October 2007

Don’t grope books..and more SoD

stargrace October 22, 2007 3Comments

All you’ll end up with is paper cuts anyhow. I found this text amusing as I was running through my SoD statues, not for the second time, but the third time. Second time this week. I decided that my mystic, Misako, should also move up the ranks in her SoD completion. Arysh (warden) is on the named in the castle. Misako, is just at the Kaladim part, but at least she’s done her statues. I figured Unrest would be the most difficult one to obtain, but thankfully I wiggled my way into a group and completed it. I can honestly say after completing SoD on one character, and attempting to complete it on two others, that I hate SoD. I think I’ve been working on it enough lately to warrant that comment.

My thoughts are with those in the states who are dealing with brush fires right now, hope everyone is safe and moved out of the area, that’s one thing I love about where I live. There are no hurricanes, no tornados, no brush fires, no avalanches, or any other natural phenomenon *knocks on wood*. I know I’ve been slacking with the posts the past few days, but there’s nothing really to update about. I haven’t been working on quests aside from SoD, though I am going to do some carpenter crafting on Cordanim’s character while he’s gone to France. House items are always a good thing.

Speaking of house items, I completed my LoN collection (finally) with the painting of the Three Warriors. I traded a booster pack for it, but it was well worth it. I also managed to get the burning fists, a red aura that surrounds your hands. The problem now is who to claim it on as I have plenty who would look fairly spiffy wearing that. For now it sits unclaimed.

I’m wondering what changes are incoming with RoK. Wondering if people will be satisfied with it, what guilds will shift, and what characters I’ll eventually end up playing. I suppose I’m one of those people who just want to play a needed class, and who doesn’t place enough emphasis on playing what they want to play. If I had my choice just out of the blue, of playing any character at all that I wanted to play, I’d probably just stick with my warden. There are just so many wardens out there, that it’s difficult to secure myself a spot anywhere.

So what do I do. Continue to play her and hope that eventually I’ll manage to wiggle my way into what I want (raids with close friends), play the pick up game like I’ve been doing for over a year now, or give in, and play one of my other level 70’s who’s more “needed”. It’s actually more of a dilemma then one may think. I love my warden, I’m great at the class, I worked really hard on her for both house items and general quested do-dads. But there are so many druids out there. The chances of me actually managing to land some place to play her, are pretty slim. I adore their ports, and the class it just a lot of fun. So, that begs the question, what’s more important. Playing a class I love, but having to deal with never really being “end game”, or settling for second best, and playing a class I’m fine with playing, but don’t adore it as much as I adore the druid.

Sighs.

Housing and Sword of Destiny (again)

stargrace October 20, 2007 2Comments

I’ve already completed the Sword of Destiny quest chain up to the legendary on my templar Dasie, however since I’m playing Arysh hopefully as a constant for the next little while, I decided I should get it done on her as well. It was difficult enough the first time, I did not relish doing it for a second time after a majority of people have already completed it. Yesterday I spent the day collecting my 50 statues, which was not quite so bad. I had Gothun help for a few sections (New Tunaria and Mistmoore Catacombs) and had Shadowgeist and Calreth help me for a few other portions (Kaladim). I met up with a friendly troubador from Fated who helped me into an Acada instance to grab the one there, and in turn I let him into my Unrest instance. It worked out well. It took the majority of the day but I managed to get them all.

After turning them in, I was given my house item which of course I adore. It’s the little statue pictured above on the right hand side of the fire place by the guitar. I spent a lot of time decorating Arysh’ house once the GM’s had returned all of her items to me, eternally grateful of course for all their help.

Her library holds over 80 books, and there’s easily another 20 that I can add. I’m pushing the housing item limit though, so I’ll have to wait until Torrent Knights his level 30 before I can upgrade to a 5-room (Not eager to move back to Kelethin), or just hold out to see what housing is like in RoK. I think I’ve got 273 items, 352 actual at the moment. Some of the books I’ve got still count as house items since they’re pretty old, and of course there’s 33 lore and legend items that take up a chunk of housing space as well. I tried not to clutter the house, but still get all of my items placed inside of it.

