Category: Gaming

EQ Nostalgia Group – Getting Ready

I blame Tipa. Isn’t that always the way it goes? I’d seen her blog posts about EQ1 and felt that twinge. Now, I only played EQ1 for a year and a half and then EQ2 was released. So I don’t really classify myself as a veteran. I remember Bertox raids, Thul raids, Plane of Hate, my first time in time and other random bits and pieces. I wasn’t a huge raider and I stuck mostly to small things, but I remember all of that with a huge fondness for it. So I bought EQ1. Little did I know it would snowball from there (and I’m glad it did). I’m now a part of a group that will play together once a week and level up in EverQuest through all those zones we know and love. Exciting, hmms? I think it is.

The group consists of Tipa (ranger, as of now at least), Cordanim (rogue), Egat (enchanter), Einhorn (warrior), and Ishbel (myself, cleric). We do have room for one more – we’re looking for someone who can make Friday nights at 7pm EST on a constant basis. Even if we get more then one, we’ll be forming up a guild and I doubt it will be too much trouble to join and chatter, and maybe if enough join up start a second group. We’re playing on the luclin server, mostly due to my whining convincing, as I have higher level crafters there and can’t justify spending $50 to move around. As Tipa herself mentioned, I’m only willing to do so much in the name of nostalgia. I’d rather have a little coin and some higher level characters to play around on.

So we’ve created our characters (most of us) and are hanging out in the group area of the tutorial eagerly waiting for Friday night. We each had some key things to do, like grab maps, a new UI, making sure we owned all of the expansions, that sort of stuff. I managed to find a UI that I like quite a bit, even if I don’t remember what all the buttons do. Actually it’s quite similar to my UI from when I used to play, that helps. I’ve slowly been going through and memorizing commands, how to open certain windows, remembering that I have to play in 1st person rather then 3rd. You’d better believe that I’m taking notes. I spend lots of time looking over old items in my bank wondering to myself “what the hell was that for” or “why did I keep that” since I have no idea what more then half of it is for any more.

I was surprised to see as many people as I did in game. The open guild hall area (before you zone in to your particular hall) was filled with people hanging out and of course clerics peddling their wares (rez) in the lobby. It was really nice to see. There was even a raid going on, with room for pick ups. They gave out a channel name for those who were flagged, and then asked others to /join airpig which just made me giggle and remember how you can “piggy back” people into raids who are not flagged. The game is down for 8 hours today to patch, so not a whole lot has changed in that regard. Everything else is still very new to me though. Tipa mentioned guild banners, and campfires, and fellowships. I have no idea what any of that is. There’s also a tab on my UI for a currency exchange, and I don’t have the vaguest idea what that’s for. I do remember LDoN’s, and I do remember monster missions. I even remember how to do a few of them still. I remember how to open doors (which I didn’t remember last time I poked into EQ1) and I’ve gotten the hang of the camera views. The rest is still slow going. It feels great though.

Of course all because of the fact that I know I’ll be playing with wonderful people. It’s the community that pulls me the most. Plus, after all this time I’ll finally get a chance to play with Tipa, something we’ve never done before as we’ve always been on different servers. I’m almost giddy about it. It’ll be nice to play with Cordanim too, who I haven’t played with in quite some time. Chattered to, of course, but not played. I’ll also be starting up a little beastlord to play with a friend of mine who’s returning but is unable to make the Friday night schedule. I don’t know how far any of us will get in this trip down memory lane experience, but I think it’s going to be a whole lot of fun in the mean time. Just simply remembering things like sitting down to regen and gaining meditation skill ups, has made me smile.

Good Times in Redridge

I know people are probably more eager to read about the EQ Nostalgia group then about my trek through WoW, but be patient, that post is next. Last night found Gozad, Daegon and myself eager to level so we decided to knock out a few more of our Redridge quests. We killed everything in our path, or at least tried to. It was a little rocky, we had a few deaths. The quests we’re working on now are level 23+ where as Daegon and myself were still only level 19. I hate mobs that run, what I wouldn’t give to have a warlock join our little static group so that they can curse and prevent that sort of thing. As it is, the warrior, hunter, and shaman combo make a poor one for stopping them in their tracks. At least for now. I know the hunter has the concussion shot, but it’s got a long recast and at times isn’t enough to stop everything from running we’d like.

I’ve stayed away from tradeskilling on the shaman, and haven’t worked it much on the other two characters lately either. I played a lot this weekend and it’s nice not to have a set schedule per say in order to get things done.

