June 2007

How Rude

stargrace June 7, 2007 6Comments

Some days, I have a huge dislike for people…

So, people who don’t know me very well may think that I am some quiet shy person who never speaks up about anything, and actually the opposite is true. I can be quite temperamental and I speak my mind. Yesterday a guild mate needed some quest updates in Nektulos Forest. I mentored my 70 illusi down to 25, and said I would help out. As they were returning from a quest turn in, one of the mobs they needed was up. They were still some time away, so I mez’d the mob, and cleared the camp for them.

Along comes Ikun, a necromancer. He sees me there with the mob mez’d. He breaks it the first time, and I say in says, if he could not do that I would appreciate it, thinking it was a mistake. Then he breaks it again. And again. And again. I’m mentored to level 25, so the mob is hurting me each time he breaks it. I send a tell, saying I’m just waiting for a guild mate to show up, if he could stop breaking my mez, I’d appreciate it. I get down to about 10% health, and as you can see I also screamed at the guild mate to type /lock so that my mez could not be broken. Problem is (only the guild leader can /lock an encounter when you are engaged, at least in this group set up) the group leader also has to be able to have the actual mob targeted in order to lock an encounter. So I sighed and just let my nukes go and killed it before the group mate reached me, and before I ended up dying.

30 minutes later, I get a tell from Ikun, and it says “why are you harassing my kid”. . . . .

Pardon me? Harassing their kid? I barely said two peeps except to tell them not to break my mez, that I was waiting on a group mate. I didn’t swear (I rarely do) and I didn’t rant at them once I had no choice but to kill the mob. So I patiently explained to this “parent” that I had not harassed anyone, that I had logs and screen shots if they required further proof, and explained that if their kid could not read, or understand that you don’t go around wacking other people’s encounters in this game, that perhaps they should not be playing.

Well, after about 2 minutes into this conversation I realized that I was not talking to any sort of “parent” at all, and it was more then likely some snot nosed kid who decided they’d try to turn the tables on me. How did I come to this conclusion? They wrote very poorly, and you could just tell by the demeanor of their answers. I’m not stupid. I hate people who lie to me. Especially when I had done nothing wrong. They demanded to know why a level 70 was in nektulos forest. I was still mentored to level 25, and stated as much. I also explained I was there helping a guild mate. I didn’t even have to explain, there’s plenty of reasons why a level 70 is in a lower level zone. It rubbed me completely the wrong way, and I told them that I thought they were being exceptionally rude, and I asked for the name of their guild leader. They said welcome to ignore, and that was the end of the conversation.

I rarely have bad encounters with players in EQII. It’s probably one of the reasons I tend to keep to myself though and solo / do my own thing. I realize there’s no such thing as camps as acknowledged by SoE, and that it’s perfectly alright to break someone else’ mez in game while they are in an encounter. However, there are still game ethics, and player maturity, and all that good stuff. Sadly enough, some days it just lacks.

Chel’Drak’s Lair and some very proud guild mates

stargrace June 6, 2007 6Comments

Chel’Drak, dead for the first time by the Inquisition

Last night was raid night, and it started with a very very fast run through labs. I did not find it enjoyable at all, I hate rushing through zones, easy or not. It was “get going faster faster” the entire time. We had one wipe to Vyemm who refused to be mem-wiped, and then headed off to make our first attempts at Chel’Drak. The inquisition had attempted him a time or two before I do believe, but they were not exactly sure what to expect this time. A majority of them had never been here. The raid was explained, macro’s made. Positions assigned. The first pull went beautifully. Well, positioning, not so much of a pull seeing as you have to charge into his room. Everyone had their parts down great. We had some bad luck, and three warrior adds spawned in a row. Anyone who’s done Chel’Drak before knows that it’s not the giant ancient dragon who kills you, but the class adds. Warriors taunt the entire raid onto different targets, which means healers can only use group heals to keep their tanks up. It’s not a pretty sight.

So we ate the wipe, and set up again. We came prepared, with repair kits. A whole lot of them in fact. Little did we know they would not be used at all this night. We charged in again.. and the adds came.. and went.. AoE’s were called. Encounters downed.. He hit 30% before we knew it.. 10.. 5.. 1%.. we burned like we’ve never burned before, and down he went. On the second pull. A huge congratulations to the guild as a whole for accomplishing this encounter on their second attempt. It gave people the motivational boost that they needed I think in order to do better at the EoF raids. Pride in themselves as players. Everyone brought their “A” game.

