Category: Gaming

Halflings Need Baths Too

I love the way the graphics are in the Moors of Ykesha. When you head to one of the very first camps, you’re in the swamp and surrounded by flies the entire time you quest. It’s these great little additions that make EverQuestII come to life, and I’ll never get tired of them (even when they lag my machine up). I still haven’t managed to get enough faction to buy the recipe books or appearance armour, but I’m getting there slowly. So far I’ve been sort of two sided about the release of TSO. On one hand it’s very pretty, with nice rewards. On the other hand this is the fourth year (going on fifth) that I’ve played EQ2 (yes, I’ve been here from the start) and it feels like I’ve done all of this before. The void shards are great for those who can manage to get a group, but for those who are unable to it’s frustrating. It’s more or less because I still don’t know anyone on Najena aside from Nostalgia and a few Siege members, and those I do know already have their static groups. I’ll have to see if I can remedy this. The only real innovation that grabbed me right away was the crafting bits and I realize I talk about crafting an exceptional amount in this blog, but that’s not the only thing I enjoy in my games. It just happens to be a large portion. 

I’d like to /wave and say hi back to Kilanna, who took a break from the blogging world for a while. She’s my aussie friend who plays on the Guk server, a templar. Her posts are filled with all of the good things about EQ2, so be sure to give it a peek. 

Goals for me? More then likely leveling my paladin a little bit. Still undecided as to whether or not I’ll get her some gear. I probably should. I wish there were more armor quests (maybe legendary?) spread throughout the tiers that people could quest for. Though I guess crafters may find that annoying. 

Other then questing in Moors, and doing those crafting quests, not too much is new EQ2 wise! Wish I had something more exciting to write about. Maybe later today!

Those not so rare sigils

I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s one of the most complex and interesting craft systems I’ve seen, and it’s not timed which makes it more enjoyable for me. While I can appreciate the system EQ2 has in place, some times the phone rings, or the door, or a pot boils over or some other real life interruption occurs, and in EQ2 this could mean disaster for the process. In Vanguard it just means stepping away and hitting the next button in the stage when you get back. There’s so many combinations of things you can craft, and so many different catalysts and powders and dusts and what not that you can add to each and every individual item, I just love it. There’s a LOT of crafting quests in Vanguard as well, which makes it interesting and fun. I love crafting in any game, but yes, Vanguard is my favorite. 

My artificer managed to hit level 46 in crafting yesterday, and is now 60% through that level. Leveling is hard, and it takes a long time. I do writs which reward me with bags of goodies, as well as faction and coin. The faction is used to purchase recipes, and is needed for certain quests. For example the brick quests. I need to earn 5,000 faction in order to be able to learn granite bricks for each continent. So far I’ve only learned Kojan style, but I’m well on my way to the remaining faction I need for Thestra. Qalia will just have to wait. 

I also noticed another change since I’ve been gone. When you’re leveling up, as soon as you get to 20+ you’re required to save up Masterwork Sigils for your upgrade recipes. Basically this is the difference between crafting handcrafted items, and mastercrafted items (except mastercrafted items in VG are really really really nice, and sell very well). These sigils used to be VERY rare. In all my levels I only ever earned 4-5 of them. You need 8 per recipe of the current tier you’re on, and 2 less for every tier you’ve passed. There are (for me at least) three recipes to purchase that use these sigils, per tier. That’s a lot of sigils! When I started crafting yesterday I thought it may have just been dumb luck that I managed to get two on my first batch, but by the end of the craft day when I was looking at 15 sigils, I knew things must have changed. I’m not lucky, and I’m certainly not THAT lucky. I did manage to buy the T5 jewelery recipe upgrade (30g, OUCH!) so that means I can make rare jewelery for levels 40-50. Crafting also still involves help from other crafters. To make rare jewelery I use a rare gem but then I also use a truesilver sheet, which is crafted by blacksmiths. It’s nice, and it’s one of the things that have kept the community together and so strong. 

There are a LOT of artificers in game because they craft houses, furniture, and boats (including the galleons that are due out next month) which are all pretty popular. With fishing being implemented next month I’m also trying to think about who to level next. Do I go with my carpenter so I can own a boat and get myself some actual furniture in my house, or do I want to go with a ‘useful’ class like my leatherworker (there are the least amount of those around) or a blacksmith armorer or weaponsmith to be able to make my upgradeable bits. 

