Tag: EQ2

A Whole lot of “Stuff”

I love how different games are – despite the fact that the term “WoW Clone” gets used fairly often, I happen to think there are a lot less clones then we may think. I’ve been playing a lot of Vanguard, and that’s slightly on the back burner again as I dip my toes into World of Warcraft and EVE Online. Without getting into a lot of personal details, lets just say that I’m not exactly pleased with the approach that sony has taken concerning EQ2X and the decisions they’ve made that seem to bring it closer to that ‘WoW clone’ – if I wanted to play WoW, well. I would. So I am. I talk a lot about supporting the things you enjoy, and voting with your wallet. It pains me a little that I haven’t even really played EQ2 for a few months now. A game that I spent more then 5 years in and have met a lot of fantastic people. I just feel that the changes that have been happening don’t coincide with what I want from the game. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against RMT, or cash shops or F2P (though in most cases you almost always end up paying). What I am against is a game that I’ve been playing one way for so long suddenly changing and deciding they want to be a different game. Silly? Maybe. It’s just how I feel. Anyhow, enough of that rant.

In WoW I’m making the climb to 80, and managed to get my little warlock to 63 yesterday running dungeons with Toargo, a fantastic warrior. My rough ‘goal’ is a level a day until I hit 70, and then I know it will slow down and I’ll take it from there. I’ve also been working on a little crafting (engineering) and some cooking and first aid as well as fishing. In WoW these are skills that make my ‘toon’ feel more like a ‘character’ and give it life. In Eq2 it would be decorating a home, and working on achievements.

Like I mentioned above, I’ve also paired my WoW gaming with EVE Online, a drastically different type of game. I’ve been doing a LOT there, but I’m going to save it for another post (moahaha). What was everyone else up to this weekend? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

SOE Fan Faire Updates – 2010

Since I’m not actually at Fan Faire this year (pout) I’ve been watching EQ2 wire for their updates.

They released some of the concept art of “EQ Next” – be sure to take a peek.

Here are some key points from the Community Address that happened last night:

EverQuest: House of Thule releases on October 14th. It adds a plethora of new dungeons and content, as well as the addition of player housing.

EverQuest II: Destiny of Velious releases February 8th and, amongst other things, will introduce flying mounts in most zones. It is unclear which zones are being configured to allow this. Say what you will about Brenlo, but this was an initiative he pushed for. Glad to see it’s coming.

EQ2 Extended — Beta launches August 17th. New optional free adventure service. Live subscription remains unchanged. Yadda yadda.

FreeRealms coming to Mac and PS3 in ~2 months. Currently 13 million players (unknown how many are paying)

Clone Wars Adventures — shown at E3, targeted at FreeRealms crowd. Based closely on the Cartoon Network series and will have heavy cross-promotion.

Magic the Gathering strategy game will be something quite different. It’s not a TCG.

DC Universe Online – Releases November 2nd. PC and PS3, Action-based physics. Newsworthy bit: Pre-ordering will be huge and allow you to play as Batman, as well as get a basketful of free items. Shown the astonishingly good trailer from last week featuring Lex Luthor.

Be sure to take a peek at the rest of the SOE Fan Faire info they have posted, I’ll be taking bits and pieces and mentioning them here for readers to get the information out. Am I excited? Eh. I am VERY excited about EQ player housing. EQ2 flying mounts? Not so much. Also, after browsing through the schedule for Fan Faire, I was sad to see there are 0 panels on Vanguard. There’s a 2 hour live quest, but that’s it. Figures.

In the Mean Time..

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written about games other than EQ2 on this site – but that doesn’t mean I’m not playing them. I had been making most of those ‘other’ types of posts over at NomadicGamer since the site needed a few posts and because they fit within the topic a lot better. Hopefully my readers here don’t mind that everything is not EQ2 related this week.

