Tag: EQ2

I feel pretty, oh so pretty

How important is how your character looks to you? Above is my swashbuckler, wearing her T2 void armor and her class hat from the Barren Sky Hoo’loh chain. Hamal was off yesterday and so we decided to work on the class hat, I’ve long wanted a hat with a feather in it (in game) and while I didn’t even know if this one would match what my swashbuckler was currently wearing (I found out it did) I wanted it ‘just because’.

Lets face it, for most people appearance slots in EQ2 are pretty important. Especially with a very limited amount of visually different gear available to players at level 80. There’s the T1 shard set, the T2 shard set, and T3, and T4. If we didn’t have appearance slots pretty much every class would look like every other class. With these appearance slots we’re able to (some what) customize how we look, and change that based on our moods (you have to be level 20+ to take advantage of appearance slots).

Have you ever done a quest (or raid) specifically for a piece of gear that ‘looked neat’? What about that black barrister’s robe that’s quested in Zek? Ever longed for the box of classless hats from the Legends of Norrath? These are hats that give off the appearance of a class hat but is made specifically for the appearance slot without restrictions of class. Ever purchased a clothing item off of the station marketplace? I have, I own the cowboy looking hat – now if only they were heirloom instead of no trade.

I don’t miss not having dyes (a la EQ Live) simply because we do have a large selection of colourful clothing available to us. I know a lot of people constantly ask why we don’t have dye available in EQ2 and the answer is always the same. Since tailors can make appearance armor, and there’s a lot of lower level quests that reward neat looking gear – not to mention some off of mobs (the black and white daring outfit that drops in sebilis for example) I’m confident that I’ll find something out there that looks good.

Now, with the station marketplace some times I feel a little peeved simply because some of the best looking gear is sold on there for real life money rather then giving players the option to find it in game. This can also be said for some of the best looking furniture. I’ve come to simply accept this, I’m not against these transactions (obviously I’ve purchased items myself) but that doesn’t stop me from wishing that some of the items (or all) were obtainable from within the game without having to spend real life cash on it (since I already pay for a subscription). Without getting into that whole argument, the appearance gear really is amazing looking. I still also wish it was heirloom so you could trade it between your account rather then having to purchase the gear for one specific character.

The later stages of the Hoo’loh helm are still green to a level 80, and I had fun doing Halls of Fate (Sothis) with Hamal, two scouts and no healers. The updates were far easier then I ever remembered them being, and the quest even rewarded status at the end which I was happy for. Once the hat was obtained (and login servers started working again, they were down for 2 hours yesterday morning) we decided to level Dragons Flight (my baby guild on the Oasis server) to 15, inching us closer to 30 (which is my level goal for December). The experience is still fairly fast at these low levels, it doesn’t feel as though it begins to slow down until around level 22 or so. I’m hoping to hit level 20 by the end of this month at the latest, and then have the months before December to hit 30 and purchase (yet another) guild hall. We’ll see how that goes, knowing me I’ll be playing some where else by that time, heh.

I hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday, no matter where you find yourself. Happy gaming!

Charging for Epic Updates?

No doubt if you’re in the 70-79 channels you’ve seen people auctioning off raid slots to people for epic updates. These zones are from Runes of Kunark, and can run anywhere from 50-500p an update depending on what guild you’re going with and what server. While a lot of people debate the moral factor of whether or not it’s “right” to purchase your epic update, that’s not what I want to discuss.

What about the people who sell these updates to others?

My guild runs these RoK raids pretty much every weekend (minus VP which is done once a month), Thuuga, Pawbuster, Leviathan, Venril Sathir, etc. We do NOT charge pick ups for these raids, and some times we’re only adding 1 group of our own guild, and the rest are pick ups. Running a pick up raid is a stressful thing, but we do it, and we love watching people get updates who may not other wise have a chance to get them (be it because they belong to a smaller family guild, their schedule does not allow for it, etc).

Loot is handled on a NBG /random 1000 basis, and any masters that are not needed by those in the raid are taken by our raid organizer (on these weekend raids most of the time it happens to be the shadowknight running them that I talk about every so often) as a “thank you” for us hosting / organizing the raid for people (and then put into our guild bank). Not a lot of masters typically drop that go un-needed to begin with, but it happens from time to time.

