I know there are issues with the images on my site – thanks to imageshack for that one. I’ve fixed the ones for today’s posts, and am leaving the others in case imageshack manages to get back up and running before too long. If they don’t by the end of today I’ll work on fixing the rest of the images. Sorry!
Still so excited about GU49
Things in EQ2 are starting to pick up again, which is always really fantastic. I have to admit, it was sort of fun to go read the Norrathian Homeshow forums (which I visit frequently for housing ideas, I can’t help it) and see a post about Beckett MOG and the house item given there. Made me feel all warm and tingly to be a part of that. I did have to deal with a little bit of drama last night but I’ve found the best solution to those sorts of incidences is just back off and don’t give the parties involved any more of a reason to be angry and grief like they had been. Some times people forget that these are games with other people behind them. A quick /ignore takes care of most things.
I know I’ve mentioned this a few times, but I am REALLY looking forward to the next game update. I already have plans and ideas on how to take advantage of being able to resize furniture items. First of all you know those books that don’t QUITE fit on your shelves? Well, that will take care of the issue. How great will it be to resize them to fit where ever you’d like them. Tired of items not being halfling sized? No problem – lets fix that. The best part is those cute little items that ARE halfling sized (I’m talking about that acorn chair reward from the void storm quests) will be able to be resized and used for everyone else.
I know it’s hard to see, but on the right hand side are two tables stacked on top of one another with food around each one as a little uhms.. display sort thing. Those tables are slightly too small though. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to resize them so that the food fits properly? The entire bar is halfling sized (which is intentional, since this is Tipa’s bar) wouldn’t it be nice to resize it for an ogre?
I’m also really looking forward to the new quests in sinking sands – though I am a little worried about how over populated it’s going to get, if it’s anything like Everfrost. It should be a lot of fun though, people need new things to do. That’s the great thing about EverQuestII, is it’s ever evolving and changing gameplay.
Of course the biggest thing about the game update will be the guildhalls, but I’m not sure if Nostalgia will make it to level 30 in time. I’m going to work on writs today and try to inch Stargrace up to 40,000 faction with the Ironforge exchange. I believe she’s sitting at around 35,000 right now. Silhouette already has 40,000 faction with the Gorowyn tradeskill folks, and then of course I’d like to try to get max faction with the other crafting factions as well.
One thing that would be great – you can now work on the faction for cities of the same alignment for adventuring only though. So you can pick up writs for other factions as long as they’re not getting ready to lop your head off with a sword. It would be fantastic if this were also the case for the crafting factions. I’d love to be able to work both Gorown and Freeport for example. Ah well, maybe it will be something SOE will look into in the future.
Beckett MOG statue, and other goodness
The screen shot is a picture of the in game house item that comes with the newest issue of Beckett MOG – Kasul got the discovery on our server (Najena) which was pretty cool. Once furniture becomes scalable in size, I’m interested in seeing how big (or small) we can make it. I’m still really excited about the update upcoming, even if I’ve been dividing my time between multiple games now.
There was a thread started on the eq2player forms about the house item, mostly people wanting a few particulars. For example, you can only claim one per account, unlike the satherian painting that was given away last year which is (or at least was) one per character.
Still really nice that SOE gave this gift to Beckett MOG to give away.
I spent the morning crafting house items for a friend, which is a hobby of mine that I enjoy a great deal. What better satisfaction is there in game then examining a pretty house piece only to find that your name is on the ‘made by’ tag. I remember when they implemented those tags and thought they were a great idea.
I noticed Egat started playing a coercer in guild too, and Kasul did a whole lot of writs. We’re half way through 27, maybe a little more actually. I’ll have to start grinding writs again as well to help push for 30, but I’ve been a little burned out from doing that lately since I’ve done so many.
On a side note, today is the first day of fall, and here in Ottawa the leaves are already changing colours. I bought one of those little mini pumpkins they sell and put it on the desk – where the cat promptly decided it was taking up HER space, and started to try to shove it off. The pumpkin is bigger then her head and despite all of her best efforts, the pumpkin remains.
A little more Comfortable
So, after running around a very small portion of the Order side of WAR, I decided to check out destruction. Now, you’ll have to be patient with me I suppose. I’ve never actually played Warhammer before – but I did paint a whole lot of those little things for friends. So a lot of the lore and backstory is a big jumbled mess to me (along with lots of other things but that’s another blog post).
I created Stargrace as my.. well.. shoot now I don’t even remember what she is, but she’s Chaos and things went well. Got her to Rank 5 and 5 renown, picked up a few goodies from merchants, and did the first public quest for destruction. Actually felt really proud about it too. There were four of us standing around, no healers. One tank and two dps. They asked if I could heal, I said sure, and off we went to take down some giant thing in the middle of a pit. I only have two heals (one is a HoT) and we came VERY close to losing our tank – but in the end after spamming the heals over and over we won. They said thanks, and cheered.
