Category: Gaming

Hanging Around Bree

My (now) 17 Minstrel hanging outside of Bree last night. It was one of the few ‘safe’ places to be that didn’t involve “rubberbanding” as they’re calling it on the forums and in game. 

The issue is quite simple. I’m not sure if it’s present on all servers but it’s certainly on Nostalgia’s. Eventually as you’re walking along, at particular points you’ll meet up with an invisible wall that pushes you backwards each and every time you try to push forward. It slings you back, like a rubber band. There was one such wall on the outskirts of Bree, heading towards the Shire. It also happened to be exactly where Kasul and I needed to go to progress our epic line. No worries though, we worked around the area by using swifttravel, even though it took us a huge distance out of our way. When the quest sent us back to that area again we decided to move on to other things. 

Needless to say neither of us gained very much experience. 

We did still have fun though. No office supply is going to stop that! So we spent the majority of the evening wandering close to Bree, picking off bears and searching for mines. Once we’d filled our bags with goodies we headed back to the crafting area to gain a few skill ups. While crafting in LotRO takes a LOT of resources, I also enjoy it. Crafters rely on one another for components, much like VG does and EQ2 used to do. With an active Kinship (and Nostalgia is active for the members we have) this is hardly an issue as we’re constantly trading things between one another for use. Combines are done much the way they are in World of Warcraft, nothing too fancy about it. It’s not a mini game like EQ2 and you can’t (as far as I know) fail the combines like EQ, thus losing all of your material. I’m attempting to save up for a house (some day) but dang are they expensive. I can barely afford my skills each time I level, let alone a LOT of gold for a home. It’s a (far) future goal of mine though.

Lately I have had a HUGE ache for some role play. When I had these cravings before I used to satisfy them in EQ2 as a guide – but I don’t have the time to dedicate to the program any more. There are no D&D groups that I know of around here (here being Ottawa) so I’m trying to think of a little project I can do that would take care of my desire to be a story teller or my need to listen to other people’s stories. One idea I’m tossing around is creating an alt on Antonia Bayle (the most populated server in EQ2, also happens to be one of two RP servers) and write about an adventure of hers once a week leaving her for only role play. There are LOTS of guild events that happen on AB for RP purposes, and I could easily lose myself in one of those. 

Aside from that, I’m not sure what other games out there offer a strong RP community. I’ll have to search a little bit. It’s like an itch that needs scratching, creative juices that are eager to flow (or some such thing. It’s late and I can’t come up with flowery words right now). 

Hopefully LotRO is fixed back to normal by Thursday, which is the 2nd day of the week designated for some play time (during the day this time). I’m looking forward to inching towards level 20 – and appearance slots. Kasul got himself a really nice pirate hat and eye patch tonight, and I’ve been looking for ‘fluff’ armor for just such a reason. 

Hope everyone else had an amazing night!

Level 10 (almost) – More Impressions

On the advice of a few comments from my previous post about initial AoC impressions, I decided to remake a character on the Rp-PvP server (thanks for the suggestion) and I also remade as a Stygian Herald of Xotli. I love helpful comments where the people commenting don’t rip into me for not instantly loving their game but offer me useful and helpful suggestions that may make the game (or trial of it) a little more enjoyable if I’m on the fence. Everyone has their opinion, and everyone is entitled to it – but if you’re going to act rude and insult me as a gamer for having a different opinion and play style, it’s the wrong way to get me playing a game. As a side note, telling me what sort of gamer I am and judging me based on this web site is also the wrong way to go about things. This site is a small glimpse into my play style, thoughts, and opinions. There’s plenty more that doesn’t get mentioned here or that you simply don’t see unless you’re gaming beside me. Sorry for the rant!

Onward!

The beginning was much the same. Find myself on a beach, free a maiden (if she can be called that) dangling from some bonds, lead her to Tortage and then speak with Turach to free myself of my bonds. Head to the Thirsty Dog, and begin the quest line there. Off for a boat ride to an island after speak with some npc and meander around slaying crocodiles and panthers while I search for another npc. The story is quite interesting – or at least it was once I got past the parts that I’d already played through with the first character. 

I do enjoy the combat – but I’m also used to 7 years of playing a caster or healer. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy melee combat on some small level but it’s certainly not my favorite. The way AoC combat swivels (I’m unsure of how else to describe it) is great. I also LOVE the music. It’s scary and as the snow falls outside today and it’s dark and dreary, I felt immersed in the game. It was nice to hear new music, that I hadn’t already heard before. 

