been VERY nice, despite some people saying that they don’t notice the difference, I think it’s amazing.

I had enough shards to get another T2 piece yesterday, and things are moving along nicely. The Fan Faire starts soon and I am exceptionally eager to hear all of the announcements that result from that. So many people I know are going, it’s going to be great that’s for sure. Maybe next year!

Have an amazing Friday, no matter where you find yourself. I’ll see you in Norrath! (and Telon, and I’ll probably be playing some Aion this weekend if anyone wants to meet up).

A few Instances, and some crafting

Day two (after the game update) and I still haven’t seen any of the new content. Not too concerned though, I’ve had plenty of other stuff to do. Yesterday was one of those rare days when everyone was home – but we still didn’t get a lot accomplished for whatever reason. Is anyone else experiencing some horrid lag ever since the update? I checked the technical forums and I appear to be the only one. My PC is down to 5 frames a second at best in instances, no matter what graphic setting the computer is on, the laptop slightly better at 15 frames. Our guild of three plus one headed to Ykesha’s Outter Stronghold to test the waters and the zone completely ate us up and spit us out – I am willing to bet 80% of our issues were due to the lag I was experiencing (Ultann was also having massive issues with his laptop and has for a few days now which are frustrating at best since he boxes the 2nd healer).

After our failed romp through Ykesha’s we headed to Evernight Abbey, which is a very easy and simple zone. Of course my characters ended getting stuck out in the sunshine when it hit because I was preoccupied with curing the main tank and not moving myself out of there, but aside from that it went well. It was the daily double and we were rewarded with extra shards, which I promptly used to make a third T2 piece for the coercer.

The evenings here at home have been VERY warm, even if it’s not that warm out side I face west, and the sun is directly in my apartment from 2pm onwards. Even with fans going it’s uncomfortable, and so for the rest of the evening we puttered around the hall and I worked on my transmuting.

In the end that went VERY well, I can now transmute items up to (and including) level 80 on Arysh my coercer. She is my second transmuter to have made this treck, the first one being my warden (also named Arysh) on the Najena server. When I did it the first time I swore I’d never do it again (just like I’d never betray again, right) and I’m hoping I will never level up another transmuter again.

A huge thank you to my guild mates Kasul, Ultann, and Wpus for helping me work the skill up. They crafted items with level 1-9 rare ingredients and I transmuted them for supplies (as did Kasul) so that the process would be cheaper. I spent a grand total of 10p and only that much because I got tired of doing T1 stuff so I purchased a few higher tiers in between to break up the grind.

I am amused to see people spouting doom and gloom about the sales of masters on broker. The sales are still going fine, we just are not going to see the 300-600 plat masters selling for that amount when they can be researched in 30 days. People will STILL buy masters, for their alts and if the price is right because lets face it, we’re impatient and if we have the cash we’d rather have instant gratification then wait 30 days. I’m glad the prices have gone down a little.

As far as the nerfs to procs – my group IS doing less DPS, by about 100-300 DPS but it’s not earth shattering or game breaking. We’ll find other bits of gear and items to wear over time that will compensate for this, or our fights will last a little longer. Of course if I wasn’t lagging all over the place I’d be able to judge this a little better.

I’ve been checking the broker daily for player-written books (remember to filter through the ‘type’ tab, this is done to prevent players from titling their books after in-game books (like craft) and ripping off players) and so far have only spotted one for sale. I purchased it but it must have been more of a test book then anything else (thanks Buds, the author) because it was only two pages of text. Kasul also placed a book for sale (and it sold!) so there is at least a very slim market for those on a non-rp server. The only issue being that the rares actually cost far more then the books will sell for at higher tiers. I really wish they had used common materials. Granted, if you sell 100 copies of a T8 crafted book for 5 gold a pop you’re going to more than make that money back.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday, no doubt I’ll be spending most of it in Norrath. A few days left of my quiet week, woot!