EQ – Page 43 – A Pixel Nomad

The Simple Things are Often the Sweetest

I saw the sweetest thing last night in EQ and I had to mention it here of course. In both EQ and EQ2 you’re able to edit a small box of text on your description window. People use these for numerous things, favorite song lyrics, a list of their accomplishments and other random goodies, whatever really happens to cross your mind. When you examine someone these boxes of text are on display for all the world to see.

So it was that I happened to be standing in the guild lobby last night, and I spotted a character with a very interesting looking shield. Naturally I wanted to see what shield it was, so I examined them.

I wish I had of taken a screen shot. It was just that sweet.

In their description was a letter from a husband, written to his wife on his wife’s character. He must have logged her in with the hopes that she would see the message. It was written just before he left for Iraq, or so the brief message said. It was a note about how much he loved his darling wife, and went along the lines of “Hey baby, I love you so much you’re incredible, I’ll see you when I get back from Iraq” – short, and sweet.

The message moved me so much. I almost teared up, reading some strangers description. I don’t even know who they were and they zoned before I could get their name or send them a tell about the message to ask if it was new or how long ago he had left or if he had returned safely. I probably won’t ever know now, unless by some weird fluke they happen to read this site which would be really weird. The emotional connections we all make as human beings within these video games we play astounds me every single day. It reminds me of the great people I have met, the close friends, and everyone I love. Anyone else have amazing stories like this? I’d love to hear them.

Epic 1.5 Progress!

Aside from the defeat of Bristlebane, last night was filled with a few other adventures that warrent talking about. To start it off my little necromancer is not quite so little any more. Through the aid of hot zones and some amazing help from both Ultann and Ninga, she’s reached level 68, and 70% into it. She doesn’t have any veteran rewards, no experience item she can use every 24h or anything like that, it’s just been from regular leveling. If I had of concentrated on her the first few days I was playing instead of the rogue she would have probably gained a few more levels by now as well.

Ninga suggested a mission last night (and I’m still new at those) which we did with a few complications (mercs are still not as good at healing as a real person no matter what) and the reward was that glowing staff pictured in the screen shot. This is my first item that I’ve ever owned with a very noticeable particle effect. Needless to say I absolutely love it and I’ll be taking it to bed with me for the next little while. Minxes is completely set with her glowing staff in one hand, and her little doll in the other.

The particle effect staff was not the main component of the evening though, nor even the most exciting. Nope, it wasn’t Bristlebane either.

The boys suggested that I work on my epic 1.5 pre-quest, and then we start plugging away at my epic 1.5 in truth. I sort of stood there dumbfounded for a minute or two, and asked “are you guys serious”? before letting myself get too excited. I’ve owned 1.0’s on characters before, both my cleric and my rogue (and part of the one for my enchanter) but I’ve never done a 1.5 before. Sure, it’s out dated but the feelings I associate with those weapons are very significant.

Just so happens that the necromancer one is not that difficult (now), and does not require the loads of crafting that some of the others require. I have one no-fail combine that needs a blacksmithing skill of over 100, but aside from that it’s all fairly simple. So we headed off to start the pre-quest which was not too difficult. I had to make my way to West Karana (the zone, not the site) and then give a note to an NPC there – doing so triggered five wolves to spawn. Four of them were level 68, immune to melee (sorry our handy monk) summon, and hit for about 1200 a shot. The other one was 69 and highly magic resistant. When I first triggered everything we were not really sure what to do and so the wolves summoned and ate through my little group pretty fast. We also didn’t take along our healer, Nocbot. Woops. Once the mobs are triggered you only have 30 minutes to defeat everything including the next step, so we set up for round two, used monk mez and pulled the wolves one at a time away from each other.

It went much smoother that way.

After they were defeated I had to kill a shady bandit who was standing a little ways away, and then there were a few more fights, nothing of note though. Before long I had my pre-quest completed and I was free to start on the actual epic. Looking over the notes, there is only one encounter (at the end of course) that may be any trouble at all, and it’s in Nobels Causeway. My group is fairly confident that with a little finess we may be able to defeat this just fine – and I was so excited at hearing that, and at hearing in general that I may get my 1.5. I think I mentioned that once or twice already, hehe.

