Category: Gaming

To Speak as a Dragon

The other bards laughed at me. Why on earth, they sneered, would you want to go visit Nagafen and resurrect Vox when there was so much NEW stuff to do. So many better adventures. With void creatures running a muck there was never a lack of stories to tell. I shrugged at them and continued with my path. They asked me why but to me it was simple. So many others were already traveling down those paths. It was getting redundant. I had already heard about the void creatures in various songs ten times that day alone. Had everyone suddenly forgotten the lore of days gone by? It was these things that pulled me in, these memories and thoughts that drew me to them like a moth to flame. And so I found myself staring face to face with Nagafen, asking the details on how to resurrect Vox, talking openly about Darathar as memories flooded past. It would make a great song, one day.

Needless to say I spent most of my in-game time working on ‘to speak as a dragon’ the language quest required for a number of other quests out there. I eagerly freed the sage from his dungeon in Lavastorm, and from there headed to Antonica to speak with the Oracles. Of course nothing is ever easy with them and they sent me out through the Shattered Lands hunting for runes in order to translate the language. 26 runes later (and quite out of breath) I returned and they imparted their wisdom. I dragged the bard and mystic along to accomplish this, if I was going to get it done it may as well be for both characters.

Once I’d mastered the language I headed back to Nagafen who shared with me the method of reviving Lady Vox, and how I would have to (eventually) travel to the Isle of Refuge and confront Darathar. This was all fine and dandy and I looked forward to it excitedly. Just like I looked forward to it four years ago.

Things have obviously changed. To obtain the draconic language now it’s a heroic instance, and no longer a raid. There are portals in Solusek Eye that will bring you to the lower levels instead of having to walk the entire way – and encounters are grey and worthless. When I first did the prismatic 1.0 quest none of these things were true. It took an incredibly long time to wander to and from Nagafen as many times as you had to for this quest. You had to bring a two group raid in order to even begin it – and all of this was for a LEGENDARY weapon. There were no such things as mythical. Fabled were practically unheard of. Adept3 were rare, and if you had adept1 you were doing great. There was no such thing as +heal or +spell damage.

I remember playing my templar (my first EQ2 character) with an Australian raid force on Najena. I was level 45, still five levels away from the current cap and they needed healers. I was THRILLED that they asked me to go. I was nervous. The raid force had to position itself numerous times. It was exciting to kill our way down to the beach where Darathar was sleeping and then learn the (at the time complex) strat to killing him.

Then the enormous let down as you didn’t get your weapon until AFTER you managed to walk back down to Nagafen. All of that work and you still had more ahead of you. After a few hours of raiding the last thing people typically wanted to do was kill their way back down, but we did it. Oh yes we did. We sported our ‘of the shard’ titles proudly. I still have the weapon on my templar, the only character of mine who has ever completed this raid.

The plan last night was to finish off speak as a dragon and then complete the first three raids that are required for Fire and Ice, then if there was time, to complete the next four raids for Deception, and face Darathar on the Isle of Refuge. Unfortunately one of the trio currently has a broken keyboard, and we’ve put the raids on hold until this gets sorted out. No use doing it if you’re not side by side with your friends. I’m excited though!

Instances and Sleep

With all SOE games being down for a few hours yesterday I didn’t play a great deal. Last night the trio (with me as my 73 dirge and 80 mystic) headed to Crypt of Agony which was surprisingly fun even at level 72. I was hoping that Cardiocutter would drop because we’ve yet to see it drop, but alas my luck holds as true as ever and we saw nothing of use this run. After we decided to head to The Anathema in Everfrost. The bard picked up a new pair of earrings, a new charm items, and Ultann’s healer picked up a few goodies as well.

Aside from that, the day was fairly uneventful and my mood was sour to boot in a typical-Monday-but-not-so-typical-for-me mindset. Ended up calling it an early night and getting some much needed sleep after getting only  4 hours the previous night. I hope everyone else had an incredible day.

