Tag: VG

Back in Telon (again)

It’s completely Ardwulf’s fault, of course. His posts about Telon and finding his way along (again) made me itch to play the game, and why not, I’ve had station access for months now and have only taken advantage of a game or two here and there. I never disliked Vanguard, I’ve actually always spoken very highly of the game. However, I’m one of those people who constantly flip around from game to game depending on my moods. Bad for people I play with, but good for me.

Due to some other circumstances, I bid fair well to the Nostalgia meetings on Fridays – but will still be around in EQ1 on occasion and far more so in EQ2. I doubt anyone was too heartbroken, there’s plenty of members now and I’d missed the past few weeks of meetings due to real life (and broken computers). I dislike letting people down, and being unable to commit to the one day a week was making me feel very badly.

Anyhow. This weekend is double experience in EQ2, which is great. I plan on getting some craft levels on both the weaponsmith (62 so far) and carpenter (46 and holding steady) as well as the monk (28 and counting). Eyenstein, a friend I’ve known for about 4 years now, managed to get some trooper boots to drop – and since they were lore for him, offered me a fantastic deal. The little bardling is singing in style, now.

In Vanguard, I ran around harvesting with Gozad trying to remember what key does what. While I was away (just over a month) a lot changed. For one, SOE revamped my blood mage class. I have no idea what changes happened and assume I should speak to my trainer, and read some notes. I did find out we can make body bags to carry around our organs in, which is great – except they’re only 20 slot, and my personal bags are 28 slot. You obtain the spell at around level 24 (or so I heard) which makes it fantastic for newer players.

There are also collectibles in Telon – and I don’t have the slightest idea what these are. There’s a special bag that will hold your collectibles, as well as your harvesting tools. Just something I saw linked in the general channel today, I’ll really have to do some research. The living legacy promotion reaches into VG as well, with some free mounts for people and a month of free game play. I don’t mind missing out on this one, the mounts are going to be available to old and new, which is what EQ1/EQ2 should have done from the start.

The market is much like I left it. My house is still standing too, with 13 more weeks of rent paid off. The game itself seemed to run smoother – but that may just have been wishful thinking on my part. In the cities I still chugged around some until items were rendered properly, but I’m coming from a completely new instillation of the game.

There were people chattering away on channels, also good. Seems Telon is fairing pretty well on that at least. I heard lots of requests for groups, even though I spent my time (for now) harvesting. We’ll see how the rest of the weekend goes!

It Still Makes Me Giggle

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been blogging, or why you do it. When you see something posted about yourself some place else with a link back to your site – you get a little excited. It’s no different with me, either. I may not be one of the best writers out there (I know I’m not, that should read) and I know I’m not as popular as a lot of them, either. I don’t have any visions of grandeur nor do I have articles that spawn comments as often as those I read, but when I come across something posted like this on the VGplayer site, I still get excited.

Of course, it was written a little bit ago, and I didn’t notice it until now since I’m a little lax in checking for links back to my site.

Speaking of which – I’ve added a whole lot more links down the mmo blog section. Anyone I link there is someone I actually read on a daily basis (and some times more then once) and a good portion are people I know in game (typically by me stalking them). I love the friendships I’ve made, and I’ve had a lot of fun discovering other people who write about the games that I enjoy so much.

So keep up the good work, everyone.

Tar Janashir

Some of the views in Telon just take your breath away. This is me in Tar Janashir (Qalia) looking down through a window in a tower where I found my blood mage trainer stashed away. There’s nothing else in the tower aside from the psionicist trainer and a sorcerer trainer, but the view was too fantastic to pass by without grabbing a few screen shots. There’s even a storm moving in further away.

Growlius and I were a little too big for this quest hub last night, but it was still a lot of fun. The area is rated for level 34-40 and so we grabbed a good number of quests and started with the easiest ones. Experience in Vanguard is pretty steady – if you go to quest hubs. If you’re just grinding mobs, it’s going to be very long and drawn out. We’re both excited to be so close to 40. I’d like to get 50 eventually, and at least feel as though I’d completed one sphere of the game. Once my adventure level catches up to my crafting level (45) it’ll be time to work on that again a bit. Aside from signets I don’t get any new recipes (houses I suppose if I want to work faction for Qalia and Thestra) so I haven’t been in a rush to get any more levels.

 

We were sent out to rescue some people from the Rhajiri camps scattered around Tar Janashir, and pick off some wild creatures in the area as well. We killed scorpions, and these giant oysters and clams (which looked like weird plants, go figure) as well as a number of skeletons and at least five named. Every time we happened across a name we joked BECAUSE THE NAME OF NAMED IS ALL IN CAPS AND MAKES THEM HARD TO MISS.

  • Me: “Oh, look, it’s THREA RHAJIRI (linked with the command %to and the caps come too)”
  • Growlius: “Wow! How did you ever know they were a named!”

A pair of yellow cloth shoulders dropped but aside from that the loot was sparse. We both still have quite a few quests for this area, we managed to get 40% experience using a 50% bonus potion, instead of the common 100% ones we were using for major quest hubs. I expect the experience to begin slowing down drastically for the next 10 levels, and as long as I can find things to do, I’m fine with that. I imagine tonight we’ll be going back to Tar Janashir to try and finish off the remainder of our quests before moving on. Both of us really want to hit 40 not only because it means we’re in the last leg of leveling, but because we both get a slew of new spells and skills. In vanguard you buy them every 2 levels from a trainer. There are also some ultra rare upgrades of these spells that can be found as mob drops, though I’ve yet to ever see one.

