August 2007

A Little bit of Kindness, goes a long way

stargrace August 20, 2007 3Comments

Spoiled rotten Goudia, got herself three new pretties..

This probably sounds very egotistical of me, but there’s really no other way to word it, and I think plenty of people follow this rout. I consider myself to be moderately nice in game. I may not be the most patient of people, but those who are my friends know that they can ask me for anything. Or at least, they should know. My friends in return are the same way, some of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing in my online world. So last night when I heard that a friend had accidentally mailed 7 acrylia clusters to the wrong person (dang those weird spellings!) of course I did the natural thing and bought 7 acrylia clusters and made them the jewelry that they were looking for. I didn’t think twice about it, I had the coin (just barely) and made it, mailed it.

The next day (that being this morning) Darcyle said he had three items for me, as thank-you’s for me being so nice. I was a little taken aback. I mean, I know folks are nice.. but well. The items he gave me were: class pants, class gloves, and a torn ligament bow (has int and a de-agro on it). I felt like a complete newb (not a bad thing) drooling over the items. I’ve raided end game before, I’ve played with some top of the line players, but I’ve never managed to complete a class set of legendary gear. Mostly because I flip flop from character to character. It made me smile and start to think of all the wonderful people I’ve met in game. Gothun tries his best too, he sends me raws for crafting that I appreciate so much. Kilanna is wonderful to me with her conversation (anyone who knows me knows I chatter a whole lot) Thunderwalker has helped me out with spells and gear, Shadowgeist of course has done so much for me over the years that I could not even begin to count. So to all my friends out there, Beeglin, Cordanim, Woof, the ones mentioned above, Lader, and even those I no longer keep in touch with – thank you. You’re the reason I play this game. It’s not to get uber loot, or be the best at anything, but the social aspect that keeps me here.

Enough of tha gooey stuff! In other news.. Xoolander (Shadowgeist) had to be renamed, which was a shame. He’d gone to 63 without incidents, but on an Rp server it doesn’t take much to set someone off. So he’s now Bloodpact. He also hit level 65, which is amazing. His alt just eats up the levels and I’m not sure how he does it.

Also, got new speakers yesterday. Shadowgeist decided my old ones were crappy (and they were, even if I was happy with them). So we picked up new ones. Much nicer. We also went to visit my folks and wow I actually had a lot of fun. My baby brother (no longer a baby, he’s 17) just recently bought himself a wii. So for the after noon I battled my mom, Shadowgeist, and my brother in games of tennis, bowling, golf, and other random goodness. I looked at my web site through the browser on the tv, and had a load of fun. Of course then during a particularly intense tennis match my mom swung her arm back and smashed it into the living room wall which was not so good, swollen finger and bruised she’ll be going to get it checked out today. She also took out a nice section of the wall at the same time. Dad was gone to work on someone’s computer, we didn’t tell him how the wall got damaged, hehe.

Finished off bone-clasped girdle for Bloodpact yesterday too. It was a fairly productive Sunday. Hopefully I can get Goudia a few levels so that she can wear all this gear I’ve got stored up for her!

Congratulations, Torrent Knights!

stargrace August 18, 2007 3Comments

Lack of interesting posts is not my fault I swear! Ok, ok. Perhaps it is my fault. I’m still floundering about in game deciding what I want to do, and lately it changes from hour to hour. I started on Goudia, exp’d her in SoS along with Forever and Xoolander. Group snagged a dirge, so I logged to my illusionist to help out with her instead. Forever and Xoolander each got a level. At this rate everyone is going to pass Goudia in levels and she’ll be stuck at 65 until RoK comes out. Not a large deal to me. There are plenty of bards out there and I’m probably not even that good at playing her.

So later on in the day I saw a little guild asking for extras (Kindred Spirits, if you’re from AB and know who they are) for their courts raid. I like courts a lot, great way to get masters that rarely drop, as well as a long of guild status. We died a few times, I played Misako for this one. I miss playing my healers, and as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Misako is my favorite of all the healing classes. There’s just something about the combination of wards and buffs and puppy and bolster that just makes it so much fun to play.

I had one of the artists at the signature forums on eq2players design a signature for Misako last week as well, I think it turned out very nice. I’ve never bothered to figure out how to make them myself, though I suppose I really could try. Especially since I spend a lot of time drawing and doing photoshop images and what have you. It’s just been a while since I’ve bothered. Too caught up in other things I suppose. Yes, yes, we all know that’s an excuse.

Tomorrow I’ll be headed to my folks place for a few hours, to do a weekend visit for lunch. They live about an hour from me, and I don’t visit them nearly as often as I should. Some how EQ2 will have to survive without me, I’m sure it will manage.