What I’m up to in games

EVE Online: My main account is (at the time of writing this) exactly 5 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes, 1 second away from flying a hulk. WOW. I’m incredibly excited. I’ve dreamed about flying a hulk since I first started playing EVE and now that I’m almost there it is a very surreal feeling. The down side to this is that I’ve failed 6 hulk blueprint inventions. Using this site to figure out the math pretty much explained how hulks have the lowest success rate. I’m hoping to keep plugging away at it and maybe invent one just before I can fly it but I’m not holding my breath. In the mean time I’ve been running missions for CreoDron so that I can work with a L3 agent, I’m .15 standing away which is pretty nice. My second account is having a blast flying her new Dominix, it’s a battlecruiser and I just managed to fit some 350mm compressed coil guns onto it. Yum. Now I’m working towards all of the drone goodies as my ship is mostly a tank while drones do all of the damage work. Yesterday Kasul helped me fit a new imicus that I bought for scouting (probing). I’ve never been all that good at probing, but I’m not going to get any better if I don’t try it more often. I’d like to scan down sites for the hulk to mine. I need 26 hours of training in order to fit the cloaking device, but aside from that it’s the first ship that I’ve actually completely fit, and properly. My 2nd account has four ships that I use. The Dominix (battlecruiser) for my missions, the Vexor (cruiser) for missions that don’t allow battlecruisers (I hate those missions, just saying), the Imicus for scouting, and the Iteron V for hauling. I like the set up so far, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I really enjoy the Dominix a great deal too, great ship.

World of Warcraft: I’ve been playing this game off and on since release and it’s always amusing to me to hear everyone talk about it. My highest level character just reached level 64 yesterday (woot), my priest. Everyone talks about having multiple level 80 characters, and how easy it is to get there but for me it seems like the slowest thing in the world. I’m having a lot of fun with it, working my way through the Burning Crusade and little bits into Wrath of the Lich King. Neither expansion is something I’m all that familiar with and it’s all brand new. Of course much like I do in every game I play, I’ve been crafting as much as I can. My tailor (the priest) just reached a skill level of 350 yesterday, and chose a specialization in mooncloth. Once I reach level 65 I can obtain the Grand Master rank, and continue on. Even though some people argue that crafting in WoW is simple, I really enjoy it. It’s nice to have the objectives of the crafting mini game change compared to what I’m used to. The actual ACT of crafting is not the mini game in WoW. Obtaining materials and recipes is the mini game, and even then only because I make it so. It doesn’t make it any less interesting to me, and I’m really enjoying myself. I have five characters, the 64 priest (tailor / enchanter), 58 DK (used mostly for farming, mining / herbalism), 43 hunter (farming, skinning / mining), 40 shaman (jewelcrafting / inscription), and a level 8 druid (alchemy / herbalism). I’m excited about inching my way to level 80 because I’ve always wanted to be ‘end game’ even though it was constantly out of my grasp. No guarantee that I’ll make it this time around either, but I’m hopeful.

EQ2: I still log in, check the broker, search for new books, and craft. Decorating is a little slower, but I still have a lot of fun with it. I think I’m just waiting for Halas to come out so I can see if it affects my game at all, and see if I get excited about it again. Breaks are not bad things, and I’m enjoying my time away from EQ2 right now. There’s a reason I term myself a nomadic gamer after all!

There are other games on my radar like Age of Conan (I picked up the game for $7 from EBGames), Dark Ages of Camelot ($10 with all expansions from – you guessed it, EBGames), Fallen Earth, Champions Online, Wizard101, LotRO, and DDO. I also still have my subscription to Darkfall, though I haven’t been playing it lately and I own Guild Wars which I keep meaning to play again and just never seem to get around to it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself. I hope everyone has a magnificant weekend!

Weekend Gaming for Me

During the week I have very little choice in what games I play. I need to write about certain ones, or I need to prepare for an article, or I need to familiarize myself with it. Where I used to play video games for fun as a hobby, it turned into work, and thus I have been slightly less inclined to play on the weekends because of this. I am sure that would be true for anyone in my position. One thing I’ve done to ‘entice’ myself on weekends to still find the things I love in games is to make sure there are a few around that I play ‘only for me’ and not for work. Dragon Age, Sims 3, the Lord of the Rings Online, and a few other games I have fit into that category.

I spent pretty much all weekend playing Sims 3, and I had so much fun. The game is so involved compared to the older versions, and I giggled and laughed over their antics. I also went out to EBGames (after some groceries and other chores of course) and picked up the latest expansion, World Adventures. I installed it, and then barely touched it because I was still having so much fun completing the goals in the first game.

