A Monk, Defiler, and Swashbuckler walk into a Bar..

Ok, so they don’t really walk into a bar, but those are the three new characters I’ve created in just as many days. Why do you ask? Why does a person who already had 7 alts need MORE? Well, easy. Just because. I used to have two accounts, dropped one and got station access instead. On the closed account sits my “questing monk” who was a pure solo character that I did nothing but quest on. It was time to re-create her on the Najena server and start over. So there was alt #8. Then I decided since I deleted my 72 mystic (also on the other account) that I’d re-create her, too. This character would be a power leveled character though since I’ve already leveled a defiler / mystic up and didn’t really have too much patience to do it the “usual” way. Yesterday the defiler went from level 10-22 with the help of an 80 shadowknight mentoring. Go figure. Wailing Caverns was my home for two hours, and I killed anything that moved and quite a few things that didn’t move, too. That’s alt #9.

Alt #10 has a purpose. I’ll be playing a few nights here and there with Mayadhros (High Elf Paladin) and Dunnos (Froglok shaman). Thus I created a Half Elf Swashbuckler. I’ve played swashbucklers before, but never past level 30 or so. I had a brigand level 38 (again, on the closed account) and figured why not. We all made it to level 10 playing last night, and doing a lot of really fun quests.  I’m not sure how fast / often we’ll level, but in the mean time it’s fun to have a steady bunch of people to play with. One of the high points of playing with Nostalgia the Guild in EQ1 as well.

The past few weeks I’ve started missing raiding, and I’ve been contemplating trying to get back into it. I’m thinking for now it may just be too late. I don’t know anyone on Najena, and that poses a few issues. Plus my characters are not all 80 yet, I have two level 80’s (Troubador and Warden) and then a bunch hovering from 74-77 or so. Of course the biggest issue is the not knowing anyone portion. Najena has plenty of guilds – but a lot are also UK guilds or EU. They raid during the day time EST. There’s only a hand full of guilds raiding EST, one I know for sure raiding PST. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll probably just wait for the next expansion to release, and see where I’m sitting then. I hate falling behind in things, but it’s inevitable when my attention wanes.

Today I’m hoping to get either some levels for the illusionist, coercer, or faction for both, or some crafting (carpenter) levels on the coercer. We’ll see how it goes though. Knowing me I’ll decide to do something completely different, and I’ll wander off to start a quest I’ve had for a bit that’s gray, or what have you. I’m hoping the newest GU for EQ2 goes in soon, I know it’s on test already, so a week or two more and it should be moved to live as long as everything is going well. I’m so excited about the changes to quests, and banks. I just can’t say that enough.

Tar Janashir

Some of the views in Telon just take your breath away. This is me in Tar Janashir (Qalia) looking down through a window in a tower where I found my blood mage trainer stashed away. There’s nothing else in the tower aside from the psionicist trainer and a sorcerer trainer, but the view was too fantastic to pass by without grabbing a few screen shots. There’s even a storm moving in further away.

Growlius and I were a little too big for this quest hub last night, but it was still a lot of fun. The area is rated for level 34-40 and so we grabbed a good number of quests and started with the easiest ones. Experience in Vanguard is pretty steady – if you go to quest hubs. If you’re just grinding mobs, it’s going to be very long and drawn out. We’re both excited to be so close to 40. I’d like to get 50 eventually, and at least feel as though I’d completed one sphere of the game. Once my adventure level catches up to my crafting level (45) it’ll be time to work on that again a bit. Aside from signets I don’t get any new recipes (houses I suppose if I want to work faction for Qalia and Thestra) so I haven’t been in a rush to get any more levels.

 

We were sent out to rescue some people from the Rhajiri camps scattered around Tar Janashir, and pick off some wild creatures in the area as well. We killed scorpions, and these giant oysters and clams (which looked like weird plants, go figure) as well as a number of skeletons and at least five named. Every time we happened across a name we joked BECAUSE THE NAME OF NAMED IS ALL IN CAPS AND MAKES THEM HARD TO MISS.

  • Me: “Oh, look, it’s THREA RHAJIRI (linked with the command %to and the caps come too)”
  • Growlius: “Wow! How did you ever know they were a named!”

A pair of yellow cloth shoulders dropped but aside from that the loot was sparse. We both still have quite a few quests for this area, we managed to get 40% experience using a 50% bonus potion, instead of the common 100% ones we were using for major quest hubs. I expect the experience to begin slowing down drastically for the next 10 levels, and as long as I can find things to do, I’m fine with that. I imagine tonight we’ll be going back to Tar Janashir to try and finish off the remainder of our quests before moving on. Both of us really want to hit 40 not only because it means we’re in the last leg of leveling, but because we both get a slew of new spells and skills. In vanguard you buy them every 2 levels from a trainer. There are also some ultra rare upgrades of these spells that can be found as mob drops, though I’ve yet to ever see one.