We didn’t encounter a single other person around our quest hub, and a quick /who showed only six people around at all including us. I’m not sure if that’s because there are simply better things to do at level 38/39 or if it’s because it was one of those slow nights. There were (as usual) around 10 people on in guild, each one pretty much doing their own thing. Eventually I still want to work up my carpenter, to make sloops (I used a friends, it was SO much fun) and to add more furniture to my house. House items also sell pretty well in Vanguard, and as more people level up and get coin there’s more of a calling for these things. Would be nice to have a little more pocket change. I’m sitting on 1p currently, which is not so bad considering I gave away everything I owned when I hosted the Safe Haven scavenger hunt a while back. As long as I can afford my spells, that’s all I’m concerned about. Hopefully tonights adventures are just as exciting, with a little more experience.

Back In Vanguard

Last night was one of my two weekly Vanguard nights – and it was a lot of fun. Growlius and I got together at the Seawatch Coast to work on some of our Bounty Hunter quests. We’d also picked up 5-6 other quests that required killing in the area. So the majority of the evening was spent walking up and down the coast killing everything in our path. The guild was moderately busy with 8-10 people on, each doing their own thing. Growlius and I had to remember how to play our classes, as it’s been a little while. Plus with me playing two other mmo’s (EQ1/EQ2) I had to adjust my key commands slightly (alt G does not open the guild window in VG, as a constant reminder to myself). The quests were not too hard, and it’s probably better that way. We had to kill a few white four dots and I had to remember what all my spells did, but I found it was almost like riding a bike (it hasn’t been THAT long since I’ve played) and once I started playing again it all came back.

Vanguard was pretty busy, too. It was nice to see. We ran into a few other groups also working on their Bounty Hunter quests. We decided to use one of our 100% veteran experience rewards, which is what boosted up the experience by so much. By the end of the evening I was 60% into the next level, sitting comfortably at level 38. Which of course meant, new spells!

Most of the 9 spells were just upgrades to previous spells I had, but one converted my endurance (which I don’t use) into power for 30 minutes, which I think is fantastic. It can also be cast on anyone else. So if there’s any other mana using classes who don’t use their endurance at all, this buff is great for them.

After doing all of those BH quests we also walked away with a good amount of upgrades. Necklaces, pants, and a chest piece, all yellow or orange. It was a significant upgrade for me, my chest piece was just some common blue I’d found in previous travels. Since I’m a blood mage it’s important for me to keep up to par with my gear – if I have shoddy gear it means my spells won’t hit the mobs as easily, my heals can be resisted. I need to be able to actually hit the mob to guarantee a heal. Most of the time it’s not an issue, but some times we’re fighting red or purple encounters, and I have to rely on my target heals rather then life draining attacks. Either way.

It was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to going back next week and maybe doing some crafting in between then and now so I can make some coin. Growlius loaded me up with a lot of harvested goods that he has no use for (and doesn’t want to be bothered to sell) so I’m going to see about turning those into items to sell on the broker. We’ll see how it goes. It’s always nice to have a little extra coin, and after giving all of mine away last time I played with the scavenger hunt – well, yeah.

Not on the Schedule

I’m one of those people who work best with a schedule. That’s one of the reasons why I knew I’d love our Friday night Nostalgia group. I like being able to log in, and know what we’re doing. We don’t spend hours in game wasting the Friday night away doing that (which is the point, I’m sure). I’ve always been a follower more then a leader, so logging in and just being told where to head, is perfect for me too. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just my play style.

So me and a friend talked for a while and decided that since we’ve both got station access, why not pick two days a week to play Vanguard. The game *is* great and I still love it. It just wasn’t quite enough to hold my attention as a “one game only” sort of deal. There are three games I play now with station access, Vanguard, EQ2, and EQ1. So on Monday and Tuesday nights I’ll be playing Faydai, my level 37 blood mage, on the Seradon server in Vanguard. So far it’s just me and Growlius who will be playing, but more are welcome to join of course. We’re not starting from scratch or doing anything unusual aside from setting two specific days to play.

Then on Friday nights I’ve got the Nostalgia group which is coming along fantastic. I hit level 15 on Ishbel (cleric) which was high enough for me to wear the DoN cultural armor I had made. The game is down for 6 hours today, I had hopped to make my necromancer a set of gear as well. I made Lackey some yesterday, though he still has to add the augmentations to it.

At first I was leery about having a schedule for games. In the end though I think it’s exactly what I needed. That doesn’t mean things can’t change, or that everything is planned out, but at least I won’t run around wondering what to do so much of the time. The schedule is flexible enough that I still have four evenings a week to do whatever whim I may have. I typically game from 7-11 nightly, since I don’t watch tv I game. I do pop in a few times during the day (mostly afk, especially in EQ1 where I tend to leave a trader up to sell) but aside from that my days are filled with ‘real life’ whatever that is.

This morning I logged into Vanguard briefly, I don’t have much coin there any more since I gave most of it to guild mates before I took my break – but I didn’t want my house to run out of rent and then lose the T5 house I had built that I am still oh so proud of. Logging into game made me remember why I enjoyed it. I noticed I had mail — oopsie, a guild mate who hadn’t heard that I had switched games (again) sent me 150 dusky timber to build their components for a house. Suppose I’ll get to that later today. I’m hopefully also going to be doing some harvesting, so I can make a little more coin. My house is paid for the next 20 weeks, at least that’s one concern taken care of. Being able to afford my spells (since I get some at 38) would be a nice thing. We’ll see how it goes!