Hardcore Heritage Coming to EverQuest! #EQ #EverQuest

Thanks to the 45-day ‘welcome back’ program that SOE is currently running, a few of my friends (and I) have returned to our roots in EverQuest. It wasn’t that long ago that we were playing and doing the 12 year anniversary tasks, but we had taken a bit of a break (and then the nasty business happened with SOE being down for a few days). It feels good to be back, and as you can see by my screen shot above, there’s a lot of other players who feel exactly the same way. The screen shot is of the Drinal server, which is where I play.

There’s also some exciting news for EverQuest in the future, as they prepare to start their ‘Hardcore heritage’ event once more this year. Basically this is where they take numerous old world zones of lower levels and adjust them to be end game zones with all new loot tables and mechanics. Here are the details to the event this year:

Are you ready to revisit some of your favorite classic zones and experience all new challenges? Well Hardcore Heritage is almost here!

Hardcore Heritage, one of our yearly events where we revisit some older zones and update them to provide a more challenging environment, is coming to a server near you soon! Spread over the months May to July, you’ll have an opportunity to visit the old stomping grounds with entirely new foes to battle.

The schedule for events is as follows:

5/23 – 6/12

  • Blackburrow (Level 80)
  • Cazic Thule (Level 80)

6/13-7/3

  • Lower Guk (Level 85)
  • Unrest (Level 85)

7/1-7/21

  • Crushbone (Level 90)
  • ?????????? (Level 90)

This year we’re presenting two newly revamped zones, Crushbone and one other yet to be announced. Nostalgia and loot will abound, make sure you stop by and visit all the old spots from Trainer Hill to Emperor Crush’s throne room itself! There’s even a new challenge for two to three groups of players, can you defeat Emperor Crush and his stalwart allies?

I’m pretty excited, I have participated in the event previous years and it’s always a lot of fun. It’s also nice to see players gathered together in zones instead of always running missions which has been the fad as of late – especially with the bonus experience in place. Ultann has returned to the game and we’re currently attempting to help him level from 85-90 so he can partake in more of the House of Thule content. It’s a slow process, but at least he has bonus experience to make use of this week.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

It’s Good To Be Back (Online) #EQ2 #EverQuest2

Ah, it’s good to be back. Things are slowly getting back to normal with SOE, and I managed to fit in a little time in EQ2 to go over my housing plans. Pictured above is the library of my Norrathian Museum (on the Antonia Bayle server, if you want to visit it’s a Mistmoore Craig Estate located in South Freeport under the name of Stargrace). I managed to track down five “new” (to me) player-written books, which puts my collection at 423 to date. I’m hoping that as things become even more settled players will find inspiration once again and I will be able to find even more books to add. Remember as always if you’d like to donate a book to my museum you can contact me directly in game and I will supply the blank books as well as some coin for your effort.

Most (but not all) SOE games are involved in a grand ‘welcome back’ program that is currently running. For EQ2 this includes the following for players:

From May 14th until May 23rd at 9am PDT players can enjoy double xp, double guild xp, a loot bonanza, all city festivals and moonlight enchantments, and the Aether races. Players will also get 45 days of free game time (for active and non-active subscriptions) and 500 station cash. They’ve extended any RAF accounts that were active during the outage, and are compensating any time that may have been lost from the research assistants. They’ve also covered rent for one month for guild homes and regular homes.

Some players are demanding more, and that this is not enough. Personally, I don’t blame SOE for the down time. Places get hacked and it was just incredibly unfortunate that this time it was a widely used platform. I think that they are taking a lot more heat for their lack of communication to players then anything else. For example we received no emails letting us know that things were back up and running. No explanation on what was really going on, or how long anything would take. I understand it’s a bit of a sensitive matter especially if there’s legalities involved with tracking down whoever did this – but alienating your customers just makes a sore spot even worse. You have to keep them as informed as you possibly can and I don’t feel that “sorry, we’re not coming back up today” is keeping anyone informed. Just my opinion, of course.

