Tag: EQ

Not only was everyone in game celebrating the 12th birthday of EverQuest yesterday but thanks to a few tasks I also managed to get my first ever level capped character – of course it did take me 12 years, but it’s better late then never, right? My necromancer came close to hitting the cap of 85 last expansion but never quite made it there before I moved on to other games. This year I was determined to hit 90 no matter what – and I’m incredibly pleased that I did. Now that I’m 90 there’s so much more to work on, especially aa. A lot of people have 2500+ and I’m just brushing up to 300. There’s the bard on my 2nd account that I’d like to level up, and lets not forget all of the crafting I have yet to do, as well as exploring more old world content and doing activities in expansions I’ve missed almost completely like Underfoot.

This year there is a new solo quest, a group quest, and a new raid. I’ve been working on the solo quest and completed the group quest which I’ll write about in a separate post. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to get a chance to do the raid but if I see anyone recruiting for it I’ll attempt to join.

The solo quest takes place within the new housing zone of Sunrise Hills. There’s a collector in a bright red robe that you can barely miss, musing over lost shards spread throughout the zone. He gives you a task to collect them all, tiny little semi rare shards on the ground. They glow a bright neon green so once you spot one they’re hard to miss but the quest will take a few hours to do. Thankfully you can 1. purchase pieces from other players if you know what you’re looking for and 2. trade between players for missing pieces. You’ll end up with a handful of doubles since the spawning items are rare and not lore, and there are a good number of them to collect. After working on this quest for two hours I had five of the pieces down and another 9 to go I believe. Hopefully I’ll manage to collect the rest once the game comes back up later today.

Fabled are also back in game but this year there’s no motivation for me to take part in the event as none of the items would be an upgrade. Fabled encounters stop with the Planar Power expansion with no additions coming in the foreseeable future, and while I’m happy that I won’t have to deal with the very long painful camps (I did two years ago) I sort of miss the excitement of this portion of the anniversary.

Do you plan on playing with any of the anniversary fun? Hard to believe that EverQuest is already 12 years old and still going strong! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

This will more than likely be the last time I see Saryrn until after the fabled event passes, since pretty much all of the Norrathian Gods are heavily camped during that time for their drops. Yesterday started the first of two double experience events and I happily redeemed all of my task rewards that I had saved up. The experience was enough to secure level 88 and Ninga managed to hit 90. We’ve put out another call looking for a guild, and have had a few replies so far. The previous one we had joined simply wasn’t a good match and while I would like to raid and have some fun I’m not about to join a random guild that sends me a tell.

The Saryrn fight went down easy, Sorrow spawned closer to the end then I remember, but the rest of the murder (ie: swarm of crows) were there as annoying as ever. The best part is that at 88 Saryrn was still green to me, I’m not sure if that will be the case at 90. I looted a bunch of parchment and turned that in for some spells to sell, it was mostly just the Nostalgia I was after.

I’ve slowly been leveling up the bard on the 2nd account. She managed to go from level 21 to 34 yesterday in my favorite lowbie area – The Overthere. It’s not a hot zone, but with bonus experience (and quicker leveling over all) implemented I sure didn’t notice. Now of course I have to pick up all of the song she’s missed I’m looking forward to leveling her up to the same range as my druid and then boxing the two together. I’m also excited to see what other anniversary quests get implemented in EQ this week. It should be good times.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

Even though the official start of the 12 year anniversary events is tomorrow – today marks the beginning of two double experience events. The first one runs from the 14th-16th and the second one runs from 25th-27th. Think there’s no way to prepare for these events? You would be quite wrong. See in EverQuest there are things called “tasks” or “missions” in the later expansions, especially in the House of Thule expansion. These are instanced versions of dungeons with specific objectives that players have to accomplish for a reward of experience, coin, faction, and typically one of the new types of currency like dream motes in the case of HoT. You can do these tasks one of two ways. A group member will request the task and if you’re in group you will automatically be added to it and have the ability to hail the npc that will port you into the instance – or – you can get a “task add” also called a TA in public channels. This will add you to the current mission but NOT add you to the group. That means you can be doing your own thing in the bazaar or any other zone, and still get the rewards from being task added to a mission. If you happen to box or have a group of friends who are not interested in the progression flags or rewards from doing these tasks it’s very common to see players selling TA’s for anywhere from 10,000-100,000 plat depending on the task. Since these tasks are also used in HoT progression, people can sell access to further zones (ie: in order to unlock Tier 4 of HoT you need to do a number of tasks).

Preparing for double experience comes from the fact that you can actually save up the rewards from up to 10 tasks before claiming any one of them. All you have to do is close the reward window and ignore it until you’re ready to claim. That meant yesterday players were frantically doing tasks in order to save up the rewards for today, and me and my friends were no different. I did six tasks with the desire to claim them today once the bonus has been turned on, and before I actually remembered to start saving my tasks I managed to cling to level 87 on the necromancer. This opens up a few more powerful dots as well as another tank pet. It looks like I’ll be 90 before too long, then I can work on working those aa and leveling the bard on my 2nd account who has been sorely neglected in my climb to 90. There’s a chance that another friend of mine may be returning to Drinal which I’m pretty excited to hear about. The server is quite populated, about 500 people in public channels at any one time, and I’m never going to think it’s a bad thing when someone returns.