Now, I know guilds have had this specific encounter down to farm status for months now. Including my previous guild back in January, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how many guilds have done it before you or how many guilds are to come after you, what matters is that there was a goal and through team work and a lot of hard work and patience, it was something everyone achieved together. I just wish more had been on the quest for the zone that gave them the pretty ring with 5% off their spell cast timers. Oh well! Now that we all know we can do it, hopefully future attempts will go just as smooth.

Since it was a raid night I didn’t get to attend any of the festivities going on in Antonica, but I did keep an ear out for the Feyiron Chef contest, it sounded like a lot of fun. Tonight there is more entertainment and I should be heading down that way unless something else comes up, we’ll see how it goes. Congratulations again The Inquisition on Antonia Bayle, a job well done.

Antonia Bayle and the Festival of Unity – Part I

stargrace June 5, 2007 5Comments

The GM’s have been very nice in aiding with the festival, adding tents to the celebration areas in Antonica

Last night I decided to take a break completely from things. I was going to work on L&L for Stargrace, and decided not to. I declined power leveling and guildies. I decided to say no to crafting. So what did I do? Well, a few guilds on Antonia Bayle have been hosting the Festival of Unity. It is a week long event located mostly in Antonica so that people from various factions can attend and not worry about the guards. There are games, contests, prizes to be won. It was one of the best nights I’ve ever had in EverQuestII. I’ll be posting my role play version of this event a little later today, but in the mean time here’s an overview.

At about 8:15pm EST, an auction began in Windstalker village. Nice of the GM’s to erect a stage and some tents for the festivities.

The crowd was huge, there were people of all factions, races, and guilds gathered together. The bidding began at 10g and went steadily up from there. The funds went half to the festival community to help pay for things like food and drink and costumes, and the other half went to the people auctioned. It was all in good fun, and it seemed that most people enjoyed themselves. It may sound a little weird, auctioning someone off in an MMO, but they were “dates” for the night, for the tavern event that was to follow the auction. Everyone volunteered themselves, no one was forced. Some people went for as high as 10p. Misako herself tried to make a few bids, but it was a little to steep for her pockets.

Afterwards the Fellowship of the Dragon hosted a fishing competition on the docks in Windstalker village. The winner was Shirrar, who got some nice prizes. Other prizes were donated to the second and third place winners. I had a lot of fun playing a reporter, and wandering around the event in general. There were peddlers selling their wares, froglok totems made from by real frogloks, dresses in case you had nothing to wear to the event, food and drink abound. There was also fortunes told, by Drakael – or rather, futures told. Misako got in on that as well, as there was a huge line up. The event was quite popular. The auction itself went on for nearly three hours, while people wandered around the event. After the auction and while the fishing competition was finishing up, Annwen gathered a crowd beneath a huge old tree to talk about some old Norrathian stories, her tale of the night was about Mujaki the Devourer – I couldn’t listen to the entire story though as it was Misako’s turn to have her future told.

There were drinking competitions hosted along with the stories, and at midnight EST there were card games. My eyeballs were threatening to close by 11:30 though, so I had to call it an early night. I really had a great time. If you’re looking for more information on the festival, you can find it here there are events like lemming cliff diving, there were jousting tournaments, and there’s so much more. There is an event schedule as well. There is also another post with some screen shots of the event here in the offical AB forums. If you’re on the AB server, I suggest you check it out and embrace what a wonderful server you’re apart of, and even if you’re not from AB I’d suggest rolling an alt just to see the events.

Unrest, and uh.. what was I doing again?

stargrace June 4, 2007 3Comments

Dasie in Unrest, one of my smoothest runs ever, no wipes, and no deaths for her at least (or the tank)

No raids on Mondays, so it was a nice casual day again. Well, it was supposed to be at least. I’m slightly frustrated in game, a combination of real life and in game things creating stupid moods that I’m sure will go away before too long. In game, I’m annoyed by little stuff. I think I am just not used to being in a guild again, and it will be a period of adjustment. The people are wonderful, I have no real issues there. I’m trying to be as friendly as I can back, and still do what I like to do in game, which is typically solo. I pretty much do what I want when I want, with the exception of raids. One thing I wish more people did was dedicate a little more time to “mains” instead of alts. Everyone is busy working up alts currently, and I understand the need for them and the benifits that come with being able to swap them in and out at raids, but what about all of the important quests that a main has typically done as opposed to an alt.

