February 16, 2007

Things I *really* wish I’d known before hand

Welcome to Vanguard crafting 101. Where every single day you learn something new (or so it would appear). I bring your attention to the image above. It’s for Kojani Jute leg patern (a let piece, seems simple enough). Here’s what you don’t really see from the start though. On initial glance, it would look like (to me.. am I the only one who saw it this way?) you need 20 pieces of jute bolt. 4 of each of the mentioned types, drifter, charlatan, votary, and mystic.

WRONG

You only need 4 of any ONE of those types. So you could have 4 plain jute bolts, or you could attune some, and use 4 drifter, 4 charlatan, 4 votary, or 4 mystic. Don’t be like me and make 20 pieces of jute bolt thinking all of them go into a single piece of gear! It is funny now that I think about it, but damn what a waste of well, everything. I have all this attuned jute now though I suppose I could actually do something with it.

Something else that they don’t tell you as you’re working along the crafting process. Mystic = Wisdom, Drifter = Constitution, Charlatan = Intelligence, Votary = Vitality. How do you learn them without having to search all over? Simple, trial and error as you purchase these 2s each attunements (yes, you can make 3 at a time though, so it’s not a total waste at least). That, was my afternoon, crafting. I didn’t get any experience for any of the jute bolts I’d worked so hard to make either since they were trivial (which I REALLY wish would SHOW YOU in your dang crafted book.. for now you’re expected to simply remember what you’ve made and trivialized in the past). Still sitting at level 4 outfitter. I’m close to 5 though at least. Now that I’ve vented… back to your regular scheduled blogging.

Now I’m free, free falling..

Elissa, doing some Jin trials and falling through the air

Ok, I tried to play the goblin and it just didn’t work out for me. Why? Because I am one of those people who just don’t want to be a green little kid looking creature with a giant man face. Yes, there, I said it. In game looks matter to me. I’m going to be playing for hours possibly, and staring at that character was just very uninspiring. So I remade my rogue, and yes, I know, Kojan again?! A few reasons for this though. A good deal of my friends are playing Kojans, and I really like the starter zone and Tanvu. I also like their racial ability. In a few short hours I’d reached level 8 with Elissa, the new rogue. Mailed her the money I had stashed on the old rogue. I really like the class. I worked diplomacy to a skill of 40 (just enough to be able to do the free mount quest once I hit level 10) and called it a night. I figure I’ll switch out between the rogue, the necromancer, and the blood mage, depending on my moods. I have a warrior that I’ve been mailing plate gear to over time, I haven’t logged her in at all though.

Learned that archery is a hard skill to increase, especially as a rogue. Why would I even bother? Well one of my beginner quests gave me a bow, and while I may not be a ranger (and may instead end up poking out some poor blokes eye) I figured I’d give it a try. Bows don’t auto-attack for you (that I saw at least) so that’s slightly annoying, it was like a combo move that I had to hit every time it refreshed. Managed to find myself about 9 things of pocket lint. I’m working on a sweater I think for the upcoming cold winter.

Learned a new helpful hint when you get stuck some place (as long as you’re in a group). The /rope command saves you from having to use the /stuck yes command (which ports you, typically to the nearest altar or binding stone). Just have your group mate target you and use it, it’ll pull you to them, and free you from whatever plant/tree/bush/rock/outcropping you managed to land yourself in. I imagine there are all sorts of handy hints and tips out there on commands in game that I don’t even know about at all. I remember EQ1 being like that, since they also had the /corpse command, /corpse drag, etc. EQ2 didn’t have any of these short cuts.

Two more important commands for me to remember were /autojoin set and then the channel name, regionsay. For some reason when I joined a channel my EQ2 guild set up on Vanguard, I didn’t remember to autojoin the region channel any more, so I was just in that channel, and wondered for a few days why it was so utterly quiet. Turns out it’s not very quiet at all, /autojoin regionsay, randomchannelhere and you’re set.

Also found a nice site for some VGSoH UI’s, there is of course VGinterface.com, but there is also Vgsohinterface.com – which has a nice selection. I started off by using Drox, it’s one of the most commonly used UI’s mainly because it’s been around the longest. I recently switched over to Grim though. You can find it under the complete sets category. A UI is important to me, makes me feel like I’m playing a game without the crappy WoW screen. Plus I like to see my stats and my coin actually on the screen with me instead of tucked away in my character screen.

Noticed Vanguard doesn’t have any place to let you write a personal bio about yourself. Neither does WoW. So it makes the Rp server slightly lacking. In fact, I’ve rarely come across anyone who Rp’s at all. I figure give it a few months when people are not quite so preoccupied with leveling and crafting, and then we’ll find ourselves some Rp. Though in the regionsay channel yesterday some people were selling the first sloops on the market (small ships), 15g and you get to pick the colours. An entire guild built dedicated to harvesting the materials for these ships. Sounds interesting to say the least.