April 2007

Game Update 34

stargrace April 25, 2007 0Comment

*** Highlights ***

A new mount is now available. Tame your own fearsome Warg! Talk to Heinrich in the Loping plains to get more details. You can now share many of the quests in your quest journal with others. Even if you’ve completed them already!

*** Gameplay ***

EoF Fabled and Legendary class armor distribution will now consider the makeup of those who participate in the encounter.

Players who were originally citizens of Kelethin but then switched citizenship should now be allowed to return.

Tired of that ugly mummy or chubby ogre following you everywhere? Then try /pet hide.

Some NPCs that both offer and update quests for a player should now have the book icon above their head instead of the feather.

Further enhancements have been made for server performance.

*** Items ***

Orclord Ringmail armor has been renamed Orclord Stalking. All pieces are now properly flagged as leather and now have a more appropriate appearance. (No stats or class requirements have been changed.)

The Ribcage Scythe will now deal piercing damage and has had it’s +slashing mod replaced with +piercing.

Deepforest Fistwraps can now be equipped by Bruisers and Monks.

Plasma Boost and Plasma Amplification are now correctly modifying the amount of damage specified in the spell description.

The Crown of Enlightenment’s trigger proc now works correctly.

Plasma Boost (and similar effects) will no longer stop the triggered effect from the Robe of Alkabor from functioning.

*** Quests ***

All players above the level 20 can now assist Grot Leadarm in the quest, "Ill Communication" in the Butcherblock Mountains.

Significantly reduced the number of Enchanted Adamantine Ore and Enchanted Azurite Capillaries that Toranim Skyblade and Gogas Afadin want for the Ghoulbane Empowered subquests.

In Greater Faydark, The limecap mushrooms can now be harvested from a normal distance for the quest "Limecap Mushrooms".

Temporary items given when you start a quest will now be stamped with the name of the Quest.

Citizens of Kelethin can now do the Ties That Bind in Antonica.

Quest Sharing: – You can now share Quests (both incomplete and complete) with your groupmates using the new button in your Quest Journal!  When sharing a Quest, the receiver will start at the beginning of the Quest. You must have completed all the prerequisites in order to receive a shared Quest. If you haven’t, a message will tell you what you need to do. Certain types of Quests cannot be shared: Hallmark, Heritage, Signature and Betrayal Quests, plus the first Quest in each Deity line. Receivers will be granted any items that the original Quest NPC gives at the start of the Quest.

*** PVP ***

Citizens of Freeport, Kelethin and Qeynos who die in Azhar’s Penitence will now have respawn options in the Sinking Sands.

Fixed an issue where playing in third person combat might stop another player from using positional attacks on them.

You will now get a message to the general combat channel about why you have entered into combat.

*** Tradeskills ***

Fixed an error causing components to disappear if a player goes LD while doing commission work.

 *** Zones ***

The Estate of Unrest: Garanel’s Shade will no longer break the counter with /yell. Enchanted Lands: Pages missing from the Enchanted Lands book collection quests are once again dropping.

*** Broker ***

Containers can be flagged as ‘Contents not for sale’. This will hide the contents of the bag from any vender’s sell window.

Searching the broker is now more intuitive:

Each word you search for can appear in the item name in any order.

 Use a dash (-) before a word to indicate that the word should not appear in the item name.

*** UI ***

The Options window now has buttons for "Save Custom" and "Load Custom." You can use these new features to create, save, and load options profiles and switch between them on the fly.

Bags should no longer resize when you log in, from their previous size.

Fixed a number of cases where spells would give out unnecessary error messages.

Changing a container’s label is now done from the Bag Options window.

You can now select the primary spell for a macro that contains multiple spell steps. The icon tinting, reuse timer and tooltip are displayed for the primary spell.

No warning, but ah the possibilities

stargrace April 24, 2007 1Comment

A break down of my defiler’s ap’s thus far

Things are going to be shaking up in EQII very soon (from the 25th and onwards) and I have to say I am very excited about the changes. Not only is there a new update going in with some very good changes that I am looking forward to, but as of the 30th, the PvP servers are merging (which may be an indication of lower populations, but lets just leave that topic for now) and also free PvE server transfers, and not only free server transfers but free account transfers. This means, well first of all, that I just spent money moving my characters to the new account when I could have held off had I known about this, but anyhow. It means that I can move around some more characters between accounts if I want. Why would I want to do this? Well, I wanted an order to my two accounts. I had two set ups so to speak. Either have all my healers on one account and all my dps / utility on another (Tank? What’s that again?) or the method that I was aiming for (which I’m unsure of) is to have at least one of each arch type on the accounts. So that would mean a healer / dps / utility on one account, and the same on the other.

The way my accounts are set up now is Account #1: Templar, Fury, Conjuror, Swashbuckler, Coercer. Account #2: Illusionist, Dirge, Defiler, Assassin, Berserker.

I’d like to move my Defiler over with the templar and fury. Mainly because I really like playing my illusionist, and the dps classes on the first account are not very high level. Where as the templar fury and illusionist are 70, the conjuror, dirge, defiler, and assassin are 50’s. I wanted to move the templar back over to the second account, so that there was a healer there, move the dirge to the first account so there was power regen there that I could play with the templar if I wanted. . . . Or is that all just confusing and makes no sense? Argh decisions decisions.

