Official Wikia Communities #Vanguardsoh #VGD

 

Last week SOE announced ‘official wikia communities‘ for EQ2 and Planetside 2. I’ve been looking forward to these announcements for quite some time, but what I was hoping to see was one announced for Vanguard. Those who have played Vanguard over the years remember when the crafting web site came down – it hosted an enormous amount of incredibly valuable information and due to the lack of interest in the game the person hosting it just couldn’t continue. No one offered to take over, and eventually it vanished from the internet along with hours of crafting information. Losing information like that is a painful prospect for continuing players as well as potential customers. Especially for a game like Vanguard where playing without some sort of wikia (for crafting) is almost impossible. There are simply too many intricate combinations and ‘rules’.

I think the general idea is fantastic, although it’s certainly not new. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 host their own wikia that players can add information to. Wurm Online also runs a wikia for their game. Making these places ‘official’ and assigning a staff member to ‘oversee’ it is a big step, and gives confidence to players that 1. the information isn’t going anywhere and 2. it is probably relatively up to date.

Hopefully we can see some sort of official Vanguard wikia put in place eventually. There is a popular one that has been around a short while now called ‘Telonica” which I’ve suggested SOE team up with. We’ll see how that goes.

Chains of Eternity #EQ2 #EverQuest2

I’m excited about the next EverQuest2 expansion ‘Chains of Eternity’. No big surprise there, I get excited about any expansion for any game (did you know LotRO is releasing Rohan today? Urge to play, rising). The story reminds me a bit of the void creatures who invaded Norrath not that long ago:

“Death is rampant across Norrath. Citizens are suddenly falling dead as their spirits are torn from their bodies. No one on Norrath seems to understand why the souls are being pulled from the mortal plane, but all signs point to a massive disturbance within Ethernere, the realm of the dead. The heroes of the world must travel to Ethernere to find the cause of the unbalance in the Grey Wastes, and discover what has become of its caretaker – the mysterious being known as Drinal. If the heroes can return balance to Ethernere, the siphoning of souls may be halted. Should they fail, both the living and the dead will suffer a dismal fate.” – zam.com 

I did my first pre-quest to the expansion yesterday and I don’t want to spoil the story but I did get a very nice level 92 necklace out of it. I completed it on my swashbuckler, Jacquotte, who is the only level 92 character I have at the moment. The rest of my characters are still sitting at a dismal level 90, most of them not having the required 280+ aa in order to progress further. A handful of them are close, hovering between 230-250aa and that is what I spent most of my game time this weekend working on. Inching them further and further.

Except the bard, who I betrayed from Troubador to Dirge. Again. This is probably the .. 20th? Time I’ve betrayed that specific character back and forth. I’ve written about it a lot, too. I’m thinking of betraying my shadowknight to a paladin as well for the simple fact that there are a billion SK out there. I know, not exactly a good reason. I do enjoy the ‘fresh’ feeling my characters get when I betray them though.

Chains of Eternity will change the current cap of 92 to 95, adding three new levels. Of course there are other features being added too:

  • Prestige Abilities – Each subclass will get access to new Prestige Abilities!
  • Prestige Tradeskills – Your crafting will shine like never before with Prestige Tradeskills.
  • Organic Adornments – New adornments that gain experience with you and grow in power.
  • Guild Level Cap Raised to 95.
  • Adventure to Level 95.
  • Tradeskill to Level 95.
There are two overland zones being added, the Obol Plains and The Eidolon Jungle. I was hoping for more than two, but that seems to be the norm with expansions lately. At least this is an actual expansion and not just a content update. There are also 9 new dungeons, and a lot of new quests which I look forward to completing. The release for the expansion hasn’t been announced officially yet, but it’s speculated to be some time in November. Fan Faire (now known as SOE Live) starts in just a handful of days and I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more information as time goes on. 

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

Pathing Back ‘Home’ #EQ2

I’ve been having a lot of fun in WoW, and before that, GW2 – but something is still missing. In WoW it is too easy for me to get to 90 and have all of the gear that I can possibly get without becoming a hard core raider. LFRaid and LFDungeon take care of that – plus there’s all of those caps on valor and justice to deal with. WoW does a nice job of keeping me in line, and making me follow that carefully laid out path. Some times I enjoy it, the lack of ‘thinking’ required to play. I gleefully hunt up companion pets and chatter with friends. sadly, the new ‘grind dailies until your eyes bleed’ method of MOP is completely unappealing to me. You need faction for everything. You need it for recipes. You need it for gear. You need it for valor gear. Since the removal of tabards to earn that faction you’re left with 300+ dailies. Golden Lotus pretty much did me in, I dislike that faction with a passion that goes beyond what it deserves. I just don’t enjoy grinding out dailies. While there is still lots to do, it’s not stuff that I actually want to do. Thus MOP takes a back seat, and when my 1 year subscription ends at the end of this month I’m debating whether or not I want to renew.