The Herald of Xotli is interesting, it can take on the form of creatures and gets some spells along with melee, which suits me just fine. One bug with this class (and it’s a small bug but it’s one none the less) that bothers me every time is that as you shift from your monster form (which only lasts a number of seconds) back to your regular form – your character goes bald. 

Now, I know this is just a graphic glitch and each time you enter or leave an instance it fixes itself (until you use your monster form again) and I apologize if it’s silly – but – I don’t enjoy being a bald character. 

I continued to work through the quest line – and noticed that trial accounts are indeed flagged with one channel. I think this was a poor option, how am I able to judge what a server is like if I can’t even see regular conversation. Instead we have a trial channel – and of course the main discussion for the majority of the day was WoW vs. AoC. It (understandably) went downhill from there. 

Eventually, I managed to level most of the way to 10 – after becoming a minion subject of Mithrelle and bringing her some eyeballs, a lotus flower, and a trinket to prove myself and then heading to another instance to deal with a slave trader. The zones look very nice, I still haven’t gotten the grasp of climbing yet, but that will come. I only had one quest left and  my quest was flagged as level 10. It told me to visit a trainer. Except I wasn’t level 10 yet. I figured, no problem. I’ll go back to the lava instance and kill some things there to gain the last 25% or so I needed. Except since I wasn’t on the quest, the instance wasn’t an option. Nor was the boat that headed to the island near the beginning. The only creatures I could find were level 5 and barely granted me any experience at all. A few panthers, some scorpion, a few men who dotted the hill side. I must be missing something to get that final level. I figured it was as good a place as any to stop for now, so that’s where I stand.

I’m not a blood and guts type of gal. I do enjoy PvP, I do enjoy questing, and yes all those little sides that AoC doesn’t provide (or doesn’t provide right now – ie: crafting) typically make or break a game for me – simply because I have the time to play and devote to all of these other little facets. Much like WAR when I played, I don’t want to spend all of my time doing one thing. I don’t want to just pvp all of the time or just quest all of the time (typically they are linked on a pvp server). This is why the games I do play end up holding me. It’s the option of other things for me to do in game – and not just what someone else thinks I should do, but what I personally feel like doing which is never the same as what everyone else wants to do and that’s a GOOD thing because diversity in games and gaming style help make games what they are today. 

That’s right, I said it. I don’t like the same games as other people and they don’t like the same games I like, and THAT IS OK! It doesn’t make them bad people, or me. It simply makes us different. I wish more people would stop trying to argue why they think their game rocks and other games suck – when some times all it comes down to is a simple matter of opinion and no wrong or right answer. 

I still have a few more days on my trial, and I do plan on playing more. I don’t hate the game, I don’t even dislike it. To take the quote of Dlanger in his comments: 

” If you’re looking for something innovative and different, you won’t find it in AoC. But if you enjoy the lore of Conan at all, or are interested in seeing new places and killing new beasts, then AoC provides plenty of that.”

It won’t draw me away from the games I’m playing as my ‘main’ games (EQ2 / LotRO) but it certainly is fun to give it a try and see first hand what others are talking about.

Lets Try Something “New”

Yesterday was great. It started off with me puttering around in game, getting familiar with my housing projects and wondering where I wanted to go next with them. So many characters with unfinished or out dated homes. Then I tried to remember what characters I have where in game – and for me this is no easy feat. I’ve been playing fairly steady (with breaks might I add) for over five years now. I have two accounts, and one used to have station access so I’ve got 12 characters on it. I’m also spread across four servers (which I would change if a free server transfer was ever implemented again, but with the character transfer service (automated version) being down for close to a year – I don’t see it happening any time soon). 

I actually drew a little chart of what characters I have where on which accounts. It was fun, I’d forgotten about some which is easy to do when you have 19.

Before too long Wpus and Ultann were in game, eager to do something. First stop? Obelisk, the one in Moors that we’ve been doing. We only had one death, it was a really smooth run. I know it can be done with no deaths but remember we’re not raid geared and there’s only three of us doing these things! I was hoping that perhaps the healer shield would drop, but I’m beginning to think every time I enter the zone SOE removes it from the loot table. We did each get 4p though from the ‘coin’ chest in the room with the electric balls, which was great. 

Afterwards I was at a little bit of an impasse. I took a break and eventually ended up creating a fury to play along with Wpus’ new Berserker. At that exact time, Ultann came back from dinner so instead of playing alts I decided we’d do something completely different. Something we’ve never done before – at least not in a very long time.

