EQ – Page 38 – A Pixel Nomad

Ding, 79 Necromancer (and 78 Enchanter)

Located within the highest icy peaks of the Serpent’s Spine Mountains is the home of the Krithgor, a species of giants which, unlike other giants in Norrath, are intelligent — some even masters of magic.

Long ago and much to the chagrin of the other gods, Rallos Zek’s creations — the giants, orcs, ogres, and goblins — invaded the Plane of Earth. Among the giants who did not partake in the war was Beltron, the Krithgor king, who died a short time after the war’s end. The most noble of giants marched into Frostcrypt, the giant burial grounds, to lay their king to rest while the remaining giants stayed in their city, Valdeholm.

That day in Frostcrypt, Rallos Zek committed an atrocity upon his own creations, setting a curse upon them, an event which marked the origin of the Shades of Zek. Now, the mission of the Shades is to end their creator’s curse. In order to accomplish this, they believe, every living Krithgor giant must be slain. To this day, the curse lives on as the Shades of Frostcrypt do battle with the living and fully functioning Wraithguards and citizens of Valdeholm. – Zam.com

Valdeholm has been my “home away from home” for a little while now. It’s the level 70 hot zone, and the experience has been really nice. There are a few camps that people seem to head to by instinct. One is the pit located right at the beginning of the zone. This is a great spot but the pulls can be a little slow if you’ve got a full group. My little trio (complete with boxed enchanter and cleric) typically heads to the Smith which is just down from the North gate. The north gate is typically camped by people who are looking to farm a particular named who drops a nice augment. My group managed to get one almost right away so we haven’t been after any named.

We’ve gotten a lot of spell drops and I’m hoping that my little bazaar mules will make some coin as people return to check out the anniversary events. I noticed that SOE is holding another contest that I can’t partake in because I don’t live in the US. Shame because I’d really love to enter, too. Anyhow, we’ve been grinding out experience in the hot zone and it’s been a lot of fun. Oh, not to mention the fact that my necromancer is level 79, almost level 80! The enchanter is level 78, and heading towards 79. So yes, the experience has been amazing.

When we were tired of that zone we headed to The Mechamatic Guardian, which is a giant robot who wanders along in Dragonscale hills. Typically when you wander in front of this giant robot, he kicks you. It hurts. It hurts bad. However there are also missions you can obtain and when you run up to his right foot while you’re on one of these missions you’ll get the option to either zone in – or be kicked. Who would choose “please kick me” I have no idea.

The experience in these missions is also pretty good, there’s some rare loot, chance at named, and the zone respawns. We haven’t actually completed the missions yet which is fine by me. Being this close to 80 is exceptionally exciting, I’ve never been so close to the level cap before and certainly not in so short of a time period. The grind from 80-85 I know is quite long but I don’t think I’ll mind it in the least bit.

I’ve been back playing EverQuest for a month now, and it’s been so much fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what other trouble adventures I can get into – rumour has it that fabled starts on Monday, and every day when I listen to the general channel there are a few more people who have come back to the game to see how things are. It’s fantastic (even if I’m not on my ‘home’ server). I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend no matter where you’re gaming.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note – I’ve finally updated my ShutterCal account with pictures for the last few months, I had seriously neglected the site and I’m so glad to be back into the swing of things again. You can see my ShutterCal account here, and you’ll find lots of pictures from my trip to San Diego there as well. Safe travels!

EverQuest Update Notes (March 12th)

The servers are down for an 8 hour patch (ack!) and here’s what has been added!

3/12/2009
*** Highlights ***

– Guild Creation Tool: Players can now get their guilds created in-game by using the Guild Management window. When opening the Guild Management Window (Alt + G) when you are not in a guild, you will be asked if you would like to create one. All existing guild naming rules still apply. Only one guild is permitted per server per account. Guilds cannot be created while in a shroud.

– Pet Window Improvements: The functionality of the Pet Window has been improved by allowing players to customize each button individually. These changes also allow players to add commands that they pick up via AAs. We’ve also added some new commands including a pet hold command. (See UI: Pet Window Improvements below)

– Enhanced Raid Window: We’ve updated the raid management window to allow for sorting and expedition / shared task management improvements. Also added AFK, dead, and out of zone status. (See UI: Enhanced Raid Window below)
*** Items ***

– Nakk’s Enduring Bauble now looks just like the gem from a ring, instead of a ring.
– The Durus Faycite Shard: Gorenaire’s Chant of Frost, and Durus Faycite Shard: Talendor’s Chant of Flame now increase the duration of their respective songs by 1 tick instead of increasing the damage.