Tonight Goudia hit 41 weaponsmith, and I think I’ll take the rest of the evening to work on her house some. She could use a merchant area. I think she’ll be slightly obsessed with her weapons and armor trinkets (hopefully) so her house will reflect it. Or at least that’s the ideas bouncing around in my head. The Norrathian Homeshow section of the eq2 forums showed some absolutely amazing housing ideas today and sort of inspired me.

Oh, side note. I really hate annoying people who bring up other people’s real lives in level channels. For example. Person A bad mouths person B and their play style. Person B doesn’t have anything witty to say back so they fall onto the “you have no life” argument. Person B really knows nothing at all about person A’s life, and the fact that they even bothered to bring it into the argument is just sad. I have nothing against a good ‘ol argument or even friendly bashing in game about play styles, gear, tactics, whatever. But taking shots at someone is just not cool, no matter if they may seem to deserve it or not.

Avatar of Valor takes a little nap

stargrace August 17, 2007 1Comment

The Avatar of Valor is a pretty intimidating looking fella, no?

Congratulations to the guild Eidolon here on the AB server, who took down the Avatar of Valor last night while I parked Goudia not too far away on a hill to peek and watch. I’ve actually never done any Avatar fights myself (for those who don’t know what avatars are, they’re contested epic representations of the gods that are currently in Norrath) but I do love watching the battles. Every guild does things differently, everyone has their own strats. I watched Valor taken down a few times on LDL when I was there, by Strike. So watching a new guild attempt it (new to me at least) was fun, and impressive. The main tank rarely ever dropped below 90% health, and stayed at max power the entire fight. I saw someone ‘rip’ (take agro from the tank) once, not that they lasted long once it had happened. Every Avatar fight is slightly unique, this one spawns sets of adds (a lot of them do) that have to be dealt with during the fight. Anyone who’s done pretty much any raiding in EQ2 (or even any regular grouping) knows that adds can actually be the most difficult portion of any fight. It’s not necessarily the main target that smacks you around nearly as much as getting swarmed by adds.

Along with Thunderwalker, the guild that a few of my alts are in called ‘Dragons Flight’ hit level 20! Means more bank slots, of course a wonderful thing. Also means a few more levels and then the next portion of the guild cloak will be available, etc. Torrent Knights is also almost level 20. It’s slow going but none of us are huge grinders as far as guild status is concerned. I’ve been having fun as always, even with the plethora of alts.

If you check out the comments in the post before this one, you’ll see exactly why I love writing, and why I enjoy Eq2 to begin with. Comments like that obviously make me feel good about things, that I can some how in some weird way reach out to people through my writing. Does that make sense? Well it does to me at least, and I suppose that’s all that matters.

Still not sure what direction I want to head in game. I’m not exactly restless, but I don’t know if I want to raid, or work up alts, or craft or complete old quests, etc. I am fairly certain that I’ll just stay where I am for now until RoK comes out and things get shuffled. Then I’ll see where I stand. Or who knows perhaps things will change drastically in the next few months. I’m looking forward to the new expansion being released. Not exactly looking forward to ‘the grind’ to level 80 but I’m not dreading it either. I think that progression is a much needed thing, and we’ve all been level 70 for far too long. I’m almost on my 5th level 70 (not to mention crafting levels) and that’s just crazy. Well, I never said I wasn’t a little crazy *chuckles*.

Gothun has been doing well in game, he joined a new guild. I don’t get along with them, at all, but I’ve never been one to judge someone else based on their guild tag — unless they personally piss me off. I did warn him about the guild though.

I haven’t been working on Misako’s house lately, and I really should do some harvesting – but I’m feeling an urge to play my necromancer (who’s been sitting at level 55 for quite a long time now) so we’ll see where I end up! Happy gaming, everyone should smile, after all it’s the weekend! Well, practically, it’s Friday at least.

The Prison of Admiral Grimgadget

stargrace August 16, 2007 6Comments

By far one of the best quests I’ve done

Yesterday was another fun day in EQ2, and of course I stumbled over one of the best quests I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. Now, Cordanim has some pretty nice walk throughs and information posted on the two starter quests to get to this instance, one here and then the other one here. I couldn’t figure out if he ever got around to writing about the third quest, which is inside the prison itself.

If you’re a quester to any extent, I highly recommend this chain of quests. The first one seems quite boring (I had to hunt from treasure from the beaches by the druid rings way out to the island by the lighthouse, on the other side of the zone), the second quest is fun but you’ll want a walk through if you’re impatient. The third quest.. makes everything worth while. You are sent to the prison to free the admiral. This zone does not look like any of the other zones out there. It’s a boat, docked at an island. There’s a huge metal cage type structure in the center of the island, and it’s surrounded by rujarkian orcs along with some dead pirates (gnomes none the less). Your mission (should you choose to accept!) is to run up to the (locked) doors, killing everything in your path. Letting your two gnome companions blow up the door (literally) and making your way inside, finding the key to unlock the admiral, and killing a named afterwards. Then escorting them both back to the awaiting ship.