So I was having a set of cobalt armor made for my defiler today, being annoyed at the level 20 gear she’s been sporting for quite some time now. There were no messages about servers coming down — though later I did find this small post saying the servers would be coming down for two hours it sure would have been nice to have had some in game warnings. I just hope my cobalt pieces are all alright and my crafter wasn’t mid-combine. Hopefully I’ll see the results of that later today. I also went out and bought a handful of pearls so that I could make some mastercrafted jewelry for her. The level 20 stuff really was putting a damper on things. I splurged and bought a cobalt spear as well, they’re dang expensive at 1p50g. I dropped about 15p total for various things from 7 pieces of cobalt + crafters tip (they were a friend of mine, so I actually paid them 2p to make the armor for me) also bought 8 rough pearls (which are going for 70g-1p each on Lucan) and also bought that spear. Thankfully the buckler I can make myself with my woodworker, so that saved me a little bit at least. I’m going to work on making some adornments next, get some stamina so that my soul ward goes off for more, and some + to heals which is always fun.

I’m still looking for new places to level, the clefs are nice but I’m going to get bored there fast. I’m thinking I should work the Godking chain of quests for something to do, but I’m dreading it, and my chances of ever finding a Godking raid are probably slim to none. I know at the later 50’s I can start working on Cyclops, but until then every percent seems to drag.

The mines of Meldrath

stargrace April 23, 2007 3Comments

Misako and Silverstep battling their way through the mines

The defiler hit level 52, and 42 aa points. At this rate she’s going to pass my 70 templar in points very soon (templar is sitting at 55 I think). If I haven’t mentioned it yet (and I have, a few times) I really really dislike the level grind from 50-59. I’m not sure why, it just seems to take forever. They are the levels that I’ll end up using my experience potions for and try to get some collection quests done for experience. Discovery as well I try to hit as much as possible in the 50’s just because I absolutely hate it. I wish I knew why it felt slower. I’m sure it’s not in truth. I spent the morning with a friend in Clefs of Rujark which will probably be my home for a little bit to come. The defiler is still wearing level 20 gear. Something I wanted to fix at level 52. I have noticed that gear is very expensive though so I’m contemplating waiting until she can quest for some gear, or get some from drops. I’m not sure. I have 6 cobalt sitting in my bank, and I could have armor made from it but then there’s the fee for person making it and then actually having to FIND someone who can make it which is typically a bigger challenge.

I also wanted to start the peacock line of quests. Without gear, there’s no point. Then I also have to make the rare spells and jewelery that the defiler would need, and I’ve been eyeballing some new adornments as well. All in all working up another level 70 is an expensive prospect. At least on Lucan, not sure if every server is the same thing.

Woopsie… I must have taken a wrong turn

stargrace April 22, 2007 0Comment

While wandering through Maj’Dul for discovery experience, Misako ran smack into this gorgeous creature, Siyamak – level 65×4

I had no idea what I felt like doing last night, but knew plenty of things that I didn’t feel like doing. A lot of my friends online were doing their weekend raid thing (sighs, still going through my raid withdrawl!) and I found myself with a few hours to fill and nothing to fill it with. Eyeballing my defiler, who was 4% into her level with very little vitality left, I decided I would try to run around the DoF zones and see if I could not get enough discovery from places to ding. I didn’t actually think I’d manage a full level worth of discovery to hit level 50, but I was wrong.

I grabbed some invis totems (curtsey of my woodworker) and headed to sinking sands. She’d never even step foot into any of the DoF content before, having spent the past week grinding her contently in Obelisk of Lost Souls (which she still has some book quests for to complete some time). Thankfully, almost nothing saw through her invis. It was a bit of a slow run, since you get no movement enchantments as you’re running around stealthed, but it was a lot of fun none the less. Doing that one zone netted her to 37% through her level and I’d yet to touch a mob. I headed to clefs of rujark, a favorite zone of mine for the lower 50’s (until it was swarmed by bots, go figure) and netted a little more. Headed to living tombs, and noticed I was approaching 70% experience. I’d also gotten myself two ap’s from all of the discovery, sitting myself at 41 which I just find amusing. My first character in the game (Dasie, my templar) only has 55 ap, and she’s done so much more then Misako who’s barely even lifted a finger to quest in her short life. After Living Tombs I headed to Maj’Dul and then to finish off the level in Pillars of Flame, part way through my discovery adventure hit 50.

Now the real fun starts. I absolutely hate the grind from 50-59. It seems to take forever, the slowest of all the tiers and I’m not even really sure why. Does anyone else seem to have this issue?

As I was making my way through Maj’Dul, I came across the pretty in the screen shot above, Siyamak. They’re used in the quest “Capturing Night and Day” (that one being the silver dragon of course) and are spawned in the area with the beggars by using a silver dragon scale that you can get as a very rare drop from the Keeper in Poets Palace. There’s also a gold version of this beauty (also used in the quest) they’re epicx4’s and level 65. It’s so rare to see anyone doing the chain of quests these days though. No one happened to be around when I walked right into this beat, so I assume someone spawned them and then either decided they couldn’t handle it alone, or a raid may have come in and wiped or something. Either way, it was a very pretty screen shot to take, and I’m glad my defiler hit level 50. I figure I’ll get her two more levels, sitting her at 52, and then upgrade her gear. Since I’ve been playing her with a level 70 mentored… she has level 20 gear. Thankfully I don’t typically group up with her, she’s just used for heals and debuffs. I’d be embarrassed trying to keep a group up with the gear she has on currently.