Brock’s thermal shocker is actually one of these really important quests especially if you’re doing EoF raiding. Why? Because the thermal shocker is the exact distance you need to stand away from the 2nd last named in Freethinkers, and lets you avoid the two AoE’s. Don’t sell it to vendor, you can hotkey and use it from inventory, and it does 1k dmg or so (two hits) so keep it! There are of course plenty of other quests that mains typically do that alts do not. The Qeynos Claymore is another. When I think of all the time I spent on my fury, only to have her stashed aside now for my illusionist, it can make me ill. My fury has her DT access, and her Claymore. She also has her Chel’Drak ring. My illusionist, has not even started DT access, she has one more quest to finish in SoS for Claymore. She’s got her Chel’Drak ring at least. She’s missing a lot of L&L still, where as the fury has all of hers completed. Is the illusionist any worse off as a raider for not having these things completed? Nope, she can do her job either way, but that’s the difference between a main and an alt – the illusionist would be a better raider with these things completed. I know some can manage to get it done on everyone, but guilds typically do mass claymore updates far and few between and for mains. I have not seen very many AoAx2 runs, or SoS grinds for Claymore updates for alts.

I got to talk to Kilanna before she had to rush off to work this morning, it was nice. That’s another thing I sort of miss, my little guild with people that I was quite close to. Not that I can’t also learn to get close to the folks in my new guild, but anyone who knows me realizes that I’m fairly quiet and keep to myself in game, I do my own thing, and I enjoy it that way. I do group up, but not constantly. Sorry if that comes off as being harsh, it’s just the way I play this game though as it’s going on three years now. I’ve been raiding for so long and seen end game content that I don’t feel the same excitement as other people maybe.

Anyhow, again, enough of my rambling and ranting. Unrest was fun in any case. The warden (67) in group did die a lot from one shots. They got their class hat upgrade. The cloak of unrest is currently selling for 100p on AB for looting rights, and that also dropped, the necromancer in the group won the roll (I declined, since Dasie is just an alt and she doesn’t need it). The assassin / ranger breastplate dropped, but no one needed that. Nothing else of any importance dropped, but it was still a nice clean run at least.

350 Tinkerer.. finally.. and the Town Crier

stargrace June 3, 2007 5Comments

One of the main reasons I wanted my “main” Stargrace to be a tinkerer, who wouldn’t want feign death

First of all, I forgot to mention this earlier this week, but congratulations to Cordanim and also to Time Sink, for being featured along with this blog in the Town Crier! I meant to write about it when I first saw it but it completely slipped my mind, go figure. The past few nights have been filled with raids, and when they’re not filled with raids, with power leveling people for the new guild I’ve joined. More about that later.

Today was a blissfully quiet day. I got to work on my own tradeskills and I enjoyed doing it. Stargrace had been sitting at 224 tinkering for quite some time. I knew if I could just grind my way through the tier (5) that it would be smooth sailing with T6/T7 since the supplies are so low to purchase. It took a few hours, but I did it. Stargrace is finally a 350 tinkerer. Which lets her use / make a handful of items that I adore. One of them is the feign death machine shown above. It’s better then the shadowknight;s version of feign death, and makes me feel like a necro. I also get a mem-wipe item, handy for raids. I can make a hover device, and the mender bot. Have I mentioned I love tinkering?

There seems to be a new fade with higher end raiding guilds, and I’m not particularly keen on it. Instead of trying to find classes someone needs for a raid, for example a bard. They (the guild, leaders, officers) have members who are already a part of the guild, make those needed classes and set aside their mains, for “the good of the guild”. This does a few things. Number one, it leaves people with a whole lot of alts, and number two it allows a raid to just insert <random class here> out of convenience instead of letting people play what they actually want to play. There’s a few people who stick with the classes that they started with at the beginning of the game, but about 90% of everyone I know has at least one other level 70 alt or high 60’s. They don’t play them in raid guilds because they want to, but because they’re asked to.

I’ve always said that I envy people who only have one “main”. It’s hard to have four level 70’s. It LOOKS fun, but it’s not. It’s hard to do the same quests over and over. To afford masters on each one of them (I’ve been lucky there) and numerous other annoyances. It’s difficult to be asked to play a specific character on a raid and then wish you were playing your other character. Anyhow, rambling here. I’ve been tired this weekend and hopefully tomorrow’s post is a little more coherent and not so drab.