Gaming – Page 647 – A Pixel Nomad

Firiona Vie – Bitter Victuals

Last night saw me back in EverQuest, where as tonight I’ll be playing Lord of the Rings Online with Kasul – and I’m of course looking forward to it. After trying to decide what to do, my group (the ever present Ninga and Ultann of course) finally settled on progressing our way through a little bit more of Seeds of Destruction. It was time to head to a few zones I’d never been to before, first being Bloody Kithicor.

What Norrathian hasn’t heard of the Battle of Bloody Kithicor, one of the most notable events in Norrathian history?

Not so long ago, two great armies converged on the Kithicor Forest for one of the largest and bloodiest battles in Norrath’s history. Lanys T`Vyl, the Child of Hate and Firiona Vie, the Chosen of Tunare brought their armies to Kithicor to wage war for the fate of Antonica.

You can go here to read all of the lore surrounding this zone, and there is a lot. I love these stories, I never really experienced them the first time I played EverQuest because – well because I was still new to gaming and I didn’t even realize what a draw that could be for me personally.

The next portion of progression required us to speak to Firiona Vie (who hasn’t changed in all this time might I add) and she sent us off to an instanced version of Old Commonlands. Our first task was to take care of pesky spiders and loot their poison glands. While your “guide” Selkith takes the glands and makes a poison for you to use, he sends you out to kill the Murkwater Assassins, and then to insert each one of the poison bottles into various chests around the Murkwater camp.

Selkith doesn’t want you to tell Firiona Vie what you did, because she wouldn’t approve of the method (sneaking into their camp and poisoning them all) you kill a named (who doesn’t drop any loot, boo) and you’re off onto the next mission afterwards. It took quite a bit of time simply because the spiders were onto us. Literally. We’d be a good 100 feet away from a spider and then all of the sudden we’d have a whole lot of them that just seemed to instantly show up all at the same time. It must have been my deodorant, or lack there of. I am a necromancer after all.

You can read the entire progression quest here for yourself, and it was worth a fair amount of experience considering. Things are starting to hurt now though, the mobs are a lot harder and hit a lot harder then I’m used to. They all summon as well, making it a lot more difficult as a necromancer. I can’t kite. Since none of my characters have leveled over 80 yet, the encounters are yellow and white and it doesn’t take long before I’m face first in the dirt. We had a few tricky pulls last night but over all we did alright. I’m finding more and more use for my enchanter (it’s nice to have at least some version of slow) and still enjoying playing quite a bit.

Hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

The Fabled Binden Concerrentia

I spent most of yesterday questing, and completing old quests to clear out some (not a lot but some!) space in my bags that was sorely needed. Earlier on in the day I had started working on the regular Clockwork Talisman in order to one day finish off the fabled version (pictured to the right). The regular talisman used to be difficult when the planes were used for leveling up, but now that the cap is 85, well. Things are significantly easier.

Part One – involves a bottle drop from the rats in Plane of Justice, and then two drops in Plane of Innovation, a drop in Plane of Nightmare, and a drop in Plane of disease. You turn all this in, and get to move on to part two. You also receive a lesser powered necklace, although the first time I did this quest it was an upgrade to my enchanter. That was a long time ago.

Part Two – involves four drops. One from Plane of Valor, one from Plane of Torment, one from Plane of Tactics, and then finally some powder from the Tower of Solusek Ro. These drops were fairly frequent last night but like I said, way back when the planes were common grounds for leveling, it was far more difficult. As it was, I didn’t see a single other person in any one of these zones while I worked on the quest (hence my desire for old hot zones to remain hot zones). Since most of the access quests have been removed from all of these zones, and all you need now are proper levels it also makes getting this item a whole lot easier then it used to be way back when.

Part Three – probably the simplest these days since there are a lot of people in the higher planes. You need a fragment drop (none fabled for the original version) from Plane of Water, Plane of Air, Plane of Fire, and Plane of Earth. Combine all this together in a special container from the npc and ta da, you’ll end up with The Binden Concerrentia. None-fabled for now. It’s quite easy to upgrade it though – if – you happen to be around during the anniversaries.

To upgrade to the fabled version you simply need the regular version and four fabled drops from mobs in each of the planes (Earth, Water, Air, Fire) and combine it all together in a container. Since the mobs are fabled they do pack quite a punch, but are one group-able. I have this quest completed to stage two on my rogue and I still remember how difficult it was for me to get as far as I did on it. She probably won’t ever finish the first version let alone the fabled version, but I’m still glad I completed it on someone.

Aside from working on that particular quest I managed to get one of the 10th anniversary quests done, though it is a repeat from last year. The reward is a brick that gates you to plane of knowledge every 20 hours. A little excessive as far as time goes, but it was still a cute quest. You have to go to a bunch of different planes and find collectors items, and combine them in a pouch. I still wish the planes had of had more people in them. I remember killing the spiders and rock men for hours in Plane of Valor way back when, but it was (like most zones) empty when I headed there today. Ah well.

Also managed to do a little experience grinding with Ninga and Ultann, we headed to The Mechamatic Guardian zone in Dragonscale Hills to kill for a few hours. Kameeko (enchanter) is inching her way to level 80, and Minxes (necromancer) is still plugging away to 81. These levels seem to drag by (it’s been a while since I leveled) but I devoted some time to gaining aa, so I can’t expect it to be that fast. A pre-grats to Ultann who has probably hit level 85 by the time I write this, and Ninga is close behind! I hope everyone is having an amazing weekend.

