A Pixel Nomad

I don’t know about everyone else, but in order for me to really feel ‘involved’ in an MMO, I need “something” to do when I’m feeling quiet. Something that I can work towards when I’m not feeling very social, when my attention is diverted by other things, when I want to let my mind wander.

So what do I do?

It varies by game. In WoW I tend to harvest, do pet battles, fish, and archaeology. These are things that still give me an illusion of progression but are also quite relaxing and trouble free.

In EQ2 I’ve been working on my lore & legend quests on Jacquotte, my very-behind swashbuckler. I only have a handful left to go, and then I’ll probably start working on my neglected language quests. These things along with going back and visiting old zones, harvesting, crafting, and housing, occupy my “lets do something, but not too much something” moments. They’re actually what keeps me logging in when I’m done all of the content that I can explore (as in I have completed my weeklies and dailies and I don’t really want to group to do more, but I wouldn’t mind hanging out in the game while I do other stuff). This is the bread and butter of any game for gamers like me. If your game doesn’t have something for me to do when I want a little down time, chances are slim that I will stick around. I won’t find a reason to log in – because lets face it, doing dailies over and over and over gets to be a bit much.

What do you do to relax in your MMO of choice? Or are you one of those people who prefer to just go go go? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, either, it’s just not my personal style of play.

Let me know in comments!

I have always found it difficult to group with people I don’t know. Even though I don’t consider myself to be a bad player (I know not to stand in crap, I can play my characters fairly well, etc) there’s always that fear that comes when you’re entering a group of strangers. Especially if you have taken a break from the game for a little while. What if the entire group is a failure, and it’s completely your fault. What if you remind them of their dead cat and they can’t even talk to you without freezing up. There are so many little nagging irrational fears that come up.

That being said, in some games it’s impossible to progress anywhere without a group. Sure you can play solo, you can decorate homes and craft, but progression of your character can only go so far all by yourself. So, that’s why I have been spending some time in the LFG channel. Playing my swashbuckler, getting her some upgrades, passing down old upgrades to my alts (oh goodness, I have so many alts these days) and that sort of thing.

It has gone pretty well, I haven’t been in any spectacularly bad groups, and while we didn’t defeat everything with ease (there are some fights that are still difficult) they didn’t justify my fears in any way. The more I think about it, the  more I feel a bit ‘silly’ for my ‘fear’ of pugs. After all, why does the opinion of people I don’t actually KNOW in my day-to-day life matter. Why not just give in, try to make some new friends, and explore some new zones. What is the WORST that can happen, aside from it going wrong in every way imaginable, and then just not doing the zone again (or at least not doing it with those people).

Here’s to breaking out of my shell a bit!

I am excited. One of my favourite things in EverQuest 2 has always been player driven events. At the end of August, one of the largest is taking place, the Festival of Unity. This will be the 8th year in a row that the festival has run, and it is because of dedicated players that this event is able to happen each year. I have been writing about the festival here on MmoQuests for years now, and last year posted a video of the opening ceremonies. It’s a fantastic time to just wander the crowds and take in all of the excitement. If you’re any sort of roleplayer you’ll feel right at home – and even if you’re not, but have been interested in what it is all about, there is no better time.

The festival runs August 24th until August 30th.

While I was looking through my old posts about the festival, I came across one that discussed one of my first raids with my mystic. Right now she’s a defiler, and her name is Stargrace not Misako, but I betrayed a few times and renamed when I moved servers (also a few times). It brought back such a rush of memories. It was the year I first met “Kilanna” – a woman from Australia who has been an amazing friend of mine these past 7 years. I’m still friends with Lader who I mention in the post, too. It just got me thinking.

Video games are pretty amazing things, no?

When I logged into EQ2 after some downtime, I noticed players were talking about a new quest chain that had been added. In order to obtain the quest you first had to have completed the signature line in Tears of Veeshan, which rewards you with a fabled mount. I had just barely completed that quest with my swashbuckler, Jacquotte, earlier on in the morning, so I was all ready to go.

The quest brings about years and years of story and lore that we have been participating in. It’s called Age’s End, and I have no idea what the reward is. The entire signature line to this point has been solo but the final quest we were presented with today ended in a x2 raid (12 person). Since so many people had been doing the same quest, we had a lot of people looking for groups. I decided why not, and joined in.

The first raid mechanic is pretty simple. You have to break some crystals while a giant dragon (Kerafyrm) flies around breathing on your raid. Dodge out of some red circles on the ground (meteor) and run out of the room (or out of line of sight at least) when the dragon shows up. There’s a few adds while you deal with the protectors of the crystals, but nothing too bad.

Then things got tricky. The first boss you need to defeat is Roehn Theer. Problem is you’re probably doing this in a pick up raid. If anyone besides one person hails the NPC, everyone will lose their quest progress. Fun stuff, right? So after we defeated the crystals, hailed the NPC, and then of course a few more players hailed the NPC, and low and behold we were told to defeat the crystals again (after having spent an hour or two doing that part to begin with). The next mechanic involves picking up a staff from the ground so that the raid can survive a giant AOE at 80% from Roehn Theer, but our bugged out instance decided not to work properly, and so that never happened. Everyone eventually got frustrated and left.

I’ve heard of a few raids clearing it, but honestly I was disappointed that a signature line (until now) that was completely solo suddenly required a x2 raid, and not only that but it was a hard raid, riddled with bugs. These types of roadblocks, especially concerning lore, are never fun. You already need to be a subscriber (it should open up to non subscribers after two weeks I believe) to do the content. Still, I met some new people, remembered why I hate voice chat, and did get to see some awesome lore before we failed. It wasn’t all bad.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!