Today is MMIS, but we’re going to be missing quite a few people so I’m not sure how it will go. With RoK so close to release it seems like fewer and fewer people are signing up for raids, and I’m a little cautious about what’s going to happen once the level cap goes up. I’ve heard some people saying their raids were cancelled because certain core members wanted to wander through Shard of Fear instead of partake in their raids, which does not sound promising. I expect with the expansion that for a short time there will of course be some upheaval since they’ll be expanding the levels.

Aside from MMIS, and of course the typical weekend adventures to the grocery store, I’m hoping to work on my SoD a little more. I’d like to at least get to the portion that requires me to head into Castle Mistmoore and hunt down pages as well as named. If I can get that far then I know I can managed at least getting the legendary version of the weapon. I don’t think I’ll be killing Mayong any time soon for the fabled, but hey, that’s at least a step in the right direction.

Shard of Fear

stargrace October 18, 2007 4Comments

With the GU39 being implemented yesterday, I of course (along with the majority of the server) found myself in the shard of fear. The zone is huge, and I loved that aspect of it. It’s one of the few out door dungeons EQ2 has. Not even sure if the others count since they’re raid zones and not dungeons (I’m thinking of the other one in the Feerrott, with those T5 epics that’s an out door zone). So for once I wasn’t doing an instance in a stuffy hallway or house or whatever. The entire thing is out doors. It reminded me both of the Feerrott, and the original Plane of Fear. There are three epicx2’s in the zone, The Dracolich, Agony, and of course Terror, who’s the boss of the zone. The majority of the zone is also orange con to a level 70, so that makes it some what difficult. There are some random quests in the zone, the puzzles were far easier then Unrest to figure out though. It’s a nice tide-over until RoK hits us in November. I did of course get naked from being smushed in there my first time through. I wouldn’t suggest heading in there unless you know your group, and know them well. It was fun none the less.

Last night also saw me heading into LoA (people still DO that zone?) no deaths, 2nd on the heal parse, not that I was keeping track, honestly. After that quick run through the raid made their way to Emerald Halls where we beat our heads against a wall for an hour or two. Or at least that’s exactly what it felt like. A bunch of people left after LoA so I swapped out my warden for the templar. Then we got another templar, so I swapped out for my bard since we were short a few. It’s really the down side to having so many high level alts. While I don’t mind swapping right now since none of them really need anything with RoK coming up, I am hoping to settle down some what once the expansion hits.

Cordanim is of course taking his break from EQ2 and playing WoW some, he’s also headed to France, lucky him! Gothun has been playing his assassin a lot lately which he enjoys, happy to hear. Calreth is of course doing crazy writs and crafting, still can’t believe he leveled so fast. One of my old friends from EQ1 may be coming to the game in November once RoK goes live, that’ll be nice, hopefully I can convince them to stay, and get another guilded into Torrent Knights (who hit level 26 last night woot!). Been chattering to both Albrta and Kilanna plenty as well, both wonderful ladies.

The cold weather is getting closer every day, and I’m absolutely loving it. It makes for nice lazy days crafting, watching the leaves change colours. Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, profit ui is the best EQ2 UI I’ve ever used, I just love it. They added a toggle yesterday that enables you to click a cure in your group window (as you’d typically do) and it will interrupt whatever spell you happen to be casting, and cast the cure. I love it. It’s fantastic. The new update to 4.0 was certainly worth it and I’d highly recommend this UI to anyone who happens to dislike default. It takes a little getting used to, but I doubt I’d ever go back now, especially with their online updater, so I don’t have to keep going to the eq2interface site in order to download my updates.

More updates later, tonight is HoS.. (people still do that zone too?!)

SoE Customer Service Comes Through Again

stargrace October 15, 2007 5Comments

I’ve made previous posts about my good experiences with the customer service on EQ2, and today was no exception. I’ve had to contact them about numerous things through petitions, from lost chests, to deleted characters, and name changes. I’ve always been answered in a timely manor, never more then a few hours for a reply. Sure, it may be a slight pain to have to use the browser window for a petition and fill out their forms, but no more so then having to fill out anything else. Plus, I know they record it and get it that way, it’s not getting lost anywhere. I can check the status at any time.

Anyhow.

