Tag: EQ2

Betrayal, Instances, and Alts!

Yesterday was busy in EQ2, that satisfied busy you get when you’ve got so much to get done and your friends are right there helping you finish it all. Well, that’s what it felt like in any case. To start it off I betrayed my coercer to illusionist on Kithicor. I know, I already HAVE an 80 illusionist AND coercer on Najena. I’m obviously demented. My illusionist’ personal dps has gone down slightly (especially if you count the lack of charm) the group dps is way up with the new buffs. We’ll manage. It didn’t take long to betray and the illusionist is all settled into her new home in Qeynos, moved into a nice North Qeynos home that I’ll decorate some day I promise. 

Ultann picked up a recruit a friend account for himself in order to level up an inquisitor on his laptop as we play. A backup healer is great plus they have some pretty nice buffs we can make use of. Since he has been leveling up this character (approx 36 levels in two days if that) I decided it would be a great time for me to level up my paladin at the same time. It gives him a break from playing the tank if he wants, and I (yes) already have a 71 paladin on Najena. What on earth am I going to do with all of these character doubles if servers ever do merge or I do get my wish of some free character transfers. Well, not sure. 

Before we got going on the alts we decided to give instances another shot to see if anything useful would drop. Vault of Eternal Sleep refused to give up the praetor’s guard that we’re attempting to get for the illusionist. Obelisk of Ahkzul refused to give up the healer shield that I’ve spoken about pretty much every day for the last year it seems, and Najena’s Hollow Tower refused to drop the cloak Wpus is after that comes from the water boss. Our look struck as true as ever. If these things DID happen to drop I have no idea what we would do any more since it’s been our routine for quite some time. We make jokes about it, and try to guess exactly what is going to drop. 

So now the paladin is sitting at level 31, after being level 18 yesterday. We headed to Fallen Gate and lay waste to everything that stood (and a few that didn’t). Sure, she’s got no gear and is sporting app1’s (and getting adept3’s at level 80 is going to be not so fun) but part of the battle is done.

On an interesting note – the 10% bonus experience that recruit a friend people get from the mount – is group wide. So my paladin was receiving the 10% bonus from Ultann’s mount, since he was riding it. She was also gaining 50% bonus due to being on my main account with other 80’s and 55% bonus from a potion – and double experience from vitality which I managed to replenish with the orb of concentrated memories that players received with the 5 year veteran reward. 

Not bad. 

Tonight will probably be an evening of ‘more of the same’ but we’ll just have to see!

Party Time!

The news spread like wildfire, and people started joining in faster then halflings eat pie. Kiara from the community team held a party last night on Kithicor to celebrate EQ’s 10th anniversary – the screen shot is shoddy because with over 200 people in the zone I had to turn down my settings and even then I was looking at the ground most of the evening as I delt with 5fps. I love these type of events, and I make it a point to attend. Not only do I spend lots of time bothering Kiara on twitter, but it’s great to show support for these sorts of things so that they happen in the future. 

Ice cream trucks were set up for those craving a fancy treat, and there was trivia with prizes as well as lots of goodies handed out including a music box that plays music you may remember if you ever played EverQuest. 

Nearing the end of the party – Nagafen made an appearance and started battling party-goers. Since most of them had begged and pleaded to have the mighty dragon there to begin with, it was no ones fault but their own. The scent of faintly baked skin hung heavy over the party for the remainder of the night. 

The fact that the Kithicor party coinsided with my own birthday was great, I just pretended everyone was there for me even if no one said a word or knew who I was. The imagination is a wonderful tool.

Aside from the party, my trio has expanded some! A friend of Wpus has decided to start playing EQ2, and though he’s on a trial account currently he plans to upgrade. Ultann also decided that the recruit a friend program is the perfect way to start boxing a 2nd account. If we can level both of these characters up a little while we’ll have a full group of 6, which would be great. Ultann created an inquisitor for back up heals and buffs – not to mention they have verdict. I’m not sure what the newer player is going to use yet, he was enjoying his necromancer and his assassin last I saw. 

We did a quick Obelisk run last night again with no shield. Actually had a few deaths too, it just felt like an off night. 

I also decided that I would betray the coercer over to illusionist and spent most of last night purchasing very expensive spells. My sage is over on Najena. Ah how I wish they’d allow us to transfer characters for free just for a short while. Wishful thinking!

