A Pixel Nomad

Into the Nexus Core #EQ2 #EverQuest2

The first (and easiest) dungeon in ToV is the Nexus Core. Last night the members of Torrent Knights decided to see how we could do against the zone, with two of us wearing ToV quested gear, one wearing CoE gear, and the last person wearing level 92 crafted gear. All of us were 95, but returning from various stages of the game. The group make up was:

95 shadowknight (tank in reckless, ToV quested)
95 inquisitor (boxed, ToV quested)
95 defiler (myself, ToV quested)
95 mystic (92 crafted gear)
95 berserker (CoE gear)
95 monk (mercenary)

When you enter the zone you’re greeted with a warning if you’re under the required crit chance. I just barely managed to squeak by, as did the tank. Everyone else was under. The zone plays out almost the same as the advanced solo, except harder. First you run to the center and click on the crystal, which activates the zone. You clear the center room (nothing fancy) and then a mini boss pops up. For this named you’re required to run away from and dodge his magic missiles. We didn’t have too much issue aside from a lack of DPS. The new ToV quested gear makes an enormous difference, as I was second on the DPS parse with the defiler, after the tank. We got a purple adornment and a priest hammer that I declined on so that the mystic wearing level 92 gear could get a few upgrades.

Once the mini boss is down the three remaining rooms open up. Each one with a named. We went west first, and it was probably the easiest named out of the ones remaining, but still quite difficult. The boss spawns globes on each side of the room, and if they reach him he heals. Thankfully they are % based, and he doesn’t just constantly spit them out, because we did not have the DPS to deal with these blobs. We just let them reach him, and fought him down from full again each time. A dagger for my swashbuckler dropped that round.

Next we went east. This is a very difficult boss. First we had to kite the rippers that roam the room and pretty much instantly kill anything they touch. Then the boss randomly spawns a bunch of shredders that also instantly kill anything they touch. We fought for quite some time and tried to find positions in the room where the shredder adds could not touch us, and managed to get the boss to about 30% but after numerous attempts we had to call it a night so people could get some sleep.

Still, it was a great experience, especially considering we’re hardly the “proper group” and most of us were not geared. I’m looking forward to seeing how we do once we have a bit more ToV gear.

Tears of Veeshan Brings Changes #EQ2 #EverQuest2

Dragons have invaded the skies of Qeynos (and Freeport), with the launch of Tears of Veeshan. I took my 95 mystic out to explore a bit and enjoyed watching them swoop and dive.

The 10th EverQuest 2 expansion added a lot of changes that players are going to have to get used to.

One of the major ones include a swap between the cap of multiattack and DPS, so MA now caps at 200, and DPS has a soft cap of 600. That requires reforging to fix, and reforging has gone up drastically in price. It was 10 plat to reforge a single raid item from CoE, the previous expansion.

Another change is the mercenary window, and this confused me greatly. Thankfully ZAM has an awesome article about merc slots, and how you can summon and suspend your merc and what the changes mean. While at first glance you may think you need to spend 100 station cash to unlock a merc that you had just purchased – that is not the case. The UI is just not very intuitive, so I highly suggest people read the article to figure out what is what. Before you are upset that your merc is missing, be sure to type /merc resume, and see if they’re around.

Harvesting has also changed. No longer are you required to work your harvesting skills in order to obtain materials for whatever zone you happen to be exploring in. That means all of those level 85 heroic characters with no skill can happily adventure along and harvest to their hearts content – although you won’t gain rares from harvesting until you’re at the appropriate level for that tier in the skill.

Player housing has changed and while this may not seem like a big deal, it’s fantastic for the housing fanatics out there. Items that are considered ‘building blocks’ now have their own item count. So if you had a house with an item count of 800, blocks will now be 800 and everything else another 800. This is great for players who enjoy creating their own buildings from scratch using other materials. If you’re not sure what your item count is currently at, you can zone into your home and access the panel by either clicking on the door, or /house.

