Nizara, VoES, and EQ1 Fun Too

This weekend has been a lot of fun so far. Deciding that Saturday would be my ‘slack’ day (and I’d actually get things done Sunday that I needed to do? Right…) I spent most of it in one game or another with a long break between the two. I started off in EQ1, and I felt like playing my druid a little bit. This of course was after I spent a few hours watching Kuron fail work on bits of his Dwarven armor for Urtog. Cultural armor is just fantastic (if not a little expensive when your skills are quite low). Anyhow. It’s not often I play my druid, I don’t even remember playing her way back when, though she does have a few leadership points, so I must have played her in a group at one point or another. Gozad was on and wanted a few levels as he’s going to be moving into a new house and won’t be around for a few days, and Kragz, a paladin friend of mine, offered to come tank and off tank our mobs while we let them die on the wonderful druid damage shield.

We headed to Blightfire Moors, zone of choice for levels 20-40 it seems, though Stone hive would have been fun, it would have also meant death with my little group. I make it a point to know limits, as a healer, and there was no way my little druid (who only has one direct heal and no regen until level 34) was healing that place. Once Gozad hit 34 (and me a little into 33) I got a plea from EQ2. Group of friends wanted to do a quick Nizara run, but had no idea if an enchanter of some sort was still required.

Nizara? Sure, I haven’t been there in ages, and never with the 79 coercer. There’s PLENTY of aa in this zone, and it’s still green at level 80. In the past, this zone was death. The mobs have an attack called Flame Claw – and you never used to be able to cure it. It’s been ‘dumbed down’ some since then, and now you can. I decided for once I would keep a charmed pet. There are stories about the bard mobs in that zone being able to take on anything and also give your group a nice buff. I couldn’t seem to find myself one of those though, so I just settled for a caster. It’s not often I actually get to play in a group with a charmed pet. In fact, I’d say it never happens. Since I knew the group though, I felt comfortable doing so. There’s always the ‘what if the pet breaks and eats a healer’ situation, which I never want to happen.

We got a few legendary chests (nothing impressive, like the belt off of the first named that I had my fingers crossed for) and a lot of aa, and had a good time. I was expecting it to take 2h still, but we flew through it. Shadowknight, Guardian, Bruiser, Templar, Dirge, and myself, Coercer. After we made quick work of Nizara, we decided to continue with the group and head to Vault of Eternal Sleep in Jarsath Wastes.

I’d also never been there with my coercer (hey, did I also mention I went to Stormhold last week and my map for Antonica was black? Oh yes, slacker coercer indeed) and decided again I’d take a pet.

Who broke about 15 minutes into the zone and dropped me to 1% health, then turned on the healer. The ex-charmed pet also summoned little pet adds, who ate and chomped until I slapped down a mez and re-charmed. Bad pet, bad!

By the end of the evening I’d walked away with 118aa (5 more then I started with) no gear upgrades but lots of stuff to transmute, two chromatic shards (which will come in handy later when I decide to craft items with them) and just had a lot of fun. It was nice to be back playing EQ2 a bit — though I’m still spending most of my time in EQ1. I can’t help it, that game just appeals to me on so many levels right now. If there was housing I’d probably be strictly playing EQ1.

The coercer is now 60% into level 79, and quickly coming up on level 80. She’s got two interesting spells ahead of her, that should help dps a lot. I’m not in a great rush to get there (did I mention last week she finished her workers hammer to port to Jarsath Wastes?) but it would be nice to start working on her epic. We’ll see how it goes.

Doing It The Hard Way

Last night was Mistmoore Castle, and above is the only screen shot I managed to take the entire time we were there. If it could go wrong, it did go wrong. Malfi (healer) wasn’t there, Relm (beastlord) wasn’t there, Aerrik (other healer) was very low level and ended up being disconnected (we think) part way in – which left group one with no healer as Coldheat also had a sudden emergency and had to go afk for the evening. Urtog (group two’s tank) also had to leave part way through leaving Tipa and Rogbog as our tanks. There was no doubt we were in Mistmoore Castle, this is what the zone was known for (and still is to this day). We combined two groups into one and after numerous deaths, and trains of various sizes, we decided to head to a LDoN to cap off the night –

Where we also died twice more.