*** Spells ***

– Cantata of Rodcet now increases HP and Mana regen by 61/70/75 and 50/58/62 for Ranks 1/2/3, up from 51/60/65 and 42/50/54
– Fixed a problem with Performance resonance that was causing it to focus a number of effects that it shouldn’t have.
– Lowered the endurance cost on Wheel of Fists to 253/288/307 down from 316/360/384.
– Lowered the endurance cost on Whorl of Fists to 308/351/374 down from 385/439/468.
– Modified the stacking order of the Calanin’s Synergy discipline to better stack with other similar abilities including the effect from Deceivers Blight Strike and other spells that use the same effect.
– Talisman of the Stalwart scrolls can now be scribed by druids.
– The combat proc granted by Arcane Arietta will now cause additional damage for bards based on their wind instrument mods. This only effects the procs for the bard herself, and not the rest of the group.
– The endurance cost for Calanin’s Synergy has been increased to 385/439/468 up from 308/351/374. The duration in the effect has been increased by 6 seconds.
– The Twincast Self Buff spells are no longer focused by duration extension focuses.

*** Tradeskills ***

– Fixed a bug with the Pure sealed power-sources made via tradeskills. They were opening one tier behind where they should (so the Tier 1 took Tier 2 raid to open.) They should now open properly with the proper tier of content.
– Fixed an issue with Dull, Murky and Foggy Sealed Energeian Orbs that could prevent them from opening properly.
– The following spells created by spell research now create a duplicate scroll instead of the original scroll. The original scrolls are now no trade. This does mean that you may have a no trade version currently, unfortunately there is no reasonable solution for a refund that is not able to allow players to create infinite scrolls. This change is intended to prevent players from creating infinite scrolls for free. Skill: Champion’s Aura, Skill: Poison Spikes Trap, Skill: Master’s Aura, Skill: Bloodlust Aura, Spell: Blessed Aura, Spell: Decrepit Skin, Spell: Aura of the Muse, Spell: Elddar’s Grasp, Spell: Puratus, Spell: Moonshadow, Spell: Ghost of Renewal, Spell: Mind Shatter, Spell: Chaos Flame, Spell: Iceflame Guard, Spell: Mind Flay, and Spell: Spirit of Oroshar.
– The research spell Odium can now be researched by priests as intended.
*** NPCs ***

– Dragorn Muramites should be providing a normal amount of experience again.
– Fenden Helter has decided to mark down many of his items.
– Additional items have been added to Fenden Helter in Dragonscale and are available for purchase.
*** AA ***

– Modified how the AAs Animation Empathy and Advanced Pet Discipline function to support the new Pet changes to the User Interface and Pet controls.
– Replaced the Skill Cap adjustments on Third Spire of Ancestors and Third Spire of the Savage Lord with a bonus to minimum damage to avoid certain stacking conflicts.
– Adjusted the stacking order on Rogue’s Fury to better stack with various Rogue disciplines, including Deadeye and Deadly Precision.
*** Miscellaneous ***

– Made various zone stability improvements.
*** UI: General ***

– Enhanced the Raid Window. (See UI: Enhanced Raid Window)
– The Pet Window has received a revamp! (See UI: Pet Window Improvements)
– Added chat window text output for users being invited to raids even when the raid confirmation popup is turned on.
– Added a button in the options general tab that toggles display of pet owner names on pets.
– Fixed a bug that sometimes caused two players to appear to share ownership of the same mercenary when they zoned simultaneously with unsuspended mercenaries.
– You should no longer be spammed with focus effect messages when you have an active mercenary .
– For custom UI creators, ListboxColumns can now have their own tooltips instead of just the Listbox.
*** UI: Enhanced Raid Window ***

– Updated the raid management window to allow for sorting and expedition / shared task management improvements. Also added AFK, dead, and out of zone status.
– Created the /comparetaskraid (Shared Task – Raid) and /compareexpedraid (Expedition – Raid) commands to list the players that are not in both lists.
– Updated the expedition window to allow for simplified raid and shared task invitations.
– Updated the shared task window to allow for simplified raid and expedition invitations.
– The group numbers in the raid window are now color coded in order to better differentiate between groups when sorting by group.
– Column headers now each have their own tool tip.
*** UI: Pet Window Improvements ***

