Tag: EQ

Small Victories in Lower Guk

Instead of hanging out in EQ2 last night, the trio headed back to EQ. Over time I have come to realize that I am a very difficult person to game with. I can hear some of my friends agreeing with me from here, hehe. I tend to bounce between a few games, and I used to get upset at myself over it but I’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply how I game. Every one has a style and it happens to be unique to that person. Thankfully I’m blessed with a close circle of friends who understand that it’s simply how I am and they don’t hold a grudge against me (I hope) as one week I’ll be playing EQ2 and then the next I pop back into EQ. It makes for frustrating times I know and I want (and need) my friends to know that I appreciate them so much more for putting up with my quirks.

Back to EQ! Well, the Cazic Thul and Blackburrow revamps may not be there any more, but the Lower Guk (which has been revamped before) and Unrest zones are sporting a new look these days. Ninga (Wpus), Ultann, and myself headed to Lower Guk to see if we couldn’t score a few of the new pieces of gear. Now, the night before the zone was pretty empty. Most players seemed to be spending their time hanging out in Unrest. If you recall that zone it’s quite small and there were over 30 people in it. Guk was down to four.

Such was not the case last night, as an evening that started out with only four in the zone quickly grew to 25+. Lower Guk is also quite a small zone, especially since it’s slightly lower in levels compared to Unrest which means things die faster and people pull further.

We did manage to set up camp in the Assassin / Supplier room though, and we did manage to get one spawn of the assassin. He dropped a darkened guise of the deceiver which I relogged my rogue to snag. It’s got heroic stats so even though she’s already a dark elf and the illusion is not that handy, the rest of the item is. We were hoping to camp for the darkened flowing black silk sash, but alas that happens to be one of the more popular camps of the zone and we were unsuccessful.

Before heading to Lower Guk we also decided to spend a little time working on the hand augment quest. I’ve mentioned this quest before, it’s an enormous chain with a lot of components but well worth the work.

As an added bonus to our exploring yesterday, my necromancer (minxes) inched her way to level 81, and 20% into the level! This will be the first time that I’ve been so close to the level cap in EverQuest. I made a vow to myself to try to get to max level as I have NEVER been there before in this game. I’m excited, I’ll admit. Not only did the necromancer cling to level 81, but the enchanter finally inched her way over to level 80! I was again very happy about this. I haven’t looked up her level 80 spells yet, and she’s lacking in gear (though she does sport a good array of fabled gear) and I *should* work on her epic some time, but I was still very happy to have hit level 80.

I hope everyone has an amazing Thursday, just think, only one more day until Friday! If you happen to live in Canada, enjoy the long weekend!

See you in Norrath!

Weekend Gaming

Have you ever had a heart attack before? If you have, then you know how I’ve been feeling the last 8 days. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that I actually am NOT having a heart attack or anything at all that will seriously harm me, it’s just a great deal of pain. On the health front, things are improving! What we are pretty certain I have, and have been having in little ‘episodes’ for a while now is something called “Esophageal Spasm” it’s not a condition I really have to worry about in the sense that it does not get any worse, it’s just this chest pain and it *typically* passes as it has before, this time it was a little more intense and seems to be taking its sweet time dying down. I’m just happy to be feeling relatively normal again. Last week I went in for three blood tests, an EKG and xrays. They all turned out negative which is great. On the down side this esophageal spasm deal is hard for doctors to actually figure out and notice because there’s only a few ways of figuring out if that’s what you have. Thank you those who wished me well, I appreciate the kind words. I’m sorry for having ranted about my health issues for so long the last little while, but those are the breaks when it comes to this being my personal web site.

On to gaming!

I played a little EQ2 yesterday afternoon, ran Najena’s Hollow Tower where the caster cloak FINALLY dropped for Wpus – it has an 800 dmg proc when you cast hostile spells, which is great. Proc gear can really boost your dps. Afterward we headed to Crypt of Agony to see if we couldn’t get the range item (fabled) to drop for Ultann. While the zone was fairly nice in the number of legendary vs. treasured chests we got, we still haven’t seen that item (nor have we seen the Cardiocutter which I have been trying to get for my bard). The guild has been inching closer and closer to level 30 which means we’ll be able to purchase a new guild hall. I’m excited about that. Right now we’re inching our way through level 28, which seems to be going exceptionally slow.

