May 12, 2007

Taking a second (or third, or fourth) look at the Village of Shin

stargrace May 12, 2007 1Comment

I bought the defiler a new inn room. Her small 1-room place was getting a little cluttered, so I moved her from Big Bend (where all exiles end up after first moving to Freeport) into a 2-room in East Freeport. There’s no bank (add one please!) in the zone, but there is a city merchant close by, a broker, and bells to the docks, as well as a carpet to the DoF zones. She had a lot of knick nacks, but no real furniture. Instead of purchasing a bunch of it, I decided to head to the adventure pack Fallen Dynasty, and do the simple (but very rewarding) Village of Shin quests. After spending about an hour in the zone, Misako came back to her home with no less then 13 house items to add to the collection. Now, 7 of those are books to add to the library, but I also got a nice new bed, a bedside table, a lamp, a candle with heart graphics floating around, and a new ornament for the wall. While I was waiting for the npc to show up for tower access, I decided to take some extreme quality screen shots. I don’t want to have to re-size them, so please click the thumbnails for a better view. This zone is one of my absolute favorites, besides New Tunaria (Felwithe). It’s probably due to the Asian theme, while I don’t like soga models for any number of the characters, I do like seeing it in the world of EQII.

The view from the Tower of the Wind, just before the sun comes up in the Village of Shin.

Looking up at the tower from the base.

Looking out over the docks from the main land.

Looking out over the fields, from the main land.

Hopefully a few more out there enjoy the view. I love taking screen shots in game, and love the fact that if I wanted to I could play on extreme quality settings. It does lag me slightly depending on where I am and who is with me (playing that setting during a raid would hurt after some time) but it reminds me of what a very pretty world Norrath is. I have over 600 screen shots in my EQII folder alone, not to mention my old EQLive folder, my Vanguard screenshots, and even some WoW ones. Be it a special occasion that you wish to remember, or just a pretty sun set, at times screen shots in MMO’s are no different them someone pulling out a camera to snap a shot.

As a quick update, defiler hit level 61. Also managed to get 69ap on her, she’s eating those up fairly quickly. Tulips hit 26 armorer. What a boring thing to level. Takes forever and barely any new recipes each level. I think last level she had three, and this level she has.. four? Maybe. Not as bad as Cordanim and his 2 recipes a level record, but I’ve already gone through that with the provisioner (and the woodworker!).

Defiler hits 60, and gains a few ap

stargrace May 12, 2007 0Comment

The guild may be small, with only 7 members (and an army of alts) but we still have fun

Misako hit level 60 yesterday, I’m proud of that accomplishment. I’m already thinking about which character to finish leveling to 70 next. I think my conjuror (who used to be a necromancer) is going to betray back to a necromancer, and then I’ll concern myself with leveling her up. She’s sitting at level 53 currently, and while I do enjoy the call of the hero spell that conjurors get, I like the feign death and rez spells of the necromancer. Even better then getting level 60 though, was that I hit 66ap with Misako as well. It means that she’s almost done her regular shaman ap line, I’ve gone down the pet aoe prevention line (also giving group aoe prevention on pet attack for 6 seconds) and I’ve also gone down the int line, which is a debuff line. I love it, works wonderfully. It also gives the group some very nice magic resists. On the down side, I have about 6 buffs I have to cast + the dog before I even get to my regular buffs. I spend more time buffing and re-buffing then anything else I think. A small complaint of course.

Cordanim has been eating up those ap points as well as can be plainly seen from the screen shot. Shadowgeist, Cordanim, and myself (boxing Dasie and Stargrace) headed to the Crypt of Valdoons last night to see if we had any luck with some class drops. Of course since Shadowgeist doesn’t actually need a single piece of shadowknight gear, that’s what dropped for us. My EQII luck shining through like always. Dasie did get the new cuirass, it’s a slight upgrade to the fabled one she was wearing, both in power and in wisdom. Her old one had some heath regen on it which she doesn’t need as a templar. I have barely played her at all, and she’s so far behind in ap. Perhaps one day I’ll work on that a little bit. Or I could box her along with my necromancer while they quest together.

Off to do nest with the defiler now, hopefully she can get a few more ap points and complete the crafting quests inside the zone.