Tag: EQ

Like the Maiden’s Eye, the Umbral Plains make for one the most treacherous outdoor areas on Luclin. These wide open plains are home to dark assassin shades, many wandering undead Elysian remains, gorangas, netherbians, and giant zelniaks. In the South is the entrance to Vex Thal, which is surrounded by a hoarde of elemental guardians along with Rumblecrush. – Zam.com

Last night Nostalgia headed to Umbral Plains. A zone most remembered as dangerous – and rightly so. The group consisted of two enchanters, a bard, Tipa (ranger extraordinaire), Kanad (well renown shaman), and myself on Qutey (the cutest druid ever). We also had the pleasure of two mercenaries, a tank and a healer (though the healer took a back seat for most of the evening until a few of us died). 

For some reason my computer decided to chose last night of all nights to give me issue. It could have been because I was running curse client (forgot to turn it off) along with xfire, and vent, so I restarted once my video card (or some other part) screamed in protest and crashed me. Then later on in the night it did the same thing. I was already feeling tired so I went and laid down for a little bit before returning. Too much stress lately, but that’s another story. 

We took down a few named in the zone, named I had not seen in a long time. Tawro Icequake lead to The Spirit of Tawro who dropped two very nice weapons (that rotted since the bard was AFK and no one else could use anything), we also took down Bile Spew and a few others. Since I had crashed out I heard there were a few others, and all in all it was a fun night of just hunting named. Next week we’ll get back to leveling.

Have I mentioned that the mercenaries are amazing? Maybe once or twice? 

Well once I logged in game, called my corpse to the guild lobby (noticed that they changed deaths, you no longer lose your items any more when you die? Wow, that is WEIRD) Tipa brought out her healer – and by healer I don’t mean Brita, I mean her mercenary, and it rez’d me for 96% and then buffed me with 2h virtue and other random goodies. 

Sweet. 

Kanad and I stuck around for a little bit once Nostalgia was finished for the night, and I purchased a journeyman healer. They don’t really strike me as being any different then the regular ones. Perhaps faster power regen was the only thing I really noticed. We headed to Plane of Storms and meandered our way through the forest, breaking up a giant camp there for a little bit. He managed to get level 64, and I hit 63 on the druid. The journeyman healer is expensive, at level 62 it cost me 1,300p to purchase, and 26p every 15m of play. Tomorrow I’ll probably turn her in for something a little cheaper. I have no idea if the tanks have a noticeable difference. 

We also learned that you can not make a raid with a mercenary in your group. I figured this was the way they worked when I read the patch notes, but it’s always nice to know for sure. 

NaNoWriMo started today, but (crazy me) I plan on doing my daily mmo updates still on this site as well as participating. If I can’t handle it though I’ll be holding off on the blog posts. We’ll see how it goes. I’m more then likely also going to be switching my host over to wordpress, and dropping the company I’ve been with for 3 years (lots of little annoyances) and just keeping the domain name. We’ll see how that goes. So much to do this weekend!

Halloween may not be a day off of work or school, but that doesn’t stop people from having a lot of fun with the event, including multiple mmo’s. We’ve all heard about the zombie attacks in WoW, and the new haunted house in EQ2, even WAR is getting into the holiday spirit. Not one to be left behind, there is also a whole slew of events going on in EverQuest-PC. 

You can read about all of the events here, at the official EQ site, or run through the list posted below.

Ancient Hauntings! 

These ghost, ghouls, and scary beings return to us from the hauntings in the past. 

Candy and Costumes
Across the starting cities, candy and costume merchants open up their spooky shop to celebrate the season of haunting. Also, seek out Wicked Winnie and a wizened hermit in the Plane of Knowledge for additional sweet fun. 

Trick or Treat?
There have been scattered reports across Norrath of spooky happenings in the Kithicor Forest. People are trick or treating around Norrath. Vampires have been spotted roaming in spooky places. The Halflings are hungrier than usual and are craving everything pumpkin! A creepy bone collector is requesting help on collecting several rare bone artifacts. A great storyteller has arrived and is telling some rather frightening fables. Get your admission ticket today and hear them for yourself! For more information seek out Zigand Ribshard in the Plane of Knowledge. He has all the details! 

• The Trick or Treat Bag: Old Man Draykey will teach you how to trick or treat by showing you the proper greeting method. To practice he gives you a trick or treat bag to go out and get candy.
• Bone Collector: Barsin the bone collector boasts that he can create anything out of bones.
• Roaming Vampire: A Dressed-Up Halfling is running late for the yearly costume gathering.
• Hungry Halfling: Mippie Diggs is hungry and has been craving pumpkin flavored food and drinks.
• Story Teller: Cathil the storyteller has been telling frightening fables to scare the locals.

Haunting Tasks 

• Marta Stalwart in Toxxulia is baking pies to celebrate an old Erudite pie flinging tradition started by an angry wife who scolded her lazy husband by throwing pies at him.
• Grom Shives in Nektulos is retelling the tale of the legendary ride of a dark elf warrior who swindled magic from powerful creatures, and managed to evade them in Nektulos as he returned to Neriak.
• Silas Lightweaver is trying to put on a light show in Greater Faydark, but faeries from Lesser Faydark are running amuck, casting gaudy spells, and disturbing his performance. Capture them, and release them back into Lesser Faydark where they belong.
• Corporal Gravlin is standing guard in Qeynos Hills as travelers from Qeynos attempt journey to Surefall Glade for a celebration. Unfortunately, evil necromancer Pyzjn is causing trouble by raising undead to attack anyone passing through Qeynos Hills.

I decided to create a bard in Eq1. Why? Well I haven’t really played one before (at least not one above level 10) and I have actually thought the class was pretty awesome for a number of years now. Between my cleric and enchanter and other random alts, I just never really had the time. So yesterday Kanad and I decided to create alts. He created a Drakkin rogue and I created a Drakkin bard. We each decided to get mercenaries, and neither of us was really wearing any gear, so it was a great test to see how they worked out. 

The mercenaries have no charge from levels 1-10. After that the charge is very slight, allowing anyone to be able to afford one. At level 13 (which was the level we reached after two hours of playing) the mercenaries cost a grand total of 2p to purchase, and 1g every 15 minutes. 

The tank mercenary didn’t do his job very well, being distracted by numerous things it would seem. I sort of figured they wouldn’t exactly be on par with the level 60+ mercs due to the lack of skills available at that level. The healer was fairly good, though they did need a bit of time for meditation and after I hit level 10 they kept trying to rez me when I wasn’t dead but wouldn’t rez me the one time I actually died. I’m not sure what was going on with that.

One interesting point, is that even though the mercenaries did not physically level along with us as we leveled, their spells DID upgrade automatically. We picked up mercenaries at level 3 and used them until level 9, then switched out from level 9 to level 13. We had different cleric buffs on us when they became available to the mercenary, which is a pretty nice feature if you’re reluctant to upgrade. If they’re not tanking and seem to be healing you just fine, then you can hang onto them for a little longer. 

Since we got to level 13 with no gear at all, doing no quests, just hiring mercs, it’s time to take a little time and see about some gear. I love how a game 10 years old can still hold my attention like no other yesterday was a LOT of fun and I’m looking forward to leveling the bard some more as well as playing with Nostalgia on Friday night with my druid.