– You can now assign buttons to all pet commands in the pet window.
– Pet target will be displayed under your pets hp bar so you will always know who your pet is attacking.
– Added toggleable buttons throughout the pet UI for sit/stand, follow/guard, focus, hold, taunt, and spell hold.
– Added new pet text based commands. You will now be able to toggle all states off or on, or simply toggle the state with a pet text based command. For example, /pet focus on, /pet focus off, and /pet focus.
– Added a new pet attack command to switch your pet to attack the new target regardless of AA’s or level; great for new and low level players. The old command will still exist as qattack.
– Added a pet hold functionality.
– New pet focus + pet hold functionality (call this pet state “pet convergence” ). Now, when you turn on both the focus and hold states, your pet will attack SPECIFICALLY what you want it to and when finished won’t attack or aggro or do anything else.
– Improved /pet back off. Fully clears the hate list and stops your pet from doing whatever it was doing before.
– Pet follow is now on by default when entering zones.
– Added the pet owner’s name below the pet name text (i.e., “Soandso’s pet”).
– When right clicking a pet button, commands not available to you are filtered out.
– Added messages your pet will say when issued different commands to clarify the intended behavior.
– The state of all pet buttons are now persisted across zoning and logging (except sit and follow that default to their appropriate settings when zoning).
– The UI layout of the pet window is now stored across zoning and logging.
– Integrated pet help has now been implemented and put into the EverQuest pet info window. Click the question mark next to the pet close box to access the pet help dialog.
– When enchanter pets are summoned, they properly only have the Get Lost command, unless they have the special grant pet command SPA/AA.
– Pet spell hold is now available as a command in the pet window.

– New –

EQUI_GuildCreationWindow.xml

– Changed –

EQUI.xml
EQUI_DynamicZoneWnd.xml
EQUI_HotButtonWnd.xml
EQUI_OptionsWindow.xml
EQUI_RaidWindow.xml
EQUI_TaskWnd.xml
SIDL.xml

– The EverQuest Team

Oceangreen Hills, and Ding 78

After the fall of the Combine Empire, the majority of humankind spread out and occupied the center of what was then called Tunaria. These humans lived in small villages upon the fertile plains of Karana and in an area along the western coast called the Oceangreen Hills.

I’ve owned Seeds of Destruction since it released in late October, but I’d never set foot in it until yesterday. Sure, I took advantage of the mercenary and I saw everyone off leveling and having fun, but I stayed firmly planted in current-day Norrath while that happened. First thing I have to say, the music is incredible. I wish there were a CD compilation of the music for SoD, all of it is great. The second you step into Time and head through The Void the music just rocks. When you stare off into the sky and see Veeshan sprawled across, dead, it’s just very humbling.

There is (of course) a progression chart for SoD, which you can find on Zam here. There are missions (both solo and group) given out for various factions as you work through the zones and repair Norrath. Such a daunting task.

We picked up some solo quests that reward faction and another currency, Chronobines. I’m not sure what they’re used for yet, but I’m sure it’s spells and / or gear.

We worked on:

Tabron Caulria:

Each quest involves the infected and diseased creatures that are found all over Oceangreen Hills. The second quest was a huge pain because it required some dust off of skeletons that simply didn’t want to spawn. As we adventured through we also managed to kill two named who dropped some pretty nice gear – nice for us at least. Items in SoD have +700 hp on them these days, so when the lower end stuff has 400 or so, it’s still nice (even though not amazing).

We headed over to the Filed of Scale shortly afterwards to check out the zone and see how hard things hit for. It’s always exciting for me to head to a new expansion that I’ve never played in before (granted, almost everything that’s been released in EQ for the past four years is relatively new to me still). The mobs hurt, they hurt bad. The zone itself was awesome though, armies lined up and about 400 npc fighting each other. We found a little section of land to set up a camp on, and spent a little time there before heading off to a hot zone where my necromancer managed to land herself level 78! I’m so excited about finally hitting level 80, I’m sure the climb to 85 will be very slow, but I don’t mind. For the first time ever I may actually hit the level cap in EQ. Scary!

My Welcome into Seeds of Destruction

You say, ‘Hail, Zebuxoruk’

Zebuxoruk says ‘So you have finally come, to see again the ignominious end of beloved Norrath. Can you hear me, Druzzil? Are you there, Solusek? I am free of my cage. The language of the gods is my own, as are my many thoughts, culled and refined from a thousand million years of ongoing imprisonment. Yet there is no mana to empower my will, nor worshipers to sustain me. Norrath has been destroyed, sundered into [dust].’

You say, ‘Dust?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘I saw many things as I lingered in my cage. Armies of the unsavory pantheon, and their ignorant opponents, tearing the world apart, breaching the passage of days from What Was to What Is. See noble Veeshan, sprawled dead in the heavens. See the clockworks of Time sprung and broken. The Veil of Order ripped away again and again, delivering [Norrath] and yet also destroying it.’

You say, ‘Norrath?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘The world has gone, the planes are fading away, and all of you are but orphaned echoes of a dead time, doomed to endless rebirth in the stomach of a beast whose length is measured in aeons. Still you’ll try to save what can never be saved, to redeem for yourselves a tiny amount of illusion that the universe is not as it is. Gaze upon the grave of Veeshan, the lifegiver dragon, and know the [truth] of my words.’

You say, ‘What truth?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘You have done nothing, yet you are responsible! For all of this! You, the innocent, for despite your denials you are powerless to preclude yourselves from involvement in the greater tragedy, the hideous fate which sweeps away all memory, all context, until only the echoes of that mighty struggle remain. Know that the [corpse] of Norrath still bears the many marks of your intervention.’

