A Pixel Nomad

Brewing and Housing and Levels – Oh My! #EverQuest

Yesterday was an exciting day for me in EverQuest. First I made the decision that as much as I love my beastlord (and I do, she finally reached level 60) I really enjoy playing my enchanter (level 90). So Oger the shadowknight I’ve been playing with decided he would pick up the pace with his leveling, and I would join him with my enchanter. Level 60 can group with level 90 (it’s your level + 1/2 your level in order to gain experience). There are a few reasons for my preference in playing the enchanter, but I do have to admit that one of the main ones is because I have worked so hard to level her crafting over the years.

EverQuest crafting is a pain in the ass. You constantly fail combines, and the ‘cap’ on your skill is 300 and HAS been 300 for many years now. Of course expansions that release add to recipes below cap, but more often than not their final combines are WELL above cap, typically in the 400-500 skill range leaving you a high chance at failure OR purchasing one of the $10 2 hour craft potions that guarantees if you fail a combine you get your materials returned. You CAN put aa into salvage (and I highly suggest it) but you’ll never get 100% return, and you can also put aa into less failures (which I also suggest). Nothing beats those potions though especially if you’re doing a very rare and difficult combine (prayer shawl, anyone?).

So last night I also managed to FINALLY reach 300 brewing. I stuck to the same method that I had written about 2 years ago. You can use more recent recipes but the components for those combines are far more expensive, especially since current players use those for their food / drink / etc. I do want to be able to make some of the more recent craft goods though, so once I had reached 300 brewing, I logged onto my 73 druid and took a trip out to East Wastes, Zeixshi-Kar’s Awakening to do some foraging. Foraging and crafting go hand in hand together, and I find that the default 50 skill is just simply not enough, hence why I have a druid. I ended the night collecting a handful of planar goo and planar planar energy shards. These are currently selling for 100p in the broker each, so hopefully I can collect a nice surplus.

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

Super Adventure Box Time! #GW2

While I avoided most of the social media yesterday for April Fools, I did manage to spend a few hours playing Guild Wars 2 and their Super Adventure Box zone. It was a lot of fun, even if I had to run the zones in “infantile mode” which made happy little clouds spawn with magical rainbows to carry me and Hampooj to safety.

I thought the zones were a lot of fun, but they would have been almost impossible for me to do without the use of those happy little clouds. The only issue I have with any of this event is that you have to sink in (what appears) to be a lot of time in order to earn enough baubles for any of the appearance skins that Moto sells. I personally feel that the time required doesn’t quite match up to the rewards given, but perhaps that’s because I’m particularly bad at these sorts of jumping / secret room puzzle games. I could easily spend multiple hours on multiple days just to earn enough for a small handful of rewards.

Still, a huge glee of excitement from me for this event. Pictured above is me fighting the end boss, a giant frog King. The mechanic was simple enough, smash the amulet he wears, pick up the shards, then when his tongue goes into spasms, throw the shard into his mouth to stun him so that you can damage him. All the while he’s spitting out rounds of poison that seep along the ground in various directions. The smart way to do this fight is to move from lily pad to lily pad, hitting him as you pass. However, since I played on infantile mode the best thing to do was to hang out on the rainbows in between hitting the amulet and stunning him so you could hit him. It took some time, but eventually we killed him.

Have you tried the Super Adventure Box zones yet? What did you think of them? Let me know in comments below! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Beastlord Enters Plane of Disease #EverQuest

Things are going very well in EverQuest lately. My beastlord is now level 57, and has been exploring Plane of Disease which is a hot zone for level 50 and up. There are some quests given out by an NPC outside of the guild lobby, they reward some very nice gear for these levels (shoulders, a belt, and a cloak). I picked up the quest and got a haste belt that was a huge upgrade (though all of the pieces are pretty nice upgrades). I currently have my experience on 50/50 so that half of it goes towards aa. I have over 30 aa so far although there are not many useful things for me to purchase at this level yet. Once I hit 60 a lot more will open up.

