Tag: EQ2

Woohoo, it’s Friday, which means it’s almost the weekend, it’s also Nostalgia the guild night (North Ro LDoN I believe is our goal) Ironman comes out, and it’s just one of those fantastic days.  That’s my hope, at least. Last night was a hodge podge of smaller things that I decided to take care of in EQ2. First and foremost was preparing for those 4 extra bank slots we’re all going to be getting. The four extra shared slots are not really ‘extra’ per say. What they’ll be doing is combining the four good slots you have with the four evil. Since I have boxes in all 8, they’ll already be filled (I store my rares there, have I mentioned yet how EXCITED I am about this change and having a general area for me to put coin that all my characters can use?) but then there’s also the four extra slots each individual person will get. I typically sort each slot by tier for harvested goods, and this will allow me to have a few extra for general items that take up room (old quest pieces I’m afraid of losing, potions, /claim items that I don’t use right away, those sorts of things).

I also went through my house vaults on a few characters, having not checked them in so long they were growing cobwebs. Put things for sale on the broker which I also had not done in a very long time.

Aside from general cleaning and organizing, my carpenter finally hit level 40! That’s the highest level I’ve ever gotten a carpenter to, and I’ve started more then my fair share. It seems odd, since I have plenty of crafters, and most are high level – that I would have such difficulty with the one crafter I use more then any other crafter. Go figure. Screen shots today are random pictures of Arysh’ 5-room Qeynos house. Her game room and her library which is a constant work in progress. I have not added anything to her house in quite some time and I’m wondering where to start. With a carpenter around it’s a lot easier to plan on what I need and what I’d like as far as furniture goes. Her bedroom and portions of the attic could use a revamp. Even the main room is a little drab these days. Silhouette also owns a three room in Freeport that is drastically bare, having moved her there a few weeks ago and not even gotten past unloading the moving crate. I’ve had a lack of inspiration as far as decorating goes – though I think browsing through the Norrathian Homeshow may help to fix that.

Of course now it’s 15 minutes later since I got side tracked looking through the Homeshow – if you’re into EQ2 housing at all and decorating this is the forum for you. Just some fantastic work there. In specific this post here shows some simply amazing work and dedication to housing. Wow. It’s just, astounding what people think of to do with all the items we have in game. Out of all the games I’ve played, EQ2 handled housing the best. Though EQ1 has guild halls (you can’t decorate them) and Vanguard has ACTUAL houses that you physically build – EQ2 by far has the best array of items and goods that can be placed in your home, both crafted and quested.

Speaking of which, since I’d missed Erollisi Day in EQ2, I spent a little time looking up the house items and purchasing a few (quite a few). Who wouldn’t want perfume bottle, roses, candy, and pillows? There’s also an Erollisi bear that I’d like to get (plushi, of a white polar bear) but he’s 3p on the Najena server, and I may be able to swipe one from a friend instead. We’ll see how it goes.

Be sure to also check out the EQ2 Traders Corner for all the new housing updates, great screen shots of everything crafted, and a little peek at things to come. Doesn’t that place setting just look fantastic?

A huge array of changes coming to EQII, the ones that interest me most I’ve put in bold. You can read all test update notes here. A thank you to Rao for his post that made me want to go peek and see what else we were getting.

GAMEPLAY

• The time limit between repeatable faction quests in Sinking Sands has been removed.
• Damage that can not be resisted or mitigated will now be referred to as “focus” damage instead of crush/pierce/slash/poison/heat/cold/etc in combat chat messages.
• Corpses of powerful creatures will now stay locked for twenty minutes.
• Respawning near Jarsath Wastes in the Kylong Plains is slightly less dangerous.
• Mounts should now suspend while feigning death or riding on a griffon, sokokar or cloud.

QUESTS

• Grinash the Vicious and his pack will now trigger in the Steppes for players on “Vicious Assault”. Previously he would only trigger while on “The Cove of Decay – Kraughl’s Request”.
• Squire Kivan in Antonica will now give out the quest “Getting the Axe” to characters that he previously thought were too advanced for his quest.
• The No-Trade flag has been removed from a large number of book pages that were dropped from mobs or harvested from page spawns. Check your inventories!
• Clay golem hearts for “The Heart of Fear” quest in Cazic-Thule now drop as corpse loot instead of chest loot. They also will only drop while you are on the quest now.
• Multiple players should now be able to receive an update from killing Pawbuster when on that portion of the Conjuror Epic quest.
• Both the dropped and tradeskilled pristine fashioned nacre earring will now update the quest “Dukaris, Hero of the People”.

