Category: Gaming

Harbor

The harbor of Khal is an amazing sight. Especially when people’s boats are all parked in various places along the docks (as pictured above). Last night I dipped into Vanguard for a short while with Gozad and Growlius. Not on mains this time though – for once we all played lowbies. I was on my 18 psionicist, Growlius his 22 disciple, and Gozad on his 22 necromancer.

We all got the diplomacy necklace we needed to work towards our mount, and headed to Qalia to work on hunter’s league quests. We did not have a tank, but things went fairly smooth anyhow.

Shoulders were first, and it was very little effort despite the more interesting pulls we had from time to time.

Psionicists work slightly different then enchanters in EQ1/EQ2 in that they can only mez one mob at a time (or at least, that’s all I can do right now at level 19) but we can also charm one mob, and AOE stun for 8 seconds. When we mez (I’ve mentioned this before) we actually phase the mob right out of exhistence – and in order for anyone to actually attack the mob again, we have another spell that phases them back in. That’s right, no more breaking mez – at all.

One of my favorite tactics is making sure I cast my duplicate spell (it taunts the mob and replicates it, but basically does 0 dmg) before I unphase it. That way when I do unphase, the mob is already attacking the duplicate of itself, and I have a chance to snare it and nuke it a few times before that breaks / wears off.

Psionicists also have a world wide channel attached to one of their spells, it’s called ‘mind’ and it’s great. When you have the buff on you’re auto joined to it. A handy tool to ask others questions you may have about your class.

After we’d completed the shoulder quest I decided to take a break for a bit – being exceptionally worn out after a fairly exciting day. Thanks to Tipa over at Westkarana, I’m now writing for Beckett Massive Online Gamer – about EverQuestII. A writing opportunity came up and she happened to mention my name. Wow how amazing is that? I have my first interview next week, and yes I’m very nervous. These newsstand magazines are actually printed and sold in multiple places, you may have heard of them before for their sports magazines. My first two articles (as long as everything goes well) should come out for the September issue.

I think I’m still stunned over that one.

Bloodline Chronicles

When SOE implemented the mini expansion packs that would come out mid way through the year (for a fee of $5) a lot of people were upset. Why are we paying for extra content was the cry from the general public. With the latest expansion, each of these adventure packs were included (for those who did not purchase them) and one of the best ones there aside from Fallen Dynasty (which is my number one favorite) is the Bloodline Chronicles which pits you against vampires and badies in the low 30’s to high 40’s range through a series of 11 quests.

The zones may seem drab after all this time, but the rewards are fun. Arysh (warden) is far too high for these quests, and I mowed through them fairly fast. Some coin, aa rewards (now that grey quests reward experience) and some cool appearance gear – as well as the charm that turns you into a vampire.

Why bother doing these quests at all? Well there’s also the vampire smite spell you get by the end – and who does not want to be able to smite those foes? Ever since Castle Mistmoore and the incidents there..

Last night I also came to the conclusion that, YES, you CAN have TOO many alts.

I know. Lets pause here to check for a pulse, I did indeed just say that. Me, with all the alts that I have.

So I’ve decided it’s time to cut down and focus. Now, why on earth would I ever say too many alts is bad? Let me mention here that crafting alts don’t fall under this category. I simply mean too many adventure alts is bad. Think of it this way, unless you can devote a LOT of time to each alt, how on earth will you manage to complete everything there is to complete in the game.

I have plenty of characters, and I’ve done a lot of content, but no one character has done all or even a majority of it. I’ve got one with claymore, another with prismatic 1.0 another with godking, two with their epics.

It’s all spread all over.

The same thing can be said about masters and upgrades. How can you afford to gear up and equip every one of those characters. I know people who have one definitive “main” who own every single M1 they can possibly own. Why? Because they have no alts to buy for.

Now, crafting alts are money makers, adornment providers and other random goodness. Those are different.

There’s a pretty good chance this whole experiment will backfire on me. I’ll get frustrated and end up creating ten alts to compensate for it. We’ll just have to see (I can hear everyone laughing in the background already). I won’t know unless I try!

Figuring out the Vanguard Racial Mounts

Since I wasn’t in game when these mounts were implimented, I’ve been scatter brained trying to figure this stuff out. Thankfully, there’s some wonderful resources on the web. Lets start first with this site here, they explain to you the steps you have to take in order to start working on getting a racial mount.

“Visit the related city-faction registrar and apply to work for their city. Doing this you’ll be handed out a Kamelott Inc.+diplo-necklace, which you have to equip in order to loot socalled faction-coins. You do not need the ring to do this.