Those are the changes that I found most relevant so far in the expansion, feel free to mention any others below in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

5th Annual Gamers Secret Santa Registration Has Started!

It’s that time of year again! Time for the 5th annual gamers secret santa! Have no idea what that is? Well. I’ve been running it for a while now. There was the 2012 one from last year, 2011, 2010, and 2009. It has grown each year, and while it’s not the largest celebration out there, it is one I really take a lot of pleasure from. Geeky gifts are sent out all over the world, and if you would like to participate or are interested in what it is all about please read further!

What it is: Those who want to participate are more than welcome to. You can be a gamer, blogger, a member of the game industry, whatever. As long as games are some how a part of your life. I will take names / addresses, and assign everyone a ‘secret’ person to buy a small less than $20 gift for, as well as give them the address required. Send out your gift and wait for one to head your way, and that’s it. Ok, let me explain it a bit better.

What is “Secret Santa?” here’s the definition!

How:

1. Send your full name and mailing address to me at stargrace@mmoquests.com, make sure it comes from a valid email address. If you happen to run a fansite or a blog, please mention which blog you write for (if you want, you don’t have to). It doesn’t matter who you are or how involved in the gaming community you are, anyone can participate. If you’re worried that I have not gotten your email, please contact me on twitter: @stargrace. I will email you back, so make sure to check your trash folders.

2. On December 2nd I will email you back with someone else’ address.

3. The price limit is $20, don’t spend any more than that. Be creative, make something, have it be unique to your culture or your life, if you need suggestions then please don’t hesitate to let me know. Try to keep in mind that we’re all gamers, no matter where we come from.

4. Keep your person a secret! Don’t tell anyone who else you have. If you DO happen to run a fansite or blog, then when you receive your gift write about it and let everyone know.

5. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to let me know below in comments, or email me.

ALTERNATE METHOD:

If you live in a location where mail is not very practical and you’re worried about it getting lost, I WILL offer a digital gift exchange method for those who request it. If you choose to participate this way here is what I need from you:

Send your full name and the following: The email associated with your steam account, your steam handle, your raptr handle, the email you would like any digital gift sent to.

More Details: I understand that you may not be comfortable with me or one other person having your mailing address, so if you’re not please don’t feel pressured to participate. The idea is to share with one another and realize what a fantastic community we have, not make you feel on edge that you’re going to potentially run into issues.

If you’d like to participate but simply can not afford to no matter what, send me an email and let me know, I will do my best to help you out. I want anyone who’s interested to be able to participate in this event. I think sometimes we forget that these people we all talk to online are not just random pixels, but are actual people on the other end of those computers.

Please keep in mind that only myself, and ONE other person will have your address. It won’t become a mailing list or anything like that. If you’re only comfortable with me having it and no one else then let me know, and I’ll have your gift sent to me and then I’ll send it out to you. Anything to make sure people are comfortable and still able to participate.

YOU HAVE UNTIL DECEMBER 2nd TO EMAIL ME YOUR ADDRESS – please take your time to think about whether or not this is something you really want to do. If it is, get me your address by December 2nd so that I can give people some time to get their shopping done. If it’s a little late (the gift, not the address) that’s alright.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas but still want to participate that’s alright too! This isn’t a religious thing. There are some amazing gamers I have met from all over the world, and I think that we have a lot to share with one another.

I think that’s about it. If you can think of something I’ve missed then please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer it. I just wanted to share some of the Christmas joy that’s going to be flying around before too long and figured this would be a fantastic idea for people to experience it with one another.

Wurm Offline & the EverQuest 2 Expansion #WurmOnline #EverQuest2

I was hoping to get some time in Wurm Online over the weekend, but that was not in the cards. The game has been down for a few days now, dealing with various issues. Hopefully things get fixed before too long but we’ll just have to see. I hope my animals survive and I hope the impact on players is minimal but because Wurm Online is a ‘living world’ I’m not sure what we’ll see when we’re finally able to play.

