November 2007

Issues on Antonia Bayle – An Angry Crowd

stargrace November 19, 2007 12Comments

Ever since RoK was released, Antonia Bayle has experienced huge traffic. In my eyes, it’s a blessing. Especially since I transfered here from a fairly dead server a year ago. I love the server, I really do. Understandably, there are issues due to the high traffic. One of them revolve around the amount of items listed on our broker (since they now allow all alts to sell) and the data base handling it. As such, our broker transactions are removed for portions of each day during “peak” play time. For the past four days between 6pm EST and 10pm EST the server is pretty much un-playable. Zone times move from 30 seconds to 20-35 minutes. Log in queues are long, they’re “throttling” the people logging in, which means for some the server says it’s up, and for others it says it’s down as they try to pace it all.

I’ve kept pretty quiet about the whole ordeal. I’ve played EQ1/EQ2/WoW/VG for years now, and this isn’t exactly a surprise to me. What has been a surprise though, is people’s reaction to it. I’ve never been more sad to glance through the Antonia Bayle forums and disappointed at a core player base as I have been over the past little while.

With threads like this, and this and this I can’t help but shake my head sadly. Since when did the server develop this whole ‘us vs. them’ mentality? Since when is it ok to say “we need to get rid of all non-rp’ers because this is a rp-preferred server” – and have people agree with it? Honestly. I’ve never seen so much hostility between players. It’s not anyones fault that Antonia Bayle is a populated server. Take it from someone who knows what a barren server is like, you don’t want it. It’s not fun. I understand that troublemakers most often have the loudest voice, and they’re sure to make it heard, but how on earth can anyone hold that opinion and actually mean it? Role Play means different things to different people. No one player gets to decide what it means for anyone else. There’s all sorts of reasons why we choose this server. Be it a friend, a guild, population, an older crowd (though I use that term loosely after reading the past few posts on the forums) we’re all here to play together. Just because someone doesn’t actively participate in what one person coins as ‘role play’ doesn’t mean they’re any less deserving to be on this particular server then anyone else. After all, we all pay our monthly fees. I don’t walk around spouting thou and thee every which way, but I consider myself a moderate role player. Hard core? No, I’m not, I do attend events though when I’m in the mood to, and I do write my role play stories. Do I think anyone should be removed from the server because we have such a high population? No, of course not. That would be silly, not to mention just rude.

I do think people need to calm down though. It is always being fixed and worked on, and yes, it’s annoying and frustrating I agree. It’s also going to leave a bad taste in all new players mouths. There probably are some temporary solutions out there to appease the crowds that should be looked at before the angry throng of rp’ers and non-rp’ers alike plan a road trip to the SoE building. I miss reading the pages of recruitment posts, the planning of events, and all of the activities that make this a fantastic server to be on. We (as a server, a community) want to WELCOME people to Antonia Bayle, not shun them and scare them away with over bearing rants about how much so-and-so needs to be removed because they don’t conform to our idea of role play.

The whole situation in general has been handled badly on so many fronts. I honestly hope that it clears up in the next few days weeks, and the server can enjoy its high population without the horrible animosity that’s been brought about lately.

Questing the Levels Away

stargrace November 19, 2007 3Comments

I know a lot of people are upset that in the newest expansion your pretty much forced to quest in order to level with any amount of speed at all. There’s been numerous posts about it, outcries, and random bursts of anger. Personally speaking, I love the quests. I’ve seen zones like Darklight Woods, and Greater Faydark, absolutely explode with quests compared to their old world starter zones and there’s no other better way to get upgrades, coin, and experience all at once. I of course share concern with those who are worried about the lack of heroic content, but since I personally am not one to grind away my levels, it’s a very small concern. I don’t agree with forcing people to play one way or another, and wish there was equal content for all playing habits. I also realize that this is probably a very difficult task.

Anyhow.

I spent the weekend questing on the bard. Finished off all of the Kylong plains quests, and maxed out my faction with Teren’s Grasp. Without having to step foot into Karnor’s Castle (which I’ve never been inside yet since I played beta). I worked on some Kunzar Jungle quests with Shadowgeist (who’s shooting past me in levels, think he got 75 last night and is part way to 76? Very nice!) since there was less lag there. Then headed to the Fens to continue on my chain of quests there. I’ve made plenty of coin, lots of upgrades, and am just having a lot of fun completing them. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to play yesterday as the Christmas rush is approaching and I’ve got things to get done (plus I just bought a new book that’s so good!). Goudia did hit 73 though and is 30% away from 74. There’s lots of people who are already high 70’s and 80, but I’m taking my time to enjoy the new expansion. I haven’t done nearly as much tradeskilling as I’d like to do, but I’m sure I’ll get that in there some place too.

The log in issues on Antonia Bayle have been horrible, and I’m hoping it’ll be at an end real soon. We’ll just have to see.

For all you bloggers out there, be sure to /join antonia_bayle.bloggers – a new channel that Cuppy started for the community to get together and chatter, I’m typically in there and spent some time talking some last night, even if it is quiet the rest of the time. Great idea to start one up!

