Category: Gaming

 

Yamini just wasn’t suited to Qeynos. Every day she heard “have you ever seen a gnoll before?!” she had to resist the urge of throttling the little twerp who irked her. So it was that I decided to move her back to the comforts of Freeport, where she could lurk in alleys and steal pie from window sills all she wanted. It’s not like she hasn’t already betrayed before, numerous times in fact. Yamini is my second character that I ever made on EQ2, and she’s only level 53 with 37aa. I made her shortly after Dasie my templar, who’s also a halfling, go figure.

She did the old school betrayal quest at level 14 where she was cast from Qeynos and lost her shard (ah, the good ‘ol days) and became an assassin, then not too long ago she went back to Qeynos, embracing the ways of the ranger, until yesterday where she’d had enough and went back to an assassin. A friend asked me if there were any characters aside from the new monk who I had not betrayed, and I had to answer honestly- no, I’ve betrayed them all. Tipa asked the question of how many had only been betrayed once, which was a clearer answer, two have betrayed once. The druid I have, and dasie, who only made the trek to inquisitor once before I’d decided the class was simply not for me.

I like the versatility of being able to betray back and forth even though I absolutely hate having to work the faction up afterwards. It wasn’t so bad this time around, I choose to wander through Neriak and do the quests there instead of my usual sneaking into Qeynos method. It would have gone by a lot faster were it not for the sudden influx I saw of people who were also moving onto greener pastures in Freeport. At least 4 people also sported “the exiled” as titles to their name, a permanent fixture until you finish pledging your allegiance to your new home town.

Once I’d finished getting her all settled I made for Freeport, did the citizenship quest over there, and bought her a (mostly) empty house to stuff her potions and poisons in. Oh yes, of course she’s a crafter. 53 assassin, but 62 alchemist. It comes in handy to use her own crafted poisons with all the adept3’s I make and dusts I have kicking around for use. Not to mention it can be quite profitable when I actually get into a crafting mood (which I have not, lately).

I spent quite a few plat upgrading her skills, buying the new home, and getting settled. Browsing through her quest journal I noticed she’d completed 6 heritage quests, but not missing mask, which is typically an essential HQ for all my characters, as I love popping into dark elf form. So once servers come back up I imagine that’s what I’ll set off to accomplish, not to mention the guild is quite close to level 29, and I’d love to see us push for 30. We’ll see how it goes. Cordanim mentioned he was going to be doing some crafting, so hopefully he’ll be pounding out a few writs as well *nudge nudge*.

Other then that, and making fun of some roleplaying tactics, I had a blast talking to Tipa about her WoW rp days. They sounded amusing to say the least. I wish I had known her when I was playing the game.

 

I know I’ve mentioned it from time to time, but probably not enough. I write because I enjoy doing it, and there’s no better reason for me. So when I get a comment or a mail in game from a reader, it always brightens my day exceptionally. I don’t expect to hear from anyone, but to those who read, thank you. I’ve met so many wonderful people, from both the blogger community and the readers. Everyone likes to know that they’re doing good, everyone likes to be praised, even if they don’t outright seek it.

So again thank you, to writers and readers alike. It’s nice to have a little space on the web to be able to vent frustrations or share joys about a game that plenty of us have in common, and form communities from it. EverQuest is all about our own epic stories after all, and I’m thankful for having such a wonderful bunch of people around to share mine with.

Oy. Enough with the sappy stuff now eh?

 

Since I closed one of my accounts, it means I’m without my monk, who was my quest character. Also means I’m short an armorer, and I wanted to have one kicking around mostly for adornments, they get to make some pretty nice ones. So with my final character slot on the one open account, I made a high elf monk named Ysandria. She’s also a roleplay character, though I haven’t decided on any sort of background or story line to her yet. I’m sure it’ll come to me in time. I spent most of yesterday questing around Gorowyn, and it didn’t take long to get to level 18 with 14aa that way. The new zones SoE’s added over time have been wonderful for new players, providing far better gear and rewards then the old shattered lands starter zones. I actually think both of the islands could use a revamp, as none of the gear is on par with the starter zones of Darklight Woods, Kelethin, nor Gorowyn. Though it is nice to start there for quest credit, then move on to greener pastures.