This should work at regular combat as long you

1) gain xp for the kills AND

2) you equip the necklace.

The coins will not be shown in the loot-window, but directly appear in your inventory. For the start you receive as well platin-coin for the faction you chosed. So far known copper-, silver- and gold-coins stack to a kinda additional currency meant  to buy faction with.  The platin-coins come as lucky loot out of boss-mobs only and should be saved in  order to later buy the mount.

For the racial mount you’ll need both:
+ a certain amount of faction points (rumors say 13k)
+ 50 platin-coins to buy the lvl 30 version of your racial mount
and/or
+ 100 platin-coins to buy the lvl 50 version of your racial mount

if you bought the lvl-30-mount you’ll pay only 100 platin for the lvl-50 ones”

Ok. That seems easy enough. So you’ll want to start getting faction towards a mount as soon as possible, and you’ll want to try to earn these platinum coins in order to purchase the mount. Vanguard has done a nice thing by bringing back KoS to cities through working on these faction mounts. You can also switch city factions, and go after whichever mount you’d like.

So what are those mounts? Well, further searching lead me to this site here. They have a very comprehensive site on where you can find the mounts, what the mounts look like, and oh yes did I mention WHERE you can find the mounts? This was the one thing I couldn’t figure out as I ran around Tanvu. Turns out I wasn’t looking in the right place.

So, all those ancient coins you’re getting from MEST quest rewards? You take them to a city registar, and they will exchange them for platinum coins. Those coins are used towards purchasing your mount. Sounds simple enough. Oh, except for the exceptionally long grind of purchasing those mounts.

As of now, I’ve managed to get Faydai started on her Tanvu faction. I believe she’s a half elf but I could be wrong it’s been so long, and she’ll be (eventually) riding around on a battle turtle. Or something. My thanks to both wonderful sites in explaining all of this! It’s some very handy information.

Vanguard Patch Notes

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard Build 2064 Patch Notes July / 16 / 2008
GENERAL

– Some items (too many to list) that were previously marked as BOP are now BOE. This should give you some additional flexibility on items you may want to re-purpose.

– Factional vendors are now available in most cities. If you are level 30 and higher you should receive an email from Kamelott, Inc. with more details to purchase armor and

other future items.

– Possible fixes for a couple of crash bugs

– Possible fix of Quests not updating correctly from trigger locations

Adventures? We’ve got Those!

Screen shot is of the (neglected lately) monk, Ysandria, exploring through Steamfont. Since I spent her lower levels powerleveling her, skills were at an all time low. Having 85/185 deflection is not a good thing especially when those solo blue con mobs are eating you to little shreds. So for a little portion of the evening last night I worked on fixing that. I still have a ways to go yet, but for now Ysandria is not too bad. Along the way I also managed to ding level 38, and finished off a few quests for Steamfont that required me to kill random Kobold, Spiders, Lions, Tigers and Bears (oh my). Ok maybe not those last few, but it was fun none the less.

Kasul and I headed to Vault of Dust, as well as Scornfeathers Roost, both located in the Clefts of Rujark. It was a lot of fun, even though nothing of any note dropped. Kasul (as I spotted this morning) hit level 60, and is climbing steadily. I’m eager to team him up with Petites (my templar) so that he can do all the work while I sit and relax and get her some levels.

Last night Shadowgeist took a small group into KC for some epic updates, I tagged along with (also neglected) Stargrace, who finished off her quest to kill the named in the basement, and got herself some shoulder upgrades. She’s close to hitting 77, and I suppose maybe one day I should finish that off. Especially since she is a dps class and can do it with relative ease. Where as the templar… well. It’s slow. I’ve mentioned that I’m sure (as has everyone else).

I’m thinking of betraying the monk to a bruiser, apparently they’re better on the solo front, which is exactly what I have this character for. It’s not like I couldn’t switch back to a monk at a later date if I choose.

This week is busy with family stuff, so I won’t be around for portions of it, but should still find some time here and there. Next weekend is family stuff again, with random bits of real life interjecting here and there. I’m already eager for winter, and for this heat to end. Yesterday we got some wicked thunderstorms – too bad I’m mighty afraid of storms.

On the crafting front, Silhouette hit level 66 carpenter. I managed to grind out a few more levels before running completely out of vitality and calling it a day. Nostalgia also hit level 19, and a little portion into it. We’re inching up on 20 slowly but surely, and last but not least, there was an apparent Calreth sighting, but that may have been a halucination. Stay tuned for more news tomorrow!