Ah, the choices!

Questing in The Moors

There’s only one major downside to having too many characters (two accounts, one with station access) and that is when it comes time to deciding what to do, or who to work on, unless you’re in a very specific mood, that process could take hours. I’ve been meaning to do the Moors of Ykesha quests (there are a lot of them) and work up my faction at least enough to be able to purchase the crafting books, but the lag on Najena has been so incredibly bad that after 30 minutes or so I give up and decide to work on something else, instead. I’m sure it will get fixed before too long, but in the mean time I’m content to work on other things. I still only have two void shards and I’ve barely seen a fraction of the instances available. Since the content has to last a year, I’m not in a great rush (even though the gear you can purchase with void shards is quite amazing for non-raiders, and even a few pieces for raiders).

The paladin who was at 35 ended up reaching 42 on that same day when I wrote about leveling her. Shadowgeist and I headed to Runnyeye, which is a zone that’s pretty empty these days except for level 80’s who are trying to get boarfiend parts. Those level 30’s boars within the zone drop the lore and legend pieces. In fact, I sold one single piece for 5p that’s how popular they are. The next closest price was 17p. For something that dropped off of a level 30 mob, I was quite happy.

At 42 the paladin is still wearing her level 22 and level 4 gear. I’ve been contemplating whether or not I want to bother upgrading it, or if I want to wait until 52, since that tier will last longer (I dislike leveling in the 50’s, always have). On that same note, I’m trying to decide where I want to level her. Perhaps purchasing some gear and heading to Everfrost to quest would be a good idea.

The alts are fun, I love leveling through the older content, even if it’s rushing by only long enough to have shadowgeist harm touch an encounter and have them instantly die. I also contemplated re-betraying my dirge back to a troubador yesterday. If it wasn’t for the fact that silicate loams are 4-5p a piece and I’d (naturally) want adeptIII of all of my skills. Perhaps a work in progress. I betrayed to a dirge because I wasn’t playing the bard and when I did play her I wanted her to have a little more group utility. I’m not playing her as a dirge either though and there are far more dirges around then troubadors. Plus, well why not. I betray all my characters all of the time, that’s nothing new. It’s one of the methods I use to keep things interesting. Weird? Of course, but hey that’s who I am.

Ding, 43 Bloodmage!

I spent most of the evening yesterday in Vanguard once I’d completed the daily tradeskill on my tailor in EQ2 (and dinged level 60 might I add, nice accomplishment there!) it’s common for me to bounce between multiple games, and station access is letting me bounce between a few without feeling too bad about the cost. It was a pretty exciting day. 

My goal was to hit level 43, which was pretty lofty because I just hit level 42 yesterday. What I decided to do was give up the sand in the underwear zones for a bit and head back to Thestra. I noticed there were a lot of green quests in Beranid Hills, all of them solo. Looking at my meagre collection of a whole 10% experience, I figured even if most of the encounters were grey (which they were) I could use a potion and gain 50% on top of whatever the quests would rewards with me. I probably picked up at least 20 quests and one at a time spent the evening clearing them out. By the time I’d killed everything I needed, explored some druid stones, located some dead dogs for some poor old lady, found someones dead daughter (the Beranid Hills are filled with dead things or undead as the case is) I headed back to camp and turned them all in. I was at 14% experience from kills, and after using the potion and turning what I had over to the npc’s I was at 77% experience. Very worth while. 

After getting so close to my goal of 43 I couldn’t just give up, so I headed back to Razad, the land of sand in uncomfortable places. I ran around completing the last few quests I had in that area, and before too long DING 43! This is a big level for me. Number one, it means I can now group with level 50’s and gain experience and credit for quests. Huge plus. Number two, I’ve had a robe on me for the past 15 levels. It’s crafted by tailors and it’s level is red. That’s pretty much the equivalent of fabled gear back in T5 for EQ2 before raids were really popular. There’s purple gear (basically mythical) but aside from my craft bag I’ve never seen any. This robe is VERY nice for me and I’m sure I’ll be wearing it for a long time to come. 