Well, ok it was only once more but I died twice more since I decided to spam heal while waiting on an evac. At least I provided suitable distractions for everyone else to get away. Oh yes, did I mention I healed? That’s because despite having spent the majority of my time this week leveling up a rogue, working her skills, and making her armor – I played the cleric.

The forces of the universe were obviously against me. I make a healer and we’ve a surplus, so I switch to a necro, then switch to a rogue, and then back to the healer. Thankfully, I have the time to keep both characters (at least for a bit) within our level ranges. I also enjoy both a great deal. I spent the majority of the beginning of the evening (before we’d actually started) role playing UghUgh the ogre rogue (aka Dainty, the gnome) as her true ogre self. It happened to coincide with a new recruit to Nostalgia the Guild who didn’t speak ogre and had no idea what I was going on about. It was great. Thankfully Tipa and Gozad managed to pick up ogre before this whole incident began. I plan on keeping it up – at least with the rogue. Ishbel (the cleric) has no such rp yet, and I haven’t really managed to think of one for her. That’s not to say I won’t, though.

I still had a lot of fun. I still highly encourage anyone who wants to come play in our static Friday groups to get a hold of someone in guild and let us know. The level caps for this week are 35-40 and there are people willing to help you (for now while the level is low) level up. I can’t help people who don’t play though.

The rest of the evening was spent in Stonehive on high level characters killing the Queen (aka: Watching Tipa kill it) who dropped a caster earing that was actually an upgrade to my enchanter, and a few goodies for our lower level characters. One of the highlights for the evening, for me of course, was the Manic Mushroom, and the little ditty I made up to the tune of ‘Manic Monday’. Ah, good times.

Tonight, Nostalgia!

Today is Friday, which is wonderful. It means it’s almost the weekend, people are in relatively good moods, and tonight is another meeting of Nostalgia the Guild. I’m looking forward to our trip to Mistmoore to hit on some vampires. Though I expect Urtog will be doing most of the hitting on. Dainty just stabs. I’ve (unfortunately) been sick most of this week, so last night was yet another night of me going to bed around 8pm and I didn’t get much done in game.

What I did get done though was manage to make Dainty two pieces of her cultural armor for level 35-40. It requires a tinkering skill of 185 and her skill is currently 102 which means out of the 9 tries I failed 7 of them. But I still managed to walk away with a new chest piece and a new pair of shoes. Today I’ll see about making a few more pieces. The stats are really nice, +6-10 to pretty much everything, with a good arrangement of hp / endurance / mana (not that she uses mana). I still need to look up some quests some time for those “missing slots” of gear, but I felt proud that I could craft armor that’s pretty good for her level.

Before tonight’s meeting of Nostalgia, I need to learn ogre. Easily done. I also still need to work up my lock picking, disarm trap, and a few other things that I just simply haven’t had time to do. I love how EQ1 actually requires you to play in order to get these things done. I believe it was Tipa who said “well it’s really hard to level if you don’t log in” when we were discussing a few things.

The supplies for the 35-40 armor are very cheap, about 20p per piece all together. That mostly includes the 15p you need for the main component of the augment, which is water specific to your deity. I have my enchanter make these augments as it requires a skill and a quest that I didn’t exactly want to do on my lower level right yet. I’m not supposed to be getting experience, after all.

Once things settle down some, I’d like to keep playing my cleric (the drakkin) who I decided not to delete (she’s just too much fun) as well as Minxe (the necromancer) who can solo herself a few levels if I ever find the time. This weekend should be spent mostly with me at home trying to get better, and hopefully not sleeping quite so much. We’ll see how it goes, I suppose.

Me Ogre. You Tasty.

It was fairly easy to get the rogue to 35 yesterday, and shortly after noon she was set for Friday. Minus the skills I still need to work up (lock picking, disarm trap, sneak and hide just to name the basics). I also decided on a role play story for the little gnome. She thinks she’s an ogre. Which means my first line of business is of course to teach her ogre, I’ll do that later today. I imagine that it will be difficult to play in my Nostalgia groups only speaking ogre but ideally that’s what I plan on doing. There’s always vent for other things I need to say. I took her to Stonehive for the last five levels and not only did her melee cloak drop (same one Urtog and Tipa had gotten a few nights back) but a caster cloak also dropped (seems to be rare) for Lackey. An augment also dropped that I quickly added to the cloak. We stayed at the entrance and pulled just the main floor of the hive itself, but it was still fun. No bum imprints in the honey this time around.