While I was at EBGames, I also found a collectors edition copy of the Lord of the Rings Online for $10! Wow, what a deal. This comes with the original game, the Mines of Moria expansion, a map, a small bag with ‘the one ring’ inside, a poster, a soundtrack CD, an art book, and a few other goodies. Even though I already have a LoTRO account, I’m tempted to start this second one up and close down my first one (my highest character is level 19, which I am fairly confident I could reach again). Maybe I can find a friend who would like the first account and they won’t have to purchase the game (or Mirkwood, as I’ve already bought that) and they can just take over the billing, who knows.

In any case, it was a great weekend, with lots of gaming but not the usual games I play. I did get some more EQ2 time in, and worked on a few achievements as well as finishing off the Chronomagic quest from Sunday which was Acadachism. I didn’t get the three final aa that I need, nor did I work on NaNoWriMo at all, which means today I’m well behind. Hoping to take care of that as soon as I post this entry.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Simply Not Enough Time

Ellithia is sporting the Shard of Love headgear that dropped for us earlier this week – and that’s been the extent of my time in EQ2, which hasn’t happened in literally, months. I haven’t logged in. It’s not that I don’t have things to do in game, because I certainly do but I just don’t have enough time lately to do everything I want to do. Isn’t that always the case?

EQ2 is always my home base, and I’ll always return there. Especially after I glanced through this HUGE list of patch notes that are currently on test. Wow. Some pretty amazing stuff is finally getting fixed. This has been a very long time coming. Earlier this week I also transferred my 80 swashbuckler over to Antonia Bayle, so I can get back into boxing. I had closed my second account for a little while but decided that 12 alts was simply not enough, so I’ve got both accounts once more.

Vanguard is my home away from home. It’s the game I play for pleasure with a few friends when we all happen to have time, and I really love the game. The problem is it’s not one of those duck in real quick for a minute or two games, so it looks like it gets a lot of back burner time.

Aion is what I’m playing a lot of lately, mostly for work. I play during the day, when it’s quieter then normal and I can’t say I’m hating it. Leveling is slow, quests are grindy but it’s beautiful and still new, and I’ll be sticking with it.

Torchlight and Dragon Age are still on my play list as well, but I’ll probably be playing those more on the weekend when I’m not busy with other things. The weather is getting much colder and it’s almost time to hibernate for the winter. No doubt my adventures there will be fun as always.

NaNoWriMo is eating up a lot of time. I’m just over 12k words right now (although I completely slacked yesterday and didn’t do any writing – today I should be making up for it) and I’m excited about my story. It’s something that I’ve been meaning to write for a very long time, but simply never got around to. Now that the motivation is there I just need to stick with it for the month of November. I’ve also been very excited watching all my friends work on their stories, and the inspiration and motivation that bounces off of one another is fantastic.

There are five games that are on my “dang I wish I had more time” list currently. These are the Lord of the Rings Online, Fallen Earth, Wizard 101, EverQuest and Dungeons and Dragons Online. Thankfully DDO is free to play, so I don’t exactly feel like I’m missing out by NOT playing right now. The Lord of the Rings Online recently extended their special Mirkwood promotions until mid November, so I’ve been debating whether or not I want to get in on that and plurge on a life time just because. It’s one of those games I’ve really enjoyed playing but just can’t seem to find the time. Fallen Earth I managed to score a 15 day trial for, and never logged in – sighs. Wizard 101 is something I should be playing a lot more of next week, fingers crossed. EverQuest currently has their closed beta ongoing for Underfoot – and if I could convince a few of my friends to play with me, I’d probably be there a lot more. I really love EverQuest, always have, even 10 years later. It’s just not fun for me to play alone.

After the list of “I wish I had more time” games, there are a few games that I wish I could simply afford to take a peek into every so often, even if I don’t have the time. These include Warhammer (I loved the game, but lacked friends to play with), Free Realms, and Champions Online (which I played a few times but honestly never got into it, I was right about it simply not being the genre for me). Of course there’s those games I’ve tried but never stuck with (and I’ve tried them multiple times), EVE and World of Warcraft. I even bought the latest EVE game and never actually installed it (it went on sale for $5 if I recall) because I just don’t have the time right now to learn another game. I’ve played WoW off and on since release, and I just think it would have been neat to make it to the level cap at least once. My highest level is 50.

Don’t get me started on all the free to play games out there that tickle my fancy.

There really is just not enough time for everything.