General Gaming Goodness

Well, lets get the bad news over first – ALL soe games and services are going to be down today for FOUR hours, from 12pm EST until 4pm EST (and that’s as long as everything gets up and running again properly). This was just announced yesterday night, and I’m not quite sure what’s being updated yet maybe it’s got to do with Free Realms going live on Tuesday. In any case, if you’re trying to get into the game and wondering why you can’t, there you go.

Now onto the good stuff! I had mentioned yesterday that I was hoping my bard would make it to 62, a general goal. I started out the day by doing groceries and puttering around getting those real life quests done, and then decided to hop in game for a bit. Ultann and Wpus were both there, and eager to do stuff. I don’t remember everything we did, but I think it started with a run through poets Palace, though that may have been the night before. We did numerous dungeons and instances and even managed to find ourselves in a Labs raid which I haven’t done in FOREVER. It was great. None of us are raid geared and I went with my illusionist who doesn’t even have her epic, along with numerous other level 80 characters and all three of us (illusionist, shadowknight, conjuror) managed to be on the top portion of the parse for the zone. Considering we were with some mythical geared players, I felt pretty good. I realize the parse is not everything but it’s still nice to know that skill and not gear will count for a large portion of how well you do with your class.

We (the trio of course) wanted to do Shard of Fear, but in order to zone in (as we found out while standing at the doors) the bard had to be level 70 (and so did the fury, she was close though). The dirge was sitting happily at level 67, and it was still a few hours before bed so we decided to grind out those last levels and then run fear. We headed to Loping Plains and then to the Mistmoore Catacombs, killing our way to the top floor which is covered in vampires and then heading into Castle Mistmoore for the last remaining experience I needed in order to ding. Plenty of aa and 3 levels later, I was sitting at 70, and we headed to fear. I was hoping that the bloodthirsty choker would drop but alas luck was not on our side (I’m used to it not being on my side by now). It was still great fun and the bard managed to cling to level 71 when we called it for the evening.

I wasn’t quite tired yet, so I ran around grabbing various druid ring ports and getting discovery for all those zones I’d never been to before (Steamfont, Klak’Anon, Bonemire, Barren Sky, etc) pinged off a few more aa and managed to climb half way through level 71. The T8 mastercrafted (incarnadine) gear is VERY cheap, so I picked up a full set of that (50g each) for when I hit 72, and I’ll see about getting some skills made as well (even though they use loam and loam is VERY expensive). I had dreams of an automated character transfer being implemented finally for Eq2 (it’s been down since September of last year) but I think I’ll just have to keep dreaming on that matter. I was debating whether or not I wanted to betray this new dirge to a troubador, but since I already have a troubador I decided to just keep this one a dirge in the hopes that some day all my characters end up on the same server.

I hope everyone had an amazing weekend, and that Monday is not too rough on anyone! See you in Norrath!

Working on the Epic, and ANOTHER Bard?

An absolutely beautiful day yesterday, so I spent a lot of out outside doing some photography in a little village. It was fun, warm, but fun. Later on in the day I logged in to EQ2 to have a little fun. Ultann was busy doing Halls of Fate with Wpus and the boxed inquisitor who managed to climb to level 77 and I went back to working on my epic for a little while. Finally I had gotten my gathering skills high enough to work on it properly.

I completed the first portion that required me to harvest rocks in Kunark and deliver them to a dwarf in Butcherblock Mountains, then it was time to head to Shard of Fear and take down an Eye of Thul. These mobs are just before the graveyard and are pretty close to the zone in, so 5 minutes later it was complete.

Ultann had to leave for a few hours (and ended up being gone for the remainder of the evening) so Wpus agreed to help me level up my dirge. Now, I know. I already HAVE a troubador on Oasis, one who has her dirge AND troubador epic weapons because I’ve betrayed her THAT many times, but I love bards, I truly do. So of course it was natural (for me) to create another. I may betray her to troubador later on as well, I haven’t decided yet.

She started off at level 54, and is linked to the rent-a-friend account that I have so she’s got the benefit of 200% bonus experience. Not to mention 50% from my regular level 80’s on the account, and she had full vitality plus the Orb of Concentrated Memories which is the 5 year veteran reward that grants full vitality once a week.