We continued on with the main portion of the quest which requires obtaining random bits and combining them into containers and then turning in those containers to obtain more bits. Ultann headed off to farm some balls of clay while myself and Ninga headed to the mines for a few ore. Afterwards Ultann hunted gargoyls for me for a tradeable bit, and now I need to hunt in Plane of Innovation for a rare drop. After that, it’s a matter of defeating four paladins, and then there’s two more encounters and my 1.5 will be completed. My fingers are crossed for this one, I’d really like to get it done!

My goal for today is to work up my blacksmithing to 100 so that I can get that out of the way. I’m having an absolute blast in game these last few days have been so much fun. I hope everyone else is having an amazing day, no matter where or what you’re playing!

Dirt Naps

Now, Bristlebane isn’t part of PoP at all (Planes of Power for those who may have forgotten or never played) but he was still on the list of “would like to kill one day” encounters that we all made mentally. I’ve never killed him before, in fact I’d never even seen him before let alone kill him.

So when Ninga and Ultann decided last night that we’d be going to check on him I was so excited. It’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of Plane of Mischief, it’s my favorite zone by far. When I first started playing EQ I spent hours upon hours in this zone with my beastlord friend farming gear that was (at the time) huge upgrades for me. It was so much fun. Probably the main reason I have such fond memories.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the encounter, there was a discussion about how every server had a different version of the playful King of Thieves, but when I looked it up on Zam there was only talk of one main encounter so perhaps things have changed over the years. It was a pretty basic fight. Throughout the duration Bristlebane does an emote (or two) and switches his stances out between being highly magic resistant and fighting faster, increasing his strength and other such things.

My necromancer (who is now level 68 after five days of playing which I’ll talk more about later) was almost instantly turned into a halfling – and not just any halfling, a BALD halfling. Those ones are the worst kind after all. I noticed the rest of the group mates seemed to resist this AoE and I felt a little foolish as I hurled spells at Bristlebane’s ankles.

In the end we were victorious, and the fight dropped a few pretties. What I was hoping for was the clicky shrink item, but apparently that’s rare and we sure didn’t see it. That’s ok though, what we did get was still pretty nice. I relogged over to Invis (the rogue) in order to loot a new dagger.

The dagger (even though VERY old) was still an upgrade to my off hand. Sure, I could purchase a better one from the broker but what would be the fun in that? Where was the challenge.

We also received a bracer, nothing too facny about it – but along with that bracer was a robe. A pretty robe. It went to Minxes (the necromancer) who has been wearing her tutorial gear for quite some time now, and who we’ve just started obtaining gear for. The robe has a beautiful graphic on the Drakkin and it’s black with purples and pink highlights.

Which reminds me, some time I need to take my little necromancer to speak with the npc in PoK about her planar progression stone – though it’s also highly outdated, and I realize Bristlebane has nothing to do with it, it’s just one of those things I need to get around to some time that I have not done yet. Hopefully the guys had just as much fun as I did, even though none of the items we loot are upgrades at all to their uberness. We keep checking on a particular mob every day to see if they are up yet and get a chance to kill them (not telling which, it’s a secret!) but so far, no luck. Not sure when they died last, either.

The boys did get a chance to check in on Cazic Thul and kill him, which I was surprised at, figuring that he would be heavily camped. It won’t be long until the PoP mobs we’ve already killed can be taken down again and now that my necromancer has a few more levels under her belt we can get her some more old flags that are no longer used.

Another post will follow this one in a bit, talking about what we spent the rest of the evening doing (which was a lot of fun and pretty exciting for me personally, I must say). See you in Norrath!

Moving On Up

I activated my 2nd EQ1 account so that I’d be able to box my enchanter along with whomever I was playing – not to mention the fact that my enchanter is a heavy EQ crafter and it comes in handy. I love crafting in EQ. I like having combines that are not automatic, and having to farm all of the supplies, and being able to make a HUGE amount of items. It’s refreshing to me. Then again I enjoy crafting in pretty much every game I play, go figure.