Kylong Quests and all the Rest

stargrace November 18, 2007 1Comment

Some how the cat learned how to set the alarm this morning, Sunday. So it’s 6:30 am and I’m up. Not a big deal, went to bed early last night. Low and behold my server is actually down for a one hour patch. Little surprising. However, yesterday there was talk of a corrupt data base file that was preventing Antonia Bayle from being online without numerous issues. I’m hoping that this patch is addressing that. Yesterday the server was down for about two hours with huge issues trying to log in and endless hanging “receiving zone info” messages. Not good business for a Saturday on the most populated server in Eq2.

Yesterday I managed to finish off the Kylong plains quests and max my faction in Teren’s Grasp with both the warden and the troubador. Out of all the characters I’ve been playing since RoK released, I’m having the most fun on the bard by far. She’s close to 73, gaining lots of faction, quest items, upgrades and goodies along the way. Once I’d completed them I wanted to head to Fens of Nathsar and start my quests there. However, the lag was horrible. Three instances of the zone was up with 80+ people in each, and I could barely move without having it bounce me around and having all my combat skills taking 5x the normal amount of time to go off. Frustrating to say the least. Understandable, but still annoying. I’ve heard so many people complaining about various things that I’ve turned off the 70-79 channel just to avoid it.

I’ve been having a blast chattering away to Tipa on her various alts over the past few days. I have to admit I love the community that blogging has shown me. Kilanna is also around (though a little less then usual) and I enjoy our girl talks. Calreth has been busy in his guild, but from time to time he remembers the little people (grins). I also still poke Mrrx on the Bazaar server. Saylah hasn’t been around for a little bit, but I’m sure she’s doing fine and dandy. What a great community we have hmms? There’s of course a lot more bloggers, but those are the ones I keep in fairly good contact with on an almost daily basis. There’s always Cordanim as well (us canucks have to stick together) but he’s been having issues with his UI and hasn’t been in game too much yet. I think he’s playing WoW with a friend as well (even though his blog doesn’t reflect that, yet!).

I left Fens for Kunzar Jungle, and started questing there with Shadowgeist last night. Lots of orange mobs but with the burly shadowknight tanking things went down easily enough. I dropped my defense song for dove song since things were orange and I hate resists, you’d be surprised, the song makes a difference at such a high level. I get annoyed with people who don’t play bards and who ask me to drop certain things for them and play other things. Like the one dps in the mage group who wants haste when I have 0 concentration slots left (different now that I have 1 free one from my self buff, although I used to drop my self buff anyhow on raids for extra buffs). I dislike that the majority of Antonia Bayle considers bards to be the “auto follow” class, where there’s no work involved and you can simply play one on auto follow. Bards are fantastic. Bards who know how to play their class are amazing. I know the top bards on my server, and know why they enjoy their class. I just wish other people gave ’em a chance a little more often. We’re not buff bots, and played right (troubador at least) can easily lock down adds with mez, take one add out of combat with a short duration charm, increase the dps of a group significantly as well as numerous other stats. Anyhow, enough of my ranting, it’s time to play!

Troubador Goodness

stargrace November 16, 2007 5Comments

Ok. I feel like a dork, I admit that right now. Yesterday I couldn’t settle on what I wanted to do. I’m trying not to play Arysh (warden) too much because I’d like her to quest with Shadowgeist (understandable) so I try to sit her aside during the days. I was working on Faydai’s Watch faction in the Fens so that she could vendor buy her 70-75 advanced sage books, but 190+ quests was not what I was looking for. I’d rather adventure the faction in that case. Stargrace, Goudia, and Misako all were having small issues solo’ing in Kylong plains. Things hurt. Even though Stargrace is fable geared, Goudia and Misako were not. I’d been having a far easier time with my healers then any other class lately, I remember it being that way for previous expansions as well. As long as I could heal, it was great.

However.

Then I read a reply from Tipa about her kite method with her troubador.

Well. I’d never really solo’d with the troubador before. I’ve always grouped. So I had no idea how to solo. I also don’t have any melee classes aside from a 52 ranger (used to be assassin) and even my illusionist rarely solo’d her way up. So I decided to give it a shot. I changed my hotbars around to reflect what I thought would be best for kiting. Figured the best bet would be for me to start with a snare, run backwards (Goudia has 15% in combat movement speed… go-go ratongas) and along the way cast my two big nukes first. Then debuff debuff debuff (and procs go off at the same time) as I move backwards a little more. The joys of songs, can cast while moving. Get my bow attacks in there at the same time, and by the time the mob even made it to me, they were typically at 60-50% health and already debuffed. It was great. Amazing in fact. Why did I not figure this out sooner! I could easily melee them down with cheap shot and the rest of my spells while they barely ever got me to 80% health. Rarely used any power, since troubadors now have an extra concentration slot (thank you for changing our self buffs! Those are important to us!) I played my + defense song for once, and my + health regen song. I also keep my str / sta song, power regen (though I suppose I could drop that actually.. there’s nothing else I really want to replace it with though) aria because that’s my life and blood as far as spell procs go. I suppose I could drop power regen while solo’ing and run my haste song too even.