You say, ‘A corpse?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘So predictable, you mortals. Set a problem before you and you must solve it; give you a chance and you will take it. Even when you confront the grandest context of your actions, still you leap to action with hardly a second thought. Have you ever given yourselves to the possibility that perhaps death is a better [alternative] to eternal fighting, and endless destruction?’

You say, ‘What alternative?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘If I had known what the ultimate outcome would be I would never have tried to give mortals the secrets I discovered. No, that was indeed a mistake. But perhaps I listen only to the voice of my own purposes, perhaps throughout the unknowable length of my imprisonment, I have lost forever the ability to empathize with those mortals I once sought to [aid] with the powers of the gods.’

You say, ‘What Aid?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘Know that it is futile to tamper with time. You gain nothing, for opening the timescape to your own intrusion opens it also for others. But you should know this, for you have already been through these portals hundreds of times, at least in my experience. What are You? What am I? The difference between us is meaningless. You are doomed to repeat the tragedies of time, and I am doomed to witness them. If you still choose to try and undo what has been wrought upon Norrath, I shall repeat these words yet again, yet again, yet again. ‘The Portals [beckon]. Do as you will’.’

You say, ‘They beckon?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘There, in times past, you may find ways to restore your [context], if ever it was truly that valuable.’

You say, ‘What context?’

Zebuxoruk says ‘The destiny of Norrath sits in peril as long as the enemy’s power is undiminished, in what was once called Oceangreen Hills. There must you re-establish the balance.’

So it was that I headed to Oceangreen Hills.

Veeshan’s Peak, and Epics

Yesterday I wrote a little about how odd it was to experience things in EQ2 first before finding them in EQ, and I had yet another strong encounter with this. It was only a few months ago that I did a dungeon guide on Veeshan’s Peak (EQ2 version) for Beckett, explaining the named encounters that you’d run into and a little bit about what it would take to defeat them – or at least what each encounter did (without giving too much away). I’d never been to Veeshan’s Peak in EQ – though I had killed plenty of Mistmoors friends so apparently I was amiable with the Ring of Scale. At least on my enchanter. The necromancer didn’t fair as well and after one kill (the dragon pictured to the left) she was agro to the entire zone. Hard penalties for killing dragons! Ultann, Ninga and I decided to head to VP and see if we couldn’t get a few clicky pretties that drop. I’m not sure about all the other servers but Drinal is pretty heavily camped, all of the PoP gods, and a good number of the Luclin named (Grieg’s End, the named in Umbral, etc) Trak is also pretty camped, as well as Seru and others. We did manage to find Maestro up, but no Innoruuk. Anyhow, it sort of helps that you take such huge faction hits for slaying dragons, as the entire zone was up with all of the named. We decided to only kill a few of the mighty creatures before calling it a day because it was annoying to camp fire around the zone in order to avoid as many faction hits as we could. Nocbot and Kameeko (the two amiable) stood far away and out of combat, while Ninga, Minxes, and Ultann pounded on the dragons.

We killed Hoshkar, Silverwing, and Druushk. The lute on the right was from Silverwing, and I giggled when I saw it. We didn’t have a bard in the group, but it of course made me think of the EQ2 halfling bard, the famous Tipa. It would have been a nice twink item for Ninga’s bard had we been able to drag him into the zone easily. The necromancer also managed to get herself a clicky staff, we all giggled at the graphic though, it’s just a straight wooden stick. Very drab compared to what we were all expecting.

Afterwards Ninga headed to bed (sleep is important) and Ultann and I decided to work on the enchanter 1.5 pre-quest. It would be easier just to finish doing the 1.0 I think. You need to head to Veksar and gather shards (that only drop VERY rarely from the mobs in the theater) and spawn the dragon. I remember doing this once before but the zone is now very grey to me and it was really slow. The respawns were also slow, and we spend most of the time seeing how large of a train we could gather and fight all at once. After a few hours there not a single shard dropped and I decided this morning it’s probably just easier to finish off my enchanter 1.0 then it is to do the pre-quest for the 1.5. Hopefully I can get all of that completed before too long, we’ll see how it goes.

I also did a little crafting yesterday, working on my spell research. It’s expensive. It’s long. I did get three skill ups with over 100 combines. I suppose that’s a good thing? I still love crafting in EQ but wow when you miss out on an expansion or two you really get left behind.

Today I believe we’re going to explore Seeds of Destruction a little bit. Not everyone had the expansion until yesterday, but now we’re all sporting it as well as the two boxed accounts. One thing we certainly want to do is to do the progression quests in order to upgrade the mercenary that we can purchase. I haven’t set foot in any of SoD yet aside from those mercenary, and it should be a lot of fun. That, combined with working on my enchanters epic of course. I’ve been working on that for so many years now it would be fantastic to finally finish.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!