Crafting – Page 5 – A Pixel Nomad

Experience and Sebilis

Yesterday was another great adventure in EQ2, and not all of it (again) was spent in TSO, which is something that I’m enjoying quite a bit. Gnewton created an alt on Najena (his home is typically Kithicor) and played the monk halfling for a while, it’s always great to see people in guild. We’re still really small (and casual) so there’s not a lot of people on. We did manage to hit level 31 though, and are well on our way to 32. Kasul helped me get some experience on Petites (my templar) in Jarsath Wastes. The quest grind there is just as boring as I remember it though. I used to be able to play for hours on end with no issues but as of late I need a lot more breaks before I start getting bored. It was still a nice chunk of experience though for the time spent.

The alchemist (along with carpenter) also headed off to a tradeskill zone. I used a potion and moused over my experience during the process. Not bad! I gained two levels, sitting me at 63. The group instance yesterday was the Firemyst one, where you have to gear up a few dwarves, and I encountered my first ‘bug’ though it did fix itself. Sort of. When the army was finally geared up, they got cold feet, and refused to follow their Commander into battle. For five minutes or so I stood around waiting for the end encounter to happen so that we could go get our chest. After a few minutes the Commander (sans army) ran off after the bad guys who instantly died the second he got close to them. Powerful fella. Even though the script didn’t run properly, the chest did spawn once the commander made it to the end of the field. A piece of rare wood, an artisan item, and the tailor item that I’d already gotten were the rewards. There was also a new solo tradeskill quest that I picked up yesterday that requires you to harvest some items in the Fallen Dynasty zones. Didn’t have time to complete it because as soon as dinner was done it was off to Sebilis!

Azztec is a friend of mine from Antonia Bayle, actually an old guild leader. The guild I raided with fell apart when some officers took control and made some choices that not everyone agreed with. They sacrificed friends and a friendly atmosphere to ‘go after the prize’ and shortly after that I moved to Najena. A few months later Azztec followed. He has a few level 80’s already, but a little while ago started up a templar. I was impressed by how fast he leveled, and before I knew it he was asking Shadowgeist for help with his epic. So yesterday Shadowgeist, Azztec, Kasul, Gellawyn, Mindblade, and I (on Silhouette, the coercer) headed to Sebilis to finish the last few bits he needed. Along the way we hit every named that was up for aa points, which was great. We also took down the named that dropped the tunic on the right hand side, except Azztec rolled greed instead of need (ack!) and I rolled greed (even though everyone else declined and I should have declined as well). This is just another example of why I absolutely love customer support at SOE. I have petitioned them for two pages worth of things on my main account over the past few years and have never had an issue with them so long as I wasn’t asking for something impossible, and I wasn’t rude. I petitioned last night to see if there was any way that the tunic could be returned to the rightful person, and less then 20 minutes after I had sent in the request I noticed that there was a blank spot in my inventory where the item used to be, low and behold, Azztec had it. Thank you! Between the guide events and the customer service, I really think SOE has done things very well. I realize everyone has their horror stories, and I’m really sorry for those who have had bad experiences, but my own personal ones have been nothing but good.

Azztec finally got all of his Sebilis updates with minimal pain, and the group split up to take a break. That wasn’t the end of the adventures though, a few hours later I headed off to Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible, which I’ll write about more later.

Those not so rare sigils

I love crafting in Vanguard. It’s one of the most complex and interesting craft systems I’ve seen, and it’s not timed which makes it more enjoyable for me. While I can appreciate the system EQ2 has in place, some times the phone rings, or the door, or a pot boils over or some other real life interruption occurs, and in EQ2 this could mean disaster for the process. In Vanguard it just means stepping away and hitting the next button in the stage when you get back. There’s so many combinations of things you can craft, and so many different catalysts and powders and dusts and what not that you can add to each and every individual item, I just love it. There’s a LOT of crafting quests in Vanguard as well, which makes it interesting and fun. I love crafting in any game, but yes, Vanguard is my favorite.

My artificer managed to hit level 46 in crafting yesterday, and is now 60% through that level. Leveling is hard, and it takes a long time. I do writs which reward me with bags of goodies, as well as faction and coin. The faction is used to purchase recipes, and is needed for certain quests. For example the brick quests. I need to earn 5,000 faction in order to be able to learn granite bricks for each continent. So far I’ve only learned Kojan style, but I’m well on my way to the remaining faction I need for Thestra. Qalia will just have to wait.