I decided the trio would head to The Laboratory of Lord Vyemm and attempt to ‘raid’ the zone as three people instead of 24. Sounds like a mission ending in lots of debt, right? Well, probably. We only had an hour to waste, so I knew we wouldn’t be clearing it. I’ve posted before about how much I enjoy pushing the envelope with certain encounters, doing things a different way or just plain exploring. I remember doing labs with full raid forces and wiping to things, it brings back fond memories. I hadn’t been there in a while, and I really dislike the fact that we can out level content in EQ2 and thus it remains barren, so off we went.

We actually didn’t do too badly. I remember when we used to raid it, if the main tank got the trama on him (debilitating strike I believe it’s called) his mitigation would drop and so would he. It was *essential* that we cure it as soon as possible. At level 80,  it still needs to be cured but it’s not as bad as I once remembered it being. Trash fell and before too long we were staring at the first named. It’s the one to the left as you come down that first set of stairs. 

We wiped to him once because he pummeled us all with a frontal AoE on incoming but brushed ourselves off and attempted the droag again. I was hoping some random relic would drop from trash, but we didn’t have that sort of luck. We DID however, manage to kill him! He dropped some scout fabled pants that none of us had alts who could use, I won the roll and later sold them to the vendor for 1p. We continued down to the forge room, and after we cleared it we took on the 2nd named, who was far easier then the first. A nice fabled hammer dropped, with a pretty particle effect. Of no use now but since weapons can have appearance slots (and shields) it was still nice to see it. 

Ultann had to leave shortly after we downed the 2nd named, so we called it a night. I was happy that we’d done something completely different that used to be so difficult. I still wish we couldn’t out level zones so that we’d have more of a reason to go back to older content (ie: going back to do EQ gods) but it satisfied that craving at least in some small way. 

I hope everyone else had an amazing Sunday!

Obelisk of Ahkzul, and Vault of Eternal Sleep

When EQ had it’s 10th anniversary, for the week you could claim free LoN (Legends of Norrath) loot cards in either EQ or EQ2. For the first portion of the week I was claiming them in EQ, and then switched over to EQ2 when the void vision goggles came out, and then the next day it was the awesome parrot that you see sitting on my mystic’s shoulder in the screen shot above (which turned out really nice, I have to admit). I had planned on doing some questing in Lavastorm for the evening – but had a really nice surprise when Ultann decided to re-activate his EQ2 account. So of course I decide that the group is going to jump right into things, and we head to the Moors of Ykesha to attempt the Obelisk of Ahkzul with just the three of us (and me boxing the coercer). It’s only been a month and a half since we started playing EQ fairly regularly rather then EQ2, and we did pretty well. The new threat meter is amazing and everyone loves it. I adore the fact that you can now auto follow on the Z axis. 

I’ve been playing on the highest settings I can put my computer at and still function, which is one below max. The game looks so incredible to me. I did turn down the number of spell particles I see simply because when you have so many turned on encounters start looking like masses of particle effects and nothing more. I can’t see the mobs or where they’re positioned or know if I’m about to die to a giant AoE frontal. 

We died once in the ‘ball room’ but it was just us being rusty. The second attempt was flawless, and we managed to get a chest with 14p in it. Those chests are nice when you do the instance in a group of three. I had my fingers crossed that the final encounter would drop the healer shield I’ve longed for since day one – but alas, my luck in EQ2 is pretty non-existant, and nothing of use dropped. On the plus side, void shards WERE introduced to this zone finally, so we each gained one more to add to the pile by the end. 

Afterwards we decided to head to Vault of Eternal Sleep in Jarsath Wastes to try (for the 101st time) for the praetor’s guard for Wpus, the conjuror. Ever since we found out we can trio this zone, we’ve attempted to get the guard to drop. Every time, we had no drop. The zone is fairly easy to complete, we rarely ever die. The adds spawned, I mez’d them while still attempting to heal (Wpus catches them with root so I have a little leeway) and down the final boss went. 

A master chest!

Now, there are two fabled (maybe more) that can drop here. There are a pair of pants that no one in the group would use – along with the mage item. FINALLY the guard dropped, now we just need to get one for my coercer. Groan.

I started having ISP issues (again) shortly after that, so when I disconnected I called it a night and headed to bed. I had a blast though. It was great to be back in Norrath 2.0 and even better to enjoy the evening with some great friends. I hope everyone else had a fantastic evening, no matter where you spent it!

See you in Norrath!