Tag: EQ2

Obelisk of Ahkzul, and Vault of Eternal Sleep

When EQ had it’s 10th anniversary, for the week you could claim free LoN (Legends of Norrath) loot cards in either EQ or EQ2. For the first portion of the week I was claiming them in EQ, and then switched over to EQ2 when the void vision goggles came out, and then the next day it was the awesome parrot that you see sitting on my mystic’s shoulder in the screen shot above (which turned out really nice, I have to admit). I had planned on doing some questing in Lavastorm for the evening – but had a really nice surprise when Ultann decided to re-activate his EQ2 account. So of course I decide that the group is going to jump right into things, and we head to the Moors of Ykesha to attempt the Obelisk of Ahkzul with just the three of us (and me boxing the coercer). It’s only been a month and a half since we started playing EQ fairly regularly rather then EQ2, and we did pretty well. The new threat meter is amazing and everyone loves it. I adore the fact that you can now auto follow on the Z axis. 

I’ve been playing on the highest settings I can put my computer at and still function, which is one below max. The game looks so incredible to me. I did turn down the number of spell particles I see simply because when you have so many turned on encounters start looking like masses of particle effects and nothing more. I can’t see the mobs or where they’re positioned or know if I’m about to die to a giant AoE frontal. 

We died once in the ‘ball room’ but it was just us being rusty. The second attempt was flawless, and we managed to get a chest with 14p in it. Those chests are nice when you do the instance in a group of three. I had my fingers crossed that the final encounter would drop the healer shield I’ve longed for since day one – but alas, my luck in EQ2 is pretty non-existant, and nothing of use dropped. On the plus side, void shards WERE introduced to this zone finally, so we each gained one more to add to the pile by the end. 

Afterwards we decided to head to Vault of Eternal Sleep in Jarsath Wastes to try (for the 101st time) for the praetor’s guard for Wpus, the conjuror. Ever since we found out we can trio this zone, we’ve attempted to get the guard to drop. Every time, we had no drop. The zone is fairly easy to complete, we rarely ever die. The adds spawned, I mez’d them while still attempting to heal (Wpus catches them with root so I have a little leeway) and down the final boss went. 

A master chest!

Now, there are two fabled (maybe more) that can drop here. There are a pair of pants that no one in the group would use – along with the mage item. FINALLY the guard dropped, now we just need to get one for my coercer. Groan.

I started having ISP issues (again) shortly after that, so when I disconnected I called it a night and headed to bed. I had a blast though. It was great to be back in Norrath 2.0 and even better to enjoy the evening with some great friends. I hope everyone else had a fantastic evening, no matter where you spent it!

See you in Norrath!

Unlikely Companions

The trio stood together in the Wailing Caves, which had been home to Lord Ree for a number of years now. His patrollers stood no match for the conjuror, coercer, and assassin as they made their way through the dark tunnels. The orcs were not the only ones to inhabit this area, it was home to other foul creatures with too much time on their hands. Was it some sort of twisted fate that saw these three adventurers gather together at the exact same time in the exact same place? They were after all, strangers to one another. Whatever had caused the phenomenon, it would be remembered by those who visited the caves that day for some years to come. 

Finally had some time to play EQ2 last night (woohoo) and since I’ve popped in and out of the game the last little while, I was at least (some what) refreshed on what I had planned for my characters. First, was trying to get my (2nd) coercer to level 80. Right now she’s sitting at level 78, and part way into it thanks to a few shard runs last night. It was interesting to see if I had forgotten how to complete the instances, but they seemed to go smooth enough. We completed all of the ones in the Commonlands, gaining three shards. That brings the mystic’s collection (since she already owns three pieces of T1 and two pieces of T2) to a whole 6 – I have a ways to go. The coercer is currently holding on to 19 shards – since she’s not level 80 yet I haven’t bothered to make anything with hers. Who knows what sort of gear she’ll be wearing by then and what I’ll actually want to upgrade (or not).

I decided it would probably be easier (and more fun) to get to level 80 by leveling up an alt and mentoring then it would be by questing. My reasoning is that the coercer receives 50% bonus experience due to the number of level 80’s already on the account. Grinding experience even at the low levels of 1-20 netted me about 10% in two hours. Now – I know that may seem horrible, but the higher up (closer in levels) the alt becomes, the more experience I’ll gain for mentoring. It’s an interesting experiment in any case. Though now that my alt is level 20 I’m contemplating deleting and creating a different class. I know, so indecisive!