So once I’d finished off all of the Gorowyn chains, which ended with me lighting some machine up and exploding aviak out of the air (best quest ever lately) I headed to the shattered lands zones. I enjoy doing the smaller chains there as they reward you with faction for your respected city. So I hung out in The Caves, The Forest Ruins, Oakmyst Forest (how many times I died to that named bear back in the day I couldn’t even start to tell you, he was a bane of my lowbies existence) and did the small quests around those areas. Some have been revamped, over time npc’s have moved, though there are still a few oldies. Npc’s in Baubleshire still ask you to hunt forgotten guardians for a few goodies, and ask you to explore the mage tower. At level 19 these zones were mostly gray to me, but I still had fun and got about 1% exp for turn in. The quests didn’t warrent any aa at my level either, but I’m not too concerned.

It’s nice to be taking a break from the T8 grind, and exploring the smaller zones that I fell in love with when I first started playing this game. I miss the T5 raids, and how difficult I thought they were at the time. When frogloks were introduced the raid zone gave you a title as well as a house item and I fell in love with it immediately. I still remember doing my prismatic 1.0 and how proud I was to have been going with my templar at level 45 (which was the min. to get into the zone to begin with). I remember that I went with Allure, an Australian guild on Najena. Ah good times.

I gathered up a small handful of house items while I did these lowbie quests, four books for my house (which was nice, none of them are L&L’s) a small lab flask, a small cage that hangs from the ceiling, and a bench. I’ve outfitted Ysandria’s small inn room with these, and promptly put her meager gatherings for sale – which all sold, go figure. I priced level 1-19 stuff for 1g and made 31g just from that. Thank you transmuters.

No idea how long I’ll keep playing the character, but in time I hope to make her into a crafter, and continue on questing. Ah yes, the break from T8 is nice.

 

Ishbel hit 76 yesterday, and is 60% of the way through her level to 77. I decided that once I finish working her to 80, or when I get bored (which may be soon at this rate) I’ll work on the templar some – after I spec her to a dps aa spread. There’s no way I want to spend 30 minutes hitting one single mob waiting for it to die. I finished off almost all of my Kunzar Jungle quests, got faction along the way with whomever I needed it with, and decided to take a little trip into Jarsath Wastes. I picked up a few of the entrance quests and got those done quickly enough while trying to find ‘the mob’ to charm.

Hrms. Lack of mobs, so far. The spectral type by the entrance are ranger and shadowknight mobs, not bad, but not great. A few others I charmed were again, alright, but mostly melee type mobs that aren’t anything to write home about. I know there are some draconian casters on the other side of the zone near the Skyfire mountain range, but I think they’re still orange to me right now.

I did find two named up, the saber cat and the prickly guy, so I pit my pets against both of those, treasured for one kill and legendary for the other. A bracelet with 40int and 140 power or something with a stifle. Meh, not that impressive. Plus it’s only selling on broker for 2p or so. I was hoping for some trooper scale boots for the bard.

Speaking of the bard, I’ve been hearing stories of them parsing 2-3k easily on raids by dropping the BD line (blade dance) and picking up the int line for extra dps. I haven’t managed to test this myself since 90% of guilds I’ve been in require their bards to have BD. Apparently though guilds are trying to break away from that, and work through aoe’s in other ways. Nice to hear, I’ve always hated having a whole aa line just to get the end skill when the points could be spent else where.

I haven’t decided how I’ll spec the healer yet. I enjoy my strength line for the immunity to stifles, but apparently that line (so say some) is not that great. Any advice from dps spec’d inquisitors and templars out there? I don’t own the aa respec mirror, but until I hit 80 (if I ever do) I’m not too concerned, the dps line should suit me just fine.

