Sebilis Hates Me

Last night was another one of those rare occasions when a few of us from Torrent Knights (my casual guild on Antonia Bayle) were actually around. Ultann was finished work, Hamal had the day off, and while Wpus was sleeping getting ready for another night, I was in game for once. Ultann suggested we head down to Sebilis, and take on the Spoor King who drops a very nice healer shield. I’ve posted before about my luck with shields – I simply have none. I’ve ran Obelisk of Ahkzul more times then I can count, and in all my raids and adventures the best shield I’ve managed to grab for this poor healer is one legendary from RoK that’s pretty sad looking.

Little did we know that the Spore King is actually on a pretty hefty timer, so while we did kill him once we made our way to the bottom floor of the zone – we waited around for another two hours and never saw him. Two other named respawned within that time frame and we had multiple encounters with other mobs, but alas, no Spore King.

I don’t mind camping mobs that have place holders – but I’m not really a fan of camping mobs on timers that take so very long. The same can be said about the Head Butler in Mistmoor Catacombs, back when EoF was the lead expansion that butler used to be heavily camped for his set piece (because he always drops it). He’s on a specific 1 hour timer, no place holder. I’d rather have a 15 minute timer with a place holder and have him be a rare spawn.

Maybe this is just my inner EQ player speaking up since I’m very used to the mob camping system from that game, but last night was pretty quiet. We cleared out the one room the Spore King spawns in and two rooms right next door. Before we headed to the zone I had to get some reet faction on my mystic because I’d actually never done the quests before, and the frogs that litter the basement all wanted to claw my eyes out. A quick kill-10 quest later and I was their best friend.

I’ve been working on my Norrathian Museum off and on, and I have been buying books to fill it up. It’s hard to keep track of what I already own and what I still need to purchase, and I’ve set myself with a spending limit because there’s no way I can afford to spend 1-10p per player written book unless it’s something I know is a masterpiece, then I may actually consider it.

I’m still trying to quest along, aiming for those 200aa. They’re going a lot slower now that I’ve hit the 180+ mark as expected. I do have until February, so it’s not as though I’m on any sort of time limit.

Tomorrow I’ll post “GU 53 Part III” which is going to include a deeper look into some odds and ends that are making their way to players later this month. I’m still very excited about this update, and I hope everyone else is too!

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

GU 53 – Part II – Chronomagic

Lets get back to talking about GU 53 and more of the wonderful goodies that are headed to go live some time in September. These changes are already on the test server, so be sure to check them out for yourself if you’d like to explore them.

I already talked about the achievement system that’s being implemented, now lets spend a little time talking about Chronomagic – also known as “auto mentoring”.

There are Erudites set up in Qeynos, Freeport, Neriak, Gorowyn, and Kelethin and they will allow players level 20+ to speak to them and mentor down from their level in increments of 5 (10, 15, 20, etc). This one pictured on the right is in Qeynos harbor. They do not currently show up if you hit alt+w (waypoints) but you can always ask a guard to locate ‘time’ for you, as it’s part of their name. One thing to keep in mind, if you auto mentor you will not gain the bonus aa that players currently receive from mentoring an actual player. We get quite a large chunk of experience (aa) from doing that, so if it’s important to you you’ll want to keep mentoring little ones in order to keep that bonus. When you speak to the Erudites, they will pop open a window and ask you which level you want to be.

As you can see to mentor has a small cost associated with it, 5 gold and 100 personal status. The experience reduction is based on my characters level (80) so it may show as something different to others.

Now, Kiara had posted under the test notes that there are also 37 new missions that work like TSO missions and send players out around Norrath to battle specific bosses in zones all over in all levels. I couldn’t actually figure out where any of these missions were (the Erudite does not give them out) but as soon as I do or if anyone else knows please feel free to post. I think these missions are a great idea, but I’d also love to see them given to players who are actually mentoring and not just using the auto mentor system. Maybe they work that way I don’t have the faintest idea.

You will stay mentored until it’s canceled (right click on your own name and there is an unmentor option, it’s already in game for regular mentoring). You have to go back to the NPC if you want to lower your level once more.