I also noticed another change since I’ve been gone. When you’re leveling up, as soon as you get to 20+ you’re required to save up Masterwork Sigils for your upgrade recipes. Basically this is the difference between crafting handcrafted items, and mastercrafted items (except mastercrafted items in VG are really really really nice, and sell very well). These sigils used to be VERY rare. In all my levels I only ever earned 4-5 of them. You need 8 per recipe of the current tier you’re on, and 2 less for every tier you’ve passed. There are (for me at least) three recipes to purchase that use these sigils, per tier. That’s a lot of sigils! When I started crafting yesterday I thought it may have just been dumb luck that I managed to get two on my first batch, but by the end of the craft day when I was looking at 15 sigils, I knew things must have changed. I’m not lucky, and I’m certainly not THAT lucky. I did manage to buy the T5 jewelery recipe upgrade (30g, OUCH!) so that means I can make rare jewelery for levels 40-50. Crafting also still involves help from other crafters. To make rare jewelery I use a rare gem but then I also use a truesilver sheet, which is crafted by blacksmiths. It’s nice, and it’s one of the things that have kept the community together and so strong.

There are a LOT of artificers in game because they craft houses, furniture, and boats (including the galleons that are due out next month) which are all pretty popular. With fishing being implemented next month I’m also trying to think about who to level next. Do I go with my carpenter so I can own a boat and get myself some actual furniture in my house, or do I want to go with a ‘useful’ class like my leatherworker (there are the least amount of those around) or a blacksmith armorer or weaponsmith to be able to make my upgradeable bits.

Ah, the choices!

Fallen Gate, Ruins of Varsoon, and Steamfont Crafting

Shadowgeist offered to help level up my paladin yesterday morning before the work day began, and who am I to say no to leveling! My paladin (Lithe, a Kerran) started off as level 29. I haven’t been very diligent with her gear, she’s sitting in a few pieces of steel and level 4 jewelery, but that’s alright, I don’t need gear until level 40-50 or so. Not for what I had in mind at least.

We headed off to Fallen Gate to start, it’s the older (broken) version of Neriak. There was no one in the zone (not odd for Najena, most people play end game and there’s not that many lower level characters these days) and we quickly took down all of the named in sight. We also headed into the smaller instance at the end of the zone, it’s a guaranteed fabled chest, and the item was a ring that was an upgrade to my (by now) 32 paladin. Not bad, gained quite a few levels. My vitality was running thin and I suggested we stop there (I just wanted to gain enough levels to be able to wear the new mastercrafted stuff) but Shadowgeist insisted we head to Ruins of Varsoon and take a peek around.

We traveled to Thundering Stepps and before long I found myself taking down skeletons and zombies as well as the golems of Varsoon. We headed to the instance within that zone as well, which is 2 guaranteed master chests. One from a magic user who likes to charm (meanie!) and the other from Varsoon himself.

By then I had leveled from 29-35, and that was enough for me. We called it a day and I gated home to clear out my bags, put items for sale and send off master spells to those who could use them.

Later on that evening Kasul, Eyenstein, Albrta, Shadowgeist, and I headed to Steamfont to do one of the crafting instances. Albrta and Eyenstein had never been there before, so I explained how it worked and how instead of making 3 of an item as the quest suggests, we make 12 instead, and turn them all in at once.

It went well, though the crafting was difficult for some when it was outside of their subclass. I brought along my 58 tailor, who managed to get 59 from the zone. Getting there slowly.

Of course when it came to the giant battle bot fight at the end, Shadowgeist couldn’t sit out. Well. Now we know why Tipa died that first time. If you help out in the fight at all, the robot fighting for your side turns on you and smacks you pretty badly afterwards. Guess he’s a solo’er. Eyenstein and Shadowgeist picked themselves up off the floor and we opened the chest –

Wow. Nice rewards tonight. We received a crafting book (went to Albrta), a sage ring (went to Eyenstein), and also a piece of Artisan gear which means any one of us could have used it. For once the dice were on my side, and I won it. Looking forward to being able to use that in the future!

When the chest goodies were finally dealt with, Shadowgeist decided ‘just for fun’ to see if we could take down one of the level 90 ^ clockwork bots that were still in the room. There are three types, and believe it or not, we managed to take them down AND they each reward you with aa. So there’s the potential to gain it from three different encounters. Not bad. I’m not sure if that’s intended or not, as they don’t really LOOK like named, but it was a nice reward none the less.

I was sad to see that the solo crafting mission only rewards 2,000 faction now especially because this quest can only be obtained once a week, and the daily ones rewards at least 1,500 faction. 5,000 would have been better then the current amount if they were looking to reduce it. My tailor (who is one of my lowest crafters) now has more Far Seas tokens then all of my other crafters, but she’s unable to purchase anything with her 6 tokens. Ah well, by the time she’s a high enough level crafter to make use of the gear and recipe books she has, she will have the faction (I hope). All in all, it was a fantastic night!