Taking it Easy

Still just taking it easy while I try to recuperate, yesterday was ok until after dinner. In the mean time all I want to do is feel better and it’s been a pretty long week. Hopefully that will happen before too long.

I did play a little EQ2 in the afternoon, I started my thuuga quest on both the mystic and the illusionist. Got as far as the Fens of Nathsar quest that sends you out looking for named before I called it.

You may have also noticed that I have added a small 2 line advertisement to the “relic gems” page of this site at the top. It’s not flashy or too intrusive (I hope) and the ad pays for 6 years of this site. If for s0me reason you do find it intrusive and annoying, let me know and I’ll see what I can do. I’ve never wanted to have google ads or anything of the sort on MmoQuests, and I’ve declined more then my fair share of requests in the past. This one was different in the way it was presented to me as more of a ‘sponsorship’ then a full blown ad. I don’t want people to feel as though I’ll be covering the site with ads now, or that it is something common for me. I’ve enjoyed running my site ad-free for the last four years, but of course there is a cost (and bills) to be paid. This is just a tiny method for me to be able to continue. Edit: That ad is only staying up for 6 months, as well.

Moving on!

I did explore around more of Wizard 101 last night, my little life / storm wizard inched her way to level 19 and part way to 20. I managed to earn a few more house items (pictured above) including a palm tree and a scroll that I placed on my desk.

One thing I love about wizard 101 is their subscription plan. I don’t get a chance to play that often so I declined getting the $10/m subscription. What I can do is purchase crowns and then use those to unlock the zones for my account that I need, when I need them. Since it could potentially be months before I need a new zone this works out better for me personally in the long run. If you do end up spending a lot of time in Wizard 101, then I can certainly see how adding a subscription is a better idea, especially if you go with their family plan and you play with your children or even if you just want to have two accounts.

I’m still saving up for my first house, drooling over all of the items out there both merchant sold and dropped. I’ve been having fun adding to my collection and I don’t have the slightest idea what sort of home I want to own. Since I only have two worlds open to me right now (and I’m not even sure where the housing turtles are) my choices are limited. I may just hang tight until I can buy one of the REALLY big homes, or just buy a smaller one. I’m still trying to decide.

This weekend is one I’ll be spending inside (sighs) again. I hope everyone has a great Mother’s Day tomorrow – and before I forget if you’re playing Free Realms and are interested in cool items you can claim then don’t forget to take a peek over at Free Realms Insider who have all sorts of awesome codes that you can enter for free goodies. This weekend they’ll be giving away codes for roses in celebration of Mother’s Day, and there are all sorts of other neat items that you can claim.

A Little Relaxing

After a 7 hour visit to first my local clinic and then the emergency ward of the hospital (in which they decided they have no idea what is wrong with me and sent me back home with the same persistent condition I went in with) I was in no real mood to game last night, so I ducked into EQ2 for a quick CoA (Crypt of Agony) run and then decided to tuck myself into bed with the laptop and watch some Harry Potter while I played around in Wizard 101.

I’ve been exceptionally excited about the Castle and Lands update, of course being a great fan of housing, an even bigger fan of going out and discovering items to place. I also love the new quest helper that was added, so I am not wandering all over the place clueless. There are a few bugs with it (ie: I’ll be looking for Triton Way and if I’m in Unicorn Ally the arrow cursor ends up dragging me off to the middle of no where for a bit) but if you know where Triton Way is you can start heading in that direction and ignore the arrow and it will eventually right itself as you get closer to your destination. Not that big of a deal.

As I was saying, yesterday I decided to do a little exploring through wizard city and see if I couldn’t come up with any house items. I had a few older quests on me that I’d all but neglected – one of them was to kill the – er, brain not working. Kraken? I believe, the purple guy that everyone seems to camp, constantly. I had the quest on me to spawn him but the instant I was ported downstairs about 20 other players were already there.

So I hung around in the center of the game board for a bit waiting for a chance to get my update. I hate being ‘that’ person but I just wanted to kill him once for my quest and move on my way. Eventually hanging around paid off and I was ported to the playing field. Completing the quest rewarded me my first house item, though I can’t remember exactly which one it was, I believe it was the blue rug pictured above.

My second house item came from the Harvest Lord, there was an open book on the floor of his room that I was able to collect, and then the stack of books came from yet another instanced encounter in wizard city. I can’t afford a really nice home yet (I’m about 3,000 short of the 8,000 home) but I imagine I’ll get one eventually.

My little life wizard also managed to make it to level 18, almost 19. Which reminds me I’m supposed to go see my trainer and I completely forgot.

It was a nice quiet night and I went to bed fairly early after that. I find that Wizard 101 is a little more relaxed even then Free Realms, though I enjoy both games a great deal. It’s nice to take a night off and do something quiet from time to time.

Safe travels, and see you in Norrath!

Completed Epics and Guk Adventures

After some running around yesterday it was time for the final fight I needed in order to complete the mystic epic. I realize I had been slacking for quite some time (ie: more then a few months now) on this epic. The biggest barrier I had was that I didn’t have my harvesting skills up to snuff. It was done, the final fight was pretty simple (instanced with an 85^^^ and a few level 80 adds that posed no problem to the shadowknight tank). Now I need to get to work on the illusionist epic. I have this epic partially started on my other enchanter, but never completed it. The thought of killing 100 yah-li is intimidating, as well as having to buy 28 T8 house items – when I don’t have a T8 crafter on Kithicor. My carpenter is sitting at 40, though I could probably push her to 80 before I worked on this epic if I wanted.