I contemplated heading to Lavastorm to complete the new quests there – but – imagined it would be fairly busy, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to deal with that again right now. 

Short term goals? Getting the (2nd) coercer to 80, working on void shard gear, and crafting (my 2nd carpenter is only level 38 – go figure it’s the coercer, my 1st carpenter who is already 80 is also a coercer. On another server though). 

Long term goals? Working on epics (still haven’t bothered getting the mystic’s completed), upgrading spells, and playing alts (as always).

I hope everyone has a fantastic Saturday, I’ll see you in Norrath!

So That’s What it’s Supposed to Look Like

New video card arrived in the mail today, and I’m REALLY happy with it so far. I boosted up my settings in EQ2 and headed to Lavastorm, which is notorious (especially of late) for its lag. There were only 60 people in zone, but I ran around on the settings in the screen shot with no issues at all. You can find the bigger version of it here. Honestly, even if things didn’t run better, I am happy just not to have those trees staring at me any more. That was creepy. 

I also downloaded the 7 day free trial of AoC today, though I haven’t given it a whirl yet I plan on it. Tonight, it’s LotRO – I think. Today has been an up and down sort of day. So many highs and lows. I don’t expect things to calm down until April 15th, so I’ll be counting down the days until everything passes. 

Happy gaming!

Bristlebane Day – and What is my Name Again?

It’s been one of those days weeks so far, you know the sort. Everything that can go wrong, does go wrong? Here’s hoping it can only get better from here. My site has been down off and on over the last two days, but I think my host has it figured out. Sure wish they would keep better contact with me, but at least they reply at all. My new video card should be in today, and that’s a huge plus – my internet has been acting up and off for hours at a time, not so cool. Yesterday was ‘early birthday present’ day, and am now owner of a wii – already have a PS3 but I rarely use it. I like the activity of the wii, and I like the selection of RPG’s and other games. I got a game – Rune Factory Frontier – which I’m actually enjoying. Remember, I haven’t been a gamer all my life. I need to be eased into these things slowly! Basically I wander around (as a boy, but I can look past that) and I move into a little farm house. I flirt with girls (how fun), plant seeds, run around talking to people – and plant more seeds. Then I sell my harvests. Obviously there’s more to the game, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten with it so far. I know there’s a little bit of adventuring and even some crafting. It’s got a cute story, and it’s something I can play when I’m not playing PC games – which DOES happen every once in a blue moon. 

Aside from all of the real life stuff going on – yesterday was April Fool’s day, also known as Bristlebane Day for those in Norrath. I spent most of my time in EQ2 for once, though I did hop over to EQ to check out the new class specifications that were added to all characters. In EQ2 Wpus and I headed to Antonica to help out Blat Berisen out with an issue he was having. It is the same quest from last year, but I’d never completed it on my mystic before, so it was a lot of fun. Plus it was good to be roaming around in EQ2 again. NOT that I dislike EQ! Everyone always seems to read far too much into my words when I mention my game hoping (I am at this exact moment downloading the 7 day trial to AoC, don’t read anything into it!). 

Now, yesterday an announcement was made about new things coming to station access. Because it was the day that it was, the announcement was actually met with a lot of skepticism so take it as you will!

I’m torn over the new items which you can find here. EQ2 has never offered a renaming service before, nor have they ever allowed you to change your characters sex before. I think it’s a good service on some levels. Lets say a friend or a partner of yours decides they no longer want to play. You pay to move those characters over to your account, or you take over their account. Perhaps you don’t want to be known as Fluffy Bunny, the troll who lost all of her hair in a smelting accident. Now you have the opportunity to rename yourself and be someone more ‘in tune’ with your own character selection.

However. This also gives troublemakers a chance to ‘reform’ themselves. Be someone they were not before, giving players a difficult time in tracking them down. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I can see it ending up bad, some where. 

I’m also wondering if this will lead to more character sales – because you can now purchase a character and then transform them (at least outwards) to something you may actually enjoy playing. 

I’ve no idea of the cost of one of these potions yet, but I’m going to bet they’re quite expensive. Name changes and gender changes (oh great I can imagine the google hits that are going to head my way now) are not something that has (in the past) been easily done. I wonder what sort of stories people will have about this new feature once it goes live (it’s slated to be in game on April 7th at the moment). We’ll just have to see I suppose!

And if none of it’s real, well, at least I’ve helped to spread the fun!

Tonight is my LotRO night, and hopefully I’ll be playing it on the new video card. We’ll just have to see how that goes. I hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday no matter where you find yourself.