Category: Gaming

We didn’t win – but we also didn’t care

First of all, congratulations to Wpus and Ultann for finally getting their guild to level 30! Yesterday when I logged in we were 10% from the level, and I grinded out enough writs to push us over the edge. I realize that level 30 may not seem like a big deal, but this is a guild made up of three people (myself included) with the occasional Kasul popping in on his ranger. For three people, this is a big deal just like it was a big deal when Nostalgia hit 30 and was able to purchase a guild hall. Which is exactly what Wpus did. Now proud owners of a guild hall in Qeynos, we spent some time yesterday fixing it up. Of course there’s a long way to go, but it’s beginning to fill out. Our amenities include a broker, banker, druid ports, recall to guild hall, and the NPC merchant that you can sell status items to. Not many, but it’s better then none.

Once the excitement of purchasing a hall had died down, we decided to do something ‘new’ – new for us in any case. I suggested we give Veksar: The Invasion and Sunken Theater a shot.

We actually did fairly well in the Invasion and would have done even better had the zone not been bugged and refused to drop the two keys you need to unlock the third door. No one had received them at all, and that is the portion of the zone where you unlock the chest and move the stick Indiana Jones style. I did get Ellithia a nice earring upgrade but was sad that we couldn’t attempt to go further.

We didn’t do so hot in Sunken Theater, although like the previous zone we did manage to take down the first two named. Once we got to the named that spawns those globes that like to heal him, well. That was as far as we could get. Still, for having three people in group and two of us boxing, we did surprisingly well.

More and more as I play I realize it’s NOT about winning, or at least it doesn’t have to be. There are plenty of things we can take down with our group including Maidens which we ran first. Sure we’re not going to be one grouping PR but as long as we’re having fun attempting what we do that’s all that matters. I keep reminding myself that my illusionist only has her T1 TSO set as does the boxed inquisitor, and I also don’t have my epic. Eventually I’ll work on that. Maybe.

After our Veksar attempts we headed to Korsha simply because none of us had been there before. It’s an absolutely beautiful looking zone and the danger levels are just as high. We managed to spawn the first named who is an enormous golem that reflects spells. Great!

Aside from the reflect he has a dot that instantly drains all of your power if not cured, and a stun, and a few little knockbacks. He’s actually not that difficult an encounter – except our group was completely made up of casters, even the shadowknight tank spends more time casting spells then CA’s. That meant we could do very little damage to him and could only stand and watch (and frantically heal) as things went wrong.

We quickly learned our limits on the zone and headed back to the guild hall broken and battered but with huge smiles still since we had such an awesome time. In the end that’s all that matters. Kasul has started playing his ranger again (though I believe he may switch over to an assassin) and it would be nice to fill the final spot in group with some DPS. We’ll see how that goes.

All in all it was a pretty full evening. I went to bed very early (still recuperating) and was awoken by fireworks at 4am. I realize it’s Victoria Day weekend, but still, 4am?! Gah.

Hope everyone else has an amazing weekend, see you in Norrath!

Another Great Thursday Night

Yesterday EQ was down for a few hours (as it was on Wednesday) for a few changes, and when the game came back up Ninga and myself headed to Lower Guk to see if we couldn’t snag a named or two that may have been up after the restart. Lucky for us, both the assassin and the supplier were up in the cuby we had been camping before, so we brought out the mercenary and made quick work of each.

The supplier dropped a 90% weight reduction bag, not incredibly amazing nor was it bad. The assassin who dropped my darkened guise of the deceiver the night before this time was sporting the darkened serrated bone dirk – which procs a very nice snare. It was a huge upgrade to my rogue who has been sporting some less then optimal daggers for a very long time now. I haven’t played her seriously in a number of years and she normally just gets items that would other wise rot.

A quick glance towards frenzy (which was camped) and we decided to scope out the Unrest revamp for a little while before it got to crowded. We camped on the roof of the mansion itself, a great view to watch all of the other players camping around, and it also allowed us one named (Reclaimed hand I believe, or something similar) that dropped a nice bracelet and a ring. We also got a few patterns to the glowing othni armor which I will pass down to an alt I believe. We scrounged up the hat, boots, and gloves. The gear is better then the defiant stuff, but not as amazing as regular drops, either way it’s upgrades to me.

When we had our fill of Unrest (which came sooner rather then later, that zone fills up fast) we headed to The Buried Sea to work on a hand augment quest that requires 20+ tasks. We managed to complete nine of the tasks, and have another 18 to go I believe. Basically each task rewards you a body part, and then you can purchase a container from an npc and combine those body parts into lesser augments. Then you can take those and combine them (from what I understand) into a super augment. It’s basically another quest that will remind you a lot of Breakdown in Communication which was another monster sized quest.

Since I haven’t spent a great deal of time in The Buried Sea I had a lot of fun, even though some of the camps are exceptionally long – especially if you’re doing the quest with friends and they all need updates. Ninga and I managed to move on to the next portion though and I was happy to do so.

I called it an early night (around 10) not wanting to over do things. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be getting some more much needed spring cleaning done and turning my balcony outside into a small garden with an area for reading / writing. We’ll see how that goes. I hope everyone has an amazing Friday, see you in Norrath!

