Well, as pictured above, I was quite busy once I managed to get into game yesterday with the release of EQ2’s newest expansion. I made a vow not to rush things (and I didn’t). I saw groups running off right away to grind levels and be number one at everything they did. I knew from the start I didn’t want to hang around Kylong Plains because, well, everyone was going to be there. Just like real life, I’m not fond of crowds in game either. So Shadowgeist and I teamed up with Gothun (I was playing Arysh, the warden) and we did our sokokar quests, then left for the brighter questing areas of Fens of Nathsar. Instead of grinding, we worked on solo faction quests. Difficult solo ones at that, thank goodness we had some what of a group / trio. We quickly worked our way to +17,000 with the Watch (located just up the ramp to the left as you zone into Fens from Kylong) and low and behold, the quartermaster talked to me. He wouldn’t sell me his +40,000 faction legendary items, but he did let me purchase all of the no-trade advanced crafting books. I bought them all (at a 3g loss each time) for the discovery, and split the purchases between Shadowgeist and myself so that discoveries were spread around.
I’ve replaced quite a few of my old EoF items with treasured RoK items. Nothing especially fancy dropped, there were shinies all over, disco’d 12 other items besides the crafting books just wandering around and working on quests. A treasured pair of boots replaced the fabled ones I got from Chel’Drak, and a new belt replaced the one from Unrest. In some ways it was sad to see it go, I worked so hard for those items, and after a few solo quests, they were replaced. I remember the first time I killed Chel’Drak, I even blogged about it here. Of course, I was expecting it. That’s what happens when a new tier is released.
I didn’t want to quest too far ahead of Shadowgeist, so today I played some with Stargrace, the illusionist. Things hurt on a whole different level when you’re solo’ing. She had issues taking down some of the blue solo for random Kylong quests, but also got a lot of upgrades. I left Arysh 50% to level 72, and 105aa from her meanderings, Stargrace is almost 71, with 102aa. Money is in abundance, that’s for sure. I walked away with an extra 4p from quest rewards on each character, not to mention the items I placed on broker. People are going nuts for crafting resources (AB already had an 80 sage this afternoon as I was listening to channels) and I’m storing all mine for the few quiet moments I have to myself. I think the provisioner will be one of the first characters I level up. Scribed her level 70 book, and got 11 new recipes. That astounded me. I’m used to getting my four recipes a level, it’s been that way for quite some time. So it was nice to see a little love.
More updates tomorrow of course. For now I’m hoping to just find a little niche as Kylong Plains 4-5-6 open up and let the masses through.
Still at 0 discoveries here. Yeah, the solo quests are tough because of the mobs hitting like a truck, but I think I had more difficulty wandering around getting lost looking for the mobs I need to hunt than actually hunting them.
The treasured armor pieces are pretty sweet, but I still can’t bear to replace any piece of my EoF legendary because it’ll break my set bonus. I was surprised to how many items had 6 FT or more on it. Damn, those FT stuff were so sought after and hard to get last time.
I wish there was a *little* more quest for each level, I find myself going up the levels too fast in some of the questlines ending up with mobs I can’t quite kill, but maybe I’m just doing it wrong and should be looking elsewhere.