Carpenter hits level 80 – Epic Completed

Silhouette, some 2,000+ crafted items later (since eq2players has not updated since she was level 76) finally managed to hit level 80 as a carpenter. Of course as soon as I hit 80 I began working on the crafter epic. Not only so I could located the red shinies that are out there (and any future ones) but also because I wanted the 45% run speed that comes along with the earring. It’s a big deal to me, especially when there’s no way I can afford mounts for all my characters, and I’m reluctant to spend a lot of time using up totems.

A huge thank you to everyone (mostly Albrta and Eyenstein) who made the other 8 items I needed for the epic quest. That makes my fourth crafter to hit level 80, and the third to complete the epic. My 60 necromancer / 80 sage has been procrastinating because I’m reluctant to grind out Bathezid Watch faction for her to be able to do the quest. I may level her, some day. Completing faction the ‘adventuring’ way seems a much safer method.

Once the epic was completed, of course I put the new pretties in my house and I’m sporting the new cloak. Silhouette is my first 80/80 and with any luck she’ll become my first 80/80/140. It’s a big goal for me, since this entire expansion I’ve floundered from character to character.

Shadowgeist, Eyenstein, Albrta, a fury, and an assassin, as well as myself headed to VoES (Vaults of Eternal Sleep) to hunt for some items. Nothing dropped – I’m after the secondary item of course with the proc on it. Forget the full name but it ends in guard. After we cleared that zone (I did get a chest upgrade, but just legendary and nothing to write home about) we headed to Maidens, and cleared that with no issues. The first named of course killed me, it always does. For some reason no matter if I’m in front or behind or at the side, I manage to get hit with tail lash. Not fun. I was hoping that the fabled robe would drop. Alas my luck held true and we got legendary. An assassin master did drop, but just before I got excited for the person in group he mentioned he already had it.

Dang it.

One of these days, something will drop that is an upgrade.

It’s nice to be completing goals again. I want to get Silhouette the rest of her aa, and maybe a few more crafters to 80. Of course I want to help Nostalgia reach level 30. We’re 70% through level 22 currently, Silhouette sitting at 276,678 guild status. Tomorrow’s going to be one of those annoying busy days (not that this weekend wasn’t, I had real life to attend to for the better part of the day of course) and I hope in the mean time that everyone had an amazing weekend.

Tradeskill Galore

Just a small post tonight with a couple of milestones finally being reached. First and foremost, Silhouette my carpenter hit level 79. One more to go, which I’ll probably wait to get tomorrow morning. Along with that level I managed to inch over 40,000 faction with the Gorowyn tradeskill folks. Of course just after I obtained that faction +150 at a time, I read a post about how they’re raising rush orders to +300 faction per, and +200 for regular writs. Ah well.

Having 40,000 faction means I can finally make aa mirrors – for myself. No alts since this is not a tradeable item and they have to be comissioned. I also bought the black faction dress (which Silhouette refuses to wear in public, it barely covers any part of her) and I bought the title pictured above of course, which included a house item.

So as of tomorrow that will mean I have the following crafters (not including transmuter which I have one of, and tinkerer which I have two of)

  • 80 – Sage
  • 80 – Jeweler
  • 80 – Provisioner
  • 80 – Carpenter
  • 74 – Woodworker
  • 64 – Weaponsmith
  • 64 – Alchemist
  • 20 – Tailor
  • 20 – Armorer

I know, that means my two lowest ones I’ve been slacking on, and I have a good excuse for it! I’ve had a level 60 tailor before, but she’s on a second account and was deleted when I closed it down. I also had a 40 armorer, but she was on the same second account I closed (not to mention both were on a different server then the one I play on now). So I had to start over (again).

Getting the carpenter is a big milestone for me though, and I’m really happy about it (even though I haven’t quite reached it yet). It also means lots and lots of status went towards the guild today, working almost 50% of the way through Nostalgia’s level 22.

Fan Faire Reveals EQ2 Guild Hall Information

By now it’s all the news, on various blogs and Eq2flames (which I pretty much avoid aside from their class section forums) all of the information about guild halls. Three tiers, the first one being framed after the 5-room homes we can already purchase at guild level 30. Of course these guild halls have extra bonus’ like being able to gate to them with a recall to guild spell (an amenity you purchase later), and npc for various things. The T1 guild hall is going to cost 100p which is not too bad, Nostalgia has saved up over 160p towards a guild hall to begin with. What we lack are the guild levels. You’ll need guild level 30 for the first hall, 50 for the second tier, and 70 for the third. The cost of the first hall may be 100p with a 1p a week upkeep along with 100k personal status a week, but the second hall costs 500p with 5p a week upkeep and 150k personal status.

The third hall is a castle, with 25 rooms, underground docks and some very specific set rooms in it. It will cost 1000p (not that big of a deal to raiding guilds), 10p a week upkeep, and 200,000 personal status rent.

Furniture will NOT affect the rent.

