Category: Gaming

Completed Epics and Guk Adventures

After some running around yesterday it was time for the final fight I needed in order to complete the mystic epic. I realize I had been slacking for quite some time (ie: more then a few months now) on this epic. The biggest barrier I had was that I didn’t have my harvesting skills up to snuff. It was done, the final fight was pretty simple (instanced with an 85^^^ and a few level 80 adds that posed no problem to the shadowknight tank). Now I need to get to work on the illusionist epic. I have this epic partially started on my other enchanter, but never completed it. The thought of killing 100 yah-li is intimidating, as well as having to buy 28 T8 house items – when I don’t have a T8 crafter on Kithicor. My carpenter is sitting at 40, though I could probably push her to 80 before I worked on this epic if I wanted.

With epics out of the way it was time to take on new zones. I spent a little time relaxing and crafting, and then we headed to Guk: Halls of the Fallen, which happened to be the daily double. The group was Ultann (shadowknight) boxing his 80 inquisitor, Wpus (conjuror), and myself playing my illusionist and boxing the mystic.

We did fairly well for what we had (two boxed healers) and in the zone we were in. We managed to down the first two named (or was it three?) and also completed the daily double which was great. Once we got to the hallway where the froglok skeletons respawn almost instantly and it is almost impossible to clear it, we decided to call it a day. I headed back to do a little broker sales (and to mend my poor gear) and decided to go read for the remainder of the night. Day 6 of health issues that have kept me pretty much house / bed ridden, and needless to say my nights are ending earlier and earlier each day. Fingers crossed that I’m on the home stretch and will be feeling more like my usual self before too long.

I hope everyone else had an amazing Wednesday, only one more day to go until Friday! Safe travels and see you in Norrath!

Runnyeye The Gathering (and of course others)

I was feeling slightly more like myself yesterday and the trio gathered together for some instance goodness. We decided to do something completely new for us and we headed to Enchanted Lands to take on Runnyeye: The Gathering (RE2).

It had been a while since I had done the zone, and my partners in crime (shadowknight and conjuror) had never been there at all. I played the illusionist on the pc and put the mystic on the laptop, Ultann played the MT (main tank) and played Nocbot (inquisitor) on his laptop. Essentially we were a group of five, with the two healers on autofollow. What could possibly go wrong, right?

Well, by the end of it I was quite surprised.

We managed to beat the entire zone except the last encounter with the 4^ and the epic x2. We took down Slamhammer on the 2nd run (after dying to the million hammers before). We took down the mob that spawns noxious gas clouds also on the 2nd run once we found a better strat for our boxed healers. Everything else was a 1st pull 1st kill experience.

We didn’t get anything of note, none of the fabled cloaks dropped (which would have been so nice) and no gear was an upgrade but it was still exceptionally satisfying to be able to take down those sorts of encounters in that particular zone with just our group.We all got a few aa, and managed to complete a few quests relating to the zone. I’ll have to remember to pick up the two quests we missed outside of the zone next time.

Now we’ve been able to clear all of the RoK instances (we headed back to Vaults and Maidens after RE2 to clear those) as well as RE2 and a few TSO instances. Next? We’re going to attempt to clear the guk TSO instances. Or see how far we can get through them in any case. I try to keep a positive outlook even when I think we’re going to get completely owned, so it will be interesting to see how things go. I keep reminding myself that we’re not exactly the best geared players out there, we have a mixture of TSO T2 gear and dropped jewelery, a few masters (with myself far behind in that department, I have one master spell). Again, this is a great indication that you do NOT have to be fully raid geared (or raid geared at all) in order to complete these things. Talent does surpass all else in the rare occassion. This idea is something I welcome openly.

In case you had not heard yet, player housing goes LIVE in Wizard 101 TODAY! That’s some pretty exciting news right there. It’s the only thing I wish we had in Free Realms too (which I spent a bit of time playing yesterday).

I hope everyone else had an exciting Tuesday, don’t forget Mother’s Day is Sunday!

Working on Epics and Instances

Ultann managed to get his inquisitor epic in two days. I was really happy for him but frustrated at the difference in ‘ease’ as far as epics go. Some are very easy to get (I finished the coercer one in a single day) and others are painstakingly long especially when you take into count the different pre-requisites they may have.

I’m trudging along with the mystic and illusionist epic though and I’m confident that some day I’ll get them. We’ll just have to see.

Yesterday evening was the first chunk of play time I’ve had steady in a bit, so the trio headed to instances of course. First on our list? Maidens. Now, we’ve never cleared this zone as a trio before, mostly because my enchanter at the time was too small to hold down the adds for Sandstorm as well as the sisters.