How exciting is that. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up the Bootstrutters guide to Ro (a book that I didn’t even know existed), one can never have enough house items. There’s also a pretty nice quest for adventurers to complete while they’re inside. Don’t make the same mistake I did though (unless you want to do the instance a second time) and kill the named to the right of the fire place first. He’s needed in the second portion of the quest, and he’s not of much use if he’s already dead. So you’ll want to head to the left of the fire place, and get the keys from the dead gnome. Unfortunately the orc prisoners all escape their cells when you do that, and before you know it you’re knee deep in some sort of orc riot (as posted above). Qutey had a little difficulty with the zone to be honest. It’s flagged as heroic though the mobs are single target down arrows, there are a whole lot of them. I’m not sure if the zone scales, but it seems to be great for those level 22-27 or so. You’re rewarded with some coin, three items (two belts and a weapon) +50 faction with the citizens of maj’dul, and of course experience / aa. Not to mention you get to explore a really fantastic zone with an amazing story line behind it.

The quest came out around the DoF period, so it’s been around for quite some time. I don’t know why there isn’t more emphasis on quests like this. I’d never actually done it before, though I have heard the odd person here and there talking about it.

I’ll probably be doing a lot of crafting for the next little while, maybe some harvesting. I’d love to be able to get my characters a little higher (Goudia specifically, sitting at 37 weaponsmith), we’ll just have to see how it goes.

The Great Flood – Blackburrow Book Tome

stargrace August 15, 2007 0Comment

One of the (many) tome quests in the game, this one I’d yet to see before since I always out leveled the zone, the quest starter is a no-trade item (sighs they need to change that in my opinion).

“The Great Flood,” a personal observation by a nameless traveller. The pages were apparently compiled based on his (or her) journal.

The route through the Blackburrow of the gnolls from Everfrost is dark, twisting and deep. I have quite often gotten lost as I do not use any source of light. That would reveal my presence to the cursed gnolls. My business is my own, taking me through these dark passages every fortnight.

My home is Halas of the North. My business takes me to Qeynos Hills and for that reason alone, I must suffer the treck through the stench of the gnoll pits. Sometimes I will send ahead my pet wolf Silkie to find sport in the darkness. She enjoys the exercise, for the gnolls cannot outrun her. I can follow their cries and need not use any of the dark methods I have learned to see in the dark.

On this journey, Silkie and I found the snows melting by day and freezing at night. Daggers of ice hung from the rocky outcroppings, sometimes breaking off and shattering on the ground below with a loud crack. Her tail between her legs, her ears darting back and forth, Silkie panted and paced, uneasy. Her troubled behavior made me uneasy as well.

At the entrance to the tunnels, we found the gnoll guards had abandoned their posts, leaving behind nothing but the cold embers of their watch fires. There used to be snow at this level, but there was not. The ground was moist with melting snow. Silkie refused to enter the tunnel until I threatened her. Then she scuttled ahead sideways, like a crab, trying to see both ahead of us and behind.

Down we went on our usual route, encountering nothing. The tunnels were silent, but for the constant drip-drip-drip of water in the dark. As we emerged from one narrow tunnel into a wider space, Silkie whimpered and whined, her misery echoing around the chamber. “Be still!” I commanded her. She fell silent and I was aware that the entire world had gone silent as well.

Suddenly came a large rending sound that shook the marrow of the mountains and threw me and Silkie to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran howling away through the darkness. I lay pressed against the rocky ground, hugging it as though I could stop its convulsions. Finally, it grew still. “Silkie!” I called into the silence. She did not answer.

No, Silkie did not come at my call, though I could sitll hear her terrified, high-pitched whimper echoing. Then she fell silent and I heard something else — a roar that I have never heard in those tunnels before. It reminded me of the scream the snow makes as it tumbles down a mountainside on a sleigh of ice. A roar covered in velvet.

I too scrambled to my feet, but with the unseen roar echoing through the chamber, I could not know which way to turn. I began my enchantment, though my teeth chattered. A heavy wind rushed into the chamber, bringing with it the smell of generations of foul gnolls from somewhere deep in the Blackburrow. It broke my concentration and my spell dissipated before I could cast.

And then the water surrounded me. It tumbled over me and over like a pebble on the sea shore. I could not tell what was skyward and which way led to death in its depths. The waters rushed onward, as frantic as I to find an outlet. After an eternity, the waters threw me onto an unseen ledge near the roof of the cavern before swirling away.

Though I lay on the ledge for days, the water did not drain. I was finally able to cast my light-giving spell and saw the ruins of the cavern below. My thoughts lay on my certain death and I was bitter and angry to die like a gnoll and not with honor inbattle. I would not die unsung. You who read this, know that the world was shaken and I survived. For a little while.