With epics out of the way it was time to take on new zones. I spent a little time relaxing and crafting, and then we headed to Guk: Halls of the Fallen, which happened to be the daily double. The group was Ultann (shadowknight) boxing his 80 inquisitor, Wpus (conjuror), and myself playing my illusionist and boxing the mystic.

We did fairly well for what we had (two boxed healers) and in the zone we were in. We managed to down the first two named (or was it three?) and also completed the daily double which was great. Once we got to the hallway where the froglok skeletons respawn almost instantly and it is almost impossible to clear it, we decided to call it a day. I headed back to do a little broker sales (and to mend my poor gear) and decided to go read for the remainder of the night. Day 6 of health issues that have kept me pretty much house / bed ridden, and needless to say my nights are ending earlier and earlier each day. Fingers crossed that I’m on the home stretch and will be feeling more like my usual self before too long.

I hope everyone else had an amazing Wednesday, only one more day to go until Friday! Safe travels and see you in Norrath!

Runnyeye The Gathering (and of course others)

I was feeling slightly more like myself yesterday and the trio gathered together for some instance goodness. We decided to do something completely new for us and we headed to Enchanted Lands to take on Runnyeye: The Gathering (RE2).

It had been a while since I had done the zone, and my partners in crime (shadowknight and conjuror) had never been there at all. I played the illusionist on the pc and put the mystic on the laptop, Ultann played the MT (main tank) and played Nocbot (inquisitor) on his laptop. Essentially we were a group of five, with the two healers on autofollow. What could possibly go wrong, right?

Well, by the end of it I was quite surprised.

We managed to beat the entire zone except the last encounter with the 4^ and the epic x2. We took down Slamhammer on the 2nd run (after dying to the million hammers before). We took down the mob that spawns noxious gas clouds also on the 2nd run once we found a better strat for our boxed healers. Everything else was a 1st pull 1st kill experience.

We didn’t get anything of note, none of the fabled cloaks dropped (which would have been so nice) and no gear was an upgrade but it was still exceptionally satisfying to be able to take down those sorts of encounters in that particular zone with just our group.We all got a few aa, and managed to complete a few quests relating to the zone. I’ll have to remember to pick up the two quests we missed outside of the zone next time.

Now we’ve been able to clear all of the RoK instances (we headed back to Vaults and Maidens after RE2 to clear those) as well as RE2 and a few TSO instances. Next? We’re going to attempt to clear the guk TSO instances. Or see how far we can get through them in any case. I try to keep a positive outlook even when I think we’re going to get completely owned, so it will be interesting to see how things go. I keep reminding myself that we’re not exactly the best geared players out there, we have a mixture of TSO T2 gear and dropped jewelery, a few masters (with myself far behind in that department, I have one master spell). Again, this is a great indication that you do NOT have to be fully raid geared (or raid geared at all) in order to complete these things. Talent does surpass all else in the rare occassion. This idea is something I welcome openly.

In case you had not heard yet, player housing goes LIVE in Wizard 101 TODAY! That’s some pretty exciting news right there. It’s the only thing I wish we had in Free Realms too (which I spent a bit of time playing yesterday).

I hope everyone else had an exciting Tuesday, don’t forget Mother’s Day is Sunday!

Working on Epics and Instances

Ultann managed to get his inquisitor epic in two days. I was really happy for him but frustrated at the difference in ‘ease’ as far as epics go. Some are very easy to get (I finished the coercer one in a single day) and others are painstakingly long especially when you take into count the different pre-requisites they may have.

I’m trudging along with the mystic and illusionist epic though and I’m confident that some day I’ll get them. We’ll just have to see.

Yesterday evening was the first chunk of play time I’ve had steady in a bit, so the trio headed to instances of course. First on our list? Maidens. Now, we’ve never cleared this zone as a trio before, mostly because my enchanter at the time was too small to hold down the adds for Sandstorm as well as the sisters.

Yesterday it went flawlessly and we took down sandstorm (with four adds up) as well as the sisters (on the 2nd attempt, first attempt we had the order wrong) without any real issues. I was exceptionally happy because the zone is also one I need for the illusionist epic, and I’m glad that we can trio it. Plus some pretty fantastic loot drops there.

Speaking of loot for once it was on our side! No, we didn’t get any gear upgrades to drop but for once a few masters did. One of which being my all important power / health buff for the mystic. Premonition. I was so very excited. This spell typically goes for a huge amount of money. Ultann also managed to get his group taunt to drop, and a few masters dropped for folks to sell.

Once we were finished in Maidens we headed to Vaults, and then to our good friend Obelisk of Ahkzul which refused to drop the healer shield (again). We spent a little time in Chelsith but that zone is so incredibly long and the Leviathans tend to drop nothing but treasured so we like to avoid it. I wish it followed the ‘named will drop legendary’ rule but alas it does not. This zone COULD be so wonderful if just a few tweaks were made.

All in all it was a great night, and I had a lot of fun. Here’s hoping tonight is more of the same! See you in Norrath!