Tag: EQ2

I started off the night playing my coercer. I had plans of leveling her to 78 – which should have been easy, seeing as I was only 20% away. I headed to Jarsath Wastes, to finish some faction quests there. I’m still trying to obtain her gate hammer. However, after working on one of the quests for no more then 10 minutes – I was invited to join Siege and a contested Mayong kill – with my 74 templar, who has been on the final stage of soulfire literally, forever.

Of course I jumped at the chance. When would I ever see Mayong again and actually get to kill him? Oh, I’ve killed him before, don’t get me wrong. I’ve done Mistmoore’s Inner Sanctum numerous times but never with the templar who was the only one of my characters to actually require the kill. There are three versions of Mayong you can kill for your Soulfire update. One is contested Mayong who spawns in the Castle. The other, is of course the MMIS Mayong, instanced. The third is in the Tunarian Throne room – which I have never been to.

Contested Mayong has three aoe’s that hurt. One has a power drain, two stun. We two grouped it, and everyone was level 80 except me at level 74. I was the only healer for my group and by the end (there are adds, bats and vampires) I was running low on power – but we did it. Or rather, Siege did it and I healed my little halfling heart out. I out healed the MT templar, too. Go figure.

So now Petites has her new shiny, and oh it’s so shiny. Yes, I know it’s an expansion too late, but I’m still proud that I got it.

I know with epics out it trivializes these Soulfire weapons. I’m still proud of all the hard work I put into the weapon though. It was a LONG painful series of quests. I have other (all) alts who are on various stages, but Petites I can say completed it. It’s funny. Petites is also my “original” main. She has her prismatic 1.0 where I had to kill Darathar. I also was on Najena for that quest. I did it with Allure, an Australian guild. The Godking weapon, I completed on my warden. Claymore, also on the warden. Epics, I have yet to start on anyone. We’ll see how that goes. I’m thinking coercer, but one can never tell. The templar is just not something I can level up through RoK content. Especially not solo. It would take me a year. The idea of grinding out all those faction quests (again) is just… leaves me with a horrible feeling inside. So I imagine she’ll stay lower level for quiet some time. She even has her Thuuga ring already completed (the fabled one quested in Kylong Plains) but needs more levels before she can wear it.

On an unrelated note, I moved Silhouette to Gorowyn. She now owns a 5 room house, and it’s absolutely huge. The rent is only 5g a week, no status. I had no idea, but the city also has a port to Kylong Plains. It’s got a carpet to sinking sands, which can access Freeport and Neriak. It’s also got a griffin to butcherblock, which means I can access everything, easily. To move, all I did was talk to two people, one in Freeport, and then one in Gorowyn. It was far too simple, but I suppose some times simple is good. Looking forward to decorating it and seeing what I can come up with.

Silhouette is my carpenter, much loved. She’s also my coercer, level 77. I love the class. I love everything about this character. I’ve decided to actually devote some time into her – I typically play EQ2 this way: Person says “Oh, we could really use such and such class” – and I run out and make it if I don’t already have it. I rarely ever play what I enjoy, because I enjoy whatever is needed and wanted. If it’s not needed or wanted, chances are I’ll bore of it. I know that’s a horrible way to play a game, but that’s been my ‘tactic’ so to speak for a little while now. It doesn’t work out. The coercer is one of those classes I play for myself. I just simply love it. I can accomplish so much while I’m alone that it doesn’t feel dreary. Its also complicated enough to keep me interested. Anyhow, I digress.

One conversation me and a good friend were having, was the state of guilds, specifically guild status, and how SOE sort of made a bad move.

Currently, this is how status items work. They’re the little documents and relics that drop from mobs. Right now, they are level restricted. If a guild is level 50 they can only contribute status via items that are also level 50 and up. What this means, is that lower level players, can not contribute their items towards guild status. It leaves them out of the loop. Yes, I understand that there are also writs in order to get status, but why should they be forced into a particular method of leveling the guild that they are just as much a part of as anyone else.

I understand (or think I do) why SOE implemented this method a few years back. I also think there was a better way, though. They obviously wanted to cut down the number of people who would easily farm lower tier items and turn them in by the mountains. Now if you’re a level 75+ guild, you need level 75+ items to turn in. Because I feel that this excludes newer / smaller leveled characters, what I thought about was simple:

Why not just make the items NOT drop from gray mobs.

