Instances, and Computer Issues go Hand in Hand

Thanks to a series of random events, I didn’t get to play nearly as much as I had wanted this weekend. When I did get a chance to play a good portion was spent screaming and cursing at the computer and everything related to computers. When my other half and I bought the laptop, we also decided that we should have my pc wireless since it’s across the room from the router, leaving his PC plugged in. So we bought a USB adapter that would work as a wireless card or what not. Remember, I am not exactly a computer person here. Anyhow, he fiddled with that for a good while, trying to secure our network without kicking any of the three computers off and what have you. I was surprised to see how many people in my apartment building have an unsecured / open wireless connection that anyone can tap into. 

After a short while of playing, I started losing connection every 10 minutes or so, and it would take me roughly 3-4 minutes for all of that to straighten out. It always happened at the most inopportune times too of course. At the end of Veksar we’re working out a plan to take down the final encounter and I go run off and lag into the room agroing him. Thankfully I was able to backtrack into the previous room and no one died. 

Then later that night I offer to help Kasul get some epic updates, Shadowgeist, Kasul and myself on Petites (76 templar) are running through Sebilis when what should happen – we get to the fearing encounters and I have a good solid 40 seconds where I see no one moving, nothing happening and can’t cast spells. Gah! I got frustrated and decided to take it as a hint and just log off. I decided to watch two and a half men in bed for the rest of the evening, which was a lot better then dealing with Internet issues. 

The little bit of time I did get to spend in game was fun though. Veksar was not too bad until the final encounter where we tried a handful of methods that didn’t seem to want to work. I played my enchanter, and didn’t realize they changed the encounter (again) so that now you CAN mesmerize the adds. I guess people complained that it was too difficult the other way around. Our first attempt involved me mesmerizing the named before we entered the room and then standing on his small platform to prevent adds from spawning, but for some reason even when he was mesmerized he still spawned them, so instead we just did it the good ‘ol normal way. Tank rushed in, grabbed adds + named, and I locked them down. Recast my mez when the adds respawned, which they did at least 5 times. 

Kasul got a few upgrades I believe, or at least one. Albrta got an upgrade too but nothing else was really of any use. The day before I had taken Ellithia to heal for Vaults of Eternal Sleep, a lot of fun since she was only level 72 and the only healer. Worked out great though. The only difficulty with bringing in low level healers is that they are unable to cure any of the dots. So you need a zone where dots won’t mater. After we had cleared Vaults I relogged to Arysh and we did Maidens, where I actually got a pair of gloves that were an upgrade. 

Later last night I also tried my hand at a little boxing this new way with two computers. Right now I almost wish I could go back to the old way of two accounts on one machine but that’s simply because I’m used to it. It’s weird for me to be able to watch both at once, and remember what to cast. On the plus side it also allows me to actually do more healing and debuffing which is a good thing. I’ve been planning out all the alts I want to level up that I haven’t yet. Having Ellithia (72 defiler) on the second account is nice, because the majority of my characters are on the other account and having a healer is always a good thing. Though I’m sure eventually I’ll make a tank class on her account that I can play my other healers with.

I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend. Screenshot is of Veksar, having an Indiana Jones moment (I’ve never actually seen any of the movies, someone told me this is in one of them though).

Pretties are always.. well, pretty!

Went out today looking for a wireless router and ended up finding a laptop for a fairly good price instead. Not complaining! I spent this morning doing awesome instances with Shadowgeist, Eyenstein, Kasul and Tipa, and then spent the rest of the day installing EQ2 and patching, installing trillian, Xfire, EQ2maps, and profit UI auto updater. I need to stick civilization on it as well as spore. I’ve never owned a laptop before, I know I’ve been out of the loop. 

I loaded up EQ2 to see if it would even run, and it did, surprisingly well. It’ll be odd for me to box on two different machines, in my 7 years of playing EQ1/EQ2 I’ve always boxed on the same machine. 

The laptop is not the best of the line by any means, it’s and acer with a 320g drive, 4g of DDR2, and a 15.6″ screen. It’s got vista, which is something else new to me – though I was well aware of the many issues people have with it. I made sure that everything is run in admin mode by default, and took some time getting used to the settings. It doesn’t ask me every instillation or update if I want to ok it first. 

The computer was only $650, though I didn’t have a wireless router at the time, I do now. 

It’s just nice to have it around, not even for the gaming aspect but my digital camera card plugs right in so I can edit photos while I’m out and play with settings before I get home and have lost a shot. I can stick all my chat programs on it while I’m playing on the ‘main’ gaming rig, and just simple stuff like that. 