We didn’t encounter a single other person around our quest hub, and a quick /who showed only six people around at all including us. I’m not sure if that’s because there are simply better things to do at level 38/39 or if it’s because it was one of those slow nights. There were (as usual) around 10 people on in guild, each one pretty much doing their own thing. Eventually I still want to work up my carpenter, to make sloops (I used a friends, it was SO much fun) and to add more furniture to my house. House items also sell pretty well in Vanguard, and as more people level up and get coin there’s more of a calling for these things. Would be nice to have a little more pocket change. I’m sitting on 1p currently, which is not so bad considering I gave away everything I owned when I hosted the Safe Haven scavenger hunt a while back. As long as I can afford my spells, that’s all I’m concerned about. Hopefully tonights adventures are just as exciting, with a little more experience.

The RoK Grind

The Field of Bone in EQ2 is slightly different then EQ1 – if for no other reason then the fact that it’s much higher level – and Kurns Tower has shut it’s door on a permanent basis until it’s implemented (though we’ve been waiting for that since the release of RoK last year). The zone itself is Fens of Nathsar, and it’s home to more then 100 quests. There are multiple factions in the zone that you get to work up, Bathezid Watch, Rillis, some Droga Exiles, and Bellywhumpers. The majority of the quests are your typical kill X number of Y mobs, which get boring real fast. The experience is drab, I think I was getting about .05% per kill and 1.5% a quest turn in with full vitality of course. In RoK vitality (rest bonus, basically) is pretty worthless except for crafting. You’ll never burn through it. The entire expansion on all my characters I’ve never had less then 80% vitality.

On the plus side, Shadowgeist and I headed to Kunzar Jungle, a zone just off of Fens and slightly higher level. I managed to get the last 30% I needed, and hit level 75 on the illusionist. Which means next time Shadowgeist can drag me through Jarsath Wastes, and I can do the higher level quests there now and forgo some of the quests at least in Fens. Of course knowing me, I’ll still eventually do them all. Especially the ones that reward faction, as I’m eager to purchase the provisioner recipes. Not so much the food that lasts for 10 minutes (although that’s great for raids and named fights) but the two charm items that the provisioner class is able to make. Chromatic essences are down to 15-20g on Najena, and I have a few tucked away in my bank.

Speaking of banks, I can’t help but wonder when the new game update is going in, so we’ll have combined banks. That is going to be absolutely awesome.

In two more levels or so I can start doing some of the instances in RoK, and getting a few more upgrades. The quest rewards have been great so far. I’m also eager to hit 80, so I can start working on my epic. I don’t expect I’ll ever get the mythical version but there’s no reason why I can’t at least get the fabled.  We’ll just see how that goes though.

Tonight is Monday, so I’ll be playing Vanguard with Growlius, I’m not sure where we’ll be exploring now that we’ve finished the Bounty Hunter quest line but I’m sure I’ll write about it tomorrow.

Crafting Epic #2 Completed!

This weekend was by far one of the best weekends I’ve had in EverQuestII in a long time, and I didn’t even really accomplish that much. It started typically enough. I meandered around Fens of Nathsar with Shadowgeist, looking for trouble levels. This zone (out of all the RoK zones) gives the least amount of experience for their turn ins, and I find them boring and drab. The goal is to try to get to 75 asap (I’m 74, currently) so that I can bypass those quests and do the ones in Jarsath Wastes that return 10% experience when you grab all four working faction for Danak Shipyard. Eventually it comes with a nice piece of gear and a hunter title. I completed a lot of quests along with Shadowgeist’ help (nice mythical, by the way.. ) and when he went off on his own for a bit I decided it was time Stargrace did her crafting epic.

Now, I have this completed already with Petites, my jeweler / templar. However, each category of crafter (outfitter, craftsman, scholar) has their own quest line to do for the fourth quest. My previous scholar one took me to an instance in Maj’dul, where I flung books at bad guys and frantically clicked on more books trying to find pages and then restore them. This time around I was sent to a special instance in Nektulos Castle, to ward away swarms of giants rats. Big, mean, ugly 20 levels higher then me rats. I got to design a rat trap, and catch them and kill them. It was a lot of fun, and easier then the maj’dul instance once I knew my way around.

Then came to the portion of the epic I’d been dreading. Gathering together 8 other crafters (plus myself) to comission pieces for the final turn in. I don’t know too many on Najena yet, aside from my good friends Albrta and Eyenstein, a couple who play. Albrta is one of those fanatic crafters who has one of almost everything, and she offered to help. She had to leave for a while though, so in the mean time I decided to ask on channels if anyone could help. The first few times went by with 0 response. If you recall last time I did this quest, I actually had to offer to pay people to do the combines for me. I didn’t want to do that this time around, we honestly pay for enough.

Then I get a tell, from Omay, who says they have ALL the crafters, and can make every piece for me. I sat there stunned for a second, it sounded too good to be true.

Not only do they make all of the pieces, they are a guild dedicated to crafting, and helping others craft. They accept NO donations (I tried) for their work. I’m not sure that English was their first language, but they were by far some of the friendliest people I’d met to date. Their inn room was decorated for crafting, they seemed to have done this a time or two before, making small chat about whether I knew what to do next, and how I should spend my time looking for the chia hidden in the inn room some place as they crafted for me.

I think I remained stunned the rest of the time there.