Interesting Read

I was going through my google reader (which I do, almost obsessively at times) and came across this post over at ‘Of Course I’ll Play It!‘ which really hit home with me. With so much negative feedback from people across their blogs all of the time about games in general and their games in specific, it was a great read (even though it was just recapping thoughts on the GDC). While I’m constantly looking at things through the eyes of a player and NOT a developer, it’s nice to read what the other side thinks about things and try to piece together their thought process.

The portion in specific from his post that struck me was the following:

The second little gem from Mr. Burnett’s talk was also an excellent one. It boils down to this: Just because you’ve seen something a million times, that doesnt’ keep it from being fun for someone whom hasn’t ever seen it. Remember how it was the first time you saw it. This isn’t earth shattering, but it’s still a great little gem to keep in your pocket. Dont rearrange something just because you’re tired of looking at it. As long as you have fresh eyes, it still has huge value. As an MMO designer this is especially difficult to do, because there will be so much you’ve seen and done before. The trick, especially from an MMO designer’s standpoint, is to make sure you keep having fresh eyes.

Go check out the rest of the post.

Your Typical Friday Night

The group headed back to camp for the ever elusive augment that refuses to drop for us, ever. We spent a few more hours clearing place holders and a good portion of the zone before deciding that life is too short, and we moved on to greener pastures. Well, not exactly greener. More like blue.

Our first destination was Plane of Water, to camp a few more fabled. The zone is quite small, so even with two other groups it felt crowded. Plus things are on a 40 minute timer which means lots of time standing around doing nothing. The ‘regular’ fabled mobs who drop the gate necklace bit were all over the place, and they’re hard and mean. We did see the bard swarm weapon fabled a few times – but we had no bards around, so grats rot.

The highlight of the evening was Kameeko getting a clicky that transforms her into an inanimate object. It has 600 power on it and some fairly nice stats, plus it’s a clicky so how could you not adore it. At first I didn’t think it was an upgrade, but my eyes were obviously failing me and I wasn’t reading the stats proper.

I was feeling pretty cranky for the evening, purchasing a new video card wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do, and a few other (smaller) things kept it from being one of those awesome Friday nights that you have oodles of fun with. After camping water for a little while we decided to head back to Valdeholm which I am honestly just tired of. I love the idea that there are hot zones – but what I wish is that every zone that was previously a hot zone, remained. Why? Well it’s simple.

Why restrict where people are leveling. I realize you probably want to see a concentrated population for groups, but people don’t group all that much anyhow. I’d love to see options on where to group. As it is if you want a hot zone for the higher levels you’re restricted to two places, and after grinding experience in those two places you get fairly bored of it. Why not leave all the previous hot zones as hot zones, and allow the community to spread out a little bit. There are lots of places I’d love to go but it’s either too hard and above my skill level right now – or the experience is so insignificant that there’s no reason to even be there.

Games need to stop trivializing their own zones. In EQ2 I’ve talked about this with the con system, how encounters can go grey so unless you’re an avid quest person (or you have someone to mentor) there’s no real reason to travel back to any zone that you’ve already out leveled. In EQ at least the mobs still drop items if they’re ‘grey’ to you since there is no grey mobs really. Would this create issues with players camping named? Well, no one is camping those old grey zones anyhow, so maybe breath a little life back into it.

I believe today my trio is headed to Anguish to (try to) kill some mobs that drop augments. We’re not big enough (or well geared enough) to take on the named by ourselves, but there is trash that will drop handy things, plus the few brief glimpses I had of the zone were mostly of the floor, as I was dying. I haven’t been back since the necromancer got her 2.0 completed.

Which reminds me, I still want to work on Kameeko’s (enchanter) 1.0 and 1.5 – it’s a little more difficult with fabled up though. When the old world gods are all fabled versions of the original they hurt a LOT more. Other then that, I’m not sure what’s going on this weekend. Grand adventures of some sort no doubt! Monday night I’ll be playing LotRO with Kasul (supposed to be during the day but he’s switched his shift around to help out a coworker, so it will be in the evening instead) so look for some updates then.

In the mean time, happy gaming and see you in Norrath!

New Video Card time – Again

Welp, it finally happened. I was getting fed up with the video card issues I was having, and have been having for quite some time. Almost as soon as I installed my 8800 Nvidia as it were. No, I didn’t have a warranty for it and even if I did I didn’t want another nvidia sent back to me.

My power supply is also quite low, only 450, and I didn’t know if it was a card issue, power supply, or something else. It’s cheaper to get a new power supply then it is to get a new video card (even I know that in my VERY slim knowledge of computer bits) so I took my card out, put in my old 7600 (also by Nvidia) and put the 8800 in a different computer. Booted up EQ2 on the second PC and less then an hour later (the 2nd computer has a higher power supply) the exact same graphic issues I was experiencing on my own pc. Great. Time for a new card.

This time around I’m going with an ATI. I’ve been with Nvidia for my entire gaming career (if you can call it that). I can’t afford to keep buying new cards every single year but since my job involves playing video games I’m not left with a whole lot of options. Newegg.ca offers very nice prices, and I settled on an ATI Radeon HD 4870 – 1gig for $280 Canadian, delivered in 5 business days.

Tomorrow I’ll go out and pick up a new power supply and then once the new card gets here I should be all set. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Some times I really dislike computers.