I started working on her cultural armor a bit last night, and managed to get her ancient book which lets me make backpacks of patterns. Next step is to work her tinkering to around 100-150 or so in order to make the level 35-40 gear. Or I could just make the level 15-20 gear since it’s just fine for now. Gnomes have one small advantage (if you could call it that, it’s more like a difference) in that they can either craft their gear through blacksmithing – or tinkering.

Since the ‘main’ skill I’d like to work up (aside from poison crafting) is tinkering, I’ll be sticking with that. I do need to find a better site though for tinkering information. EQtraders is alright, but they’re lacking any real section on the skill, and instead just have a host of recipes with trivial listed. Tipa also suggested a site for the rogue that has slipped my mind and I’ll have to nudge her about that again (I want to say.. safe house?). All in all, I’m excited to be playing the rogue and haven’t even poked into Eq2 for some time. It’s nice to find something that I can focus my attention on and not feel swayed by other games (yet).

EQ1 is down for 8 hours today for maintenance which seems to be the same no matter what game I play. Last night in game was quiet with Urtog testing out his spanking rod (on mobs, lets not get any ideas here), and Gozad working up his feign death. It shouldn’t be too much longer now before I stop moving like a herd of elephants, and more like a cat stalking its prey.

Dainty – The Rogue

As most know, in EQ1 I have a plethora of alts. Always have. I originally signed up for Nostalgia the Guild with my cleric, however we honestly had enough healers – and so I switched to my necromancer who happened to be the right level when we were lacking dps. Upon further contemplation though, I’ve decided to level up a rogue to play with our Friday night groups. The big thing for me was to play something that actually relied on having a group, since that’s exactly what I’d have. The necromancer is fun, and a lot of dps – but she can solo just as easily as she groups. Not exactly what I was looking for there.

Along comes Dainty.

She’s a gnome rogue, sporting hot pink and black armor, with an affinity for shinies (which can be said for all rogues I’m fairly certain) and a fear of blood. I plan on working out some sort of role play story for her that I haven’t concocted quite yet. I love making up background histories and what not for my characters.

Last night thanks to temperance from one Brita, and buffs continuously from one very kind druid, I managed to make my way from 1-24 with relative ease. The goal is to be 30-35 by this Friday, and geared – with my skills worked up. Maybe not disarm trap as I’d have to actually go find, you know, traps. If there are lower levels where I can do this, please someone let me know. I’m already planning on a Befallen trip to work the lock picking (thanks Tipa for reminding me what that zones name was).

Aside from leveling up the rogue, I had the opportunity to tag along with Urtog while he worked on a weapon quest for a giant ancient road sign. Or at least that’s what the end result looks like. It’s either that or a primitive spanking rod, or perhaps a fly swatter. I’m not quite sure. Either way, congratulations to him for finishing that off.

It was also the Tuesday night Nostalgia run, they headed to Unrest and you can find Tipa’s amazing write up of the event. There’s still some time to join both the Friday and the Tuesday groups – and we’re also starting up a UK group (though there’s no set day yet that they’ll be meeting, there will be shortly). The level cap for the Tuesday group is (I believe) 25, the Friday group is 35, and anyone is more then welcome to come. Friday is looking for an enchanter, but as always we want people to play whatever they enjoy. What’s the point of paying $15 a month if you’re not playing something you have fun with.

As I leveled up the rogue I read over SOE’s emails to me (each ding) suggesting places to get experience. One place was Stonebrunt Mountains, a place I hadn’t been to in ages. I couldn’t even remember any camps for this zone. It was of course, empty. I also headed over to the Overthere, which was also – you guessed it. Empty. In fact the only places that weren’t empty, were Crescent Reach, and Blightfire Moors. Not that it bothered me too much since I was just trying to catch the rogue up for Friday.

Today I’m fairly confident I can get the rogue the rest of the way to 30-35, and get her skills worked on. I am also eager to not only begin poison crafting, but tinkering. The one tradeskill I’ve rarely (if ever) delved in. I’m looking forward to it!