After they’d crafted every single piece for me, they played fire works and congratulated me, and on my way I went for the turn in. A huge thank you to them, and their guild “Wing and a Prayer” another thank you to the fine people (there were three, whose names I forget now) at Siege, who crafted the first three pieces for me. Omay and his slew of crafters told me if I ever needed any help with anything crafted, to send them a tell and they would help. I was stunned. Here I’d thought there was no crafting community on Najena – the channels are practically always silent. Low and behold, an entire guild dedicated to it.

So I finished my second crafter epic, and now I just need to get some faction with Rillis, Bathezid, and Danak for the special provisioner recipes, including some very nice charms made with chromatic essences that I want to pick up.

It was a great weekend, what can I say. I got the new cloak, earing, house item scroll, title, one of every T8 rare, and met some wonderful people along the way.

Oh, and as another great point? This entire guild, was halflings, except for one half elf who helped me out.

North Ro LDoN and Nostalgia

Now before I get too far into this post – I admit, that I have a few pet peeves in games. Some are pretty apparent, and some not so much. One of my very strong pet peeves, is when people sign up for an event, and then give no notice about their absence. Now wait – I understand that people have actual lives, that things come up. But when 10 other people are counting on you to be there, the least someone can do is get a hold of whomever is in charge of the event and let them know they won’t be there. That’s my one issue with Nostalgia. I know, it probably sounds harsh of me to say about something that is so casual, but it’s because it’s so casual that I vent about it. We only meet once a week. If there’s an issue with a once a week schedule, we really need to know about it so we can compensate for the missing class. Be it a tank, dps, or buffs (Aerrik, in case you’re reading this it’s NOT about you silly, you told everyone you wouldn’t be there this week!) anyhow, enough of my ranting.

Nostalgia hiked up their skirts and headed off to do some Lost Dungeon of Norrath (also known as LDoN) for the evening and wow did we have a BLAST. We split into two groups, this time with Tipa the ranger as my fearless tank. I had moved both the cleric and the necromancer to the North Ro camp, unsure of who we’d need. I do want to be playing the cleric, but the necromancer is a lot of fun as well. For the time being I’ll continue to level them both up until it comes to a time where that is no longer a viable option. I don’t have any veteran rewards on the necro, being out of /claims. In EQ, you’re limited by how many characters you can flag with veteran rewards by how long you’ve held the account.

I was expecting experience to slow down – and it did, which was great. I got two levels out of the three runs we did and ended the necro half way through 24. Was there risk? Was it hard? Well – there was certainly risk. At one point, rogueless, Tipa decided to go poke the chest at the exit of the room we stood in.

Bad idea!

In 5 seconds flat we were corpses on the ground, having been hit with an 88 point a tick dot. OUCH! We laughed and teased Tipa endlessly over it, walked back to our instance from PoK (Plane of Knowledge) and picked up where we left off. Gozad also had an ‘incident’ with the floor, the poor monk tripped, or so I heard, and was crushed by a barrage of undead. Or something.

We had a blast. It was so great. We were also fairly lucky in our drops. We walked away with quite a bit of coin, and THREE LoN (Legends of Norrath) drops. One starter deck, one booster deck (which sells for 45,000p) and one regular card. We also had two augments drop (which are fairly common for LDoN) and we of course gained points with the North Ro camp. Fantastic. I honestly had such a good time. The key point? Having a static group of people to do this with. It has made all the difference in the world.

Nostalgia the guild will be putting together a Tuesday group (I won’t be apart of that one as it’s one of my Vanguard days and honestly one is enough for me!) so if anyone is interested in being TRULY old-school in their EQ1 leveling, be sure to check out the forums for more details and to sign up. I believe Blackburrow is the goal for this Tuesday, with a maximum of level 10 to start the night off.

One thing I’ve missed about EQ1 (having played other games) is actually running all over to collect my spells. I’ve neglected them since level 20 or so – unsure of when I’d be playing the necromancer next and not really NEEDING any of my spells. There’s no automatic way to obtain them in EQ1, and you actually have to look up a spell list and typically write out what you need and who sells it and how you can get it. It’s fantastic. Odd thing for me to say? Perhaps. It was just one of those small things that gave the game character though. In EQ2 you automatically get all your spells from 1-50, and then after that you simply look up on broker or on a class merchant for 51-80 or have a player craft them all for you. There’s no skills in multiple zones, no real reason NOT to have any of your spells aside from not seeing it for sale on broker and not wanting to bother with a lower version of it. In EQ1 it’s quite common to hear “Oh, I haven’t gotten that yet, it’s research only” or “Oh, I have to go all the way to Shadowhaven for that and they won’t sell to me yet” and various other reasons for not having particular spells. It’s always fun to hum and haw over which spells you NEED and can afford to buy, and which ones are expendables.

Next week Nostalgia is headed to Solusek’s Eye which is just going to be a hoot I can tell. It’s still not too late to join up if you’d like (and can make the Fridays at 7pm EST schedule – though we are recruiting anyone who just wants to play EQ1 and reminisce about the good ‘ol days) just visit the forums and introduce yourself. We could use a second tank for group cool, and an enchanter. Our level cap for this week is 25, so anything between 20-25 would be perfect.