Gaming – Page 671 – A Pixel Nomad

Happy New Year

I’m not exactly a big fan of crowds or large noisy parties, so last night saw me in EQ2 for new years eve talking with online friends as I drank some sparkling wine (which was really good, the empty bottle attests to that) and today I’ll be doing the family thing and finish up putting together a plate of appetizers before I head out. Even under the influence of a little wine I still had good fun, and managed to do a few instances.

Petites headed to Deep forge to complete the daily double and I was really pleased to learn that I can obtain the shard quests at level 79. I thought they started at level 80. So now she has four shards in her bags waiting for her first piece of TSO gear. I’d never been to the deep forge and the group blew through it with no issues at all. It was a Shadowknight, Dirge, Troubador, Wizard, some scout DPS that I forget at the moment (I want to say Swashbuckler or Assassin) and myself as Templar. 20% experience later, we headed to the Obelisk that you find in the Moors. I needed it for my signature quest anyhow, and the chest within that zone drops a few plat for everyone in the group. Plus it was quick and easy even if there are no shard rewards unless it’s a daily double location.

After that we headed to Commonlands to help the coercer out with a quest update for the book of Thex heritage quest. You have to zone into an instance and defeat a named who spawns adds – without killing a single add. There are a lot of them, too. Apparently it was supposed to be difficult, but we had no issues. The coercer rooted the adds that spawned far away, and mez’d the ones who spawned close by. We had a lot of dps and that helped take down the encounter.

Earlier in the day I completed a tradeskill instance on my tailor with Kasul from guild, his carpenter hit 61 I believe. My tailor managed to slug her way to 67, three more levels and it’ll be back to writ grinding for me. I also logged in the alchemist late last night before bed and inched her to 66 and part way through. Made a few adornments to put on the broker, I’ve been holding onto the shards and dusts for a long time now stock piling.

All in all the evening was spent exactly as I had hoped. I wish everyone a Happy New Year, and may it be as wonderful as the previous.

Frostfell Guide Event, and DING 79 Templar!

Happy New Years to those who have already passed it, and to those who are celebrating tonight. I won’t be doing anything special per say, no doubt I’ll be gaming (not a fan of crowds of people). Yesterday saw a little excitement in game, for various reasons. As I was hanging out in Qeynos Harbor (which is a rare occurrence these days, with guild halls providing everything I could possibly ever want) I heard Gigglegibber Goblin screaming about not having any gifts to give to Aimee, a Ratonga.

After four or five of these screams, I headed over to the bank portion of the zone, and was offered a quest from this Gigglegibber, who spoke nothing more aside from that (I had complained about the noise, goblins, what filthy creatures).

The quest was to collect presents that you can see in the zone when you have this quest on you. It was a race with everyone else running after the same gifts, but Petites (the halfling who was doing the quest) was up for the challenge.

I love seeing unique quests like this. Number one, they’re rare. Number two, they count towards your quest count. Two very good things. I chose the snow generator reward and headed off to Baubleshire to put it in Petites 1-room (amazing) house. It has the same graphic as the little statue you click inside of guild halls to obtain the recall to guild button, but it has an off and on switch. When you turn the generator on, it spews little puffs of snow up into the air and has a cool swirling effect. What can I say, I love the house items. Thank you to the guild who ran the event, I’m glad I could be in the right place at the right time (for once).

The paladin is inching her way to 71, 80% through level 70 right now. I was working on those quests in Kylong Plains and yes dragging my feet through them. In the last week or so (just before holidays) I went from level 62 to 70 with her, so perhaps I’m experiencing a little burnout now. The greatest moment of the evening aside from the house item was the fact that my level 78 templar (who just hit 78 not too long ago) managed to drag her way through the entire level yesterday and hit level 79! Only ONE more to go! Shadowgeist ran around the Moors of Ykesha helping me clear out the beginner quests that I’d never done (which was, lets face it, all of them) and then afterwards with raids cancelled due to people still being on holiday, Albrta, Eyenstein, Kasul, Shadowgeist, and myself made our way to Crypt of Agony in Sebilis. Yes, you remember that zone no one does any more because we’re all too busy in TSO instances? Well it turns out that Petites had never been there before, so it was a LOT of achievements for her, as well as some great experience. Since I’m this close to max level I decided to use my experience potions, better late then never. I rarely use them and I don’t know that they helped too much, but hey every little bit matters.