Needless to say after running her through Clefts of Rujark and an instance within that zone, then heading off to Living Tombs, she was well situated at level 60. I had hoped to gain two more levels and push her to 62 which is the new tier for Mastercrafted gear (and I was planning on checking out new skills as well) but I was feeling pretty tired after a busy day so I decided to call it an early night at 9:30. Hopefully I can get those levels today instead, we’ll just have to see.

I’ve also found myself turning off most of the level channels on Kithicor, and instead joining the role play channels over on Antonia Bayle, which you can join no matter what server you’re on. One of the more popular channels is a player run tavern called “Raven Mythic” which you can join and listen to by /join antonia_bayle.RM  – the tavern is a gathering place for role players who play out their stories within, some acting as staff, others as weary adventurers who have come to sit by the fire and tell their tale. I’ve listened to the stories there off and on for the past two years, enjoying every minute of it. I’d much rather spend my evening leveling and watching the chatter of that one channel then listen to the elitist comments made by the general populace in 70-79. If you’re into that sort of thing, whether to partake or only to listen I highly suggest it.

Other then that, it was a quiet evening. Those are just as nice as one packed with things to do especially after a busy day. I hope everyone else had an amazing Saturday!

Epic Journey

There was only one thing holding me back from starting the epic weapon quest for my mystic. Ok, maybe more then one but one main thing. I took a look through the wiki and noticed what I needed before I got too far with it.

  • You must be lvl 80
  • You must speak Sathirian
  • You must speak Halasian
  • You must speak Death’s Whisper
  • Gathering skill needs to be 300+.
  • Foresting skill needs to be 340+.
  • Mining skill needs to be 340

Now, the languages and the level was not an issue but my harvesting skills were as low as they possibly could be. It happens when you have so many characters, things fall behind. So every once in a while I would take the mystic (when the trio wasn’t already involved in doing something, which was relatively rare) and go harvesting. I was working on the cloak from the Isle of Mara at the same time, so I wouldn’t have to go back and continue harvesting for that.

Yesterday I finally reached the point where I can harvest those skill levels, and so I started my epic. The mystic has been level 80 for quite some time, but since I’ve already got a collection of epics (some times twice such as in the case of my bard who is sporting both the troubador and dirge epics) the shine has worn off a little.

The starter for the mystic epic begins down in Sebilis. You have to speak Sathirian right away and he’ll give you a page. The page speaks about spirits and ancients and a little discovery he partook in, and his desire to go back. From there you head to City of Mist (which is an area in EQ2 and not a zone like EQ which dissapointed me) and kill ‘a timeworn spirit’ who happens to be hanging out. A chest drops which you’ll loot and will start the actual quest. It sends you to Teren’s Grasp to speak with a Runesage.

From there the quest moves on to a million other things I need to do. It’s probably one of the more involved quests I’ve done and I’m not even sure I like the end result. The weapon is great for groups, but has no heal crits and nothing to do with healing on the proc (it actually gives a bonus to combat).

I still want to start the epic with my illusionist some time as well, but since I’ve already started it and completed half of it on Najena, I have even less inspiration.

Aside from that, my gaming was fairly limited last night. I did manage to get the illusionist from 34-40 in carpentry which was fantastic. I churned out rush order writs to fly through the levels while watching Legend of the Seeker on Hulu. 8 episodes later and I’d managed to hit the next tier. I’ll probably wait for vitality to replenish before working through the next tier.

Today I’ll be heading to Manotick to take some pictures. It’s a little village just outside of Ottawa, and today is supposed to be absolutely beautiful out. I already have my balcony door open and the cool air is fantastic. I want to go to Upper Canada Village soon for some pictures as well, but their season doesn’t start until May 16th. Then there’s also the Medieval Festival which I hope will be making another appearance this year. Last year I had an amazing time. So many exciting things to do, both in game and out.

I hope everyone has an amazing Saturday, see you in Norrath!