February 2007

A much better day

stargrace February 24, 2007 2Comments

Rask, fast asleep after a long day of questing

Today was a far better day. Thanks to some tinkering from Shadowgeist, my computer finally doesn’t hate Vanguard quite as much. I also didn’t spend the day bickering with Rask over petty things that don’t matter. He and I spent most of the day questing around the Misthaven area, and Satia hit 20 (he hit 21, grats!). I really wish we could hold more then 20 quests at a time, I’ve had to delete a whole bunch to move onto the new ones in order not to be left behind. A very annoying thing to do. Especially since some times I’m worried I won’t be able to get the quests again (such as diplomacy ones). Speaking of diplomacy, I’ve pretty much done nothing but quest and level the past week, so it’s been put on hold. As have my beloved alts, but that’s alright I’m sure I’ll get back to them. Today’s big news: Etching knives work! People are happy. Yes, my crafting has been at a stand still too, what can I say.

I attempted to make a bard today, curious about how they work because in my Tsang dungeon group one joined up and they can do some pretty cool things. They’re complicated. You compose your own songs (you can even write the title and description for each song, wow how is that for in depth role play!) the only issue is – no one teaches me HOW to compose these songs. I managed to play around with a little flick and twitch of buttons but how do I even know how many songs I can play at once? Is there a limit? One “main” portion of a song at any time with a choice of secondary accompanying pieces? Seems to be something along those lines. Until I can figure it all out, I think I’ll attempt to level my psionicist – maybe. Still so many choices. The bugs and graphic glitches seemed like just a distant memory today, hanging out with my friend (and not fighting) was certainly a huge bonus. I’m happy, it shows what can I say. It’s a huge difference to go from playing at 10-15 FPS (max, in an open field, third person) to going and playing at 30-50 FPS (in that same field, in third person). The largest difference is in town. I still stutter at times but I know now it’s not me, everyone has those stutters on occasion. Especially with those “invisible” zone lines.

Geregor: I saw you today in Silverlake! I buffed you and you shouted thank you as you rode by, I sent a tell and told you hello but didn’t get an answer, so maybe you were in a rush. Always nice to see though! I was on Satia.

Anyhow. More updates tomorrow, for now, some sleep!

Sanity? No, you won’t find any here..

stargrace February 24, 2007 1Comment

The Outside of New Targonar – a confusing place for new visitors

Satia managed to get most of the way through 19 yesterday in what was an exceptionally frustraiting day. Pet peeve number one. I get about 2-3 FPS in dungeons. Being the only healer in a group, that’s painful. Literally. People who ignore my pleads and cries about just how much fun the zone is NOT for me, bothers me. I’d rather just not go instead of having to chug along mooching exp and loot at 2 FPS. How anyone would enjoy a dungeon crawl at that rate, I’ve no idea. My best friend told me to suck it up and tough it out, then they took off and went afk on the group for over an hour while we crawled through there and completed quests for everyone else — except me.

I even mentioned one part of a quest I was just about done, and we turned around and got someone else their part instead. Sighs. Not a good day. I ended up just being annoyed and frustrated and cursing how many resources VG takes. I know there are people out there who have gorgeous beautiful wonderful machines and can run it just fine. Mine is not *that* bad, I do have above the recommended specs for it. I rarely get over 20 FPS though. I can run EQ2 in max settings flawlessly — on raids! WoW is a joke I think a cardboard box could run that game. But not Vanguard, no way. It runs fine every other time — except in dungeons. I can struggle through the lag towns, and in open areas it’s ok at 20-22 FPS, but a dungeon at 2-3 FPS.. sighs.

Crafting is still broken. Servers came down for a restart right now, so we’ll see what else they break. As an artificer being unable to use any etching knives at all really just.. sucked. Half the saws out there don’t work either, and people have to resort to using the newbie ones.

Welcome to Vanguard, where every day is beta.

Sorry, I just really had to vent.

And the quests continue

stargrace February 23, 2007 0Comment

Misthaven’s Crossing

Ding, 19. At level 18 my blood mage got 11 new spells. I’m still finding making money slightly difficult but I was able to afford them at least. One of them summons group members to me within dungeons and of course with a range limit. It seems buggy though as the disciple in my group kept getting summoned when I was targeting the sorcerer. Not to mention the one being targeted would just end up falling through the floor of the dungeon we were playing in. I didn’t stay long, a few kills in I realized it was probably a little over my head. Vampire slaying always is fun though.

So now I’m almost done getting the key for the Tomb of Tsang, where there is a weapon quest I’ll apparently adore, and I’m also able to work on the cloak quest now. I really have no idea about that one, I’ll have to read about it as I go and find out where it comes from and so on and so forth. I also joined Raskolnikov’s guild, Shadowhaven. They have branches in pretty much every MMO out there. Their team speak server is huge. I typically shy away from these sorts of guilds. Team speak is not fun for me, how can I delve into the mmo if I’m talking away to people on a chat program. I also don’t care for large guilds, and this one is giant. 158 in there so far I believe. I wanted to give it a try for my friend though, so I said no promises that I’ll stay, but I’ll try it for now. We’ll see how it goes.

