Tag: EQ

Last night was our weekly meeting of Nostalgia, and though we had a booming show up the week before with almost two full groups – this week we were reduced down to just barely 7 people. It happens, unfortunately. People get busy, life happens, they decide they don’t want to play any more (even though we’ve got the lightest schedule invented) that’s just the way it works out. It could have been disappointing were it not for the fantastic attitude of those who did show up. I of course have a pet peeve with not knowing when someone is going to show up. I understand things often happen that are beyond our control, but when a group of people rely on you – let them know some how you won’t be there, so they’re not waiting all night wondering. I have so much appreciation for people who managed to let us know they’re going to be missing for the evening. It also seemed to be the night for incidents – Aerrik had to leave early due to a sick wife (hope she’s feeling better), Relm left to help some friends in WoW, Urtog had a family dinner to attend, and I can’t remember what else happened but DESPITE all of that – we still had a blast. Lost Dungeon Of Norrath – butcherblock style, has always been one of my absolute favorites.

Of course, there was the theory that SOMETHING had to go wrong. Last week it was me dragging around Malfi’s corpse right out from under him, and then being agro to the clockwork and wiping the group. This week? It was that half our group were physically stuck in the instance until the completion timer went off. That’s right, attempting to use the door brought about nothing at all. Dying of course moved you out of the instance – but who wants to pay to retrieve a stuck corpse? So we waited it out. Laughing Fearful for our lost comrades. The LDoN’s appeared to give roughly the same experience as they did two weeks ago. A level or so. More for the hard ones vs. the easy which of course makes sense. I only did two of them and sat the third out (had to eat, plus we had 7 people again anyhow so they could make a full group) and got two levels on the necromancer, reaching level 32.

Which, is fantastic. It means I can wander around Blightfire (which is still a hot zone) and attempt some of the quests in the zone without having to worry about leveling past my 35 level cap for this week.

Last night I also managed to track down my second account, holding Ellithia – a 68 cleric (with her epic) who I had three years ago. I splurged, and spent the $50 to move her to my main account (no need to box, I have station access and don’t want two accounts) exceptionally happy. I haven’t tried looking for a group (yet) but I’m hoping I can drag Kragnn (necromancer) or Kuron (warrior) around for some experience. I doubt there’s really anything I can solo. I tried to wander around Goru’Kar Mesa (a zone off of Blightfire) last night in an attempt at obtaining artifact pieces for a quest – but it was slow going without invis and the guards around the humble town I was wandering across hated me, badly.

There’s nothing quite so embarrassing as getting beaten down by a small swarm (2-3) of gray guards.

Next week we are off to Mistmoore Castle – it should be a blast. We could still REALLY use a second tank, a rogue, and an enchanter. If anyone’s interested, please check out our forums here and let us know you’d like to join. If you’re afraid about being behind (Our levels this week should range from 30-35) I will personally help you get to that level by Friday — if you’ve got the time and are dedicated to playing with us. Please don’t let the level 35 current level range deter you if that’s all it is. Experience really is quite fast still and we really could use a few more players before we hit the more ‘difficult’ levels (which I assume are going to start mid 40’s low 50’s.. but I could be wrong).

Since I have two clerics now, and haven’t played Ishbel in Nostalgia at all – but also have a 31 druid who’s a lot of fun, I’m thinking of deleting Ishbel. Not just for the sake of deletion of course, but I really don’t need / want two clerics. I have a 31 druid who’s in range for Lackey / Nostalgia purposes, and I also have a 40 shaman should the need ever arise. I’m at 10/10 characters, and I wouldn’t mind having the freedom to make someone new if I wanted. I’ll contemplate it a little more today first before making the decision I suppose.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I spent most of it flip flopping between EQ1 and EQ2, which I suppose is quite usual for me. I started out in EQ2. Invited a few new members to Nostalgia, and the guild dinged level 5 opening up our first bit of city merchant goodies. It was easy enough to get, since Stargrace (the 80 provisioner) gets 1.5k status for every writ she does, and the provisioner rush orders fly by. Plus since we’re such a low level, it only took four writs to get us a level and a half. At least now people can see our guild tag when they look at us. I also managed to ding 79 on the coercer, and finished the three factions she needs in order to quest for her Jarsath Wastes hammer. I remember doing this hammer on my rogue in EQ1. I had to work faction, a lot of faction. You turn in whips from local sarnak to the skeletons, and then once you’re done working up your faction it’s a simple little quest to complete it. I remember being so proud when I’d finally finished. One of the raid ‘requirements’ was to have a viable means of getting home again once you were done for the evening. Since the aa that sends you home was not out yet, that meant gate potions, or whatever else you could find that could port you. When Kuron, Tipa, and myself headed to Chardok to check on the royalties the hammer came in handy for me to get out without having to walk through the entire zone (again, and possibly dying to traps).

