Tag: EQ2

Silverstep and Stargrace hang out in Qeynos Harbor together now

Incase I have not mentioned it yet, I really am enjoying two boxing in EQII. With the shadowknight tank class around that my boyfriend plays, a fury and an illusionist (both who buff int, and haste / dps as well as spell procs and the like, can’t forget that power regen) the mobs die fast and there’s little to no down time. It was a good decision on my part I feel, especially with the amount of time that I play. So what have I been up to?

I need some transmuted parts for a heritage quest. They’re going for about 1-2p each piece, and I need 12 pieces per character. Needless to say I refuse to actually pay that. I decided that in the time it would take me to even come close to affording that, I could probably work my own transmuting to the skill required, then it’s just a matter of farming adepts and legendary T7 items to provide the powders I’m looking for. My skill in transmuting just reached 100, which is where the fun begins as I can no longer get skill ups from physically transmuting items, but now I have to make the combines in order to achieve them. Not looking forward to the slow grind, but it doesn’t bother me quite that much. I am farming the supplies myself with my lower level characters, Misako specifically who is level 27 and around the range I need for materials. This is the way I figure it:

There are pleanty of quests with item rewards (and coin) that I have not yet done. The ones from Antonica, Commonlands, Nektulos Forest, and Thundering Steppes off of the top of my head. If I mentor for turn ins but complete the quests while I’m level 70, it will help me in numerous ways. Giving me gear for transmuting, money for purchases, and on completion aa, which is always a huge deal. I need 19 more on the fury, and 10 more on the illusionist to hit my 100 for each character. Once I’ve finished all of the quests in each of those zones, I should (hopefully) be on the next tier of transmuting, where I’d do the corresponding quests and get more items / money / quest counts along the way. That’s my plan at least. We’ll have to see how it really goes. It’ll give me a lot of time to prepare my “forgotten zones” posts that I’d like to make as well. So much still to do, I love it. There’s lore and legends, the quest count, and signature quests that I’ve been trying to finish off. A few things there’s no sign I’ll ever be able to complete them (like the world event quest for marr’s chosen, which requires a level 50 raid zone, and those who are level 70 must mentor down or else they can’t zone in… which really sucks might I add). I’m certainly happy with my home in EQII.

The former Torrent Knights, about to kill Chel’Drak

One unfortunate side to MMO gaming is the fact that eventually, everyone moves on. Whether you are a life-time MMO player or not, it’s very rare you’ll see people play the same game for more then a few years. The games evolve, the people change, and we all wander that path and head different places. Over my years of gaming (5 now) I’ve met some fantastic people. Those who have become my closest friends and who I talk to on the phone as well as in game. People who I send Christmas cards to and who I would have never met were it not for the online community that I’d found. The above screen shot is my former guild, Torrent Knights. Towards the end, I felt that the guild was headed towards self destruction, they’d been asking folks to leave who simply could not attend a certain amount of raids due to real life issues. I don’t typically last long in guilds, and especially not raiding guilds, but TK was different. They were a close bunch of people who I felt very comfortable around. It was not just raiding (though it eventually turned to that) but felt like home.

With the onset of Vanguard the core of the guild left. What was once a some what hard core raiding guild degraded into something far more casual where now perhaps 4-5 people hang out while crafting or working on forgotten quests (myself included). I won’t forget those I’ve met though, or the stories we shared. Is it silly to think of this virtual world in such a sentimental manor? Of course not. Online or not, the emotions and feelings you can discover are not any less valid then a real life friendship (at least in my eyes – granted I’m exceptionally emotional, so I can be completely wrong here).

So where do I go from here? Do I attempt to find yet another new home or do I wander around Norrath on my own and form new friendships and do those dreaded pick up groups (yes yes, I know not ALL pick up groups are bad). It took me almost a year to find TK and settle in there. I’m not looking forward to searching for another home. I’ve got my small level 9 crafting guild with my alts, but the level 70’s still sport the TK tag for now. I do miss raiding on occasion, and there are still a few raiding guilds on LDL. Just not sure if any interest me, or if any are recruiting the classes that I play. I think it’s a shame that a new MMO came out (beta in a box at that) and my entire guild fell apart. The leadership and officers also went about it in a pretty crappy way. One day TK was raiding fine, and two weeks later they were completely done. Such is the way of MMO’s I suppose.

On a side note – there are plenty of guilds who are thriving and doing just fine since Vanguard has released, and in the 20-29 channel it’s been teaming with people who have moved to EQII due to the issues they’ve had with Vanguard. I think half of my sentimental feelings about the loss of TK is simply because I’m watching the other raid guilds move on and do content that we’d never finished off.