Anyway, hopefully everyone had fun today doing instances. Maybe tonight I won’t be up until 3am, and up at 6am. It’s already after midnight though, so I guess we’ll see. 

More ramblings tomorrow, as always.

Boxing Issues

I turned off multi core support and attempted to box like I used to be able to do on balanced settings. This is apparently what happens when my video card over heats. 

Sort of interesting graphic, no?

Turns out no matter what settings I set my computer at, whether multi core is on or off, I can’t box like I used to. Not sure why, but it sucks. Looks like I’m buying a laptop in my near future. I miss boxing, and both my accounts are active. One account runs like magic and I can play on the highest settings and the game looks beautiful. I used to box (two accounts on one machine) on balanced settings with no issues, it was a lot of fun but stressful when I started to raid with both accounts. 

I’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a laptop anyhow, and this seems like a good one.

Home Sweet Home

I own a lot of houses in EQ2. Aside from crafting it’s one of my “I want to relax” hobbies that I dedicate a lot of time to when I don’t feel like adventuring. When guildhalls came out I knew I’d still be keeping my homes (and thus far I have) but I also knew I’d probably be downsizing some what. It’s not really because of the halls themselves either, but moving Silhouette from a 5-room Gorowyn home to a 3-room (and then yesterday to a one room) was something I’ve wanted to do for a bit and just had not been motivated.

The one room Gorowyn homes are absolutely huge and more then enough space. I did purchase the item expander, so I can have 200 items instead of 100 (and I’m at 150 currently, lots of room to grow) and I also bought the vault expander so I have 3 vaults for broker sales. Since each one of my characters has their own home, none of them fill up more then three sales crates with goodies, typically. 

I built the house loft style, since the Gorowyn homes have the highest ceilings I’ve ever seen. You could probably stand 6 sarnak on top of one another and still have room left over for a dwarf. I built a library and desk area on the main floor, along with the kitchen (pictured in the first screen shot) and then upstairs I have a little seating area with a bedroom. 

It’s not exactly fancy, but it suits my character just fine. 

The screen shot above is looking down from the loft area into the main room. Since I had downsized first from a 5 room to a 3 room, and then finally to the one room, I had a LOT of spare items left over. I stuck them all on the broker to try to make back some of the coin I spent decorating this past little while. A thank you to Kasul for fixing the stairs properly for me, those are simply not my strength. 

Aside from this one room in Gorowyn, I own two 5-rooms in South Qeynos that need an overhaul. Stargrace and Arysh have had their homes for a few years now with no updates aside from adding new little knickknacks to their collections. I also own a two room in Qeynos Harbor, and in East Freeport. Both of which need decorating. I haven’t really focused much on getting those done (obviously) but hey it’s all one big ongoing work in progress.

LoN, Housing, and a Cold

Feeling under the weather lately, with all the regular aches and pains that come along with it, I didn’t get a whole lot done yesterday. I did decide to move Silhouette out of her 5-room Gorowyn home and into a three room. There was just no reason for me to have such a huge house when I already own two 5-rooms in South Qeynos. I started thinking of ideas for her home but had a difficult time concentrating so I sort of piled everything at the door and I’ll come back to it another time.

I had heard that LoN (legends of Norrath card game) was giving out free things with their new Ethernaught scenarios and I decided to play a few rounds. First one I got replenishes 100% of your adventure vitality. Pretty cool little item except that most of my characters are level 80 and I don’t have room to make more. Apparently there is also a sales crate that reduces the broker fee, and a wand of forgiveness that erases experience debt. 

There’s quite a few debates over LoN going on right now. I’m quite impartial to the majority of them. I think some of the loot cards need a second look (ie: Letting players choose a random class hat of any class to wear that has no stats) but for the most part don’t really mind the items as they don’t have a huge affect on game play. I love the idea of rewarding loot cards to players for actually PLAYING the game, as opposed to being able to simply plunk down an amount of cash to buy booster packs and randomly winning one. There’s a player on my server who proclaims that they can sell any single loot card to anyone out there (for in game plat) as long as the price is right. That leads me to believe they have way too much cash to burn. Good for sony I suppose though, for being able to tap into such a profitable market. I think the in game announcements are a little too much at times, but for the most part those who don’t want anything to do with LoN don’t have to. Though everyone just got a free starter deck and 5 boosters, so they may actually want to at least check those out for any random loot cards. 

Crashed to desktop with an error when I tried to arrange my deck, apparently it’s quite common when you’re in very high graphic settings. I took it as a sign and decided to go to bed for the night. Of course it was quite early so I was up at 4am this morning. Ugh.