You’ll have a choice (at release, this may get expanded later) of 42 amenities, and here’s a very short list of them:

  • Call of Guild Hall
  • Mariner’s Bell (T3 hall only)
  • Druid NPC to ports
  • Complete Tradeskill setup including writ givers and merchants
  • Tradeskill Supply Depot — store materials and fuels for tradeskilling in guild hall
  • Mender Bot
  • Intraguild Broker — place items on broker that only guild can buy
  • 1 Raid Strategist Tactical Rally Banner — drop flag at zone to raid (2 hour lifespan)
  • 5 teleporters can be placed in guild hall to teleport
  • Set race and clothes of all house npcs (hirelings) via. mannequin system
  • House Broker (flat 20%? not real clear)
  • Guild Cloak Designer
  • Creature Conjurer — summon mobs for practice fighting
  • Tradeskill Table
  • Courtyard Statue Sentry
  • Carpet to Sinking Sands

For a better list of goodies and for frequent Fan Faire updates, you can check out this blog here that was put up specifically for the FF.

I had hopes of Nostalgia purchasing a 10 room guild hall (tier2) but I think due to our size the costs would be too much. Not to mention it will be quite some time before we ever hit guild level 50. We’re just barely past level 22 currently.

However, at least there is a guild hall available to us at all. We will be purchasing the T1 one, and starting off with getting the recall to guild hall spell and then working towards purchasing all of the crafting goodies, since I’m pretty sure every Nostalgian crafts. We’ll see what comes next after that.

Plane of Hate – AKA The Night of Seja

Last night, Nostalgia braved the undead dragon skeletons and other horrors that lurked in the Plane of Hate. We had a few close calls, but it was a fantastic night. Kanad joined us on his newly de-leveled shaman, and Seja had just obtained the magical number to enter the zone (46) on his enchanter, so we had a few new faces. Which was great, because again we were slightly short and ended up with a few extra spots. Our second tank / zerker was not there nor was our beastlord (aside from my box). Our groups consisted of uber tank Tipa, Callendra, Sisca, and Mantis in one group (I apologize now if I’ve spelled all of your names incorrectly, it’s early and I am horrible with names) in the other group we had Warmungar, Seja, Kanad, Coldheat (who kept having connection issues, poor guy) and myself (I boxed my beastlord and druid for some extra dps).

Since the zone was not a hotzone, and in fact is still categorized as a raid zone (and has a 5 minute cool down before you start regenerate power properly, ew) things were slow going. The big winner of the night was Seja, who managed to get every piece of gear upgrade I believe, and it was really nice to see things dropping that people could actually use for once. He also gained a handful of levels.

Our cap has been raised to level 60, so I have levels to gain again as well. Hopefully I’ll get one or two throughout the course of the week. I’ve been teaming up with Kanad for experience, and have been having fun in more of the old zones, like Griegs End that we went through yesterday. Also not a hot zone, but the experience was not too bad. Qutey is now at 22aa and part way into level 56. Nala is 70% through level 55, and has 21aa. Ellithia, who I de-leveled hit 102aa yesterday in GE with Kanad.

I’m thinking of teaming up the cleric and enchanter with Kanad just to farm aa some place. She really needs the salvage crafting aa, as well as the final rank to her jewel crafting mastery. It’s getting painful failing combines so often. We’ll just have to see how that goes.

Most people I know are at Fan Faire this weekend, alas I could not make it. Perhaps next year! I hope everyone has a lot of fun.

Nom Nom

A post that’s not about gaming for once, what’s gone wrong? Well, nothing. I’ve been having fun leveling my baby dirge up in EQ2 (yes, that’s right I’ve gone over to the evil side. Tired of betraying the troubador back and forth I decided to start up a counter part much like I have with the illusionist and coercer). She’s level 32 right now, and I need to make gear for her and some spell upgrades. I also played Guild Wars last night, and blogged about it because I was just too dang excited, which left me with nothing to write about this morning.

Tonight Nostalgia meets up in EQ1, and we’re off to the Plane of Hate. For those truly old school, you’ll remember it as a raid zone. It’s got some raid encounters left in it still, but it’s now a group zone. You can access it by buying a stone from an npc in Neriak and turning it in to the plane of Tranquility off of PoK. Who, I forget. How much it costs, I also forget. It should be a blast though. You can also hand the stone in to your resident guild hall gnome, and he’ll set the guild portal to hate for you. How kind.

I do all of my groceries (weekly) at a place here in Ottawa called Farm Boy. I don’t own a microwave (I know how horrible eh) and I don’t buy anything frozen. I do love cooking, and I love the new foods that are out there and experimenting. So when I saw the above two items at the market, I decided to pick them up. Now, the amusing thing about the small box that contains a ready to eat tuna salad – is that it’s from Thailand. No big deal, but on the back of the can it says that the Tuna is from British Columbia. Thank you for selling us our tuna back! The meal is actually delicious, it’s almost like a tuna version of vegetable soup, minus the soup portion.

The sweet and sour noodles were VERY spicy, and amazing. I added broccoli and chicken to the dish, and it made way too much of course. The rice noodles didn’t exactly turn out as I would have liked. I’ve never cooked them before and it said to soak them for 3 minutes in boiling water which was not nearly enough time and they ended up weird and chewy.

Tonight? Good ‘ol BBQ chicken legs with rice.

I promise I’ll post something about gaming either later tonight, or tomorrow..