Other then that, things have been quiet. I’ve been getting involved in some rp on the server, and while I haven’t exactly been grouping a lot, I am chattering to people and meeting some new folks. I’ve gotten a few guild invites on the coercer which I always find amusing because the people inviting me don’t even know me. They’ve never seen me play. They just see that I’m a coercer who’s untagged as it were, and instantly pop in with their “hey, are you looking for a guild” speech. Not that I mind I suppose, but I’d always want a guild to get to know me first before I joined. Personal preference.

I’ve made a lot of coin working my alts up through RoK, but I’ve noticed that there’s not a whole lot to actually sell for coin. Almost anything of vaule is no-trade, and masters are sparse. Besides rares (silicate loam anyone?) or raws that are harvested, my characters are left on their own to make coin. Quests are a one time deal, so once you’ve completed the chain, the coin starts to slow down. I’ve only been so lucky thus far because I have so many alts to work through all of those chains- and aside from masters, there’s very little to actually purchase. I have a provisioner to make food, and a sage to make spells, and my jeweler to make whatever else I may need. Not that I’m complaining, but it seems like I spend far more coin on alts and upgrading their little level 40 stuff then I ever do on anyone who’s end game.

 

I experimented some last night with other charmed pets. My favorite not changing though. It may just be because of levels – other pets as fun as they are, also seem to break charm a lot more frequently. My own pet is white to me now, while some froglok wizards were yellow, and doing 2-3k dps when I ran my parser. Sweet. They also were breaking charm every 5 minutes though and then I was getting smushed, frequently. Not worth it – yet. The screen shot (little small, I know) is Ishbel in the City of Mist area of Kunzar Jungle, solo’ing one of the heroic specters. They’re not fun, since they’re casters. Which mean they’ll still hit my pet even at ranged and lets face it as nice as coercer pets are the majority of them are not tanks. Stuns and stifles do work well to keep the damage to a minimum.

So Ishbel got another level, and dinged 76 this morning. She’s been gaining roughly a level a day, or every two days. I checked out her leveling ratio and sort of snickered. She was created on May 25th, 2007. Mostly because I had betrayed Stargrace a few times back and forth from coercer to illusionist, and figured it would just be easier to create a coercer rather then continue betraying. May 30th she hit level 31. Power leveled? Oh yes. I got bored and then didn’t play her for a bit. The next interesting bit of leveling was in December, when I played in New Tunaria. She went from level 64 on the 16th to 68 on the 17th. Pretty sure I drained all of her vitality during that. Ah yes. New Tunaria is a lot of fun.

From January 11th until now she’s gotten her last 10 levels. I haven’t really been concentrating on her except for this past week. The class is fun. She’s too big to be power leveled which is why I turned to the whole charming bit. I’m sure Tipa is getting annoyed by my ever eager ranting about the class now *grins* I’m sure it will slow to a steady drone before too long.

I am closing in on the end of Kunzar Jungle quests, most of the remaining ones I have are heroic and want me to either go deeper into CoM (I want to ensure my charm is going to actually last before I do that too frequently) or want me to head to Seb. I haven’t gone there yet, so I don’t know what sort of mobs frequent easy to reach areas, and whether or not I can find a suitable mage pet for charming and running around with. Or even if I’ll be able to solo in there. Probably not, which is fine I’m coming up on the levels now where I can actually be useful in a group if I can find one who’s looking for a little crowd control. Though most likely they’ll just be after the power regen. I think it’s funny that even on a huge server like Antonia Bayle, a few months after the release of RoK now, I am the 55th coercer to hit level 75. World wide, I’m sitting at 1,069th. Underplayed class much? Most raid guilds only need one, there’s no way our dps matches up to that of an illusionist (at least, not as easily as they do) nor do we bring things to the table like TC, or illusionary arm (remember, I play both). Soloing though, has been quite fun.

Hopefully a few more quests and I’ll move on to Jarsath Wastes. Still not looking forward to those dispelling mobs, but maybe grinding the faction quests won’t be quite as annoying. Or charm could break every 5 minutes (I really miss EQ1 dire charm) and it’ll be a disaster. Still need to find some good mobs to charm there.