Next goal is of course to get the coercer to 80. Finish her Thuuga item, and start her epic. I also did the evil aligned quests that came out with GU45. Running around Timerous Deep spreading plague and blight made me feel right at home. A new house item (a book) and a fancy back scratcher (that coats you with flies when you wear it) were my rewards. Of course just as soon as I get settled in EQ2, I feel an incredible urge to wander back over to EQ1.

Lackey was on with his magician and we quickly teamed up, me playing my cleric. He was already in Upper Guk, and I headed that way. In typical Stargrace fashion I forgot how to get there. The PoK map may say Guktan, but the stone says Grobb. Either way, that’s where I was headed. We made our way down to the spawn area of ‘an ancient croc’.

Illia’s Everquest Beastiary says this about the mob: ”

The Ancient Croc is probably second only to the Shin Lord in terms of popularity. The Ancient Crocodile can be found in the very back of Guk, near the two watery enterances to Lower Guk.

He hits for 72 Max, but has relatively low HP for something which hits that hard.”

I had to laugh. The item he drops that was most sought after way back when are his gatorscale sleeves. They have +4 int, 15hp, and enchantment I. which means they reduce the cast time of long beneficial spells. The next comment below the explanation of the mob was even more endearing to me:

“Could a 34 pally farm this place and get some ok loot?”

Of course, it was posted back in 2003. Before Crescent Reach made its way into game and gave lowbies a new area with new loot. Above is what gear looks like ‘now’ in the newer zones. They actually have stats. A lot of stats. It dropped off of some random mob in Blightfire Moors.

Ah how things have changed. It’s nice to say ‘I won’t use any of that stuff, I don’t NEED any of that stuff’ but lets be honest here. It’s pretty. It’s shiny. We wants it. It’s natural to want to gear your character up to the best of your ability. We’re not talking twinking it out by means of bazaar, but quested items, loots and drops you can obtain yourself. We want what we can work for, and feel proud about.

We camped that croc spot last night for an hour and a half – spawned the ancient once. The sleeves dropped, and Lackey was all excited about it, until he saw his sleeves he was currently wearing (which is DE cultural armor) vs. the ones the croc dropped. His have 20 health/mana/end and +3-5 to all stats, plus a few saves. Hard to compare some of the old world drops with the new world items.

Part of me almost wishes devs took the time to revamp every single old world drop so that it could compete with the new world zones – so that they’re not constantly barren where no one has any interest in hanging out (Nostalgia the Guild being the exception to that). On the other hand, it’s a huge exciting thing to be able to go back and see these old items that used to be “so uber” back in the day. Brings back a whole lot of memories, that’s for sure.

Tonight is our weekly meeting of Nostalgia, and I’m looking forward to it. Fingers are crossed that I’ll get the chance to group with my favorite warrior and my favorite ranger (not to mention my favorite shaman, druid, wizard, heck wait everyone is my favorite), but if Tipa’s on tank duty it probably won’t work out that way. I’m also secretly hoping I may get to play my cleric (she’s fast approaching levels where I won’t be able to solo / duo quite so easily for my experience, and I’ve managed to keep her up with Nostalgia thus far for levels ‘just in case’) but the necromancer is always a lot of fun too. We’ll see how it goes, no doubt I’ll write about that tomorrow morning. We’re doing our Butcherblock LDoN’s in an effort to slow down the leveling and earn some more points. Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mothers out there! Hope today is wonderful.

Some how I managed to convince Growlius, who is a good friend of mine from EQ2 and also plays VG with me – that EQ1 was actually not evil, and he should come play. Not to be confused here, he’s played before. A level 70 necro with his epic 1.0, 1.5, and 2500 aa… No wonder he thinks the game is evil. Even though he’s got no interest in joining up with the Nostalgia bit I’ve got going on, he’s at least playing. This meant of course that I needed yet another alt. I used to have a beastlord some time ago but deleted it before I got station access. I already have three healers, I dislike playing a tank, and I wanted something we could duo with (though lately I’m beginning to think anyone can make a fine duo). So we both decided to make beastlords. I went with my troll on the left, Bhelly. I am quite partial to the alligator pets – though I was even more partial to them before they revamped them and stuck them with 6 ugly legs as opposed to the normal versions that had four. Growlius created a Luclin born one (fitting, for our server) and off we went. We stuck with the tutorial only until level 5, both of us becoming very bored with it very fast. After that we went to Crescent Reach, and completed the beginner quests there. We basically got two levels for every one quest we did, it was great. Before long we made it to level 10, and called it a night.