ITEMS

• The Nox Noctis Sword will no longer fit in the primary weapon slot.
• Deathfist Citadel crafted armor stats have been improved. Existing armor will automatically receive the upgrade.
• Duplicates of numerous books in the game that currently count toward one’s total house items are now available on Navarius Orvalis and Indis Surion for purchase if you fulfill the original requirements for having received the book (ie, if you completed the quest it was a reward on).

SPELLS

• The Karana deity pet and the sokokar pet should now stack together.
• Swindler’s Gift should now overwrite itself properly rather than giving an error about having a more powerful spell already.
• Coercer
  Possession has been renamed to Possess Essence. It now takes control of your target’s essence and makes them into a pet that you can control.
  Thoughtstones are no longer required as components for spells.
  The Despotic Mind line will now trigger off player based spell attacks. In addition there is a new level 80 version called Tyrranous Mind The other reactive lines have changed to be based on taking damage from when a spell hits the NPC.
  Puppetmaster has received an additional puppet.
  The Harmonious link line now reduces hate position when the player takes a melee hit.
• Conjuror
  Golem pets have now mastered the skill of walking silently.
• Crusader
  The Paladin and Shadowknight squires should no longer look differently after zoning.
• Enchanter
  The stun and stifle lines will now do damage rather than drain power.
  Enchanters will now also receive Call Servant and Shrink Servant at level 10.
• Illusionists
  The Personae line of pets should now nuke instead of attempting to power drain just like their owners do.
• Mystic
  The Ancient Balm line will now grant short duration immunities to any control effects it cures.
• Necromancer
  The Siphoning of Souls (Master II) will now also grant Master II abilities when it triggers on the death of an NPC.
  Essences of Anguish are no longer given out nor required as components for spells.
• Priests
  Cure Noxious, Elemental, Trauma and Arcane have been consolidated into one spell called Cure.
• Shadowknight
  Despoiling Mist line should once again apply the same number of mitigation buffs as members of the encounter.
• Warden
  Tranquility will now last 1 minute and attempt to cure impairments on the target several times.
• Warlock
  Nil Crystals are no longer required as components for spells.
  The Abhorrent Shroud line now has a power cost to replace the nil crystal requirement.
• Wizard
  The Surging Tempest line should now work as a dot with a triggered knockdown. This will make the spell work with Freehand Sorcery and Harmonization.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• You can now gain Achievement Experience from gray con quests that are level 10 or higher.
• Enchanter
  Volatile Magic will now be a 15% boost that is always on.
• Coercer
  Tashania will now debuff all magical resistances but slightly less than before.
  Coercive Healing will now give additional bonuses to reactive heal amount, beneficial casting time and beneficial reuse time.
  Manaward now acts as a true ward with a ratio of 1 health to 1.5 power.

BROKER

• You can now search the broker for items which give double attack, critical chance and damage additions.

PVP RULESET

• Executioner’s Fury should no longer put you into combat when it triggers.

BANK

• On all servers:
  Banks how have four extra slots for a total of twelve bank slots per character.
  Shared banks now have four extra slots for a total of eight shared bank slots per account.
  Shared banks now allow you to share coin between characters on the same account.
  Exiled characters continue to be unable to use shared banks with other characters on the same account.
• On PVE servers:
  Shared banks are now shared between good and evil characters on the same account.
  If you have all four slots filled in both good and evil shared banks currently, they will be combined into a new eight slot shared bank.
  Both coin and items can be shared with characters on the same account regardless of alignment.
• On PVP servers:
  Shared banks are still alignment based. However we have added four extra slots to each alignment’s shared bank (for a total of eight shared bank slots per alignment) and the ability to share coin between characters of the same alignment on one account.

TRAVEL

• If you have a Sokokar, flight posts in Chardok will now allow you to fly to any post that a group member has access.
• The “mysterious portal’ in Gorowyn now allows level 65+ tradeskillers to pass through, as well as level 65+ adventurers.

TRADESKILLS

• Weaponsmiths and woodworkers have learned to create recipes for new, more desirable crafted weapons with a choice of new effect.
• Geomancy arts should now appear in the crafting window in an order consistent with the other tradeskill reaction arts.
• You should no longer get less status for doing a level 70 tradeskill writ than you would for doing a level 69 writ.
• Ferrite throwing daggers are now correctly described as handcrafted.
• Advanced Artisan volume One is now available from tradeskill recipe book vendors around Norrath.
• Crafted shurikens can now be made at lower level ranges. Weaponsmiths have also rediscovered where they left their recipe books for throwing ammo.