That way, at least SOME effort was put into obtaining the relics. You know they were not just easily spam harvested, and if they were, at least someone was mentored / benifiting aside from just simply harvesting these tokens. The poor new level 20 can turn in his items finally. Even if he’s buying them from the broker, how is that any different then purchasing the level 75+ ones in order to level your guild. The lower level items give less status as it is, there’s nothing else that needs to be changed.

Small guilds have been at a severe disadvantage ever since the revamps. You used to get more status (when the guild level cap was 50) for having less people in your guild, then you would for having a full guild. That actually made sense to me, you have less people working towards the goal of leveling your guild then you would a raid guild, for example. However, it could be abused. Kick everyone out, level it with two people in the guild, etc. Small guilds were out leveling the larger raid guilds, and of course oh no we couldn’t have that now could we.

Another solution? I think we should be able to flag our guilds for certain rewards. Let me explain.

Be able to flag your guild as a crafting guild. For all of the crafting writs you do, you earn x2 the normal experience of a writ. Your guild also unlocks specific crafting items, perhaps house items that give buffs, or a set of gear that can improve your crafting, maybe some special recipes.

Then you have a guild flagged as a raid guild. For each raid zone they clear, they earn x2 the total amount of status for that raid zone. They unlock trinkets specific to raiding that will AID them but are NOT essential to a raid. It shouldn’t make or break a raid, it should just give them incentive to raid and work that status.

You could have a guild flagged as a questing guild. The EQ2players site keeps track of the average number of quests your guild has completed per person. There’s so much potential with the information that’s kept online, it can be taken any number of ways. Once a week perhaps, take the number of quests completed, and add a small amount of status per quest turn in. Or something along those lines. Again, have them able to unlock rewards that would base around questing.

If you want to flag your guild as a different sort, have them drop 20 levels, and have to re-earn their guild status, and unlock the new ‘type’ of guild rewards.

Maybe add tabards, so that we have a better way of displaying guild heraldry that doesn’t require covering up the very pretty cloaks they keep releasing. I never display mine, I’d rather wear the crafting ones. The guild cloak designs leave a lot to be desired. Why not allow people to create guild banners for their homes, or allow them to put the guild symbol on a shield.

There’s so much untapped potential out there with these things. I understand it takes time, and money, and well, a desire, to get this stuff anywhere. They’re just a few ideas I had though.

Speaking of all these new ideas. I also feel that EverQuest2 has really missed the boat on “busy work” for people to do once they’ve hit level 80. EQ2 lacks two very significant things EQ1 has. One, is proper aa. I’m not talking about the ones we have now, but the meaningless busywork ones that we should be able to get. For example, aa that let you choose a second crafting class. An aa perhaps that extends your food and drink. Another for enduring breath. Perhaps run speed (unbuffed). You know the stuff. That we all KNOW is busywork, but keeps us interested anyhow. Take a look at EQ1 and see just how many aa are out there. A lot of them are things that don’t affect you as a raider or adventurer, but are just other means of character progress. As it is now, people can reach level 80, finish their aa’s, and basically be “done” with the game. There needs to be more meaningless busywork. Even if we KNOW it is meaningless, it’s still SOMETHING to do.

Alongside of that busywork, would be LDoN (Lost Dungeons of Norrath). You remember the adventures EQ1 has, that lets you travel in a dungeon with 3+ people and caters to how many are in your group. You can select normal or difficult, and there are goals like killing X number of mobs, or rescuing an npc, etc. You earn points, for these missions, which unlock gear, augments, spells, and any number of other “things” that people deem fit to have (and plenty that are just garbage too). There are leadership boards, and you can check your status for successful runs vs. failed. It’s also experience for people, and when they’ve hit end game and don’t quite have all the points they need to purchase that thing on the LDoN vendor, they keep doing them.

