Category: Gaming

Lost in the Void – Tradeskill Style

Yesterday saw us with an odd assortment of guild mates actually on line (all four of us at once!) which hasn’t been happening often this week due to work, so we decided to take advantage of it. That was until Ultann lost his power for a few hours. In the mean time Kasul, Wpus, and I decided we would attempt a crafting mission, and as chance would have it, the mission of the day was the newest one that was added, the void mission.

I’d never done this mission before and I was excited. We all ported over to the Moors where one of the air balloon NPC send you on your way. A few words of warning for this particular mission. It doesn’t tell you, but you require a mining skill of 25+ in order to harvest the ore that is in the zone. This differs from the regular instances where harvesting skill is not taken into account at all. There was no warning that I’d need this skill either, so I had to leave and come back.

Number two, there’s no real ‘door’ to this zone which means that unless you happen to be CURRENTLY ON the quest, there’s no way into the zone (that I have found at least). Now, the down side to this is that if you complete the quest, and then accidently click the ‘zone to Moors’ button that pops up on the nice shiny void door before looting the chest – you will have no way of returning. Arysh didn’t miss out on too much at least when the chest was popped, as we only managed to get ourselves a jewelers piece of gear (which Kasul already had). I dragged both the tailor and the carpenter to the zone to gain the crafter shards as well as faction.

The zone itself was beautiful, and the quest was quite fun. You have literally walked in on a failed raid, and what the raiders could not do in their uber gear the crafters will attempt. Of course there’s the matter of supplies. Dead raiders and mounts lay all over the zone and you have to run around taking the clothes from their corpses. Literally. You click on the dead body and watch as their gear vanishes. It was incredibly funny. You also steal flesh from the dead mounts in order to create the food articles needed. The trees near by can be used for wood, there just happens to be some void-coal laying around the ground, and there are little piles of moving void goo that you can harvest.

But what about a craft table? Well, thankfully the gnome who tells you about the mission has a supply of tinkered ones available, they last for 15 minutes each round and he’ll pass out stacks. We all managed to complete our portions (with poor Kasul doing most of the work, as Wpus and myself are mere lowbie crafters and the combines were quite daunting) and the quest was completed without too much trouble. Of course we all know crafters are incredible beings of power, so we managed to create the portal using the supplies left behind. Who needs raiders.

Once Ultann’s power returned we headed to Veksar: The Sunken Theater and cleared the entire zone (it also happened to be the daily double for yesterday). It makes an amazing difference when I can concentrate on just playing the enchanter and stunning every opportunity I get. Not that I mind two boxing and playing the mystic, but of course performance is better when not divided. Nothing of great worth dropped, and we still had some time before people had to call it an night (myself included) so we headed over to Obelisk of Ahkzul (no shield) and then for a change of pace we went to the Commonlands and completed Cavern of the Afflicted (no jester’s cap, no sword). Ellithia is 16 shards away from completing her T2 void set, Arysh is quite a few more behind but she’s getting there slowly. It’s nice to be able to complete these zones without too much difficulty, and when there is difficulty we don’t have a whole lot of people berating us telling us how much we suck (like that one warlock from Deep Forge who wanted to bring a 3rd healer along when we wiped once on the final named). I didn’t get any time to work on my transmuting before I had to call it a night, but I’m still hoping to get high enough to be able to transmute level 70+ gear before too long. The guild bank has been purged of lower level rares in order to make items to transmute, and I think I currently have enough for about 150 combines, which should grant at least 60-80 skill ups depending on how lucky I am (though we all know if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all).

I hope everyone has an incredible Friday, no matter where you find yourself. I should be in various games this weekend, but as always you can get a hold of me via email, twitter, or any other means you can find (most are listed in the upper left portion of the web site).  Safe travels and happy gaming!

A Quiet Night (They’re Good!)

I know, it’s an old screen shot of my halfling templar at home in her 1 room in Baubleshire. When I was flipping through my screen shot folder last night (typically I just stick to using fraps since it puts them all in one nice easy to find place) I noticed that I didn’t actually take any screen shots of the brief time I played EQ2, instead it was filled with Sims 3 and Wizard 101 (showing off that new pet dragon that came out with the latest issue of Beckett).

While I did spend a good portion of time playing in Sims 3 (maybe more about that later, I haven’t decided if I want to continue blogging about Sims 3 or just stick to the MMO’s) I also manged to squeeze a little EQ2 time in there. The guild hit level 40! WOW! A huge accomplishment for us that I was exceptionally happy about. This opened up three more amenity and we put them to good use. The guild is now sporting a gathering NPC, fuel merchant, and rush order writ NPC. It’s great to have these things in the hall and I was really excited that we managed to hit level 40 so soon after reaching level 30.

Once everyone was around it was time for a quick crucible run – there are still upgrades that the final boss drops although we didn’t see any of them last night. The illusionist did get a master spell to drop, but it was the level 80 doppelganger spell that I rarely use and I’m not even sure if there’s that much of a difference between the adept3 and m1 qualities. Ah well it was better then nothing.