UI

• You can now choose to show quest-giver icons for quests you have out leveled.
• Under Options -> User Interface -> Name and Chat Bubble -> NPC Overhead Quest Icons for Outleveled Quests
• The command “/inventory unequip all” will unequip all of your gear except food, drink and appearance items.
• Setting the option to now show third party damage combat bubbles will now also apply to third party heals
• Detailed arrows on implied target window are no longer cut off.

The most important ones to me out of the whole compilation – is the choice to be able to turn on quest giver icons even when you’ve out leveled the quest, and the bank ones. So many times I’ve wondered how much content I’ve out leveled and never done the quest for. I am very happy with this change, and even happier because I’ve /feedback it quite a few times now. Someone out there listened.

The day was filled with house items, and you can never go wrong with that. I started talking to an old friend of mine from my Lucan D’Lere days, Krai who plays a brigand. We’ve kept in touch despite me switching games, and servers, and I consider her a great friend. She also happens to know of my obsessive house item collecting passion and casually mentioned to me that she had a spare LoN painting that I could have. Of course I squealed and jumped around my living room in joy – she also mentioned she had a female dwarf mannequin that was sitting unused (also from LoN). Since we can both trade from that platform I logged in and she gave me the painting pictured above. What a fantastic image to have in my house. Of course now I need to design some sort of music area to take better advantage of it. Arysh does not have a piano in her house, unlike Stargrace and Petites. I’m not sure if I actually want to add one yet, or just keep with the smaller instruments, we’ll see.

The dwarf mannequin was actually pleasant to at, mostly because it now displays my newest crafting cloak – no, not the master cloak, but the T6 one that I’d quested for today. One thing I didn’t realize is that you don’t actually physically put the item on the mannequin. It doesn’t act as storage in other words. I have a small crafting area set up in the house (the woodworking station can be seen on the left hand side) and decided to display the cloak (which has a symbol of a bow and arrow I believe.. not too keen on it, it makes me feel like a ranger not a woodworker) for people to see if they ever venture into my house.

The items didn’t stop there, either. I had gotten an email from Rao, of Gestalt Mind, explaining the book quest he wrote about a few days prior. Apparently my site is being picky and not allowing some people to comment. I’m trying to figure it out (with no luck) to fix. Anyhow, I logged into game and saw he was online harvesting, and promptly in true Stargrace fashion began chattering away. Once I find an opening it’s hard to get rid of me, be warned *grins*.

I worked on the crafter tier quests, and finally got to the one I’d been wanting from the start – it rewards you with a book for your house. Not just any book, no, this is Bertox’s health guide.

Is it any wonder the liaison was sick to begin with if she was taking tips from that book on the floor covered in slime?

None the less it’s a fantastic house item and if you don’t mind traveling to and from your home city to sinking sands a few times, you’ll have no issues completing it. Lower level adventurers may have a harder time trying to navigate around a few aggressive cats and snakes, but it’s still completely doable.

Besides chattering with friends, and all of the amazing house items I got today, last night I managed to get Petites (the templar) to level 74 from running quests and turning in a few collections that she’d yet to pick up. I’m hoping to be able to reach 75 tonight so that I can move on to the more interesting RoK zones. We’ll see how that goes. It was double exp weekend this weekend in EQ2, but the message failed to say what levels it was for. I’m not sure that my 70+’s are benefiting, as they typically make the bonus exp weekends for lower levels. It sure didn’t feel like she was getting double the amount in any case – I could be wrong. Tomorrow I’ll spend some time wandering around EQ1 and attempt a few quests, next Friday is another meeting of Nostalgia of course, and the goal is to reach close to level 15. Some have already done that in their eagerness, and I feel as though I’ll be left behind – however, arranging this as a weekly event is to prevent that from happening.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, no matter what realm you were in (yes, even real life).

Since my foray into EQ1, I decided to get station access activated again. Makes sense now that I’d have access to Vanguard, EQ1, and EQ2. The price is actually worth it, in this case. My WoW account is free for this month, so we’ll see where that goes. I haven’t logged in since Thursday. Hey, I never claimed to be one to settle down in any mmo. I’m slowly getting used to that fact though and not berating myself over it any more. After spending last night in EQ1 (more about that to come in another post) I decided this morning I’d patch my UI, update my maps, and log into EQ2.