It has been kept pretty quiet, but the next expansion for EverQuest 2 releases this Tuesday (tomorrow). Tears of Veeshan. I’m excited, but not nearly as much as I have been in the past. I’m looking forward to new crafting quests, and a signature line or two. I’m not really excited about the zones or overland quests themselves after having played through the content in beta, but I think some of that is because I’m already tired of being level 95. The new aa choices don’t excite me since I prefer the almost unlimited choices of EQ1. The 10 year veteran reward is also looming, I believe I have less than a week to go before I can redeem it. This year it is a shadowknight or paladin mercenary. I wish there had been more choices. Not everyone needs a tank mercenary, and not everyone likes to adventure. Still, it is better than nothing, and I congratulate the game on making 9 years. It surprises me some times that I’ve been playing for that long.

There’s a lot of exciting game related things going on lately. The release of the PS4, the XBox One, the new games coming to those consoles, the expansions for EQ2, the information released at BlizzCon, and numerous other game related tidbits that have been released lately. It’s a good time to be a gamer (but perhaps not a good time to be a wallet).

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

To Hell and Back #Terraria

I’ve attempted to explain what is just so utterly appealing to me about this game – but I have yet to succeed. What was supposed to be a quick hour in-game to qualify for a Raptr reward (it’s their AMD promotion) ended up being most of my Saturday afternoon (and evening).

Warning: SPOILER alert – if you’re looking to progress in Terraria without knowing the ‘how to’ you may want to skip this part.

I started my play session by complaining that I had no idea what I was supposed to do, or how to progress my character. I was wearing meteorite armor and a ranged gun that allowed me to shoot without consuming mana (set bonus). Sure, I could set up my house all neat but what was the point. What I didn’t know is just how involved the world of Terraria is, and how much there is to do.

After collecting some more health we decided it was time to go to hell. Exactly where you would expect it to be too, straight down. Ogur bombed a tunnel all the way down while Xartan and I hung back and provided defense and jumped out of the way of wayward bombs. Eventually we came to lava.

Hell is mean. Rougher than the dungeon we explored, and meaner than the jungle we waded through. Creatures constantly respawn, and they’re not nice. After a few hours of exploring, we decided to prepare to defeat the boss of Hell, which would put our server into hardmode. Hardmode? Weren’t things already difficult?

Nope.

The boss of hell is the Wall of Flesh, and in order to defeat this boss we had to prepare an arena. The Wall of Flesh moves from East to West across the screen, constantly moving. What we had to do was create a long bridge with no obstacles so that we could run ahead of the wall and shoot behind us as we ran. It took about 1000 planks but we completed the bridge, and then it was time to spawn the wall.

The fight was rough but we all lived which was a first for us. He felt easier than previous bosses because we had prepared ahead of time. With the boss dead, the server was plunged into hardmode, which means a few things.

Upon defeating the boss, we received a “Pwnhammer” – and this item is used to destroy demon altars and crimson altars. When we destroy those, it triggers the creation of ore in the world. Right now we’re harvesting palladium, and we’ve gotten enough to find a few bits of mythril. Not enough to do anything useful with, but enough palladium that I made myself a new suit of armor. I went from 21 defense to 38, which is a huge jump. I’m quite proud of my first set of hardmode gear.

The other thing that came with hardmode aside from all this awesome new gear material is new bosses and mob encounters. Things are HARD. We had to board up the doors to the houses for the first time ever, because our NPC kept getting slaughtered. The Blood Moon showed up 6 nights in a row, which allows mobs to open doors. Thankfully a brick outside each door stops that. So instead of breezing through mobs and encounters the entire game is a challenge. If you get easily frustrated by that, you may want to keep away from hardmode, but since when my character dies I lose nothing but coin I don’t have any issues with the difficulty.

Am I having fun? That would be an understatement. I am having an incredibly glorious time exploring the world, mining, crafting, and creating my own dungeons so to speak. Of course it does help that I’m playing multiplayer since things are always better with friends, but even alone the game is hours of fun.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.