One really important thing here for the PvP servers – auto mentoring works the same as regular mentoring which means no pvp combat while you are auto mentored. This makes it very dangerous to use on pvp servers.

I decided to check out whether or not you could effectively gray out your own shard instances in TSO because there’s plenty of people who already mentor down to 50, enter a TSO instance, unmentor, and then complete the zones that way. This has been talked about on the forums as being an unintended bug, and players should probably refrain from doing it (as per forum posts) so I was curious if there would be something implemented to prevent it. As of yet, there is not. You can mentor down to 50, pick up your TSO missions (such as the ones in Commonlands) zone into the dungeon, right click your name, unmentor, everything turns gray, and you can complete your shard quests that way. Of course you get no loot, and this only works in specific zones (Commonlands, Lavastorm, Everfrost) and who knows, perhaps something will be implemented that prevents you from unmentoring during the TSO instances.

I think this system will be a great thing to add to game, if you happen to want to take down a raid zone (Courts anyone?) and want everyone to be level appropriate, if you want to go on a named killing binge for aa, if you just want to hang out with your friends in game but don’t want to actually be their exact level. You keep all of your spells, your gear, your aa, and traits, they just reduce in effectiveness, bringing you to ‘around’ the same effectiveness as someone else that level.

It’s a nice way to get players to experience the older content, and to prevent them from out leveling zones (which I have ranted about before in the past as being something I simply don’t like, why on earth would you ever want players to out level your zones). It will give players an option of ‘something else’ to do. I’m not sure how people who are NOT mentoring will feel about this – it can bring around a lot of griefers who are level 80 and rush a zone taking all of the named out from under the little groups who are in there exploring. Most of the time these level 80’s will move on once they’ve finished getting what they want, but I can certainly see a lot of farming lined up for the future. At least this will be an easier way of obtaining appearance gear (there’s some fantastic black chain in Fallen Gate) without having to find someone to mentor, not to mention you could farm the zones 1-20 to get masters that are on smart loot if you’re one of those people who enjoy being ‘fully mastered’

It will be interesting to see how it all works out in the end. Anyone else super excited about this feature besides me?

TSO Raids, Instances, and of course, FUN!

I’ll continue on with my ‘what’s coming in GU 53’ posts tomorrow (starting with the chronomagic hopefully) but for today I just wanted a nice easy post about what’s been going on in game for me. I know, how exciting eh?

Yesterday was fun, in a few different ways. I stuck up my LFG tag and someone sent me a tell immediately asking me: “have mythical?” and no more then that. I hate these types of groups with a passion. I don’t care what instance you’re trying to do, if you only think that you should group with uber elite people you’re missing out on so much of the game. I realize no one likes losing, but give people a chance and maybe they’ll surprise you.

My response to them was – yes, I have my mythical, but if that’s all you want in a group then it’s not the group for me, please take care.

I left it at that. Honestly, you can get your mythical and be a perfectly horrible gamer, it’s an expansion behind and while it may be the ‘best’ piece of gear out there still for players it is NOT a measurement of skill.

Instead I took an invite that was a bunch of level 65-70 people headed to Obelisk of Blight in Lesser Faydark. I hadn’t been to this zone with a group in ages, and I figured why not. I mentored down to 69 and we were off. We even had a few messy pulls, but I still had a better time in that lowbie group then I would have with the group that asked me earlier. Aside from my Obelisk experience I headed to Anathema which was the daily double, and completed it on both the mystic and the illusionist.

Yesterday night there was a Ward of Elements raid scheduled, so I decided to go on the illusionist. I had been there once before, and needed one more water essence in order to create the fabled circlet that can be combined with the T3 head piece. While we were there I also looted a few pieces of gear – the only down side is that I now need a grand total of 104 shards in order to upgrade from T1 to T2 and then to T3. I have shoulders, chest, legs, and helm patterns sitting in my bags. Combine that with the T4 pieces I already have (gloves, shoes, and bracer) and I’m not decked out too badly any more. The illusionist is in dire need of some new charms as well as a few jewelery pieces, but I’m coming along. I also grabbed a few aa, and I’m sitting at 165 now. Something to work on at least.