Right away I spotted a quest giver next to me in South Qeynos. Closer inspection showed it offered one of the newer quests ‘dispelling the hate‘ which rewarded me with the house item pictured above. A fountain. Perfect for the garden Arysh has in the works. In all the time I’ve played EQ2, the house items are what always seem to get me. I just love them.

There’s idle talk of me leveling up my templar (who’s been 73 forever now) and maybe maybe maybe getting into some raiding with her. I’m not sure if I want to get back into that yet. We’ll see how it goes. Since I’ve limited my play time (by a huge amount) I am reluctant to throw myself into too much right now. Evenings of course are fairly free for me still with no other obligations. I’d also like to finish leveling up my coercer, who’s been sitting at 77 for quite some time. Especially with the revamp to the class incoming in a bit. I read this post that mentioned it gave some sort of house item reward, a book.. so of course now I have to figure out which quest that is and where it came from and how I too can have a new house item. I’ve missed the last couple of events, brew day, valentines, april fools and thus the items that are associated with them. Hopefully I can still pick up a few quests here and there that give items I’d like for my home though. Not to mention the enormous library Arysh has that encompasses a full wall. I want to continue working on that.

As far as ‘playable’ characters, I’ve got the 80 warden (Arysh), 77 coercer (Ishbel), and the 73 templar (Petites). The others (80 troubador, 75 illusionist, 58 necromancer) are sitting on Antonia Bayle still, where they’ll remain unless SOE allows some free transfers. I just can’t afford to move everyone all over the place. It’s difficult, now that I have friends who span across multiple games, multiple servers. How do you pick where to play, and what to do, and who to do it with. If anything, playing various games has taught me to work time management a whole lot.

I finally finished my jeweler epic last night, thanks to the help of Gholdmoon, one of my good friends in EverQuestII. She’s one of a few who are attempting to get ALL the epics for all 9 crafters, and finished off two more last night. I needed four more pieces, two of which she made for me, and two which I asked around for. The only disappointing portion of the whole ordeal was the lack of help from other crafters. I’d asked a few times if anyone could help me with the final two pieces I needed and gotten no reply at all. But as soon as I threw some coin into the deal (5p.. I know that’s a lot but what else was I going to do with the money) I instantly got tells. I know how these things work, and I knew adding some coin to the offer would get me results. Even though I was supplying all rares. One of the two who did the combine for me DID mail the coin back as I made his portion as well- and for that I thank him. The earring is very nice, the cloak is just stunning on any halfling alive though, I’ve got to admit. Now I just need to find an outfit that will match the purple from the cloak. I like the unique look of these cloaks, and along with the scroll case above, this was one happy halfling. You also get a title “Master Jeweler” for example, was mine. You get 1 of each T8 rare- though honestly I’d rather have been reimbursed for the T5 rares I used since their prices have shot up so much. I’d love to do this quest on my other crafters, but because they’re all split between servers right now I doubt it’ll happen any time in the near future.

Aside from the crafting epic, I managed to finish the new Bristlebane Day quests, which was indeed bugged on the Freeport side. The quest starts outside the major cities, a distraught halfling will be screaming about the gods coming after them, in Commonlands by the West Freeport Gate (down the path a bit) in Antonica outside the South Freeport Gate (by a tent, you’ll see the flashing quest light) also in Gorowyn and Darklight Woods. The quest is cute and amusing- more so if you can get the quest to actually work. It worked fine on the Qeynos version for me, but I could not get the gnoll to spawn that I needed in the Commonlands. At the end Bristlebane himself (or a representation there of) comes and tells you it was all a joke, and hands you some house items.

Mmm house items. The pot is amusing, especially if you turn it on. Very bright. On the same note, have you taken a look at your fire place flames lately? The new “foolish” option is interesting to say the least. Must be some crazy gnome invention of fire proof paper.

I managed to ding the carpenter to 35, though I’m running out of vitality fast. I do have all sorts of experience potions which I may take advantage of. I just want to get out of this tier and into the next one. I also want to get some adventuring in since it’s been so long. That will more then likely have to wait until another day though, we’ll see how it goes. A few friends keep talking to me about pre-ordering WAR, but I honestly am not sure that I have any interest in playing. Meh. I’ve hit another one of those “restless” stages. Not sure what I want to play or do, or what direction I’m really headed in any more. Happens, though.