I was feeling slightly sore so I spent the rest of the night working on my transmuting which hit 200/400. This means I can transmute up to and including level 45 items. I’m hoping that today I can get up to the point where I’m transmuting up to level 60, or maybe even further we’ll just have to see. It would be fantastic to have a transmuter around. The whole way I’ve been leveling off of lowbie items, using the T1 materials because it’s far cheaper then purchasing appropriate level items even if it does take forever.

This weekend should see me in multiple games once more, a little Vanguard and Wizard 101 for sure, as well as that beta event that everyone keeps talking about. Hard to believe that tomorrow is already Friday!

I hope everyone has an amazing day, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Information Overload

Alright, first of all WOW what a week and it’s only Wednesday. I’m feeling 95% better and after having health issues for over a month this is a HUGE deal. It’s fantastic, I’ve been so excited and energetic. Now I just have to keep it up. I’ve been following E3 updates on twitter as well as G4 Tech Tv live, and while personally I’m not a console gamer at all (even though I do own a wii, PS3 and DSi) I am excited about a few things. Kingdom Hearts, Golden sun, a new mario (or two, even though I personally did not like mario galaxy) and who didn’t think the video of The Last Guardian just looked fantastic. Then there’s Natal, and all of the other motion sensor toys coming out, and the new PSP Go. While twitter was filled with some very bitter comments, I tried to keep a positive outlook (as is my way) and remind myself that these are games.

Tipa reminded me that The Dares would be performing in Free Realms across all servers, live from E3 last night, so I quickly made my way into game and ported to her on server 4. It was PACKED. It was the first time I ever experienced lag in Free Realms and we met up with some other bloggers / twitter users which was absolutely fantastic. We danced the night away, and I even picked up one of the concert tshirts for $1 because come on now, you just have to. On the down side while twitter said they played a full set at E3 they only played one song in game, and it was cut short each time, though they did repeat it twice if you stuck around. Still, having friends there made it a massive amount of fun and it was only too easy to see how popular Free Realms had become.

I did spend some time in EQ2 but I didn’t play. I loaded it up on my laptop and hung around in the guild hall chattering to Wpus, Ultann, and Kasul while they went and did all the hard work (mostly crafting and writs) for the evening. On the PC I continued to play Sims 3, I know how embarrassing. Giving up my MMO of choice for an evening to play something as fun silly as Sims. I tried to get to sleep early, the guild is VERY close to level 40 and three more amenity which is just amazing. Ultann has been belting out the writs like they’re being removed from game in the next update (they are not, that was a joke folks).

Thanks to one very kind Kasul I am now holding a copy of Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura which is an RPG that came out in 2001, that follows the Steampunk genre. I had never even heard of it before but when I entered in NeoSteam on GamerDNA this was one of the games they suggested I may enjoy, and it just so happened that Kasul had a copy of it kicking around. Not being an avid gamer myself until these last few years, I’d never even heard of it before. He also sent a copy of Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III which I’ve never played (despite the game sharing my last name of ‘Morrow’) so I’m looking forward to getting both of those installed on my PC. Sure these game may have seen better years, but I still play EQ happily and that game is 10 years old, so why not.

One last note before I head off to get the morning chores done – have you taken a look at these amazing tinker-themed housing items from EQ2? Holy WOW. I love the selection and any little gnome boy or girl is going to just fall in love with the set. Especially the wall dividers how amazing do those look?! The team has lined up some fantastic goodies for GU52 and I’m really looking forward to it all. I hope everyone has a fantastic Wednesday, in a week and a half the Medieval Festival will be taking place and barring any horrible weather I’ll be there taking pictures again this year – I’m SO excited.

Happy Gaming!

Starting out in the Sims 3

That’s right, I happen to be one of THOSE gamers. I’m not a huge fan of blood and guts, shooting and killing. While there have been some comments in the past that say this is because I’m (gasp) a female gamer, I prefer to think it’s because I’m just not into those sorts of things. I don’t believe that they’re the sort of game that appeals only to men or only to women. I enjoy pvp (though I rarely delve into it these days) and I’d rather do something I personally find more creative and constructive with my time then just grind it away battling creatures. I typically do this via: crafting, decorating, and other creative outlets, especially those involving design. I can’t exactly be too creative when I’m doing nothing but smacking mobs – though that is a wonderful pass time too, it’s just not the end all be all of my gaming persona. Anyhow!

I’ve been a long time sim fan. I played sim city, and all of the regular sims growing up. I loved building homes, creating lives. I loved designing my own clothing, creating textures and building elaborate yards – or even simple ones. When Sims 2 came out it was amazing, but I barely got a chance to play it because my youngest brother ‘borrowed’ the cd and that was the last I ever saw of it. I even spent some time playing The Sims Online when that came out, I used to DJ on a radio station going by the name “April Love” – four hours every day. It was a great experience even if the game wasn’t all it could have been. I played just before I started with EQ, and just after I had gotten more then my fill of MUDS. I used to take requests and played a lot of songs for people while they wandered around the Sim world.