Stargrace on her pretty new horse

This weekend I actually got a bit done (for once). Well, I didn’t actually get a lot done, but I did finish off ‘Trading Information’ which is one of THE most annoying quests in the entire claymore line. If you hang out in SoS long enough and in the 60-69 channel, you’ll eventually learn of this dreaded quest. Part of the claymore chain and by the time people are through with it they don’t want to go back to SoS any more. I can’t say I blame them. Having already completed the claymore on my fury, I was not exactly that keen to jump right back in and try to complete it on both my illusionist and my templar. Since the templar has yet to even start the dreaded quest, but the illusionist was almost done the SoS portions, I figured I’d try to get some of it done. With Shadowgeist (70 Shadowknight), and a 70 wizard from guild, along with my fury and illusionist (boxed) we spent a few hours in there, clearing what we felt like clearing and training everything else. A master or two dropped and lots of vendor trash which is never a bad thing for me. Under the ‘quick link’ section on the left hand side I have the entire claymore quest posted. I’ve got one more quest to complete in SoS (which is not *horribly* bad, but bad none the less) and then I can move on (finally).

Made a little coin on the broker, but have been spending it as well, gearing up alts and purchasing masters for those of my gals who need them. My fury needs one more master and then she’ll have all of hers. The illusionist and templar both need a few more. I’ve been pondering playing my assassin for a bit, she’s been stuck at level 46 for quite some time now. Would be nice to at least get her to 50.

I still have lots of language quests and L&L quests to go through that I haven’t even attempted yet. Perhaps that’ll be a goal for today, to work on some of those. Couldn’t hurt at least. They do have to get done some time. I boxed the conj and the templar together and finished off the clockwork L&L in Klak’Anon, the kills were a little slow using the conj’s tank pet (not to mention every spell I have is app1 for now until I upgrade – except my pets which are all adept3) so I switched it out for a scout pet. Adds were a small issue but the mobs were mostly green / blue and I had fun working on the quest. The body drops were far too rare, my only issue. Of course there’s gotta be some challenge to the quest other wise why bother.

Dasie, who some how got dropped from group – hey wait. I’M Dasie…

I did my first Unrest group yesterday, having very fond memories of this EQLive zone it was certainly a walk down memory lane. Exceptional care was taken with this zone. The script was fun, even if the zone itself is quite long to complete. About 3 hours total with a few breaks. We wiped twice, both times from shiny traps. Those shinnies are killers. Literally. The first time spawned a whole lot of billy dolls onto us, and the second time just spawned.. stuff. Lots of stuff. The on our way back after the first wipe the Bugaboo (level 80 epicx2 who HAS been killed – just not on my server) decided he’d like to chew a few group members.

There were a few favorite parts for me, of course my least favorite part would have to be when you’re in the kitchen area at the lockers and when the zombie pop in front of your screen much like the halloween crow reward did – scare the living daylights out of you especially if you’re not expecting it and no one warned you. It also actually scared me when the picture below happened to my screen, as though it were possessed. VERY awesome effect.

… just plain scarey

Couldn’t even see my group members, only the skull and the eerie static, mixed between the sounds of the house which I eventually turned down. So what I’m a big baby! The loot was not too bad. The vendor trash loot sold for fairly well, 15-17g each piece. Stuff that was of no use for anyone to actually wear, but again, plenty dropped as vendor trash. It was also a lucky run my first time through. The group consisted of myself playing Dasie (my templar) a 70 Shadowknight, Wizard, Necromancer, Fury, and a 68 Paladin. The templar legendary class hat dropped, so Dasie won that. She also got a legendary dagger with a disease proc on it that will come in handy on the fae dirge I’ve decided to level up (eventually). The end boss typically drops one of the legendary set chest pieces – and I didn’t care which one dropped so long as someone from the group could make use of it. Typically they just end up rotting. Thankfully earlier on in the zone I was going to box my illusionist / fury along – but then a second fury joined the group so I switched both out and just brought my templar (the templar and illusionist are on the same account so I could not bring both). I had camped the illusionist out in the zone, and it was probably a good thing I did, as the illusionist/coercer robe dropped at the end. It’s a very pretty dress, dark purple with lighter purple markings.