This is a great way for us to get our updates for our own characters (since RoK raids are not exactly on the schedule any more) as well as help out the community on our server. It’s gotten to the point now that when the weekend rolls around we’ll get numerous tells randomly asking us if we’re running said zone and if so and so can they come along for an update.

The one weekend we do run VP we take names of people who need updates from specific kills, and we swap them in and out for those kills so that the greatest number of people can get their mythicals as possible. It’s something I would really love to see more guilds doing, instead of charging for updates.

There’s always a small debate as to whether or not non-raiders should be able to obtain these items (be it through paying or not) and honestly I don’t think owning a mythical (or not owning) makes a player good or bad. Yes, it will help their character but in the end it is really the players skill that gets taken into consideration. If you are good at your class, and you group a few times out there, you will be remembered for it. Likewise, if you are a shoddy player, you’ll also be remembered for it. Each class has a specific set of “things” they should be doing, and group mates notice this. Positioning as a tank, curing as a healer, using jesters and PoTM as well as CoC as a bard, all of these things make players good (or bad).

Are we in the wrong for allowing people this free method of obtaining their mythicals? They do have to do the work of gaining the fabled version first, and they also need to show up for the raids that are required, but aside from that it’s mostly the work of a TSO raid guild that pulls the others along. Is this wrong? We’ve even allowed pick ups to die and remain on the ground (dead) during raids for their update (this doesn’t work with conjurors who have to be alive, but a lot of classes can remain dead) if they were nervous that they were going to mess up some how (ie: Venril Sathir script pre-nerf). Are mythicals in the hands of non-raiders a bad thing?

Personally, I dislike the fact that there are pieces of gear in game that are quite common to obtain (these days) that have the ‘mythical’ flag. If you remember back at the beginning of EQ2 there wasn’t even a fabled flag. Prismatic 1.0 rewarded a legendary weapon for your hard effort (and trust me, at level 50 it was a LOT of effort). I think that the more common we make these items, the less special they are. I enjoyed mythical when they were exceptionally rare one time server rewards for unique encounters – and would have been satisfied with a fabled weapon (same stats, but minus the mythical tag). Of course that’s not the decision of the players but the designers, so the point is sort of moot. Pretty much anyone can get their mythical for the right price these days, and I don’t see a difference in giving them out for free so long as people want them.

Questing, Questing, and yes, level 80

Hamal and I worked hard yesterday, leveling the swashbuckler to 80. The experience seemed to crawl by, but eventually we got there.

Once I dinged I was able to put on my T2 shard gear, as well as the earring from yesterdays post and a few other bits and pieces that I’d picked up. We quested in Jarsath Wastes, a little in Moors, and ran instances in Everfrost, Commonlands, and did Crypt of Agony in Sebilis.

I made a set of 42 tailored gear for a guild mate, and then also made 100 potions for another. They were the special potions that require 40k faction with Mara, at 5 potions each combine it took a little time. I love to help out where I can.

Earlier on in the afternoon Hamal and I decided to help out with a Deathtoll raid. The person running it didn’t have access, nor did he have the flame marked shield required to get past the first barrier, so I logged in my warden who had access. The swashbuckler gained a few aa, and while the entire zone was quite messy because it was green and people were just doing whatever they felt like it was still fun. Tarinax who was once such a formidable foe fell within 8 seconds or so.

I’d love to work on Claymore on a character or two and go back and do Deathtoll again some time. I loved the quest chain when everyone was working on it. Mark of the Awakened was another fantastic quest. That, combined with the Soulfire chain, and Godking, are high on my list of things to finish off on various characters. A few have completed these, but not everyone.

In the mean time the little guild of Dragons Flight is coming along. We hit level 13 yesterday and should easily hit 15 today. My goal is to reach level 30 by December, which shouldn’t be too difficult especially once auto mentoring is live and we can run the Courts raid from Desert of Flames. The names within that zone all grant a lot of achievement experience and guild status.

Excited about it? Yes I am!