Wpus, Ultann, and I have been thinking about trying out a PvP server in Eq2 for a short while. While I do enjoy PvP (or at least I did in WAR and WoW) I’ve never actually tried it in EQ2. I’ve never thought EQ2 was a game that was built for PvP. It’s nice to have a change though, so maybe I’ll have something new to report on that front.

I also played some Free Realms yesterday, I play an hour or two here and there, nothing steady. Exploring along this way I’ve come up with quite a few thoughts about my game play and why I enjoy this sort of game.

I have not reached level 10 in any one skill yet, I think my highest is a few level 9’s, and I haven’t unlocked everything yet. I have not done any combat at all in Free Realms to date. I imagine I will eventually. I enjoy the mini games (even if the mining and cooking ones mimic each other) I do not enjoy pet training that much because drawing the same symbol over and over is frustrating for me. I use my wacom tablet to play instead of my mouse since I’m left handed and if I’m going to be drawing something over and over I’d rather be comfortable doing it. The tablet also comes in handy when I’m playing the mini games that require me to line up the little gems / food bits for mining and cooking.

I bought my cat Princess a little pirate vest, and I’ve been contemplating purchasing a dog but I haven’t crossed that road yet. I’ve turned in a lot of tickets (I had about 400 saved up) and got some really nice level 20 gear for when I finally make it there.

For those people who have already hit level 20 in multiple “jobs” I wonder how much exploring they did, or how much they played. I’m constantly discovering new things and I have about four pages of collections unlocked. There are LOTS of sections of the map I haven’t been to yet (in fact I think I’ve only been to the center of the map and none of the outlying places) and I’m looking forward to exploring more. I can certainly see how those who want to could rush past the bulk of the game to hit level 20 in all of the jobs but I personally think they’d miss out on so much. There’s just so much to explore and discover.

I didn’t get any W101 gaming done yesterday, but hopefully I’ll get some time in today and manage to inch my way closer to owning a house. I think right now I’m about 2,000 gold away from purchasing one. Still no idea what sort of home I want though. I’m excited!

I hope everyone else had a fantastic weekend, and that this week is also great. Monday the 18th is a holiday here in Canada (Victoria Day) and if all goes well I’ll be taking a trip out to Upper Canada Village for some photography (I know, planning weekend trips when it’s only Monday is a bad idea). We’ll see how it goes!

See you in Norrath!

Thuuga Quests, Cazic Thul, Vex Thal and Innoruuk

Yesterday was a fairly good Saturday as far as health concerns go, it’s getting less painful to breathe which is the main part. Hopefully a few more days and I’ll be back good as new. In the mean time I spent a little bit of the early afternoon finishing off my Thuuga quests for both the mystic and illusionist in EQ2. I was really glad to get those out of the way, though I should have finished them weeks (maybe even months) ago. The hardest part was waiting around for the named I needed to show up, and dragging both of my characters all through the Fens of Nathsar since neither of them have done any quests in the zone, didn’t have the sokokar posts, and were agro to all of the factions. Now both characters are sporting their fabled bits, and I’m glad it’s done.

Afterwards Wpus and I decided to head back to EQ for a little while, and I had an absolute blast.

Blackburrow and Cazic Thul were revamped not too long ago (three weeks maybe?) and so we headed to Cazic Thul first to check out the zone. There were 20 people camping but we managed to find ourselves a little niche to hang out in without too much traffic. Wpus brought along a tank mercenary and I dragged along my healer. I only have one of my EQ accounts open so I couldn’t box, but it was still a lot of fun. I managed to get a very awesome pair of shoes for the necromancer, you may remember the original pair.

They have a nice clicky effect on them, and they can also be traded which is nice. The same named also dropped a cleric only primary, which I tucked away for later. Not sure if it will be worth anything on the broker, but one never knows I suppose.