Aside from that, it was a quiet day, and a quiet night. Today will involve more of the same since I have no deadlines to meet this week for work, which is great. Still trying to pick up another freelance job (or two) but it’s slow going so I’ll just have to be patient. Hope everyone has an amazing day, no matter realm you find yourself in!

Coercer 2.0 hits 80, Instances, and.. more Instances!

Yesterday was a mixture of real life with some gaming which of course made for a perfect Saturday. There was the announcement that Free Realms was sending out beta invites, and then a mass amount of shopping that involved a wii fit, and a nintendo DSi with a few games (used, and cheap!) and other random goodness before I settled in to game on Kithicor.

I had so much fun I don’t even know exactly what we did. I know we started off with our usual Obelisk run (and again no shield – that one dagger and crusader shield that drops has dropped enough to outfit a small army by now) followed by us attempting to solo some TSO instances – this time Lavastorm. We did pretty well in Najena’s Hollow Tower, we defeated the gnome by burning down the bombs (I charmed a warlock pet, MUCH fun!) and then moved on to the djin water elemental named and once we figured out how to do this with three people it worked out just fine. Honestly that’s as far as we needed to get anyhow, there’s a cloak that drops from that particular mob that Wpus is looking to get, and it was nice to know we can trio him. 

Afterwards we attempted Deep Forge, but that zone is a little out of our grasp yet. The coercer was inching closer to 80 (hovering around 70% experience for quite some time) so we completed the three Commonlands void quests mentored – and then since we had no lock out for Cavern of the Afflicted, we decided to gather a group together and complete it the ‘big kid’ way. 

I wouldn’t be playing the coercer for this, just the mystic. So I took the coercer to East Freeport and purchased 15p worth of collections . Finally!

The coercer (my 2nd, and 3rd enchanter) managed to hit level 80. She had 40 void shards waiting for her that I’ve collected over time, so it was no trouble to have my mystic craft her almost the complete T1 set. I know a lot of coercers complain that the set is not that great, but when you don’t raid and are still wearing mastercrafted, it comes in handy. Plus it looks fantastic (screen shots some other time hopefully). Despite the fact that I love being able to charm things I am contemplating betraying her over to an illusionist. The group buffs are much more suited for my play style. I’m not certain yet, it will depend on whether or not I can track down a sage. 

I also spent some time talking with Troy  from Emerald Tablet who happens to play on the Kithicor server. Was nice to say hello after ‘speaking’ a few times on twitter. 

Afterwards I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night, so we decided to head to Vaults and see if we couldn’t get another praetor’s guard to drop. Granted, it’s taken us a good 20 tries to get the one to drop that we actually got, so I didn’t hold much hope. Good thing, since it eluded us once more. Maybe next time!

Before I knew it the clock was telling me it was 2am and I had to get up at 6am Blast those enjoyable evenings! Today is Easter Sunday and I’m looking forward to a great dinner with family, I hope everyone else has had an amazing weekend thus far, and enjoy yourself, where ever you end up spending your time!

See you in Norrath!

Friday Night Instances

It’s a lot easier to get groups in EQ2 then it is to get groups in EQ. Sure, they happen but people pretty much stick to doing the hot zones and a few missions that are required for access. In EQ2 there are void shard groups constantly ongoing and even a few pick up raids if you’re so inclined. Although Kithicor has a very elitist view when it comes from doing instances and who is good enough  to do them. The channels are filled with people trying to one up each other by linking their gear and teasing those who may not be as well geared as them. On that note, it’s rare that my little trio actually wants to join three other people because from appearances we don’t fit the mold of ‘cool’ people. My mystic doesn’t even have her epic, we’re not mastered out, and our gear is a mish mash of quested and void shard armor. Not bad by any means, but not ‘uber’ enough to roll with the big kids who are constantly going on about 6-10k parses and linking all of their fabled. 

We started out last night with our daily Ahkzul run (again no shield) and it went a little rough. The bouncy room didn’t seem so friendly but on the plus side the giant void creatures didn’t hit us with any AoE and that was nice. One huge upside to playing my coercer as my main and then leaving the mystic as the background / laptop character. Coercers get lots of stuns (though I’m thinking of betraying her over to illusionist, more on that later). After we were done we figured why not try to snag three other people and go do Anathema for some shards. 