Finishing up my Jin’Ka forest quests, and working on the few outstanding quests I have at Misthaven I’m hoping will push me towards 20. I’m about 20% into my level currently. I haven’t done any trade skilling, and today I can’t because in the patch yesterday they broke artificers tools. Specifically the etching knives no longer work at all. Nor are legendary pieces being recognized as tools. Wonderful eh? Makes you wonder why there’s no test server.

Quests? Yes, I’ve got those..

stargrace February 22, 2007 2Comments

Level 17 Blood Mage hanging out in Misthaven’s Crossing

Above is a picture of Grim UI, one I’ve been using for a little while now. I love the bar along the top, hard to see, but it keeps track of some short cuts, like my menu, ping, compass etc. On the far right (at the top still) is my bags and coin, then my mini map. Along the bottom, I have three chat windows, and four hotkeys. The window on the far left has important info that I typically need to see during battle. The next one is regionsay and craft channel, the far right is for combat. My stances are all displayed nicely, as well as my chain reactions, the green square is me and my stats, the one above is my defensive target (whomever I have healing) the one beside that with the red is my offensive target, a spider I think in this case that I’m whacking. Over the last chat box on the far right is my weapons so I can click them for their effects. The blue scroll along the top left is of course buffs I have on me. Debuffs go beside that on the right, the group window is on the far left where it says invite / leave. It’s one of the better UI’s I’ve found so far. I enjoy it a lot. I know a lot of people use Drox, but I didn’t want to have to toggle all the options in that UI.

Anyhow.

I’ve got a new favorite zone. It’s Misthaven’s Crossing, and it’s filled with quests. At first the people won’t talk to you (as me and Raskolnikov found out.. and couldn’t understand why I didn’t get any of the quests) but then you talk to Jarand Drake on the front steps of one of the buildings, and he tells you that before he’ll allow the townspeople to talk, you need to prove you are a friend. He sends you to a mine to kill some Vulshar, and prove your worth. After doing that the rest of the town will talk to you. This is where I started cursing the ability to only have 20 quests ongoing at one time. I’ve got 19 on the go now I think. There is a mixture of group and solo quests, ranging from finding beetle eggs, to slaying vampires. Collecting iron ingots for the townsfolk, and various other odds and ends. Eventually you make your way to a tower, find some supplies for cures, slay two named (who are simple ^^’s at least) and kill a bunch of spiders for their silks.

So I hit 78% into 17 this way, looking forward to 18 and some new spells. At 19 I can start working on the famous cloak quest, which is sort of like a heritage quest in difficulty if you’re used to the EQ2 terms. Also need to complete my key for the Tomb of Tsang. Switching over from the kojan continent was probably one of the better choices Raskolnikov talked me into.

Tharridon’s Quarry and Quartermaster Krendal

stargrace February 21, 2007 2Comments

Mmm a new pretty for the blood mage

Satia hit level 16 yesterday, I did a few small quests with the help of my duo partner and then spent the rest of the time grinding away on some easy spiders I’d found, nestled into a little area filled with stones to harvest. Despite how everyone else feels about grinding and how it’s not very fun, I enjoy it quite a bit. I’ve got a whole lot of time to play though, hours upon hours, and I’ve got no issues whatso ever spending 5-7 of those working on some solo exp grinding. To those who say you can’t work up all three spheres and stay in tune with a lot of the players and their levels, I don’t think that’s true if you’ve got as much time as me. I’m pretty much caught up (or at least within the 2-5 level range) of anyone I’d want to group with, and though my crafting and diplomacy are behind, they’re not horrible and I can still do them all. Helps that I’m not playing the other 6 characters I have, that’s all, and again, just the simple fact that I have a lot of time on my hands.

The weapon above was my new pretty of the day, a quest that Raskolnikov got me started on. It had three portions, the first one to collect crates in a quarry north east of the starter npc. Turned that in easily enough and then the second portion had me kill thurmaturges. These mobs were annoying to find, especially because the area is quite small and you’ve got to battle other people who are roaming around trying to get the same quest done in their groups. An hour or two later and I was on the final part.

Kill Quarrymaster Krendal.

Easier said then done. First of all this guy has a place holder. A Quarry Overseer. He has two adds, one is a healer. He’s also a level 18 ^^^^ is on a 10 minute spawn timer. It took about 5 place holders before we finally managed to get him to spawn. Of course during that time other groups were roaming around, one annoying bard ended up taking agro from our placeholder while he was trying to kill his own 3 mobs and down he went (and then of course all of his mobs transferred onto me and my partner and down we went too). I do like that you can train in this game, it sort of makes the game more real to me. Not that I’m fond of doing it to others, but what’s the point of a game where you can’t physically interact with the world around you in that manor! Just my opinion, even if I did get mad that I died due to his adds.

So 45 minutes go by, and the named finally spawns. Of course, we can’t duo him (I’m with a level 19 monk and keep in mind I’m still level 15.. ) So we get some friends to help, a 20 blood mage, and a 20 cleric. Still took some time, but down the 18 ^^^^ went, and I went back to the npc and ta da, shiny new weapon to weild! There were a few other choices as well, a dagger, a one handed mace, a two handed hammer. I had a lot of fun with the quest. Got my level, and gated home to Tanvu simply because I’ve got no idea where any of the trainers are in New Targonor, and after running around the zone for the better portion of the day I just wanted to be some place familiar. It was a good day.