I am glad to see everyone back to their respective games, and incredibly thankful that I can get back to scratching that housing itch – especially since multi housing just released not that long ago.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Deciding Between Paladin and Warrior #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

I’ve been having one heck of a time trying to decide if I want to tank on my paladin, or my warrior. Right now the paladin is sitting at level 44, the warrior 42 (after some adventures yesterday). One reason why I want to limit myself to working up a single character is because I’d also like to (ideally) craft on this character, which is restricted by levels. If I spend too much time leveling up both at once, I’ll fall behind. I really need an alchemist to replace the DK I had on my old server. In my decision making I looked at each character individually to come to my eventual conclusion.

The Warrior:

Feels like a tank – if that makes sense. Because the paladin tends to cast spells it can almost feel like a caster. Also the warrior cool downs are fairly easy to handle, I always have something up. My warrior also has more hit points, and when I eventually hit 85 I’ll be able to critically shield block which is something the paladin lacks. Also, charge is awesome.

The down side to the warrior (remember, I’m low level) is that I only have one aoe at the moment, thunderclap. Two if you count rend triggering on everyone I’ve thunderclapped. While I hold aggro just fine on 5 mobs, anything more then that tends to be a little tricky for me because of this. For example if I have already used thunderclap and another group of adds join into the fray I have to wait for the aoe to be back up while I frantically taunt mobs off of everyone. There’s those over eager gamers who are constantly using all of their AoE’s before I’ve even done anything, and I find it a little annoying to pull off of them. I know this comes with practice and time (and levels, as eventually I’ll get shockwave) but for now it’s annoying.

The Paladin:

Keep in mind my level, 44. A lot of the instances I’m doing are filled with undead, and Wrath is also filled with undead. This gives the paladin an edge over the warrior. At this low level, I’ve also got three AoE, two of them are instant cast, and I’ve also got avenger’s shield which stuns and silences three mobs (I use it to pull, typically). I’ve got buffs that help not only me, but the group. I can lay on hands, cast protection, and cure disease and poison. I can also rez.

I REALLY dislike the paladin cool downs, at this level I feel like I’m lacking buttons to press. Paladins are also incredibly common, being thought of as the easy mode class, because they can tank / dps / heal. Although I think anyone who plays a class well is worth it no matter how common they are it’s something that I try to avoid (playing common classes, that is).

The Decision:

In the end I decided to go with the paladin, changing my earlier decision of warrior. I came to this decision for one final reason that outweighed everything else. When I reach level 85 I will have the choice of tanking, dpsing, or healing depending on my mood. If I were to level the warrior to 85 I would only have two choices, tanking or dpsing. I don’t want to level a character to 85 and have them just sit there doing nothing at all so having more options was a better decision for me. I may come to regret this as I make my way to 85 and if that’s the case then I will simply switch over to the warrior and continue leveling that character up. I suppose we’ll just have to see.

In the end, as long as I’m having fun it doesn’t really matter what I’m playing (and the same can be said for anyone). Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

When Did Your AC Break?! (Adventures in Failed Pick Up Lines) #WoW

How on earth is my warrior tanking in THOSE?! Good grief!

Last night was.. interesting, to say the least. I received a random tell from a random player that I’ve never seen or heard of before (and I believe they logged off right after, so I couldn’t comment further). The tell consisted of nothing more then ‘Wow, when did your AC (air conditioning) break, because you’re looking hotter than hell!” – thanks strange weird person. I am typically of two minds when I receive these sorts of tells in game (and I have a few times now). First of all, they have no idea if I am really a female or a male, or my age. So I tend to reply to them in one of a few ways:

  • I pretend I’m male, and answer with “Thanks, my wife thinks I’m a pretty hot guy too!”
  • Pretend I’m a lot older then I am. “Thanks, my grandchildren never mention that their Nana is hot!”
  • Simply let them know I’m not available or interested in whatever conversation it is they think they’re starting. “Thanks! My husband thinks so too.”

Honestly, why you would send some stranger those sorts of tells to begin with is beyond me. So that was the beginning of my interesting evening. On the plus side, my warrior did manage to inch her way to level 40. The entire time I’ve been leveling up (so far) I’ve done it through tanking random pick up groups. There’s a few reasons for this but my main one is that I’ll never actually learn to tank if I don’t spend a significant portion of my time actually tanking. Plus instances are fairly quick to queue as a tank (understatement, they’re instant, always). I am now into the level range that I don’t exactly enjoy, and a large portion of that is because I simply don’t know my way around the dungeons. Dire Maul (a portion of it at least) was on my list of zones last night, and there’s backtracking that always annoys me. Mauradon is another zone that I don’t know my way around that well although it’s been split into sections and it’s not quite as bad as it once was. If I don’t feel confident in my knowledge of the zones, it’s more difficult for me to tank.