Kurn’s Tower to hit EQ2 (FINALLY)

You can read about it yourself over on this teaser article via the EQ2player forums but it is indeed true! Kurn’s Tower (as well as a few other instances) are making their way back to EQ2! I know players have been waiting a LONG time for this update, and it should be met with much happiness.

Not only is Kurn’s coming back in GU52 (also being called Monument and Might), but there are going to be over 80 new quests added to RoK zones, a new x2 dungeon, a new zone in Jarsath Wastes, the player written books, and even more goodies.

This looks like it’s going to be an amazing update!

Small Victories in Lower Guk

Instead of hanging out in EQ2 last night, the trio headed back to EQ. Over time I have come to realize that I am a very difficult person to game with. I can hear some of my friends agreeing with me from here, hehe. I tend to bounce between a few games, and I used to get upset at myself over it but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply how I game. Every one has a style and it happens to be unique to that person. Thankfully I’m blessed with a close circle of friends who understand that it’s simply how I am and they don’t hold a grudge against me (I hope) as one week I’ll be playing EQ2 and then the next I pop back into EQ. It makes for frustrating times I know and I want (and need) my friends to know that I appreciate them so much more for putting up with my quirks.

Back to EQ! Well, the Cazic Thul and Blackburrow revamps may not be there any more, but the Lower Guk (which has been revamped before) and Unrest zones are sporting a new look these days. Ninga (Wpus), Ultann, and myself headed to Lower Guk to see if we couldn’t score a few of the new pieces of gear. Now, the night before the zone was pretty empty. Most players seemed to be spending their time hanging out in Unrest. If you recall that zone it’s quite small and there were over 30 people in it. Guk was down to four.

Such was not the case last night, as an evening that started out with only four in the zone quickly grew to 25+. Lower Guk is also quite a small zone, especially since it’s slightly lower in levels compared to Unrest which means things die faster and people pull further.

We did manage to set up camp in the Assassin / Supplier room though, and we did manage to get one spawn of the assassin. He dropped a darkened guise of the deceiver which I relogged my rogue to snag. It’s got heroic stats so even though she’s already a dark elf and the illusion is not that handy, the rest of the item is. We were hoping to camp for the darkened flowing black silk sash, but alas that happens to be one of the more popular camps of the zone and we were unsuccessful.

Before heading to Lower Guk we also decided to spend a little time working on the hand augment quest. I’ve mentioned this quest before, it’s an enormous chain with a lot of components but well worth the work.

As an added bonus to our exploring yesterday, my necromancer (minxes) inched her way to level 81, and 20% into the level! This will be the first time that I’ve been so close to the level cap in EverQuest. I made a vow to myself to try to get to max level as I have NEVER been there before in this game. I’m excited, I’ll admit. Not only did the necromancer cling to level 81, but the enchanter finally inched her way over to level 80! I was again very happy about this. I haven’t looked up her level 80 spells yet, and she’s lacking in gear (though she does sport a good array of fabled gear) and I *should* work on her epic some time, but I was still very happy to have hit level 80.

I hope everyone has an amazing Thursday, just think, only one more day until Friday! If you happen to live in Canada, enjoy the long weekend!

See you in Norrath!

CoA (again)

I’ll admit, lately in EQ2 there hasn’t really been anything new going on. Not the fault of the game since there has obviously been some updates (Lavastorm revamp, new raid zones, etc) but I haven’t actually gotten involved in any of it which is odd for me. I did the level 40-50 solo quests in Lavastorm so that I could purchase the armor molds (they look amazing) on my bard, but have not done any of the higher end Lavastorm quests. I have never set foot in the x2 Ward of Elements, and I have not completed the TSO quest chains in Moors because, well. Just because.

I did head back down to Crypt of Agony with Wpus and Ultann last night to see if the ranged item would finally drop (which it did not) though the drops were not completely horrible as we saw a fair number of legendary. No Cardiocutter either though I wasn’t surprised at that.

Eventually I should work on obtaining my epic weapon for the illusionist, but the thought of killing 100 yah-li and purchasing a bunch of T8 crafted furniture really doesn’t appeal to my gamer self compared to the coercer epic that I completed in a day. I wish there was not such a huge variance in between the difficulty levels of epics.

Now, one bit of interesting news that did come up is that Thom Terrazas is taking over as the new Producer for EverQuest. If you subscribe to Beckett MOG you may recognize his name this month from an interview I did with the Vanguard team back in February (the article will be in the next issue of Beckett MOG due to release at the end of May). I absolutely loved his passion for Vanguard (at the time of the interview) and I have no doubt that he will carry this passion over to EverQuest. In fact I enjoyed interviewing the entire Vanguard team an incredible amount, they were very open and easy to talk to. I was a little surprised (ok, maybe not) that he didn’t mention Vanguard at all in his opening talk about joining on with EverQuest, I suppose Vanguard is a dirty word that shouldn’t be said too much (even though I really do love that game).

I need to get back into some crafting, and doing some decorating some time. That usually refreshes my mood about things. The guild is creeping closer to level 30, and a new guild hall should be on the way shortly after that (which I know Wpus and Ultann are really looking forward to). It will be nice to port from our own hall instead of smuggling ourselves into the T3 ones in Antonica and Commonlands to locate a guild who has their ports open to the public.

See you in Norrath!