I’ll be exploring some old events and zones before too long, and broadcasting them on twitch tv. In case you’re not familiar with my channel, you can find it here. I only have a few broadcasts there so far but it will come with time.

I’ve also been working on my alchemy. My skill is at 150 so far, and I’ve been leveling up the crafting trophy as I go along which reminds me. There is apparently a quest you can do if you’re a crafter, that will allow you to unlock multiple mercenary slots instead of purchasing them in the station cash store. Of course purchasing them in the store is much easier than getting to 300 in every craft and then doing a quest, but for the determined, it works well. PLUS you can repeat this quest 4x allowing you to have 4 mercenary slots. This lets you easily switch from healer to dps to tank mercenary without having to go purchase a completely new one. I’m not quite at 300 in every craft yet, but it’s a dream of mine to be there one day.

I still haven’t done any of the anniversary things yet, but that’s alright. There’s so much to do in EverQuest I don’t feel like I’m missing out this year by leveling up a new character. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

The Snugg ipad Case Review

I was sent a free Snugg ipad case to review from the fine folks over at The Snugg, and since I’ve been really unsatisfied with the $60 one I purchased from Apple, I decided to try it out. It shipped very quickly (less than a week) and came in a nice clean box with instructions on how to use it, along with a cord for recharging. In specific I decided to review the snugg ipad3 ultra slim bluetooth keyboard case. I know this probably sounds silly, but I didn’t expect the case to actually come with a bluetooth keyboard. I have one of my own and I figured I would have to slip it into the case. This case comes with one along with a USB cable so that you can recharge the battery which lasts for approx. 55 hours of use. I haven’t had to recharge it yet, and I’ve had it about a week.

The case is a hard plastic, which is much sturdier than the previous one I had been using. The ipad snaps into it easily and (go figure) snug (via the picture above).

The case itself props the ipad open like a miniature laptop, you basically just prop it up against three small pegs at the bottom that hold the ipad in place. My only issue with the case is that these pegs don’t actually secure your ipad so if you were to use the case on an unstable surface that tilts, you could drop your ipad out of it very easily. If you’re using it on your lap and tilt the case backwards or forward it would eventually slide out. However, I don’t believe that this sort of case it meant to be used that way, so the chances of that happening are quite slim and would be something you are (hopefully) planning for. Using the case on a flat surface works best, pictured above I have it set up on my desk. I also used it just fine on the couch or coffee table or even in bed beside me.

All of the components to this case are well made which I was pleased about. The USB cord is sturdy, the case has an off and on switch for the bluetooth, and gave separate instructions on how to sync the bluetooth keyboard up to your device.

Over all I was pleased with this case – especially since the price point is lower than the apple triangle cover I had purchased with the ipad. My original case is incredibly flimsy, and gives practically no protection what so ever. As I mentioned above the only downside is that the ipad is not actually secured into the case, it’s propped up but as long as you’re not bouncing around I don’t see it being that much of an issue.

Day Four DAW: Wurm Online #WurmOnline

Another game that is incredibly near and dear to my heart is Wurm Online. A game that combines combat (if you feel like it) with an incredibly large crafting system, AND terraforming. I have such love for the developer team of this game that it is probably borderline stalking.

So my fourth (wait, four? Isn’t there only one for Glitch up there so far? Just hold on, I’ve got two more coming that I’m post-dating) Developer Appreciation Award goes out to the team at Wurm Online.

We’ve had a lot of awesome changes lately, and these are all thanks to the dev team. New graphics, new sounds, new options for terraforming. For the first time since I’ve started playing on Deliverance, we have bison. That’s a pretty big deal. Of course every time a change is implemented there’s a mob of angry gamers looking to rip a new one into those responsible, so I just wanted to say

THANK YOU

for making this game so amazing. Never in any game before have I seen such a robust crafting system. I’ve never had the ability to physically shape the land in an MMO to my specifications and some of the amazing stuff people have created over time is just that – amazing.