Yesterday it went flawlessly and we took down sandstorm (with four adds up) as well as the sisters (on the 2nd attempt, first attempt we had the order wrong) without any real issues. I was exceptionally happy because the zone is also one I need for the illusionist epic, and I’m glad that we can trio it. Plus some pretty fantastic loot drops there.

Speaking of loot for once it was on our side! No, we didn’t get any gear upgrades to drop but for once a few masters did. One of which being my all important power / health buff for the mystic. Premonition. I was so very excited. This spell typically goes for a huge amount of money. Ultann also managed to get his group taunt to drop, and a few masters dropped for folks to sell.

Once we were finished in Maidens we headed to Vaults, and then to our good friend Obelisk of Ahkzul which refused to drop the healer shield (again). We spent a little time in Chelsith but that zone is so incredibly long and the Leviathans tend to drop nothing but treasured so we like to avoid it. I wish it followed the ‘named will drop legendary’ rule but alas it does not. This zone COULD be so wonderful if just a few tweaks were made.

All in all it was a great night, and I had a lot of fun. Here’s hoping tonight is more of the same! See you in Norrath!

A Little Bit of Everything

I decided to disrupt Princess (my cat) for most of the day yesterday, and spent it spring cleaning. Moved all of her ‘beds’ around and rearranged the apartment, it looks much better now. I still have a few rooms to go, but it’s a start. Once that was done I headed in game to find Ultann’s boxed inquisitor at level 80 – woohoo! Less then a month to level from 1-80 using the recruit a friend method, which means he can start working on his epic now. We decided to head to Crypt of Agony and see if the Cardiocutter would drop (which it didn’t) or even the fabled ranged item for Ultann (which also didn’t drop). What DID drop though was that caster ring (legendary) with some pretty nice spell crit on it. Of course it would drop, since I had been trying to get it for my illusionist for quite some time and we never saw it. Thankfully, it’s also a nice ring for a bard who makes use of both CA’s and spells.

That was the only thing of note to drop within the instance, and afterward we decided to head to Courts off of Pillars of Flame in order to get some more guild experience (not to mention a good handful of craft rares). We one grouped everything except the final Black Witch who happens to elude us because our dps is too slow to take down a x4 before she ports most of us all over the zone, leaving either no healer, or no tank, or no dps (which makes everything even more slow). She also places curse of insanity upon the group which means you can get one shot if you go below a certain amount of power. Seeing as we were one group trying to take down an encounter meant for 24, we use a lot of power.

It was still a lot of fun, we still gained a lot of aa and the guild is nearing level 30 where we’ll be able to purchase a guild hall.

After that we headed to Chardok in an attempt to obtain the inquisitor starter which has been noted as dropping either there, or in Chelsith (or outside Chelsith). We didn’t see it and ended up calling it early because red encounters were absolutely ripping my bard to shreds.

The evening went well over all. The bard dinged level 74 and is 30% or so into it. As you can see above, she gets a good chunk of experience each kill. I wish it worked for quest experience too but such is not the case. At level 75 she can start doing shard missions, though you do have to be 79 to pick up the daily doubles. I haven’t begin to work on obtaining her skills yet, but that will be next. I cringe at the number of silicate loams I’m going to have to get.

I hope everyone else had an amazing Saturday, don’t forget next Sunday is Mother’s day!

Who doesn’t want MORE alts?!

Of course in game, I need more alts. Why? Because I had character slots free. I made three of them yesterday. Will I stick with any of them? Who knows. While I played on Antonia Bayle I listened to the chatter taking place in the craft channel. It’s amazing to see the difference in community on all of the servers I play on. I have level 80 characters on four different servers, and I’ve played extensively on two others that I moved from. I enjoy playing with friends which is my main reason for changing so often.

The atmosphere on the roleplay servers is completely different then that on ‘regular’ servers. I’m fairly confident that this can be said for almost all games, and roleplay servers also tend to be quite popular. Even the difference between Antonia Bayle and Lucan D’Lere is noticeable in EQ2, mainly because of the size difference. You always have those bad apples who talk louder then the 100 nice people you may have missed coming in contact with.

The casual atmosphere and the openness are two things that I notice the most on roleplay servers. People talk, almost constantly. They talk to people walking by, to strangers in channels and numerous other instances. I love it. Every time I walk through Freeport I can hear people roleplaying and on the roleplay channels there’s always a story going on. I adventured through Zek one day and came across a group of people randomly roleplaying around the druid rings, and walked into their story. It was an incredible experience and one that reminded me why I love these games, why I play.

I hope everyone has an amazing weekend, I’ll see you in Norrath (and maybe Free Realms, and Vanguard, and EverQuest, and.. )