So Gozad dinged 21, while Daegon and myself hit 20. I went to my trainer expecting to have to do a quest for ghost wolf form, and was surprised to find out it was just a regular bought spell. I did of course have a quest to pick up as well, for water stuff. I’ve already learned fire and earth, I’m hoping water is healing. I could use more heals. It’s hard to play the shaman with only one heal. Well, hard for me at least. I didn’t do any research into the class at all and had never listened to the hype about them so this is all very new to me. I’ve spec’d down the restoration aa line and have been having a good time of it.

So I picked up my level 20 quest, headed way back to Azuremyst Isle from Ironforge, and then decided to call it a night. Plagued by annoying headaches that refused to leave through out the day. Mayadhros was unable to play last night due to real life restrictions, I’m sure he’s starting to get frantic now that we’ve reached our 20’s. We haven’t done any instance runs yet, but maybe we can do a Deadmines run (a real one, with the group as opposed to my hunter taking everyone through) for a few remaining quest updates that folks have as well as the major quest lines that Minxes has yet to complete (even though everyone else has). We’ll see how it goes. It would of course be better if Mayadhros were there for some heals / dps / tanking too *hint hint* and Klorel reached level 15 last night on his warrior (who’s spec’ing down the dps line I believe). It’s great to be playing with friends in so many games lately. I think that’s what I’m loving most of all about any of these games. I’m playing with friends in all of them.

More Then a Little Lost

 That’s right, the screen shot does not lie. Yesterday as the other half decided to pick up a PS3, I browsed through the pc games and happened to find a copy of Secrets of Faydwer. $40 for all 14 expansions of EQ1 with a few other tid bits (claim items) thrown in for good measure. It itched. I looked at the case, thought about Tipa’s posts, and in the end ultimately decided “hell, why not”. The 2 DVD disks are a far cry from the 10+ I have kicking around the house that I’d have to install (and patch) and who can pass up /claim goodies anyhow.

So that’s how it came to be that I installed EverQuest last night. This morning, I logged in slightly nervous and sat at character select (which is completely different then I remember it might I add) looking at characters I haven’t played for three years now.

Needless to say, I’ve forgotten a lot. Like how do I get my actual items to show up as I mouse over them instead of just the name of it. If anyone knows how I can do that simple thing I’ll be eternally in debt. I kept wanting to actually LOOK at the stats on my gear, to be able to tell what is better then what. I tried to look through key bindings and simply couldn’t find it. That’s step one. Step two, anyone know if UI mods are still made for EQ1? Default is slightly, annoying. Though I can make due I suppose. I decided after peeking at my characters and being unable to tell much from them that I’d run through the tutorias. Of course, being unable to actually see the stats of anything in my bags or that I’m wearing made it frustrating, so for now I set it aside. I have forgotten so very much.

I do have plans to play (off and on) for a month though, I figure I’ll wander around lost and nostalgic in between other things, for short spurts. I have a friend who I used to play with in EQ1 way back when also activating his account, I imagine we’ll wander around together some. I haven’t been back in so long, and I don’t even know what was added any more, but it’s still a lot of fun. I need a quick sheet of all the commands I’ve forgotten over the years.

I also need to figure out how to free the mouse so I can get front views of my characters (is that even possible?) for now the screen shot has me looking at the title screen as I test out other commands to try to make the gear / inventory items have more then just their names showing.

Oh, and Tipa, there’s a new level 2 necromancer named Stargrace wandering around your server apparently. She forgets the names of your characters though to add to friends *grins*

A Quiet Night

The rest of yesterday was fairly quiet. I wasn’t in the mood to do too much on the shaman, so I managed to ding her 18 and catch her up to the group, bought my new spells (I could really use another heal some time.. one is just not cutting it) and then decided I would camp the blood elf mask that drops on Azuremyst Isle. The mask sells for 35g or so on Uther, and for no other reason then the fact that it looks cool.

It’s a level 5 item that’s not bop, and you can share it between characters if you so wish. Since most helm pieces are level 24+ it’s nice to have a little bit of ‘fluff’ armor at such a low level. The mob who drops it is a blood elf bandit, and he has 8 or so spawn points. He’s also stealthed, which is why I took the hunter to farm it. She’s got her mount, and track stealth. He always spawns close to the road sides on the island, in a huge circular swoop. He also spawns very fast, less then one minute apart. The annoying part (aside from the drop rate on the mask) is just simply getting to each spawn point.