Sims 3 is beautiful. They’ve made some changes and so far I’ve had a very enjoyable experience. I started out with a fully furnished home (my choice) for $15,000 or so. You start out with $16,000 so you don’t get a lot left over. Character creation was great, I loved the fact that I didn’t have to be some super skinny woman if I didn’t want to. Ages start as young as babies and go up to elderly. You pick five traits that can be negative or positive and as far as simple creativity goes, I adore it.

Sure, I’m just playing a virtual life, and I’ve already got a real life (hah) so you may wonder why this would even be appealing, but it’s great to pretend, and fantastic to invent and create.

One addition to Sims 3 is the RMT factor, they have an online store where you can purchase more styles of hair, clothing, furniture and other goodies. I checked out the furniture. It reminds me of SOE’s station cash, where it’s $20 for a full house set, and cheaper for bits and pieces. For pre-ordering the game on direct2drive I snagged $10 (1,000) worth of points to put towards future purchases – if I want. I didn’t see anything that interested me quite yet, but we’ll see. My only issue with this is the same issue I have in EQ2, that there’s less of a push to release really awesome looking content for free because you can just charge for all of the neat looking things. Aside from that one small little blip, I’m having a great time taking a break from Norrath and Telon (and whatever other virtual worlds I happen to wander through this week) to spend some quiet time playing the game. So far I’ve enjoyed the little quests they’ve sent me on. My sim (named Stargrace, go figure) is a young adult, working her way for $28/h as a podium polisher, mon-fri 9-3. The first weekend that came around she took some writing and art classes, and cooked some fantastic hot dogs for some fine gentleman that she may (or may not) have her eyes on. The life of a sim is less complicated then real life and I think that’s part of the charm – plus if I remove all the doors to the house in a moment of pure frustration it’s fun to see what happens next. Not, that I would do that. *grins*

Wait, I won Something?!

This week and next week make up the crunch time before my next articles are due for Beckett MOG, so I didn’t spend very much time in EQ2 last night. I did get some nice time in Wizard 101, and once Wpus and Kasul returned from work (we can’t all play video games for a living!) we headed off to knock out a few instances before it was time for bed. We started out with Obelisk of Ahkzul – still aiming for that legendary healer shield that has yet to drop. How many months have we been doing this instance for now with no sign of the shield? I’m not sure, but it’s been a LOT. The instance is fast and it rewards a void shard so I can’t complain that much, but I’d still love to see that shield drop.

Afterward we wandered over to Anchor of Bazzul, this is a fairly simple and quick zone and it rewards two void shards at the end of it, making it quite worth while. Plus every so often the Gods of Norrath smile down on one of the group members – and a nice item drops. We got a lower level swashbuckler master which I’m sure was worth a great deal (congratulations Wpus on winning that) and the charm pictured to the right hand side also dropped. My illusionist has been under geared for quite some time. Not under geared in the sense that she’s wearing mastercrafted at level 80, but she’s only sporting T1 gear, owns 1 master spell, and only has 108 achievement points. She was power leveled to 80 and I’ve been slowly gearing her up ever since. It was no great surprise that one of her charm items is the caster reward from Everfrost with + spell crit on it, and the other charm was actually the mana battery which is a collection reward. No special stats at all and so I rolled need on the beautiful charm that dropped last night – what’s more, Wpus graciously declined, and I won it. Now, ideally I’d like an item that has + spell crit on it, I’m only sitting at 52% currently, and I have a long way to go. The stats on the charm and the 2% reduced cast time is very nice, and I won’t be complaining at all. We grabbed our two void shards and decided to head off to do the daily double before we called it a night, it was Deep Forge.

Deep Forge has never been one of my favorite zones. In fact none of the Lavastorm zones are that appealing to me. I’ve still yet to do the quests from the revamp (hey, maybe a goal for today!) and when someone mentions Najena’s Hollow Tower I visibly shudder. On the plus side as much as I dislike Deep Forge it is a fast zone and being the daily double meant we could get four shards from that one zone including some coin. Arysh also had not done the quest that rewards a fairly nice charm with +2 spell crit on it, so off we went. No deaths, and the final named dropped without too many issues (and also dropped that really horrible 2h hammer that always drops). Headed back to the hall to stash all of the no trade loot into my bank so I can transmute it one day in the future, and called it a night. Even though we didn’t play a whole lot, it was still fun and it was nice to finally get a nice upgrade.

Speaking of which. 20 more shards and Ellithia (the mystic) will own her complete set of T2 void gear (cheers) finally. Last night Arysh gathered enough shards to get her 2nd piece of T2 – pants. That just leaves the robe, hat, and shoulders left. I don’t even want to start thinking about how many shards that still is. I also worked on the TSO chapter quests a little bit, trying to inch myself closer to the rest of the guild. Hopefully we’ll be on chapter 5 soon where it makes us do all of the instances. Not my most favorite part, but it’ll be nice to be making some progress.

I hope everyone has an amazing week, I know it’s been filled with a lot of great stuff since E3 is going on right now and before you know it, Fan Faire will be on. I’ll see you in Norrath!