After we decided to head to the Plane of Hate to see of Innoruuk was home – which he was. We had no idea if we’d be able to take him down just the two of us with two mercenary (especially since we had no idea what his ‘thing’ was that he did during fights) and we came SO close to defeating him, it was painful. We managed to get the fake Innoruuk down easily enough and then the real version spawned in the room down below. The problem with mercenary is that they’re not very good at managing their mana, and my healer seemed to drop faster then normal. Innoruuk was down to 14% before we wiped (well, I died, the monk feigned) and we figured we’d just give it another shot. I made my way back to the zone, and JUST before I got to his room (he was at about 20% health) he poofed.

Ack!

Ah well, maybe we will get another chance to take him down.

We were also unaware as to whether or not the fabled events had been completed – all of the celebration decorations are still up in EQ as well as the quests. Asking on channels received no reply at first. We figured they were down, I saw no fabled at all in my brief travels and when we headed to Umbral Plains to farm a few named for alts, there were no fabled there either. We took down Rumblecrush (I think that’s his name) and a few others before deciding to head into Vex Thul for no other reason then I had never been there before.

The courtyard is beautiful. I’d love to own a copy of the statue posted above for my house in EQ2. You can only get so far in the zone (which is not far at all) without a rogue to let you in, so I quickly relogged to Invis (my 73 rogue) and opened the doors. As we checked on various named (Vex has always been heavily camped) we came across not one but TWO fabled.

Odd.

Asking in channels again explained what was going on. Mobs were no longer *spawning* as fabled, but if there happened to be fabled up, they would remain up until the next server re-set. Aww. There had been a few fabled items that I wanted to get last time that I never got. At least I got the fabled gate necklace before it ended.

After our exploration of Vex Thul I decided to call it a night. I had been feeling relatively good all day and didn’t want to jinx myself by staying up too late or anything like that. I gated back home and headed to bed. It was still a fantastic night though and I had a lot of fun.

Don’t forget today is Mother’s Day (like anyone could forget) and I hope all the Mom’s out there have a fantastic day. See you in Norrath!

Nostalgia The Guild – Happy Anniversary

We are a small group of friends who are doing the 1-80 progression one untwinked level at a time, seeing the old world as it was meant to be seen while seeing all the bits of the newer world we may have missed.

We group once a week on the Luclin server, Fridays at 7PM Eastern Time.

We are not currently recruiting, but we’re always interested in meeting new friends and if there is interest, we will make a third progression group.

Regardless of whether or not you want to play in one of the progression groups, if you just want to hang out with a bunch of friendly people and are fairly low level, we’d love to see you in guild chat, once we get the guild made. 

Register and leave a message here if you’d like to join!

That was the welcoming message posted by one Tipa almost exactly a year ago on the Nostalgia web site. I was thinking back on everything that’s happened since that point in time. It was a turning point for me, I met a lot of people, made a lot of close friends. We’ve drifted over the course of the year but most of us wander back in one shape or form and leave comments on blogs, forums, emails, xfire, or twitter. We’ve changed games (some times a lot) but we all had something in common when we joined the guild and I think to some degree still do. 

We’ve kept small. It’s an aspect I’ve really liked even though I (at times) wish we were more steady. Maybe that’s just not our play style as a group though, maybe we’re just not the sort to all settle down. I look at Casualties of War (which I’m also a member of) and envy their following at times. In day to day activities I’m not really one for crowds and this carries over into my gaming habits. 

Nostalgia the Guild started out on EverQuest. It has since carried over to EverQuest II, and most recently Lord of the Rings Online. They are some of the best friends I could have ever asked for, and I am thankful I’ve gotten to know such an amazing bunch of people. Especially since they’ve (to date at least) put up with me and all of my ‘quirks’ (such a kinder word). What an amazing world we live in that we can experience such things. I feel lucky. I realize that there are other guilds, older guilds who have spanned across a greater time period, more games, and bigger trials and tribulations – feel free to give a shout out to them below if you’ve got a great story to tell or just want to share.

EQ Hotfix Notes

HotFix 4/07/2009


*** Highlights ***

  • New Veteran Reward: The 11th year Veteran Reward has been created. Those who are eligible will now be granted the AA “Summon Clockwork Banker.”
  • Make poison has new recipes and items. You will find the instructions on new vendors.
  • A series of Rogue-only quests are now being offered by the Rogue Guilds of Norrath. Seek out the Poison Masters in your starting city for more information.
  • New types of Defiant armor have made their appearance across Norrath.

