Tag: EQ2

Calreth and I spent some time in the Shimmering Citadel hunting the elusive Guardian for our Ro achievement this weekend. Thankfully, it didn’t take that long before he made an appearance!

I absolutely love the little statue replicas of the boss mobs that you can purchase once you’ve completed the daily chronomagic quest. I spent most of yesterday working on my Norrathian museum, I expanded the library so that the shelves are now floor to ceiling, and since SOE gave all homes an extra room in their last big update, I decided to take that and pannel it with wantia, and then add my replicas to that room.

My favorite (so far, since I don’t own them all) is the one pictured above. Well before any of the mobs had that graphic in later expansions, that is the boss from an instance within Fallen Gate. It’s by far the best ‘boss’ graphic I’ve ever seen, and I LOVE fighting this creature. I realize now it shares a graphic with a TSO boss, but the Fallen Gate version is a lot easier (grins).

The chronomagic quest from yesterday also sent Calreth and I off to the Shard of Fear in order to kill Kyr’Tok, who is pictured above on the right. I love how each one of the replicas are so exceptionally detailed, they really did turn out amazing. Maybe it’s silly that I spent an entire day decorating in game instead of raiding or grinding quests, but I still had a blast. The museum is almost at the point now where all I need to do is place artifacts as I obtain them, rather then having to design entire rooms. The basement still needs to be turned into living quarters for Ellithia, but it’s coming along.

As always if you’re interested in checking out the house (and maybe the very expansive player written library I own) please feel free to head to the North Freeport Mage Tower, bottom floor (LoN magical housing) and look for Ellithia on the door. If you’d like to donate to the museum, please just add me to friends and let me know!

As a side note – if anyone out there has a spare griffon tower house item (it came from the live event that took place to build the towers a few years ago) please let me know! I’d be willing to pay 500p+ for one if I could get one. I used to have one but it was sadly lost in transit as I moved servers. Some how I doubt anyone would really be willing to give theirs up, but it’s an important part of Norrathian history that I’d absolutely love to be able to reclaim.

Safe travels, no matter what game you find yourself in!

Some how last night the planets aligned and we had a good number of guild mates on – that pretty much never happens these days. Not only were Wpus, Calreth, and Hamal around but the very elusive Tipa made an appearance!  We met up with a friend who is doing the 14-day trial of EQ2, and headed to Wailing Caves, on a Friday night it was packed (and is a small zone to begin with) so we quickly changed our minds and headed to Blackburrow. I needed the named Champion in the zone for my Shattered Lands achievement, so we spent some time camping the basement waiting for him to spawn.

Since we were already inadvertently working on achievements, I decided to continue along those lines for the remainder of the evening. With the help of Calreth and Hamal I managed to finish off my Ro achievements (and received some very ugly armor in a crate) as well as my Kingdom of Sky achievements (a nicer crate of clothes for those ones). I’m slowly moving up through my final three aa, but it’s pretty slow. I’m looking forward to feeling as though I’ve “completed” a character. Then of course it’s time to move on to the next character.

I also managed to pick up a few books that I didn’t own yet for my player written library. I want to work on my housing some this weekend, I really don’t like the tables I’ve used as “desks” in the upstairs portion, I think I can build or create something better there. We’ll just have to see!

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend as always! Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Alright. I typically refrain from making these types of posts on my web site because I’ve always taken a ‘my web site is not for controversy’ stand. However, this thought has been filtering around in my mind for quite some time now, and it has to be said.

VERY often in games you’ll hear the phrase “must have y piece of gear” (where y equals some random piece of ‘uber’ gear whatever that may be at the time). Since I spend most of my time in EQ2 I’ll use that as an example. In the 70-79 channel you will hear no less then 10 times a day that people are looking for those who ONLY have their mythical. Not only that, but you will hear numerous people exclaim that unless the entire group has said piece of gear, you will not be able to beat it.

My question to people who say that or think that way is – did you ever think maybe you’re just not that good at the game, and THAT is why you require those pieces of gear in your groups.

There are VERY FEW zones that MUST have a particular piece of gear to complete. There are so many other factors that come into play, and the very basic one is PLAYING WELL. I know I use the example of my group mates very often, but that’s what it comes down to. We beat every TSO instance except for Palace and one of the Guks BEFORE any of us obtained any raid gear (T3+) or mythicals. Sure, we died. We died a lot some times. We still did it, and what’s more we did it as three or four people, boxing. We did own master spells, we worked very hard on getting our characters as well geared as we possibly could within our means. Saving up coin, sharing between us when we could, buying spells for one another, using the research assistants.

Imagine what a whole group could have done. We defeated Ravenscale without mythicals, wearing T2 gear and instance drops. It’s not impossible (now Ravenscale is childs play). Sure, we weren’t about to take down Varsoon any time soon (hah) but we tried zones over and over until we found a way that worked for us. Some times that involved switching characters around, or using means that were not conventional (we used charm in the guks for example) and it sure wasn’t easy – but we have NEVER ever said – oh, you must have T3+ and a mythical and 200aa before you can come with us so we can defeat this encounter.

I think some times people have an over glorified picture of how good they are at something. Especially in video games because the game itself causes you to think you’re amazing. The NPCs shout your praise, and you’re framed as the hero. Lets face it, some people are just not any good. They don’t know their character, they haven’t done any research, they don’t know what spells to cast and when – and that is what will hold you back.

Next time you see someone LFG who doesn’t have their mythical and isn’t decked to the gills with raid gear, think of giving them a chance and taking them along with you anyhow. Do mythicals and great gear make things easier? Of course they do. A LOT easier, but what ever happened to the thrill of taking down a really difficult encounter as the underdog. Not everyone raids or wants to and you can argue the fact that “good” players will have their mythical, but that’s not always true. There are a lot of really bad players who ride the coat tails of guilds and have better gear then anything I’ll ever see. Just like there are some amazing players who are wearing mastercrafted.

Lets face it, when it comes to Fallen Earth and the combat in that game, I’m horrible. I admit it. I’m really bad and it will take me a very long time to feel like I’m any good at it. Some times, we’re just not that good, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Most MMOs have modes of transportation, if not through personal mounts then at least through some other means. EQ2 has had both forms of transportation (plus a few extra) for quite some time now, and every so often a new graphic pops up. For TSO it was the dire bear, RoK was the worg, and so on. They even took it one step further, and you can right click many of the mounts in your inventory and turn them into house items, adding a collection to your home or guild hall. Want to build a stable and show off your collection? Now you can. Especially since you’re probably only actually using one (or two) of the mounts that you’ll gain over the years.

So which is your favorite? Are you one of those players who simply goes by speed (faster = better) or do you have to actually enjoy the graphic of your mount (since you can’t hide them)? Is it more important to you to look fashionable as you meander from zone to zone, or could you care less? Do your bards (who are famous for having their speed buffs) have mounts too or do you just rely on their own skills?

Pictured above is Petites, my halfling templar, proudly riding her unicorn. It’s not the fastest mount out there, but doesn’t she just look fantastic riding it?! The little halo over her head is from a LoN loot card that I managed to win when LoN first came out and she wears it well if I do say so myself!

A lot of my characters own mounts, and I don’t go for what’s fastest (even if I could afford them!) but I do care about what they look like. Maybe that’s odd, but it matters. I don’t need to get to a portion of a zone at the speed of light, it’s all about looking good while I do it!

So, what about everyone else out there, what sort of mounts entice you?