Backstory: Five or Six months ago, I relinquished my house before actually moving anything out of it. A whole house filled with quested books (about 100 of them) deity quest rewards (the world event ones) expensive paintings (the 450,000 status ones of Freeport and Qeynos) some elaborate tradeskill machines, and 200 other items. I decided at the time, since I was not playing the character that often, that I didn’t care about those items. I was playing a different character and her house was just fine. Foolish of me, yes.

Today: Lately I’ve been playing the character. A lot. It’s Arysh in fact who lost all of her house items. I decided on a whim to see if there was any chance at all that the lost house items could be restored to me. Fully aware of the fact that I’d probably be told no. Not only due to the span of time I left between relinquishing and petitioning, but also because that would be 200+ items that would have to be searched for, as well as the fact that my character had since moved homes twice, her character name changed once, and server transferred three times between then and today. Not an easy Task.

Three GM responses later, and as many details as I could provide, I was contacted and told that they had good news – my items would be given back to me, after 6 hours they had compiled a list of items that I had lost when I relinquished, and would drop them into my inventory. My jaw dropped and I practically screamed with joy. One at a time the items began appearing in my inventory. I started dropping them into Arysh’ home, ecstatic. Wow. Now that’s service.

I knew when I petitioned that I shouldn’t get my hopes up, and I knew it was my fault for relinquishing, you’re even given messages about it. with the newly added moving crates there’s no relinquishing involved (thank goodness). I made sure to give a huge thank you to all those involved, as they certainly went above and beyond what they had to do.

Just remember when you’re trying to get something returned or a question answered, that these people who work in customer service, are just that. People. I was polite, and patient, and knew they’d either be able to help, or not be able. Either way I would be ok with the response. Of course I was a million times happier once my issue had been resolved, but yeah.. what a great day.

Armor Quests, and a new(old) Warden

stargrace October 15, 2007 0Comment

For those who have known me for some time (how many of my posts start like that any how?) my druid Arysh (formally known as Silverstep) started out a warden. However, I betrayed her when I joined Torrent Knights on Lucan D’Lere since they were short a fury and I had no qualms doing it. After some time though, I decided I wanted to go back to being a warden, so that’s what I spent this weekend doing. Well, a few hours this weekend at least. Fury are great healers, don’t get me wrong, but much like the inquisitor class, they’re also used for DPS. For solo work and pvp they’re amazing, but I wanted something that was far more focused on healing. I only had one piece of gear that I’d loose, which was my hat. I managed to find a fairly good Unrest group last night and what would you know, my legendary hat dropped, a sign that I was meant to be a warden.

I’ve always envied those people who stuck through with their classes. I’ve never managed to do it. I worked so hard on the druid when I played her, having completed her claymore, DT access, Godking weapon, MoA, and Chel’Drak ring. She didn’t get her SoD done (yet) though because I was playing with Dasie instead. So I’ve decided to dedicate some time to the warden and try to complete it. I’m collecting statues (again) and uh, no, it’s not fun. Not any more fun then the first time I attempted it.

I’ve signed up for FTH and Clockwork tonight, hopefully I’ll get a spot on the raid, if not that’s alright though. I know there is a huge surplus of druids typically. I’m hoping maybe I can prove myself as a “better then average” one though. I know the class pretty dang well, and when I was doing MMIS in a melee dps group on Saturday night I parsed 2nd zone wide on the heal parse. I know heal parses are not the end all be all, but when a fury in a melee dps group is you’re second highest.. well, they’re either doing something right, or the other healers are doing something wrong. Or a little of both. It was a bit of an off night and we didn’t quite make it as far as we’d like, but I had fun none the less.

Today I worked on my armor quest for some time, I like the graphic of it. The picture above has Arysh in Thundering Steppes smacking around some skeletons. I had my setting quality turned quite high, and for the first time ever realized that the ravine throughout the zone is actually made of a whole lot of skulls. I was amazed that I’d never noticed it before. I actually didn’t alter the screen shot in any way, aside to add a frame around it, I love the way it turned out.

I’ve been dealing with petitions for most of the day (not bad ones either, more details on it tomorrow when I know the result) and again I have to say I’ve never had a bad experience with the support staff from SoE. Hopefully they can help me out with my issue, and I’ll be one happy camper. If not though, I know they at least tried and I appreciate it.

Other then that, looking forward to the Shard of Fear instance that opens later this week (if all goes according to plan) and other random updates. Things in game are great.