Lets not forget the fact that everyone still thinks they’re invincible and tend to do all the pulling for me. I do my best to regain aggro and so far I don’t think I’m horrible at it, but I only have so many methods of doing this. I also only have one AoE (thunderclap) which means that holding aggro on groups of mobs when everyone is trying to do as much dps as they can possibly do (and not assisting) is becoming more and more of an issue. My job is to hold all of the mobs, and when I can’t do my job I get frustrated. I’ve also decided I really dislike ranged mobs. And I dislike melee characters, because it’s difficult for me to target the mobs that have pulled off to other players that I need to regain. Actually the entire targeting method that WoW uses is difficult for me to maneuver, which is probably why everyone ends up targeting random_mob_101 instead of the mob that I’m actually on. With all these complaints you may think why wouldn’t I simple give up on tanking all together – but I’m determined. Everyone that I know claims that WoW is the easiest game in the world to play, that it is a game for children. I wonder if any of them have played a tank to 85 before, because there’s really nothing easy about it. It’s a challenge, and that’s why I’ll stick with it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Earning Guild Reputation #WoW #WorldofWarcraft

I’ve been trying to max out my weekly cap of guild experience on my 85 priest, which is not exactly difficult to do when you actually work on it, but the fact that I’m always drifting off to alts seems to hinder me (a lot). I feel a little bad for people who are not level 80+ because working on guild faction is incredibly slow and boring for lower levels. You barely gain any experience unless you have a higher level helping you out – as an example my 85 priest has purchased the tabard that increases your gains by 50% and by the end of next week I’ll be able to purchase the 100% bonus tabard as well as the heirloom helm and cloak which I can then pass down to my alts. I’m very excited about this, heirloom takes out the need for me to actually purchase / loot any gear (aside from a few slots) for the duration of my leveling, and it’s some really nice gear.

The warrior is almost level 32, I didn’t play her much yesterday as I was concentrating on completing that guild faction with the priest. Dragon Flight (Alliance guild that I run on Argent Dawn) completed their 7th (and final for this week) guild run which ended up being Gnomeregan (again). This time the instance went flawlessly – except two members dropped right at the beginning. Before we had even started. Well, that’s not true. See, one hunter (I’m so sorry to pick at this class but it just ended up being them) jumped down to the bottom floor with the oozes while the group was making their way to the first named down the hallway. Upstairs. See, this is why it’s important to follow the tank, because they may not complete the zone in the same method that you’re used to and they may take a different rout. Before we got going I asked the group if they wanted to complete the entire zone, or if they wanted to skip portions of it by jumping. Guild mates decided it would be best if we simply completed the zone without any mario brother jumping competitions, and I agreed. I think the zone took about the same amount of time to complete, we had no deaths, everyone leveled a few times and it was a really nice comfortable run. I want more dungeons like that one.

I’m eager to continue leveling the warrior, but I want to work on obtaining guild faction for heirloom gear too. Hopefully I can reach my new weekly cap today, and then I can play the warrior this weekend. We’ll just have to see I suppose!

Surprisingly enough I’ve been having a lot of fun this time around in WoW. I do miss my housing (sigh) and I look forward to SOE coming back up (when ever that will be) but I’m not longing for the games as much as I thought I would be. I do still have an active subscription to Rift, but for some reason the game just doesn’t appeal to me. I think that it’s because I find it difficult to find ‘stuff to do’ when I’m not questing and slaughtering mobs. In WoW I have taken to working on archeology, which is a great waste of time and it keeps me in game. I have so many different characters to play, and the world is incredibly vast with so many dungeons that I rarely end up doing the exact same thing on any of my characters.

In the end so long as players are having fun it doesn’t matter what game they are playing. You should absolutely enjoy whatever you choose to do with that spare time that comes between real life responsibilities and sleep. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend, and don’t think too hard about the fact that today is Friday the 13th!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.