I ran into a CoW as well while I was doing some scenerios, and they thanked me for the heals. I told them I was just doing my job (I am a healer after all, it’s sort of, you know, my job.. ) I didn’t recognize them and I doubt they know who I am either, but it was still pretty cool to at least see a guild tag that I recognized.
I still don’t know anything at all about crafting, nor about what the uhms.. extra slots in gear are for (attunement? I forget now what it’s called, I’m really tired and it’s late) but things are going well in game for a few hours in. If I can manage to find myself some folks to hang out with I think it’ll go much nicer – even if just to watch some guild chatter go by.
The only downfall I see is what do I do with myself if I don’t feel like mass slaughtering things? In EQ2 there’s housing and crafting. In VG there’s diplomacy and crafting and housing. I haven’t learned of anything yet to do when I don’t want to be constantly watching my back for meanies.
More posts tomorrow about other stuffs, feel free to add me to Xfire, or add Stargrace to friends in WAR.. Could always use some people to talk to. I’ll post a ‘contact me’ text bit on my site once I finish this post (which I suppose is now.. gawd I’m tired have I said that yet?). Hugs and safe travels.
Edit: Thank you Cownose for clearing up a few things! So, who’s going to explain ‘crafting’ to me (or what constitutes as crafting here…) my pockets are filled with seeds and I’ve no idea what to do with them!
Giving it a Try
I decided to give Warhammer a try, and see what it was all about. I’ve played a good portion of the afternoon and while I’m by no means an expert in the game (whatsoever) my first impressions are pretty straight forward. The first thing I do in any game (after creating a character at least, or as soon as I can) is re-bind all of the keys to what I’m used to. Creature of habit for sure. I like the UI a great deal. I like that it has bits and pieces from all the other UI’s out there mushed into one. I like that the entire thing scales, that each piece moves, and that it’s pretty clutter-free. I dislike the huge map (even though you can see behind it slightly) and I don’t really like the icons on the map either (I know you can filter them off) what I mean is I don’t like the size of them, they’re huge.
The graphics, I will admit were a huge dissapointment to me. By default it bumped me to the max setting and I’ve been playing with very little issue. I had some slight lag coming up to some stairs of a building that lead underground but it wasn’t unexpected especially due to the population of the server I’m playing on. I find them very pixelated, I can count the squares in my characters hair. Sleeves, same thing. I have an older computer (well, not old but certainly not top notch) with 2gigs of ram and a 7600 GeForce, dual core something something. I think that’s not necessairly a bad thing, means people without uber computers can play. Why alienate your customers right off the bat.
I created a healer (named Stargrace go figure) on the same server a bunch of other bloggers I know are playing. Order for that one. Then created (to get the name) another healer on another server, as destruction. So that I could play both sides. I know I’m sticking to my ‘norms’ as far as character selections go. I can’t help it, I’ve played healers in pretty much every game and I just enjoy the classes.
I feel sort of like I’ve had a mental onslaught of information and I’m still taking it all in. One huge portion in me playing this will have to be finding friends and playing with them. This is (as has been said) VERY much a PvP / RvR get-a-group-of-people to play type game. Hopefully I’ll settle in some where and fast. I did four scenarios or so as well as working on chapter one. My little healer managed to get Rank 5 (almost 6) and .. renown 5 (I probably spelled that wrong) before I had to take a break.
I enjoyed the scenarios a great deal. It was a capture the flag type game, and Order won the first round and then lost the ones I played in afterwards. Of course I’m a very low level and while it does bump me to level 8 I get no other skills besides those I come with. Ever try to heal someone for 50 points when they have 1,000+ hp? It doesn’t work out so well. Fun though. I’d like a few more heals and not so much dps.
I also did my first ever public quest which was quite interesting. Had to save some folks and help out with onslaughts of baddies and then a massive heroic beast came out — and of course I tossed a nuke at it and got clobbered. Made my way back to the quest location though and managed to hit 2nd place in it. I got to choose a nice pretty out of a chest, which is always fun.
Lots of titles to chose from. I don’t know when / where / how crafting works or if there is any but I’m sure it’ll come with time. I don’t know a million other details about the game (yet) but I’ll hopefully learn them. The knowledge book is a nice feature, a little confusing to flip through all those pages though. Ardwulf said hello to me in game, so that was nice, I’m hoping that it won’t take me too long to hit a level where I can be helpful / play with folks.
The que for the scenarios sucked tonight as a side note. In the afternoon I was getting in maybe two an hour, in the evening it had been over an hour and no luck. I think maybe I’ll play destruction for a bit and explore that side, hopefully all this mish mash of information I’ve taken in will settle some.