Besides the leveling, I also found myself a home again in Vanguard. I returned to Safe Haven, which is a guild filled with amazing people. They span across multiple games (including an EQ2 branch on Antonia Bayle) and much like nostalgia in EQ1 and EQ2 I could not ask for a better bunch of people. They’re simply amazing. It was nice to be welcomed back in – and learn that they now have a proper guild hall. This thing is MASSIVE. Screen shot above is me standing in some sort of ceremonial room. We do have a small amount of dues that we pay once a month (I think for my level it’s 5g a month) but it’s well worth it, especially because our guild hall houses our guild trophies. These are statues within the hall that place buffs (three of them, one for each sphere) permanently on guild members. 

It’s nice to be back, if for no other reason then to have others to talk to. We had 10-15 people on tonight, which is about what I remember. The guild also organizes events, and I’m looking forward to partaking in a few of those over time. We’ll see how it goes. 

Now, onwards to 50!

Fallen Gate, Ruins of Varsoon, and Steamfont Crafting

Shadowgeist offered to help level up my paladin yesterday morning before the work day began, and who am I to say no to leveling! My paladin (Lithe, a Kerran) started off as level 29. I haven’t been very diligent with her gear, she’s sitting in a few pieces of steel and level 4 jewelery, but that’s alright, I don’t need gear until level 40-50 or so. Not for what I had in mind at least.

We headed off to Fallen Gate to start, it’s the older (broken) version of Neriak. There was no one in the zone (not odd for Najena, most people play end game and there’s not that many lower level characters these days) and we quickly took down all of the named in sight. We also headed into the smaller instance at the end of the zone, it’s a guaranteed fabled chest, and the item was a ring that was an upgrade to my (by now) 32 paladin. Not bad, gained quite a few levels. My vitality was running thin and I suggested we stop there (I just wanted to gain enough levels to be able to wear the new mastercrafted stuff) but Shadowgeist insisted we head to Ruins of Varsoon and take a peek around.

We traveled to Thundering Stepps and before long I found myself taking down skeletons and zombies as well as the golems of Varsoon. We headed to the instance within that zone as well, which is 2 guaranteed master chests. One from a magic user who likes to charm (meanie!) and the other from Varsoon himself.

By then I had leveled from 29-35, and that was enough for me. We called it a day and I gated home to clear out my bags, put items for sale and send off master spells to those who could use them.

Later on that evening Kasul, Eyenstein, Albrta, Shadowgeist, and I headed to Steamfont to do one of the crafting instances. Albrta and Eyenstein had never been there before, so I explained how it worked and how instead of making 3 of an item as the quest suggests, we make 12 instead, and turn them all in at once.

It went well, though the crafting was difficult for some when it was outside of their subclass. I brought along my 58 tailor, who managed to get 59 from the zone. Getting there slowly.

Of course when it came to the giant battle bot fight at the end, Shadowgeist couldn’t sit out. Well. Now we know why Tipa died that first time. If you help out in the fight at all, the robot fighting for your side turns on you and smacks you pretty badly afterwards. Guess he’s a solo’er. Eyenstein and Shadowgeist picked themselves up off the floor and we opened the chest –

Wow. Nice rewards tonight. We received a crafting book (went to Albrta), a sage ring (went to Eyenstein), and also a piece of Artisan gear which means any one of us could have used it. For once the dice were on my side, and I won it. Looking forward to being able to use that in the future!

When the chest goodies were finally dealt with, Shadowgeist decided ‘just for fun’ to see if we could take down one of the level 90 ^ clockwork bots that were still in the room. There are three types, and believe it or not, we managed to take them down AND they each reward you with aa. So there’s the potential to gain it from three different encounters. Not bad. I’m not sure if that’s intended or not, as they don’t really LOOK like named, but it was a nice reward none the less.

I was sad to see that the solo crafting mission only rewards 2,000 faction now especially because this quest can only be obtained once a week, and the daily ones rewards at least 1,500 faction. 5,000 would have been better then the current amount if they were looking to reduce it. My tailor (who is one of my lowest crafters) now has more Far Seas tokens then all of my other crafters, but she’s unable to purchase anything with her 6 tokens. Ah well, by the time she’s a high enough level crafter to make use of the gear and recipe books she has, she will have the faction (I hope). All in all, it was a fantastic night!