Tag: EQ2

I logged in yesterday thinking that it would be close to the time where I should be getting new Legends of Norrath cards on both of my accounts, and what do you know, there they were. My main account has had horrible luck with LoN, I rarely get any loot items and this time was no exception. Nor was the time before this one. The 2nd account I have has far better luck. It must be because of the halflings on the account or something. In any case, when I opened up the 5 booster packs everyone gets, I received the free 5-room housing (good for any Qeynos or Freeport home). That’s right, this house is rent free. There are no ‘free’ 5-room homes in Qeynos or Freeport, they all require status and rent. I’m glad I’ve got one, since I don’t currently own a 5-room Freeport home, that’s what it will be going towards. 

Shadowgeist and myself also helped out our good friends in Crimson Blades purchase their first guild hall, congratulations on that! I’m sure I will be stopping by to make use of their harvest hirelings, those things are amazing. Nostalgia will hopefully be able to purchase a few once we get more levels. 

The expansion comes out tomorrow, so of course in preparation for it today I made a new character. Oh, wait. The new expansion actually doesn’t have anything that caters to new players. I decided to make a berserk er though just to see how they played. 

I did get a chance to do the LoN scenario that rewards you with glowing red eyes as well before it’s taken away from the line up, pretty interesting item. There’s a lot of LoN scenario rewards that come in handy, experience potions and the like. While I’m not keen on spending a lot of money to buy cards, I do enjoy playing the game. 

Hopefully the expansion goes off tomorrow without too much trouble. I’m looking forward to riding my dire bear mount around Norrath! See you there.

Today was a day for alts. I decided I would try to level up my 24 paladin a little bit. Now, I’ve mentioned this quite a few times in the past. Anyone who knows me realizes I have never really played a tank class before. Boxed someone else’ tank? Sure. I’ve never actually had one of my own though. With Tipa and Kasul and a few other fairly frequent Nostalgia members, none of them tanks, I decided it was time I played one. Lithe is my Kerran, and so far she’s a lot of fun to play. Oracia (coercer), Yashiro (ranger), and myself playing Lithe (paladin) and Arysh (warden mentored) headed to fallen gate to lay waste to the undead that wander the zone. We all got a few levels before I called it quits so I could watch the Santa Claus parade on tv and work on NaNoWriMo (which hit 30,066 words today. Home stretch here I come!) as well as take care of some dinner. 

The paladin is not that different for me since I’ve played tanks before and just never owned one. It’s a lot of fun, and I do have to pay attention to gear more so that I’m able to withstand the hits. It’s great to be able to box and have a healer or extra dps along. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy Synergy? I think maybe once or twice. 

I also have a baby warlock I’m going to level up a little bit. I’ve never played a warlock or a wizard before. I’d like to get the warlock to level 25 so that she can use the wizard ports. I realize we have the druid rings within the guild hall (and oh do I love them) but wizard ports don’t require any access to use. There are individual ports and group ports. The downside is that they only port to a few locations. Ah well. It’s better then none!

I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, the EQ2 expansion comes out on Tuesday and while I’m not especially excited about the adventure side of the expansion, I am excited about the changes in GU50, and the crafter changes. We’ll see how it goes.

What happens when you add a bunch of alcohol, pie, dancing halflings, 52 players, and one very fine looking community manager to three rooms together? Pillow fights of course!

Last night at 5pm PST one of the (many) birthday bashes took place on Najena. Each server will be having their own party so be sure to check here to see when your server is having theirs. I thing events like these are really important to communities, and it’s not just because we all got some cool prizes to take home. The rooms were decorated wonderfully and there were people (quite literally) everywhere. 

We were even granted a special treat when the famous bard herself, Tipa, stepped up to the piano along with some background singers and sang her rendition of screaming cats happy birthday to Norrath. What a delightful experience!

There were items people could click throughout the room ranging from drinks, to throw pillows, to throw pies. A wishing well sat in the center of the main pool where people could harvest goodies. A word of caution though, you do need to have a fishing skill in order to harvest from this pool. 

Grimwell played out his part well, especially for someone who has to do parties all week on multiple servers. He interacted with the players and switched forms every few minutes, keeping things interesting. Gee, I wonder which illusion the players liked the most? 

Everyone gathered together at the end for a photo opportunity. I spent most of the evening wandering around taking screenshots (just over 50 of them) to remember the occasion by. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I’m glad Nostalgia had fun too. 

I wanted to hang out a little more, but once Grimwell left I was reminded that I still had 1,000 words to write for NaNoWriMo (22,635 words total now) and then by the time that was done I had time to watch a little tv and then it was bed. 

Less then a week to go until the new EQ2 expansion releases, happy birthday!

Continuing along the Wizard city quests yesterday, I was pretty amazed at how big the world feels. I’ve never been particularly good at remembering where areas are, and I found myself getting lost often, or getting sent to areas I’d never even heard of before. I have one quest that sends me out to located these little tiny men scattered all over Wizard City. I’m stuck on the one in the shopping district. Or maybe it’s Triton, I can’t remember right now. As my life / storm combination progresses, I’ve learned a few things. Number one, I really need to make a deck for playing with friends. I’m not sure if there’s any way to do that or if I should just switch out some cards. My typical deck is perfect when it’s just me. It includes only a few heals, and a lot of attacks. I haven’t had any issue with it now that I hit level 10, things have been going pretty well. Until I group up with a bunch of friends and I’m left searching my deck frantically for a heal to toss out on them. 

Wizard 101 is so very different then every other game I’ve played (for a number of reasons that I’ve hid on here and there) that it’s actually made me change how I think about games in general. Their completely open grouping concept (which is not really grouping at all so much as jumping into battles with up to three other people) means that if you’re looking to get those harder encounters done you will either want to have friends online to play with, or be quite social. It’s very common for people to spam group invites, and for the most part I decline them. I accept of course if they are someone I already know – or if I happen to be doing a battle and they seem to know what they’re doing which was the case yesterday. After I cast a group heal on everyone (it was needed) one of the players expressed their thanks and we finished off the encounter fairly easily. I don’t enjoy being spammed with friend invites just like I don’t enjoy being spammed with group invites in any other game, but I’m more talkative in this game, and when I’m in the zones I know people have paid to gain access to, I’m a little less cautious about who I make my friend because I know they at least have enough of a grasp on the game (or their parents do, either way) to have invested some coin in it. 

Aside from changing my tactics on interacting with other players, I love the way this game makes me think about my next move. When I’m not thinking about my next move I’m thinking about the moves after that. Can I survive a round or two of trying to gain pips so I can pull out some uber card next? Do I let the giant cyclops whump me because I neglected to fill up on health and mana ahead of time? Exactly how long can I play the mini games before I need to blink (there’s one I’m completely addicted to in particular). 

Another amusing point to me is the fact that on more and more blogs these days I’m not reading about WAR, or EQ2 or any other popular mainstream MMO – I’m reading about Wizard 101. Now, that has a large amount to do with my choice in reading, I know. I subscribe to quite a few blogs via google reader and then tend to snoop the comments on the more popular blogs (you all know who you are) and read the blogs of those who have left comments. 

On a completely unrelated note – TODAY is the EQ2 anniversary party on Najena at 8pm EST (That’s 5pm PST). Tipa, consider this your official reminder! I’d like to see as many Nostalgians show up as possible (yes, all five of us) though I completely understand if people have other things to do. I’ll be there as (of course) Stargrace, hopefully I can get a few good screen shots in to write about tomorrow. 

No worries about me missing out on any ‘other’ game time. That’s what the laptop is for.