My necromancer is a total of four or five days old now, and last night managed (with a huge amount of help of course) to hit level 65, almost 66. I had been saving up parchment to turn in for spells and had quite a few, we’re talking at least 50 or so and had a lot of spells waiting for me including a few new pets. It was nice to finally get a wraith pet instead of a skeleton and this is the highest level I’ve ever had a necromancer at before. I really enjoy the class, and even though I’ve got no aa (yet) or even gear (fixing that today) in the trio I’ve been playing in she comes in handy.

Earlier on in the day my little static group decided to check on a few more PoP gods, and found Saryrn at home. First we decided to do a trial or two in Plane of Justice, just to get Minxes (the necromancer) a few flags. We headed to Plane of Torment and began to work our way through the winding stairs and twisting paths, gaining a lot of experience along the way. It was a rough fight, but we did it. The little adds that came along decided to eat through my necromancers flimsy armor, not that she was wearing much. A mage item dropped, with a clickie. Oh how we love our clickies.

The rest of the evening (the necromancer started off at level 55) was spent trying to level her high enough to get missions together. Apparently 65 is not enough though, 69 (the enchanter) worked just fine, so she’ll need a few more.

We’ve been hanging out in the hot zones, which are fairly full of players, and I’ve just been having a good ‘ol time listening to people talking in channels, there’s lots of active groups and it’s just so wonderful. I imagine that as it gets closer to the 10th anniversary (March 16th) more people may return for Nostalgia’s sake, and we’ll see even more people playing. Never a bad thing.

See you in Norrath!

Planar Progression

Yesterday was such a trip down memory lane, on so many levels. Back in 2003 I was playing an enchanter and I was about to go on my first raid ever. My closest in game friend (A beastlord named Fistinyereyes) was in Keepers of the Elements – and I was going to get to go with them on a raid. I can’t even begin to describe how I felt about it. I was nervous. I was well under geared. I had only been playing a short while, and I was so excited. The raid? Bertoxxulous. As a regular enchanter it would have been my job to keep certain things (I forget what not) mez’d while the raid dealt with other things. Since I was too low they didn’t expect that of me and I basically just got to watch two hours of madness. I am also fairly sure I held my breath the whole time. So yesterday when Ninga and Ultann suggested we head off to see if Bertox was up I was pumped. All the memories I had from these raids came rushing back to me. Now, the zone Bertox is in is considered a hotzone. There were a few people around exping, but not too many. The event for Bertox spawns a LOT of mobs and players use that to obtain a crazy amount of experience – and then leave Bertox up and repeat it in six hours. I felt a little bad doing the full event but it was still so much fun. Bertoxxulous fell without too much of an issue, and I just stood there stunned. I remember having so many people along to take him down when I went and now we’d just trio’d him.

Wow. How things change.

It wasn’t the end of our PoP destruction though. We also defeated Aerin’Dar, Rydda’Dar, a bunch of named inside of Sol Ro minus Sol Ro himself because he was not up – Terris Thule, Tallon Zek, Vallon Zek, Grummus, and probably a few others that I can’t remember off of the top of my head. My little rogue had never done any of these encounters before, I’d always been playing the cleric or the enchanter, so it was a lot of aa for her and a lot of character flags. The flags are not a required thing any more, but it still felt great to get them.

When all of that was over with I relogged to my necromancer and we spent some time working her in Nagafen’s Lair (another hotzone) to level 46 – then we headed to Plane of Innovation which is the level 50 hotzone. When all was said and done she hit level 52. I’m looking to switch from the rogue to the necromancer in time if I can, so I’ve been leveling her up slowly. Well, not that slowly. It’s been four days and she’s level 52 now. I used zam.com a lot to look up encounters and see what we were defeating, and read the comments left by players a LONG time ago. A lot of the comments dated to 2006 or older, and it just made me feel so out of date. It was fantastic.

There were still a lot of people playing yesterday. The community is still very active, and filled with chatter. Helpful and friendly. While the game may have gone over a lot of changes these past few years to keep things updated and to try to make sure people who are new are not being daunted by the previous 10 years of gameplay, it’s still the same game. It always feels like ‘home’ as far as games are concerned.

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, no matter your game of choice. See you in Norrath!