Well, Growlius called it a night. I hung around for a bit longer – low and behold Lackey logged in. Since I switched from my cleric to my necromancer because we needed the dps more then we seemed to need the heals, I played my cleric with Lackey. We also teamed up with Rogbog, Zerker from Nostalgia. It made me realize how much I LOVE playing the cleric class, and how much I’d missed it. It was the first time aside from the tutorial I’d actually been in a group (even if it was small) for any of the content and not just solo’ing on her. There are two classes I seem to be partial to. Healers, and enchanters. The rest are ok, but nothing beats those two. We ran around Blightfire Moors, all of us more concerned with just getting experience then with questing. Both Lackey and myself each won a very nice item (think his was a necklace, and mine was an upgrade to my range slot) and a general good time was had by all. The cleric hit 26 and almost 27, Lackey the same, and Rogbog hit his level cap of 30 for the week. We were taking down red Briar Thorns, and didn’t even come close to dying, even though we some times had two. The Moors can be dangerous if you’re not sure where to go, especially since the zone is essentially for levels 20-40.

I had actually meant to play EQ2 yesterday, and never got around to it. I had work orders waiting for me in Vanguard which I did manage to get done, can’t have guild mates going without a house. EQ2 however just couldn’t quite interest me. I had every intention of finally hitting 78 on the coercer, and just couldn’t bring myself to log in for more then five minutes. Ah well, as long as I’m enjoying myself, I doubt it matters really which game I play.

Last night was our fourth meeting of Nostalgia the Guild, and it took us to Solusek’s Eye. We died, a lot. It was great. Two group wipes were directly because of me and being a dark elf. We happened to stumble into the clockwork portions, low and behold the little mech gnomes don’t care for me. Woopsie. I didn’t even realize that they disliked me, so when we made our way down for a second time, and we wiped again – it suddenly dawned in that it was *me* and not just my group they disliked. It didn’t help that they were red con and we had a few on us at once. We could handle them one at a time, but they’re highly resistant to snare and had lots of friends to come play. They didn’t just dislike me though, oh no. Once one had booted me into the near by lava, and my pet decided to dive in right after, I tried to call him back. Of course pets don’t take the usual way back to their owners, no, they have to walk the long way. Through agro mobs, with an angry mech gnome following behind. Which of course lead us to hear a sudden bombardment of whirling gadgets followed by a very loud “Oh shit” from me, and about 20 of the little beasties swarming us.

I lived through that one.

Unfortunately, the rest of the group did not. The joys of being a necromancer though, aside from feign death I can locate corpses, or summon them if I’ve got a coffin on me (which I rarely do, mental note to stock some in my bank for CR’s) I can also invis myself, and invis vs. undead. Best of both worlds.

Tipa made a comment on her post about the evening, “In a pickup group, dying so many of times could only have ended in a lot of bad feelings. With a group of friends, taking risks, having fun… it was great,” which is exactly right. Sure after the third death in a row maybe we were feeling it slightly, but because we’re a group of friends, adventuring together – and the experience is quite fast despite the deaths, there were no hard feelings (as far as I’m aware). Next week will be a LDoN night, which I do enjoy quite a bit, and then the week after we’ll be heading to Mistmoore Castle. Last time I was there it was invaded and was quite high level (back in 2005) but now apparently it’s settled back down to a lowbie zone.

The experience is still quite fast. We’re averaging five levels a week (or a night even, for those who don’t play constantly) and keeping up at a steady pace. A few people have dropped behind, some are not playing any more and can’t make the schedule, but all in all it’s still a LOT of fun. We could use a second tank, an enchanter, and a rogue. The second tank bit seems to be the hardest to find and gathering together two full groups is always a chore. Last night we had a fantastic turn out though, I believe we had two groups of 5, so 10 people total. We got a few upgrades, some weapons for Urtog (our tank) and some caster jewelery pieces for both myself and Coldheat (the cleric). We also got some augments I believe for Rogbog (zerker) and maybe Binxs (the beastlord) I can’t recall though.