Today I hope to run her through more quests either in Jarsath Wastes or Moors depending on what mood I’m in, and finish those off. Inching her closer to 80. Once at 80 I’d love to work on her epic, though there is also Stargrace who has (once again been neglected) been waiting to work on her epic as well. This will be my 5th level 80 character, and with the paladin at 70, and the defiler at 74, it won’t be that much longer before I add two more to the list.

Hope everyone has a FANTASTIC evening tonight, don’t drink too much, stay safe and many HUGS from me here at MmoQuests.com!

Pool Tables, Crafting, and Antonia Bayle

Yesterday was pretty fun, the paladin reached level 70 which was a fantastic goal. I took her to Palace of the Awakened which is all but forgotten now with all of the new content. There wasn’t another person to be found. Boxing, I took down the two dragons in each of the wings, who of course dropped nothing but treasured for me. Ah well. After that I headed to Vaults, which is an instance on the Isle of Awakening, lots of spell casters in that zone.

Nothing of note dropped except maybe the fury class hat which has a pretty cool graphic. Of course if you manage to snag one of the ‘box of utterly classless hats’ you don’t even need to be a fury to have an item with the same graphic. Since I don’t have any fury, I put it for sale. I would have liked the paladin hat, but I remember them being quite ugly, and I’m sure I can do without.

Two more levels and I can finally start outfitting the paladin. I need to get my alchemist some levels, goal for later today perhaps. I figure since I have crafters on both accounts, I can box the instances and even if one character is just sitting inside of the zone, that’s faction and a shard for them. I know the quests for TSO shards have been changed so that you can’t let people into an empty zone any more for clickie updates (or at least this is what I’ve heard through the grape vine, I haven’t tested it myself yet) which makes sense. There are a handful of quests that require no killing at all, so after an instance was cleared you used to be able to just wander in and grab it yourself.

I built a pool table for a friend, their house is a work in progress. They wanted something ‘modern’ looking. The screen shot is a view from the back of the house, there’s a TV off in the distance with a couch, some gaming tables and of course the pool table. VERY much a work in progress though.

Afterwards I decided to work on the TSO signature line with Petites (78 templar) in the hopes of getting her a little experience. The quest starts on the docks in both Qeynos Harbor (goodies) and East Freeport (evil aligned) and sends you to speak with either Antonia Bayle, or Lucan D’Lere. Of course in the screen shot Petites took the time for a photograph with the queen herself who looks less then amused with the whole situation.

Halflings rock.

I didn’t get too far in the series because I realized I had yet to complete the crafting introduction quests, even though Petites has been an 80 jeweler for quite some time, a unicorn mount may not be out of the question. Eventually (some day) I have hopes of completing enough faction required to actually purchase all of the items on the merchants. We’ll just have to see how that goes though.

All in all it was a fairly good day. I have been having fun watching everyone else give their predictions for 2009, while I myself am not really one to make those types of lists, they always interest me.

Nostalgia is half way through 35, and creeping towards 36 at a fairly steady pace. Hopefully once my two crafters hit 70 the status they get from their writs will help move us a little further. I planned on using up all of my potions before 70, so the experience would slow down so that I can earn more faction and status. We’ll see how that works out (if it works out). I hope everyone is having an amazing week no matter what game they’re playing.

A huge hug and shout out to anyone reading this by the way. To those who have contacted me over the years and who have given me opportunities I have only dreamed of, my thanks. You all have no idea how much it makes me smile to hear about your own adventures. Sorry for the sentimental round there. I renewed my site yesterday for another year, after contemplating ending it and moving on to a new project. So much work has gone into it and I truly do enjoy writing, even if I’m not one of the ‘big names’ like others I read.

Safe travels, see you in Norrath!

Quiet Sunday Fun

It was a quiet Sunday, and those are rare. The paladin is now sitting at level 68, she was big enough to start the Kylong Plains quests – but not quite big enough to solo them, especially since she’s missing gear. Lots of gear. I didn’t want to bother getting her any until she hits 72, and then she can wear incarnadine. Grouping with level 80’s isn’t a problem any more, and in the morning I headed to Halls of Fate in Bonemire for a quick run. The group consisted of myself playing both paladin and templar, the trusty Shadowknight, a Conjuror, Assassin, and Dirge. The zone was fun, and fast. We all mentored down even though after a few people mentored everything was green anyhow. Nothing of any note dropped, I was hoping since the aa in the nest was apparently re-set that so would the aa in other zones. Wasn’t so, ah well.