Right now, the only thing EQ2 has to keep end game folks around – is alts. That’s all they have. Once you have your level 80/80 with complete aa’s, and your mythical – what exactly is keeping you playing? You’re not supposed to be able to “beat” an mmo. It’s supposed to be an ever going game. Right now people are playing on raid nights only because there’s simply nothing else to do. SOE needs to give them something else to do that is NOT just another raid or instance. It’s natural for folks to want to see progress on their characters. They want to constantly feel that they are moving forward. This stagnant feeling that’s going through the ranks is something that has to be quelled, and again not with some new raid zone or instance, but with actual personal character progress.

Ok, so they don’t really walk into a bar, but those are the three new characters I’ve created in just as many days. Why do you ask? Why does a person who already had 7 alts need MORE? Well, easy. Just because. I used to have two accounts, dropped one and got station access instead. On the closed account sits my “questing monk” who was a pure solo character that I did nothing but quest on. It was time to re-create her on the Najena server and start over. So there was alt #8. Then I decided since I deleted my 72 mystic (also on the other account) that I’d re-create her, too. This character would be a power leveled character though since I’ve already leveled a defiler / mystic up and didn’t really have too much patience to do it the “usual” way. Yesterday the defiler went from level 10-22 with the help of an 80 shadowknight mentoring. Go figure. Wailing Caverns was my home for two hours, and I killed anything that moved and quite a few things that didn’t move, too. That’s alt #9.

Alt #10 has a purpose. I’ll be playing a few nights here and there with Mayadhros (High Elf Paladin) and Dunnos (Froglok shaman). Thus I created a Half Elf Swashbuckler. I’ve played swashbucklers before, but never past level 30 or so. I had a brigand level 38 (again, on the closed account) and figured why not. We all made it to level 10 playing last night, and doing a lot of really fun quests.  I’m not sure how fast / often we’ll level, but in the mean time it’s fun to have a steady bunch of people to play with. One of the high points of playing with Nostalgia the Guild in EQ1 as well.

The past few weeks I’ve started missing raiding, and I’ve been contemplating trying to get back into it. I’m thinking for now it may just be too late. I don’t know anyone on Najena, and that poses a few issues. Plus my characters are not all 80 yet, I have two level 80’s (Troubador and Warden) and then a bunch hovering from 74-77 or so. Of course the biggest issue is the not knowing anyone portion. Najena has plenty of guilds – but a lot are also UK guilds or EU. They raid during the day time EST. There’s only a hand full of guilds raiding EST, one I know for sure raiding PST. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll probably just wait for the next expansion to release, and see where I’m sitting then. I hate falling behind in things, but it’s inevitable when my attention wanes.

Today I’m hoping to get either some levels for the illusionist, coercer, or faction for both, or some crafting (carpenter) levels on the coercer. We’ll see how it goes though. Knowing me I’ll decide to do something completely different, and I’ll wander off to start a quest I’ve had for a bit that’s gray, or what have you. I’m hoping the newest GU for EQ2 goes in soon, I know it’s on test already, so a week or two more and it should be moved to live as long as everything is going well. I’m so excited about the changes to quests, and banks. I just can’t say that enough.

The Field of Bone in EQ2 is slightly different then EQ1 – if for no other reason then the fact that it’s much higher level – and Kurns Tower has shut it’s door on a permanent basis until it’s implemented (though we’ve been waiting for that since the release of RoK last year). The zone itself is Fens of Nathsar, and it’s home to more then 100 quests. There are multiple factions in the zone that you get to work up, Bathezid Watch, Rillis, some Droga Exiles, and Bellywhumpers. The majority of the quests are your typical kill X number of Y mobs, which get boring real fast. The experience is drab, I think I was getting about .05% per kill and 1.5% a quest turn in with full vitality of course. In RoK vitality (rest bonus, basically) is pretty worthless except for crafting. You’ll never burn through it. The entire expansion on all my characters I’ve never had less then 80% vitality.

On the plus side, Shadowgeist and I headed to Kunzar Jungle, a zone just off of Fens and slightly higher level. I managed to get the last 30% I needed, and hit level 75 on the illusionist. Which means next time Shadowgeist can drag me through Jarsath Wastes, and I can do the higher level quests there now and forgo some of the quests at least in Fens. Of course knowing me, I’ll still eventually do them all. Especially the ones that reward faction, as I’m eager to purchase the provisioner recipes. Not so much the food that lasts for 10 minutes (although that’s great for raids and named fights) but the two charm items that the provisioner class is able to make. Chromatic essences are down to 15-20g on Najena, and I have a few tucked away in my bank.