The zone is a hotspot, which meant of course – power levelers were around. It was hard to find an area to camp and get experience at when a level 80 is running around gathering the entire zone to level up their alt (or someone else’ alt, who knows). Unfortunately, that’s just a part of the game and you learn to make due.

Best moments of the night? Tipa (in the screen shot above) becoming larger then life (literally) with the help of Bristlebane. Minxe (my necromancer) also had a ‘moment’ when the jesters enlarged her and Urtog suddenly realized which dungeon he wanted to explore next as he attempted to crawl under her dress. Another great moment was when I was trying to locate Malfi’s (druid) corpse in the lava. I spent a good 5 minutes trying to target it and be in range to drag, and suddenly could. I excitedly spoke in vent about how I’d managed to snag his corpse, and brought it upstairs to him. I was so proud, having never found anyone’s corpse before.

Then he told me he’d actually summoned it with his veteran reward aa, and was in the process of looting it when I stole it from him and dragged it away.. He wasn’t on vent and had no idea I’d been hunting for it.

Woops. I make a great necromancer, what can I say. Already stealing corpses. The night was wonderful, I leveled from 25-30, and picked up all 12 new spells in abysmal sea. I was slightly disappointed that I worked really hard to research a spell for level 24 (my pet) and then it was replaced at 29 by something vendor sold. Ah well, that’s the life of a caster! Hopefully a great time was had by all, and we’ll have more excitement next week.

While it’s been a blast roaming through the old nostalgic areas of EQ1, there’s also something to be said for the new places. Well, new to me in any case. Lets face it, there’s lots of new places. If you were perhaps once daunted by the amount of time it takes to level (even while solo) you shouldn’t be. At least, 1-30 has flown by. One huge reason for this was because of the Serpents Spine expansion which added Crescent Reach, and the Drakkin as a playable race. Off of Crescent Reach, is Blightfire Moors, which is home to a plethora of quests, great armor upgrades, and other random goodness. While the nostalgia group as a whole tends to avoid the more ‘up to date’ areas, I’ve enjoyed exploring them on my own when I needed a little more experience, or felt like playing one of my non progression characters.

One of the quests I worked on today was a chain given to you in Crescent Reach by an npc named Akins. He stands over top of the brewers on the main floor, and he has a few tasks for you. The first one sent me into the newb area of CR, there’s an area at the far northern tip that has undead, who still con dark blue to me at level 25. They also give a lot of experience. Anyhow, it seems he needs 15 of them slain. Doing so rewards you with 7p and unlocks his next quest.

The second quest Akin decides he’s scared of the spirits that haunt CR, and so he thinks the best possible solution is of course to send you upstairs to see “what goes bump in the night” you wander upstairs, dodge past a few undead skeletons and zombie, and come across a throne in the back room of the third floor. There’s a skeleton resting on it, so of course to decide to talk to it.

Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief says ‘Who is it that disturbs my slumber? Unless you are the [one] begone from this place of chiefs!’

You say, ‘I am the one’

Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief says ‘Only a true heir of the Rockjaws or Thoots can [free] me from my torment. As long as the Amulet of Chieftains is mine, here I will remain. I wait here for the day that the heir comes to this place.’

You say, ‘Free you?’

Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief says ‘Ancient magic binds me to this place. The magic of the Amulet of Chieftains must be passed from one Chief to the next. Only a true heir may take the Amulet. All others who touch the Amulet will surely die. Alas I died alone with no heir and am consigned to wait here. Now go or I shall rouse myself and you will feel my [wrath]!’

You say, ‘Your wrath?’

Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief says ‘Do not tempt your fate little one! My patience with you is at an end. Go now or [die]!’

You say, ‘Die!’

Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief staggers as a shadow pierces their soul.
You have slain Gekkdar the Last Ogre Chief!

You get a pretty nice ring for killing the Ogre Chief, and you also unlock the third quest to the chain, which sends you to Blightfire Moors. While you’re upstairs in that throne room, don’t forget to /open the bones behind it, and loot the amulet for a very nice charm progression quest. I’ve been having fun in EQ1, both old and new zones. Tonight is another Nostalgia meeting, and I’ve switched my necromancer to my new ‘main’, my cleric I’ll play with Lackey when he’s around. We’re headed to Solusek’s Eye which should be a lot of fun. It’s also one of the hot zones, so maybe we’ll run into someone else.