The mask has a 5% chance to drop, and I spent about two hours farming it last night. I managed to get two of them to drop, and gave the first one away to Daegon for his dwarf warrior. Looks mighty fine in it too. The second one I sent over to the shaman, and I contemplated farming a few more just for auction house. Not sure how much time I want to devote to that though, I can make more money (faster) harvesting an instance (or two) and it’s a lot more fun then just riding around an island in circles killing level 7 stealthed bandits.

Tonight I assume the ‘regular’ group will get together and try to make a push for 20. I believe I get my shaman ghost wolf quest then (even though honestly I haven’t the slightly clue what ghost wolf form does for a shaman) and we’ll be moving on to some other quest areas. Redridge is alright, but still not my favorite. I took the shaman back to Auberdine to quest there and catch up to the group, and was given a good 10 quests. Redridge has a few that I can do but I find the area annoying. Maybe it’s just me. After Redridge though is Darkshire,  which I adore. Then there’s STV (Stranglethorn Vale) which I have always avoided like the plague because I play on pvp servers. However, on a pve server it’s safe to hang out there, and I remember that area being a huge quest hub. Even my level 49 hunter is still doing a few strangling quests for that area. Should be fun.

Which is the key to this whole little experiment, right? Having fun, hanging out with good friends and just kicking back and relax. It’s been so long since I’ve really played EQ2 now (I basically quit the day epics came out and only popped in from time to time since then) and I really enjoy not having to log in for raids. Feeling very few obligations to play, which is what I wanted. I didn’t want to feel forced to play. What fun is that after all. Of course the game still has its allure, and EQ1 even more so lately. If SOE offered free transfers I’d probably go join Tipa in a heart beat, just for something fun and ‘new’ to do.

No sign of Rumorr last night, but I’m sure he was busy doing ‘the family’ thing. Hopefully he’s not even more discouraged by the levels we’ve (by ‘we’ I mean Daegon, Gozad, and myself) gotten. Klorel I believe hit level 10 on his warrior last night but then had company show up so he had to log early. It’ll be nice when we’re all around the same level again and can spend a little time doing instances or what have you. In the mean time though, I’m certainly having fun.

Ding 27! (IRL Omg..)

Ok so the title is lame, I thought it was pretty cute. Last night Daegon and Gozad managed to cling to 18 and I took them through Deadmines on the 49 hunter for quest updates. Minxes is a little left behind now and has no real pretties to her name, but there was nothing I really wanted anyhow (aside from maybe the 2h staff reward from a quest chain). Today I’m running a few more friends through the instance, can never have enough Deadmines! Rumorr logged on for a bit to chatter about transferring that paladin of his, and hopefully it all works out. We’ll see later this week. When the groups and questing around Lakeridge calmed down for the night (and I was still wide awake.. for the most part) I decided to go solo Blackfathom Deeps, located in Ashenvale.

I love being able to run through these instances with my hunter tanking and feeling all big and ‘uber’ as I three shot the elites that scatter around. Even more, I love being able to help outfit my friends with the items we can farm from there. That way when we do the instance ‘for real’ people have some gear already (and then my Minxes can get gear too). An ok dagger dropped (blue) that was not BoP (bind on pickup) so I stuck that on the AH (auction house) and we’ll see how it goes. I’m at 295g now, after spending some coin making a new dress for the priest (Dreamweave, which has +spell dmg and +heal, can’t go wrong) and getting some crafting skill ups. Hopefully the shaman will hit 18 tonight, maybe 19 by the time everything is said and done, we’ll see how it goes. I think I have a quest to do at 20, and that’ll be fun.

The game all in all, has been fun. I’d say it’s 99.9% due to the people I have around me. Klorel, Daegon, Rumorr, Gozad, all of ’em make the game a fun place to be for the three hours or so in the evenings we play. It’d be better if Rumorr didn’t feel any pressure to level with his already busy life, but hey, nothing is perfect. I’d been contemplating Eq1 some, of course due to Tipa’s posts over at West Karana, but alas can’t bring myself to install the game. I haven’t bought any expansions since Depths of Darkhollows (and not even sure if that was the name of it) and I know I have three level 70 characters, a cleric, rogue, and enchanter, but no idea what sort of state I left them in. It’s tempting though. So tempting. I wish after a certain number of years mmos would just grant people free transfers. If there was a chance at me getting to play with Tipa, I’d probably consider it even more. As it is, I am fairly certain we don’t play on the same server (I don’t even remember which server I’m on.. I want to say Veeshan but I believe it merged.. to Luclin?) and as she herself has mentioned, who wants to play alone.

Wow.. now does this bring back EQ1 memories or what….. what a long time ago that was..

Omg, haha. My shaman gal here, is wearing the original earing of the solstice. Sighs. Good times. Good times.