Speaking of banks, I can’t help but wonder when the new game update is going in, so we’ll have combined banks. That is going to be absolutely awesome.

In two more levels or so I can start doing some of the instances in RoK, and getting a few more upgrades. The quest rewards have been great so far. I’m also eager to hit 80, so I can start working on my epic. I don’t expect I’ll ever get the mythical version but there’s no reason why I can’t at least get the fabled.  We’ll just see how that goes though.

Tonight is Monday, so I’ll be playing Vanguard with Growlius, I’m not sure where we’ll be exploring now that we’ve finished the Bounty Hunter quest line but I’m sure I’ll write about it tomorrow.

This weekend was by far one of the best weekends I’ve had in EverQuestII in a long time, and I didn’t even really accomplish that much. It started typically enough. I meandered around Fens of Nathsar with Shadowgeist, looking for trouble levels. This zone (out of all the RoK zones) gives the least amount of experience for their turn ins, and I find them boring and drab. The goal is to try to get to 75 asap (I’m 74, currently) so that I can bypass those quests and do the ones in Jarsath Wastes that return 10% experience when you grab all four working faction for Danak Shipyard. Eventually it comes with a nice piece of gear and a hunter title. I completed a lot of quests along with Shadowgeist’ help (nice mythical, by the way.. ) and when he went off on his own for a bit I decided it was time Stargrace did her crafting epic.

Now, I have this completed already with Petites, my jeweler / templar. However, each category of crafter (outfitter, craftsman, scholar) has their own quest line to do for the fourth quest. My previous scholar one took me to an instance in Maj’dul, where I flung books at bad guys and frantically clicked on more books trying to find pages and then restore them. This time around I was sent to a special instance in Nektulos Castle, to ward away swarms of giants rats. Big, mean, ugly 20 levels higher then me rats. I got to design a rat trap, and catch them and kill them. It was a lot of fun, and easier then the maj’dul instance once I knew my way around.

Then came to the portion of the epic I’d been dreading. Gathering together 8 other crafters (plus myself) to comission pieces for the final turn in. I don’t know too many on Najena yet, aside from my good friends Albrta and Eyenstein, a couple who play. Albrta is one of those fanatic crafters who has one of almost everything, and she offered to help. She had to leave for a while though, so in the mean time I decided to ask on channels if anyone could help. The first few times went by with 0 response. If you recall last time I did this quest, I actually had to offer to pay people to do the combines for me. I didn’t want to do that this time around, we honestly pay for enough.

Then I get a tell, from Omay, who says they have ALL the crafters, and can make every piece for me. I sat there stunned for a second, it sounded too good to be true.

Not only do they make all of the pieces, they are a guild dedicated to crafting, and helping others craft. They accept NO donations (I tried) for their work. I’m not sure that English was their first language, but they were by far some of the friendliest people I’d met to date. Their inn room was decorated for crafting, they seemed to have done this a time or two before, making small chat about whether I knew what to do next, and how I should spend my time looking for the chia hidden in the inn room some place as they crafted for me.

I think I remained stunned the rest of the time there.

After they’d crafted every single piece for me, they played fire works and congratulated me, and on my way I went for the turn in. A huge thank you to them, and their guild “Wing and a Prayer” another thank you to the fine people (there were three, whose names I forget now) at Siege, who crafted the first three pieces for me. Omay and his slew of crafters told me if I ever needed any help with anything crafted, to send them a tell and they would help. I was stunned. Here I’d thought there was no crafting community on Najena – the channels are practically always silent. Low and behold, an entire guild dedicated to it.

So I finished my second crafter epic, and now I just need to get some faction with Rillis, Bathezid, and Danak for the special provisioner recipes, including some very nice charms made with chromatic essences that I want to pick up.

It was a great weekend, what can I say. I got the new cloak, earing, house item scroll, title, one of every T8 rare, and met some wonderful people along the way.

Oh, and as another great point? This entire guild, was halflings, except for one half elf who helped me out.