This morning I worked on Lavastorm quests, and I’ve finally maxed my faction out with the NPC’s on the docks and can purchase their goodies. It also means I can do the daily solo shard quest, which is an added bonus.

On top of all that, I made the decision to actually apply to my guild as a raider. For now I have been in the “friends and family” category, which means lots of groups within the guild and I was tagging along on raids when there was room, but I wasn’t actually a raider. These new responsibilities include raids four nights a week – which may seem like a lot, but raids are no more then 3 hours each of those nights, and you need to keep up 75% attendance.

I’m excited and stressed. I’ve mentioned this before but TSO raids are completely different then all of the other previous tiers of raids, and I haven’t been a raider since the beginning of RoK. There is so much curing that you have to do (self curing that is) you need potions on you constantly. There are so many detrimental spells to be on the look for, and so many ways to counter them. Cast a single spell while you’re under the influence of the wrong detrimental and you’ll wipe the entire raid. It’s very frustrating and honestly not the way I’d like to spend my time raiding. The guild I’ve joined up with are also quite used to these TSO raids, they’ve been doing them for months now and have cleared a huge amount of content where as I’m being thrust into it last minute without knowing quite yet what I am doing. Ups and downs, and that’s what comes with raiding honestly. We’ll just have to see how tonight goes! Hopefully I don’t get everyone killed a million times by forgetting what I’m supposed to do.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

P.S. Dang it why are my eyes ALWAYS closed in every screen shot I happen to take!

GU 53 – Part I – Achievements

I spent a few hours on the test server yesterday looking over the incoming changes that are slated for some time in September and decided I would write a few articles on each section explaining them and what I saw. Please keep in mind this is ONLY on the test server and therefor is subject to change. If you do not want to know what’s currently on the test server then you may also want to skip this post.

Before I start, if you’re using a custom UI please be sure to delete your two files that mention ‘journal’ in them, there are only two, from the testcopy UI folder. Other wise you’ll more then likely crash after you try to log in.

Second of all lets get this out of the way. The achievement system that is coming to EQ2 is almost (if not exactly) like World of Warcrafts achievements and we all know it, lets not beat a dead horse. This is something EQ2 needs VERY MUCH in my opinion, whether it is exactly like some other game or not. MMOs are constantly feeding and learning off of each other, don’t look so surprised. My only issue is that they’ve waited so long to implement achievements in EQ2, perhaps not realizing what a huge hit they would be in other games. People enjoy brainless goals to work towards, no matter how silly some of them may be. I know, that doesn’t mean EVERYONE out there will be rushing off to complete these, but I think it’s safe to say that a majority will be.

The achievement tab has been added to your quest journal, and from what I saw they act retroactively based on whether or not you were granted aa (alternative advancement) for that achievement in the past. Basically that means if you killed a mob or defeated a zone when you were at max aa (at any point in time since the cap has been raised a few times) OR if you completed said achievement BEFORE aa were in game, you will have to do it again. Once the system is in game it will be able to recognize whether or not you’ve completed it at the time (ie: If you were at max aa when you killed Woushi you will need to kill him again because there’s no direct record of you killing him for the achievements to recognize – however if achievements are in game, and you kill him, even if you are at max aa it will recognize that you’ve killed him at the time of the kill). Does that make sense? Hope so.

There are also what I would consider ‘fluff’ achievements like hug 100 players, or flirt or get fishing and drinking to 400, etc. Fun ones.

There are 8 sections for achievements, combat, exploration, general, quests, slayer, tradeskill, and triumphs. Most of those can be divided by zone, and if you click on the individual achievements, it will show you what you’ve already earned towards this goal and what you are missing. One fantastic feature is that collecting druid rings is an achievement. It also lists which ones you’ve already obtained, and which ones you are still missing.