I’m excited for the remainder of the anniversary events to get off the ground. Two years ago there were some fantastic quests for potions and I heard from others there were some anniversary augments – as well as the fabled events of course. I believe there’s an increase in spawn rates for the next three days as well (named, that is) but we’ll just have to see. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! I’ll see you in Norrath.

Just to start off with a reader comment I wanted to answer this one, “Pretty sure you can’t lose a level any more. I think that was changed several years ago.” – trust me, losing levels from dying in EQ is VERY much still in game, hehe. As I level now I want to make sure I have at least a 10% buffer before logging out so that I don’t revert back to my previous level, and having failed to do so I’ve lost levels 85-86 a few times now. Thankfully mercenaries can also rez you for 96% so it’s not too easy to re-ding as I call it, but the mechanic is still there in game. What was changed a few years ago was corpse runs, you no longer spawn naked without your items and inventory.

I know it’s hard to tell by the screen shot above, but that is inside of a creatures tummy. It was gross and disgusting, but Ninga wanted to finish his key to Saryrn’s chambers – and so we had to do an event in Plane of Torment. Baraguj Szuul swallows you and you have to fight an army of little critters in each level of his digestive track. Mean while there are flailing limbs and disgusting half swallowed skeletons scattered around the soft pink flesh that you’re standing on. I’ve killed Saryrn a few times, one of my favorite fights actually but getting into her tower without a key was always difficult, typically without access we would have to attack a mob through a doorway that would summon us inside. It seems this method doesn’t work (or at least we couldn’t get it to) lately, so a key was needed.

I also managed to level my tailoring (on the necromancer) to a skill of 295 – and was pretty disappointed to see that the station market has a considerable impact on crafters in EverQuest. See, there is a potion that is $10 and lasts for 2 hours and if you fail a combine after using this potion it will guarantee (100% chance)  that you salvage your items upon failure. The aa skill doesn’t guarantee a 100% salvage rate, and the major problem I have with this is that House of Thule did not raise the cap on crafting skills – they still stop at 300. However. The House of Thule crafted items have a trivial rate of 400-500+ easily. Your best bet when making combines that you’ve farmed forever for is to save them up, spend $10 on the 100% salvage potion, and then keep preforming the combine over and over again until you succeed since you’ll have “nothing” to lose except the $10 you spent, of course. If you’re willing to spend the cash you won’t fail combines, and you’ll be able to make much more profit off of your crafted goods.

My necromancer is most of the way through 86, and I’m doing a LOT more damage then I was before. I gained a few very large dots this level, and I also finally have more then 200 aa which is really nothing these days. I picked up a few utility type things like cloak of shadows (instant clicky) and an alternate method to FD (to free up a spell slot) and have been working on my critical affliction. I also picked up death bloom for those LOM (low on mana) moments, and for the first time in a long time I’m feeling as though I’m actually partaking in the groups I’m in instead of just mooching experience. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m excited to see what happens next.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! I’ll see you in Norrath.

• Monday March 14 to Wednesday March 16 we will be activating Double Experience as well. Now you have twice as much Double Experience time to plan, so spend it wisely! (this does NOT include the two progression servers)
• Tuesday March 16, 2011 and lasting until Saturday March 26,  we’ll celebrate our 12th Anniversary in game! Not only will we have everything from our previous anniversary celebrations (including quests, fabled spawns, and raids) but this year brings all new challenges to the lands of Norrath!
• March 25, 2011 to March 27, we’ll also offer Double Experience throughout Norrath
• Wednesday March 16,  at 4 p.m. Pacific we’ll host a talk with John Smedley on the EverQuest franchise and its prestigious position in the history of MMOs as well as a plethora of other topics.
• Thursday March 17,  at 4 p.m. Pacific join members of the EverQuest team for a talk about EQ from its beginnings up until now.
• March 14 to March 16 and March 25 to March 27, you’ll be seeing a lot more rare mobs too! During the periods of Double Experience, we’ll be increasing the spawn rate of rare mobs as well.
• March 16 and lasting until March 27, we’ll have a deal every day on the Marketplace.

In Other Norraths

• Grand events are afoot in EverQuest II starting later this month, where mysterious apparitions have been sighted! Portals through time have been appearing around Norrath, linking this age to an age before the Shattering. Journey through these portals to find the ancient heroes and villains of an age gone by. Reminisce about them. Then kill them and loot them for the really cool items they possess. There may be a connection between them; perhaps you should investigate them all…
• EverQuest Online Adventures and EverQuest Mac have their own special events planned, and will be celebrating the Anniversary as well. On March 17th, Naylie will be in game on the Al`Kabor server to honor EverQuest’s 12th anniversary. Join her in the Plane of Knowledge to celebrate. She may be talked into going to the Arena and calling forth some monsters to fight! In EQOA, Naylie and Zatozia will be hosting a Community Meet and Greet on the Castle Lightwolf server on March 18th. Zatozia has heard rumors that the Sandswiss family of dragons may be making a return for the occasion to attempt to take another bite at adventurers.

If more events get added to this list or you find one that I’ve forgotten to add let me know and I’ll include it! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.