Our group make up was not your typical group and I had a lot of doubts I’ll admit. It consisted of the trio (myself as 80 mystic, Ultann the 80 shadowknight, and Wpus the 80 conjuror) and then an 80 guardian (Ultann tanked so the guardian was dps), an 80 warlock, and an 80 brigand. No power regen (not needed with Wpus’ power procs) and no mezer (hopefully not needed). We did surprisingly well, we wiped once due to one of the ghost children spawning an add directly on top of me when we were already involved in a difficult encounter, and the rest went smooth. The three others died a few times from various agro issues (that’s why there’s a threat meter folks!) and AoE’s but we escaped unscathed and collected our two shards. 

I managed to get the mystic her 3rd piece of T2 void shard armor, a nice pair of pants. This leaves her with 2 pieces of T1 and 3 pieces of T2, so she’s getting the set bonus from each. The effect on the pants is a nice overloaded heal (which also happens to be her 5 set bonus) so I was pleased with the upgrade. 

Not ready to call it a night quite yet, we decided to go to Scion of Ice next except no matter how hard we looked we couldn’t find three others to round out the group. Apparently we’d managed to catch cooties on our last run. Wpus, our fearless leader, decided that we would attempt this zone un-mentored, with just the three of us. 

I was sceptical but never one to back down from a challenge decided sure why not. 

It was an intense run. I ended up bringing along the coercer for stuns and power regen and to mez one of the encounters that has two sphynx that you’ve got to defeat. We actually managed to clear the entire zone, including the named at the entrance just the three of us. I was impressed. I was beyond impressed. It was a lot of fun and although the zone seems to drop a million cloaks and nothing more I was really proud that we’d defeated it. It also gives us another instance that we can defeat for shards if we can’t fill out a group. 

After that victory we decided to complete the shard quest for The Crucible, it was getting late and I knew we probably wouldn’t be able to beat that zone (at least not the final mob that requires people to click objects from the ground as you fight a named) but the void shard quest was to kill 15 creatures within, and the void shard chest is on the first floor so it was simple enough. Today we’re going to attempt the Lavastorm instances and then perhaps the ones in Commonlands just to see how far we can get in them. It’s great to feel so challenged and to get as far as we have in zones that can pose as cumbersome to people. Sure, I don’t see us trioing Veksar or Guk any time soon, but in the mean time this has been really rewarding and pleased that some times it’s NOT all about what gear you have and it really is about the player knowing their class.

Nostalgia The Guild – Happy Anniversary

We are a small group of friends who are doing the 1-80 progression one untwinked level at a time, seeing the old world as it was meant to be seen while seeing all the bits of the newer world we may have missed.

We group once a week on the Luclin server, Fridays at 7PM Eastern Time.

We are not currently recruiting, but we’re always interested in meeting new friends and if there is interest, we will make a third progression group.

Regardless of whether or not you want to play in one of the progression groups, if you just want to hang out with a bunch of friendly people and are fairly low level, we’d love to see you in guild chat, once we get the guild made. 

Register and leave a message here if you’d like to join!

That was the welcoming message posted by one Tipa almost exactly a year ago on the Nostalgia web site. I was thinking back on everything that’s happened since that point in time. It was a turning point for me, I met a lot of people, made a lot of close friends. We’ve drifted over the course of the year but most of us wander back in one shape or form and leave comments on blogs, forums, emails, xfire, or twitter. We’ve changed games (some times a lot) but we all had something in common when we joined the guild and I think to some degree still do. 

We’ve kept small. It’s an aspect I’ve really liked even though I (at times) wish we were more steady. Maybe that’s just not our play style as a group though, maybe we’re just not the sort to all settle down. I look at Casualties of War (which I’m also a member of) and envy their following at times. In day to day activities I’m not really one for crowds and this carries over into my gaming habits. 

Nostalgia the Guild started out on EverQuest. It has since carried over to EverQuest II, and most recently Lord of the Rings Online. They are some of the best friends I could have ever asked for, and I am thankful I’ve gotten to know such an amazing bunch of people. Especially since they’ve (to date at least) put up with me and all of my ‘quirks’ (such a kinder word). What an amazing world we live in that we can experience such things. I feel lucky. I realize that there are other guilds, older guilds who have spanned across a greater time period, more games, and bigger trials and tribulations – feel free to give a shout out to them below if you’ve got a great story to tell or just want to share.