You can earn points for completing each achievement, shown in the upper right hand corner. I’m not sure if you can use those points towards something quite yet – but – based on the number of achievement chains you’ve completed you will earn yourself (it will pop up automatically) crates of appearance gear for your character which looks pretty dang neat. I’ve seen three sets so far, one was a robe with a very TSO looking graphic, and two were armor, one in browns and the other in a black / blue / white shimmering colour.

My one concern with the achievement system is that if you are a fairly active gamer, and have been for the last four years – and if you’ve completed numerous quests, raids, and crafted through each of those tiers when you log in you may find yourself already earning 300+ achievements out of a total of (currently) only 489.

This may prove to be slightly problematic in keeping people interested in the achievement system. I think we need a lot more then 489, and I’m sure a lot more will be forthcoming. There were no achievements for any holiday events, moonlight grotto, frostfell and what not. I don’t personally know how difficult it would be (will be) for them to add that sort of thing, but I’d expect them to be coming in the future, perhaps closer to the actual events while this tides us over in the mean time.

Over all the new achievements are very polished. It’s something I’ve wanted to see implemented for years now and I think they have a real winner – as long as it’s not already too late. I think it will be fun, it will spur people into zones they may not usually travel to (splitpaw anyone?) and it will force people to work together towards a common goal. Casual and hardcore alike. I think achievements will mean much more to the casual player because a LOT of these are kill-to-complete, and it’s a prouder moment when the underdog defeats an encounter then when someone who has done it a million times before does. Of course that’s just me speculating.

I was also very glad to see the crafters not left out with the tradeskill achievement section.

What do you think, are you excited? There’s still so much for me to write about in other posts, and I couldn’t be happier with the majority of the changes (I know some avatar raiders out there would like to differ with me on that one, as they’re getting quite a few nerfs).

In the mean time, since I am NOT currently at 200aa it means that all achievements I work on between then and now will still count towards it when it goes live. Those that can be documented by aa in any case. I better get to Norrath!

Have a fantastic weekend, and happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

All about the Look

How important is the way your character looks to you? I know to some, it doesn’t matter. They’ll wear whatever they find and be happy with it, others are more particular. No matter what your fashion sense is, after five years (or more) of playing the same character I bet almost everyone enjoys some sort of change.

This is one of the main reasons why I enjoy the appearance gear of EQ2 – especially in a place where everyone looks similar. With set pieces being common (be they T1 or T4) these little ways to be individual are important to us. It’s also fantastic around holidays and it works as a marketing ploy (station market anyone) in order to sell these bits of ‘unique’ appearance gear. My only qualm with it is that the cloth wearers get the shaft in their appearance, but you can find ways to work around this (station market clothing as well as some sold by the city faction merchants).

I love looking for appearance gear. I could spend hours at the broker searching from levels 1-80 trying to find a piece to add, or looking at everyone I encounter to see what they are wearing. I wish every game out there had appearance slots – although I suppose some games just look so awesome there’s no need.

Last night I headed back to Obelisk of Ahkzul and the shield that I have been trying to get for months and months now did not drop. I wasn’t surprised. I’ve done this zone every day for at least three or four months and I’ve never seen it. A guild mate of mine has it though so I know it’s out there, some where. I’m tired of wearing the RoK shield my healer currently has. I suppose I could try to get the shield from WoE but knowing my luck it wouldn’t drop then either.

Are you going to be playing Champions Online? Starting today I have access for 90 days, so I’ll be giving it a whirl. While I have kept up with the news and other blog reports of this game I have not actually played it yet myself so all of my opinions and views will be brand new. It may also make me a bit slow to grasp things in the long run but I’m looking forward to it none the less. If you’re going to be playing let me know and hopefully we can meet up in game some time.

I also plan on taking advantage of the remaining days I have in WAR, I moved to a new quest hub and have been doing a few public quests. Surprisingly enough all of the zones are highly populated when I happen to be wandering around, with pockets of battle scattered all over the place. Maybe I can get in on some of it without having to worry about turning into a chicken. We’ll just have to see.

Aside from that, my play style has been fairly sparse, something I hope to remedy this weekend with the cooler weather (fingers crossed) but again we’ll just have to see!

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!