I’ve been enjoying myself on the Oasis server. It’s quite a bit smaller then the majority of servers out there, but the community is (for the most part) friendly and supportive and there are always groups going on. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the smallest servers (on par with Lucan D’Lere) but there are benefits to that (lack of lag, people farming). I love mentoring down and helping out those leveling up, and it’s refreshing not to see a plethora of insults being hurled through channels 24/7.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Tuesday gaming, no matter where it finds you!

All is Fair (or is it) When it Comes to Loot

For those who may not know, hot zones change every day at 8pm EST (5pm PDT) so there’s actually a possibility of two a day depending on when you do them. Yesterday for the better part of the day MM (Mistmyr Manor) in Loping Plains was the hot zone. After 8pm it changed to Ravenscale Repository (the hardest of the three instances).

I was on my 78 (at the time) swashbuckler, and thanks to the shadowknight I’ve been gaming with for seven years now, managed to find myself in a group for the hot zone, along with a dirge, mystic, necromancer, and warlock. The zone was fairly easy, I’ve actually never cleared it before yesterday but there’s two ways to do this.

Number one, move through the zone and kill all of the named one at a time – this gives you achievements for each of the named. However, it is not the only way to do the zone. The other way is to pull the zone so that you leave all of the named up – and then when you defeat the final boss, the loot chests to all of those named spawn in a room behind him. This method means you do NOT gain the achievement for killing each of the named, but we thought perhaps we’d have a better chance at a master chest if 4-5 chests all spawned at once rather then individually.

We ran the script, and carefully avoided all of the named until the end. It was great experience for me who had never been there before, lots of discovery in the rooms, and when we beat the final mob – a fabled chest dropped. I figured it was the lockbox that holds a number of rewards (mostly dps geared) and I was right.

Now. In this box is also a bard only charm that happens to be the best bard charm in the game aside from avatar loot. That’s right, it’s the battle drums that bards pay up to 500p (as I saw yesterday) for. The dirge in our group offered to purchase the loot – if no one wanted any of the rewards (or wanted to sell their share pretty much) but I decided to roll on the loot. I typically have absolutely horrible luck, but such was not the case yesterday, and I ended up winning the lockbox. The dirge was really mad, he had lost a roll on the box previously too. The earring on the right is a significant upgrade for my swashbuckler, especially since she is not a raid character and has to gain her upgrades where she can. Now, the little bit of an issue comes into play with the fact that she was not yet level 80 when she rolled on this. In my opinion, your level does not matter as long as you’re contributing to the group. I was parsing 1.5-1.8k at my level which is quite low – keeping in mind that I’m wearing level 72 mastercrafted gear as well as weapons, and I was level 78 so everything was very orange to me. That’s not too horrible of a parse. Once I hit 80 and have more skills available to me as well as my set gear it should take a significant leap.

Would it have been the ‘proper’ thing for me to do to decline for this dirge? If it were a close friend I may have considered it, but I think the results were fair. We both rolled and the dice just happened to be in my favour. Should I feel bad that I won? I wouldn’t normally, loot is loot after all. The dirge then proceeded to exclaim his woes on the 70-79 channel about losing to me, which didn’t make me feel any better about the situation. The group reminded him that MM would be the hot zone again eventually, and that you can also purchase the battle drums from an NPC in the moors as of the next game update. Instead he wanted to focus on the fact that he lost the roll to me.

What do you do when you’re faced with these sorts of situations? I know a lot of people out there have stories about loot and who wins and who it goes to. I don’t feel that I was out of line on my roll, it was a huge upgrade and a nice piece for any scout (there were also some pants, not quite as nice, a charm, another earring etc) and I would have understood if any of them had rolled. Now if the inquisitor had of rolled wanting this piece for their DPS set I may have been a little more peeved, and yes, it has happened before. The day ended with me questing in Moors for the last 20% I needed, and the swashbuckler hit level 79. One more to go and this will be my 10th level 80 character (and hopefully it for a little while, but with the expansion not releasing until February who knows). It’s very neat for me to be playing a pure DPS class, something I’ve never done before. All of my characters are either support or healers.

Hopefully I can reach level 80 today, and then it’s time to start on my epic!

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you.