Another wonderful house trophy

As the final boss went down, I got some mail which I was expecting, and joyfully placed the skull in Dasie’ inn room in the Baubleshire. She’s not typically one for keeping such gruesome trinkets, but hey there’s a first time for everything. My advise for this zone – be sure you go in with someone who knows the script. It’s complicated and you could be there a long time if you’re not sure what to do. Get all of the outdoor sections done first, and assign one person to collect the pieces needed to unlock the various doors. We also assigned one person to collect the shinnies, and then we randomed on them so that not just one person hounded them all (though it didn’t exactly work out well) it seems like the more instance runs I do that have shinnies like Nek3.0 and Unrest the greedier people become for them. Two healers meant we could get by without a mezzer, but we probably could have survived with one (good) healer if we’d brought an enchanter along. The zone was not overly difficult, the hag fight, was lots of fun. Freeing people from the jail cells (AFTER the mobs inside were dead, people having learnt that lesson before) was great. All in all, very pleased with this zone and looking forward to completing it on the other characters I have, hopefully a few times. The class hat and chest piece drops make it a very attractive zone to do. As well as some nice legendary jewelry pieces, a wand, a cape, and a few other pretties. If you haven’t been yet, be sure to check it out.

Stargrace standing on the rock to the left, amidst the Lucan D’Lere Raid Alliance

I don’t typically do pick up raids, for numerous reasons. They usually end up being huge disasters that leave me with large repair bills and a sour taste in my mouth. So last night when I was randomly sent a tell on my illusionist asking if I wanted to join a Deathtoll raid, I surprised even myself by saying sure I’d tag along. The Lucan D’Lere Raid Alliance is a mixture of mostly Legends of the Tundra (with wonderful coercer Rorion leading that night’s raid) with some unguilded, and Salarionn acting as tank for the night from Forsaken (which is a fairly acomplished T7 raid guild). There was a member or two from HoE, as well as myself from Torrent Knights (which died once Vanguard came out, but there are 4-6 of us who still frequent the guild and don’t want to see the level 60 home dashed so easily). It was a fun night, even if we didn’t accomplish killing the corpuscle (also known as the splitting drake, and a pain in many people’s arse) and we also called it a night on the diseased based snake who has a nasty AoE and port / root deal. Tarinax did fall on the third pull, having some issues with him clambering his way into the wall in behind the raid force and then AoE’ing us all with his frontal when ever he could. Meanie.

It was a change, from the raids I’m used to. A bad thing? Not really. I did enjoy myself. Will I make it a nightly ritual? Probably not. As fun as it was, I missed the polished feel from my previous raids. In my opinion it went very well for people who perhaps don’t raid together all of the time, and who are still working their way through the lower end of T7. One small pet peeve I had this time was the amount of noise on the vent channel. I actually liked the method my previous raiding guild used, on teamspeak (the alliance used Ventrilo) during the raid, only the raid leader / officers / tanks had access to voice. Which meant people were paying attention to the raid, and not breaking out into the latest sports scores or discussions on breasts as we’re going over the strats for a particular fight — that is purely situational though, I realize that interaction with people is what makes these mmo’s thrive and succeed, it’s the community and bonds you form. I’d just rather only hear one voice at a time instead of 10, and have it be on the situation at hand so I can do my job as a raider (I know, I know, raiding is not supposed to be a job) rather then have to listen to a whole lot of other stuff that I don’t have any input in. Maybe that’s weird of me to say, but I like to raid and know I do a good job, and pay attention and get that job done. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel good. Just my weird twisted views.

As another first for the evening, I betrayed my 52 necromancer over to a conj! Oh, and I also run a second account now. I moved my 70 fury and the 52 necromancer conj over to the new account, so that I could box them (and anything else I decided to make) along with the characters from my original account. Worth it? Well, here’s how me and my boyfriend rationalized it.

• Already paying for station access (price hike had not occurred yet) for EQII and Vanguard, but have no interest in playing Vanguard. This basically meant I was paying for 4 character slots, and adventure packs, and that was it. I don’t play anything else on their play list.
• Play frequently enough and can box smoothly enough (I play the 2nd account we had along with my account to level up alts and what not) that the account would not go to waste.
• Having a Call of the Hero character, as well as a character who can port, on a 3rd account, would benefit both his characters and mine (Can always park the Fury in Sinking Sands and port to all the EoF zones just fine, as well as dragging the conj to the basement of SoS or even Nagafen if needed and port people down).
• Gives us an extra 2 character slots compared to station access, for a total of 12 characters vs. 10.
• Veteran rewards to a larger amount of characters (the new account came with 6 months of veteran rewards, as well as the boxed rewards for each expansion since release, including the DoF statue, the KoS house plant, the EoF whirly clockwork pet thing.

So in the long run it was worth it. It also resolves my issue about the lack of population. I can box myself when I don’t feel like grouping (which is frequently) and I have extra character slots to create more characters (for example if beastlords come out with Kunark, or that Fae that I haven’t made yet). I’m pleased with it so far and don’t regret giving up Vanguard in the least. I figure perhaps when the first expansion for it comes out, I’ll give it another shot, but until then the bugs and glitches and over all beta feel, was just not what I was looking for.