In true nomadic gamer fashion, I wandered over to EQ2 where I’ve barely played the past year or so. I know only a handful of people, no one from my personal guild. That’s alright. There’s lots for me to do and I started off by working on heritage quests because they scratch a nostalgic itch for both EQ1 and EQ2. The first day I completed In Honor and Service, An Axe from the Past, and Dragoon K’Naae of the Thexians. Today I completed War and Wardrobe, Restoring Ghoulbane, and Reaching blade of the assassin. This evening I’m working on The Rescue of the Green Hoods, and Training is a shield. I’m basically working through the giant list of heritage quests in order by level, starting with the lowest. I’d like to get back into doing groups and dungeons and the like, but I don’t have the faintest idea where to start. That’s not such a big deal because Chains of Eternity is not too far away, and I could (if I so wished) “start over” when everyone else was making the climb through the new expansion as well.

I’ve missed housing, a lot. In fact one of the main reasons I’m working through heritage quests is because I’d like to create a HQ room in my Norrathian Museum. My library now has over 600 player written books, by 300 authors. These are things I’ve spent years working on (quite literally) and take a lot of pride in. As much as I may dislike certain policies or actions by SOE in regards to their game, deep down it still offers me more than most of the other games I have on my plate. Of course in a week or two or three or a month or six months, I’ll change what I’m playing again. It’s just how I am.

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

Vanguard Update #VGD #Vanguardsoh

Here is a list of the improvements that were released with today’s update:

General

  • The cap for sending currency via mail and COD mail has been increased to 30 plat.
  • Ships can now only be summoned in water depths of at least 5 meters.
  • The level of your defensive target is now displayed in the UI.
  • Character select now displays how many character slots are currently available on your account. Additional slots can be purchased through the Marketplace up to a maximum of 20 slots.
  • Rifting to a new location should no longer have a chance to drop you among aggressive NPCs who hasten you toward an untimely death.
  • Having a group member log out while the group is harvesting should no longer crash the zone.
  • You can now send a guild invitation to your defensive target.
  • The Kaon Loreck in Forest’s Heart should no longer be pretending to be merchants.

Marketplace

  • Check out the latest batch of new items available for purchase:
  • o Visage of the Pumpkin Man – Changes your character’s appearance into a spooky pumpkin horror.
  • o Visage of Vampire Von Guard – Transform your character into a bloodthristy vampire.
  • o Vanity Pet: Leopard (Minala) – Summons the leopard Minala to be your companion.
  • o Petamorph Dryad – Changes your shaman, necromancer, or ranger epic pet to look like a dryad.

Festival of the Grim Harvest

  • The description on the Chupacabry costume is now correct.
  • Flaps the bat should properly appear when summoned.

Quests

  • The quest “Using Evil” should now correctly target Kaon Soulshards.
  • Starspark Pearls will now drop while on the quest “Starspark Pearls” or “More Starspark Pearls”.
  • “The Hunter’s League” quest should now provide a belt as a reward for light fighters.
  • The quest “Not a Thief, Just a Killer” should now work properly for all races.
  • The quest “Elk Overpopulation” should now update correctly.
  • Vorille Wrought has escaped from the clutches of the Deep Dwarves and will now be able to update his quest.
  • The quest objective in “An Unseen Door” can now be completed properly.
  • The objective “Scout the West Arch” can now be completed on the quest “Scout Vsurog Moor (Ichtakhta)”.
  • Those speaking with the Traveler should now be able to accept “Who Are You?” upon completion of his previous quest.

Abilities

  • Casting “Expansive Mind” should no longer cause multiple animation and particle effects to play at the same time.
  • Casting “Siphon Blood” should no longer cause multiple animation and particle effects to play at the same time.
  • Rangers should no longer see extraneous animations play when using their stances.
  • The abilities “Power Attack V” and “Skin of Rakurr II” should no longer repeatedly play the auto-attack animation.
  • Animations have been removed from the rogue’s “Explosive Flechette” abilities in an effort to increase performance during raids.

UI Files Updated

  • VGUILoginWnd.xml
  • VGUIPlayerStatus.xml

Head Start For Pirate101 Begins! #Pirate101

The head start for Pirate101 has begun, if you’ve purchased one of their starter plans or set yourself up for a subscription you’ll be able to log into the game and play – the rest will be able to get into game when it fully releases on October 15th.

I played a swashbuckler in beta but wasn’t enthralled with the class, so this time around I picked a witchdoctor. I’ve only just started to make my way through the story and battles, but it’s a lot of fun. One thing that is NOT fun are players who go afk in the middle of a game or in the middle of a path of mobs and then you join in their game. Pirate101 (much like Wizard101) adds mobs based on how many ‘players’ are on the board at once, for a max of 4 ‘real’ players. That means if someone isn’t pulling their weight with encounters, you can be taking the brunt of most attacks. I had this situation happen for the first time this morning, a player decided to just sit in the middle of the very first place you happen to come across mobs. I stuck to the roads on either side after that, avoiding the first encounter and making my way to the second one.

I’ve already found a few pieces of upgraded gear and browsed through the ‘crown’ store. It seems more expensive than I am used to (compared to Wizard101), over 1,000 crowns for a single piece of gear, like shoes. Still, the combat is fun and playing as a strategy game instead of just pure hack and slash combat really appeals to me. Plus there’s boats, and boat combat. You really can’t go wrong with that!

I’m looking forward to posting more about my experiences as time goes on, if you happen to be playing and want to add me to your friends list you can contact me on Raptr (as Stargrace) and then IM me a ‘true friend’ code, they’re good for 48h each which should be plenty of time to log in.

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