Goals? Getting the paladin to 72 so I can get her into some proper gear, spending 100p on some loams so I can get her some skills – and finding an alchemist to make those skills. My own is sitting at 65 currently. Though she does have full vitality and 5 other level 80 crafters on the account, so technically speaking I could inch her closer to 70 if I tried.

Still looking for a raid guild too. Or I just need to meet a few tanks or some static groups. Slow process, but I know it takes time. You have to actually be around and in game longer then 10 minutes if you expect to get a group or make new friends. Since I’m constantly flip flopping from character to character, it can be frustrating. Nostalgia is well on their way to level 36, which is one level closer to 40, which is one level closer to new bank slots, and two more amenity. Really looking forward to that!

Other then that, just a lot of real life post-holiday clean up.

Quest of The Week: Infiltrating The Sanctum

Yesterday I was looking through Arysh’ quest journal, thinking to myself “wow, I only have room for 8 more quests”. The quests that I do have in there I’m reluctant to delete, they’re either chains that I’d like to complete one day, or they’re book quests that I don’t ever delete because (gasp) house items rock. One quest that had been in there forever (almost literally) was part of the Sanctum of the Scaleborn timeline. It’s one I’d never completed on any character – even though I have basically lived in SoS in the past, working on Claymore (which I completed on Arysh).

The quest is the ‘infiltrating’ line, that starts just inside the doors to SoS on the left hand side. The first few quests are quite easy, you have to run around placing listening devices. Of course by now everything is very grey to me, so this was no issue. The entire quest compromises of 6 portions, each one slightly more difficult then the previous.

When I got to the final two quests, Shadowgeist came to SoS to help me out. Not that I needed help per say, but killing grey heroic mobs can be slow (and boring). Since I was there, I decided to log in Ellithia, the 74 defiler. Added her to group and when we mentored, the zone turned green (and most of the upper levels still grey) which was perfect. We had to kill enough scaleborn to finally get a trial stone to drop, and that was probably the most difficult part of the whole quest. The trial stones are used to spawn a ring event in a pit and in the amount of time I’d been in SoS, I only saw one. Thankfully, we were lucky and got one to drop after clearing out a few rooms.

The quest gave me a LOT of achievement, and it was just plain fun. Of course there was a hidden reason why I wanted to complete this chain, and it was not the fact that the second last reward was a cool looking sword that my warden could wear.

It was of course a house item. One of the few things in game that will pull me to a quest no matter what level it is. The dragon bust doesn’t look all that impressive compared to the other crafted ones, but it does have a fair amount of status on it, and I’m proud for collecting it. The final quest makes you kill Cyenadros, a x2 epic dragon that resides above the gorg pit in SoS. He (she?) was not up when we made our way there, but you can trigger them by killing the worshippers who hang out on the rug on the bottom floor. Then upstairs x2 drake will spawn around the outside of the main platform. Kill them, and Cyenadros will spawn in the center. The dragon is level 67, and we duo’d it at level 74. They DO have a kick back, so make sure you’re up against a wall when you fight or you’ll get tossed over the side. Other then that, fairly simple fight.

Arysh hit 149aa when all was said and done, which is not too bad. I’d like to be closer to 160, but since I haven’t worked on her at all, well, I’ll take what I can get.

When I was done with the SoS quest fun, I decided to level the paladin a little bit. Sitting at 62, Lithe has her 52 rare spell (hate transfer via group) and is a lot of fun to play. I logged in my templar (Petites) to box along with, and headed off to do The Nest in Barren Sky with Shadowgeist.

The paladin managed to hit level 65, which means she can group with level 80’s and get quest updates (finally). The templar also hit level 78, which is a huge deal to me because solo’ing with a templar is like watching paint try. It also means I’m close to having my 5th level 80 character, and possibly a tank before too long on the 2nd account (which I’m really looking forward to). At 65 I can start the Kylong Plains quests, but I think I’ll wait until 67-68 before starting them. I haven’t explored very many zones with Lithe yet, and I’m still enjoying the paladin more then I thought I would. I looted a very nice shield off of Cyenadros last night, so she’s sporting that. Now I have to save up another 100p for some T8 loams, too. Only five more levels before I’ll start using those (and I should level the alchemist up to help her out too).

There’s still so much fun to be had in Norrath, I hope everyone enjoyed their Saturday! I’ll write more about the other games I bought on Friday this week hopefully. he