 

*** Items ****

  • Increased the bard instrument mod values on many SoF and SoD group and raid equipment pieces.
  • Created a method for converting the original roboboar to the shiny roboboar and vice versa. The polishing and rusting devices can be found on the Geerlok Clockwork Merchant in Crescent Reach.
  • Low-level Defiant armor will drop much more often.
  • New types of Defiant armor have made their appearance across Norrath.
  • Modified the Required and Recommended levels of the “Pet Proc” weapons from Fabled Planes of Power to be consistent. The Required level is now 75 for all of these items and the recommended level is now 79 for all of these items.
  • The Brell’s Party Plans book gives a bit more information about how to make the woven basket.
  • Irae Faycite Shard: Tjudawos’ Chant of Flame and and Irae Faycite Shard: Zeixshi-Kar’s Chant of Frost have been changed to increase the duration of their respective spells by 1 tick instead of increasing their damage. Their names have been changed to “Durus” to match other Type 3 augs of similar effects.
  • Modified the the naming of bard type 3 augs to be consistent with other type 3 augs.
  • Removed all casting times and mana cost from Earthen Mud so it will proc for classes without mana (and not consume mana of those with it.)

 

*** Spells ***

  • The Contact Innate in Battle Frenzy and Combat Frenzy now shares the slot with the Third Spire of Elements.

 

*** NPCs ***

  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Fabled Tribal Leader Diseranon to stop spawning in Vegarlson, the Earthen Badlands.

 

*** Quest ***

  • A series of Rogue-only quests are now being offered by the Rogue Guilds of Norrath. Seek out the Poison Masters in your starting city for more information.

 

*** Raids ***

  • Corrected the faction issues in the Queen Malarian raid.
  • Beware the clockwork devices in the Plane of Innovation! They pack a lot more punch during the Fabled times!

 

*** Tradeskills ***

  • Wood strips recipe will now return the planing tool on success and failure. Additionally wood strips will now stack to 20, allowing the recipe to give you 4.
  • Make poison has new recipes and items. You will find the instructions on new vendors.

 

*** AA ***

  • The 11th year Veteran Reward has been created. Those who are eligible will now be granted the AA “Summon Clockwork Banker.”
  • The Advanced Pet Discipline AA and Animation Empathy AAs have been modified to match the new pet control functionality.
  • Modified all 3 ranks of the Monk AA Five Point Palm to properly credit the Monk who used the Five Point Palm ability with the damage that results from this effect. You should now see a damage message, etc, indicating that the target took damage from the Player that cast the spell, rather than having the target of the AA silently do damage to themselves.
  • Removed the Endurance cost from the Monk AA lines Eye Gouge, Stunning Kick, and Crippling Strike.

 

*** Zones ***

  • Guild Banner summoning has been turned on for Solteris (note that all usual restrictions apply).

 

*** Pets ***

  • Guard and follow are on separate buttons again. Guard and follow states are independent of stop and sit. Stop and sit are overrides for guard and follow. Pressing guard or follow when stop or sit are engaged will automatically turn them off.
  • Changed the behavior of the stop command. It is now a toggle-able state. When activated, your pet will stand still and stop attacking, but remember who it hates. Stop can be turned off manually, or is automatically turned off whenever follow, guard, attack, qattack, or back off are used.
  • Added the greater hold state (ghold). Greater hold is granted by pet discipline. It works very much like regular hold except that regular hold allows opponents to be added to the pet’s hate list when the pet already has opponents on its list. Greater hold only allows NPCs you specifically add via attack or qattack to be added to its hate list. Hold and ghold are mutually exclusive.
  • Pet help has been updated with the new information about these changes.

 

*** Miscellaneous ***

  • Fixed a crash with certain custom UIs with custom hot bars.
  • Fixed a problem that caused the quest level ranges for quest givers to not be displayed under their name.
  • Lockout timers can once again be sorted in the expedition window.

 

*** UI ***

  • Optimized the raid window to get rid of the long pause when opening it when there are a large number of people in the raid.

A new update in EQ has me excited – especially the 11th year veteran rewards and all of the rogue only quests and new poisons. Yum! Also curious about that new defiant armor.