So last night I spent the evening running around Kylong Plains 3 (50 people?! I’m there!) and snaring / kiting to my little hearts content. Get an add? No problem, the troubador mez’s mobs, for the same duration as my illusionist. Need to get back to the docks? Jesters and evac. It’s great. Looking for a specific encounter that I just simply can’t find? Well that’s what track is for. What’s more, Goudia is a was a maxed out tinkerer. So she’s got rez’s under control too, she’s even got feign death. When I mange to spend some time working her tinkering (and once I figure out where the new recipes are sold.. ugh) she’ll also have the reversed Call of The Hero that’ll summon me to my target. Fantastic.

She was wearing legendary EoF gear and treasured jewelry mixed in with some legendary, and I’ve replaced a few pieces already. She had a very poor neck piece (never did MoA on her) so I replaced that right away with some treasured from the docks. I was heavily int spec’d but her agi was so low it was giving me issues. So now she’s sitting at 453 str 615 int and 389 agi which is about where I wanted her, with 315 stam. 6.2k hp help me stay alive a little bit longer, and her power is almost 6k which is far better then it was. I think she was hovering around 290 agi and it was hurting. Even though troubadors get their power from both agi and int, her int was just fine and I really needed that extra agi. Since she does not melee that much as opposed to spell casting (6 pages of spells vs. 3 pages of combat arts) I think staying above 400 str and aiming for higher agi / int is going to be a good combo. I’ve also been working on getting + spell dmg pieces of gear, and even have a few + combat art pieces that were upgrades. At this rate, I may just stick with her as my ‘main for rok’ since I’m enjoying it so much, it’s actually the first time in a long time I felt a definite pull to a class.

So a huge thank you to Tipa for mentioning the kite thing, not sure why I never picked up on that before. RoK zones are perfect for this, I love it. Lots of wide open space to run all over the place. Goudia was not at max aa yet when RoK released, she was sitting at 95, last night I managed to quest up to Brakthyr’s Post, and am at 99aa and level 71, 20% into it. My vitality is actually going up faster then I ever use it since I’m doing mostly quest turn ins, but I’m not complaining. I do realize that group content has taken a serious hit and people are upset over the lack of experience it warrants any more, but I’m pretty sure if it gets ‘fixed’ they’ll just reduce the experience you get for the solo content, and I don’t really want that to happen. I’ve always noticed that to balance something EQ2 tones something down (nerfs) where as (typically) in WoW, in order to balance something, they boost something up (when I played at least, I know that may not be the case any more). I’ve been trying to get as much of the solo exp as I can before any impending nerfs changes that I’m sure are only a few patches away.

Billy dolls, faction quests, and more faction quests

stargrace November 15, 2007 7Comments

Who doesn’t want to be a billy doll, reward from the 4 year /claim and when you don’t want to be a billy doll, you can shrink yourself by 40% with the item and /hide it. Works wonderfully. Arysh quested in Kylong plains most of the day yesterday and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s too much fishing required. Fishing is quite possibly the only skill I’ve never worked on with any character. I’ve stumbled into two quests that require it so far with chains after them that I can’t complete because ew. Who wants to fish.

On the flip side of that. I had read and was understood in beta that you could still complete some faction quests as a crafter, and even get your sokokar if you were not a high level adventurer. So I decided to put it to the test. The dock-side quests for crafters went off without a hitch, my 57 necromancer (70 sage) received her sokokar with no issues.

However.

Then she managed to snag the quest from Greenblentus in Teren’s Grasp called “New Lands, New Profits”. It gives you faction (on completion) for both of the major (there are more, I know) faction in the Fens of Nathsar, turning them non-agro. The issue is, that to complete this quest, you have to run around in the fens. I’m 57, believing this was an alternate rout for me to complete the faction I needed to at least be non-agro to the watch, so I can start faction writs. At 57 running past the agro guards of the watch is not easy. I did manage to fandangle my way up there, and grab the sokokar post at the same time. I got my quest update, a little crate on the right hand side JUST before you enter the gates of the watch.

The next update? Along the banks of the river just East of Rillis. I’m screwed. Not only does everyone in Rillis want to eat me for breakfast (dang gnomes!) but the country side is filled with mean nasties as well. I tried to find this box on Arysh, since she’s done the adventure portions and is no longer agro, but I couldn’t find the crate I needed.

After this, two more crates. They probably want me to travel to the center of some other agro city.

So how am I going to try to get around this? Well, thankfully, killing one sort of iksar will make the sarnak at the watch non-agro to me. So I’m going to have Shadowgeist smush one for me. The next issue? I have no idea if I can get the writs as a level 70 crafter – I think – that they start at 72. I don’t mind leveling. And why am I going through all this trouble to begin with?

The advanced sage books are going from anywhere of 1-5p on my server. This faction will let me buy them for 10g and some change each. The books are no trade, so you have to faction for them yourself. As a 57 necromancer, thankfully I can still group with 72’s, but the quests for faction (adventurers) are level 68+ and I can’t do them. I understand that the game is a mixture of crafting and adventuring, and it is sort of exciting getting hit for 15,000 as a lowbie wandering around. I’m basically just trying to avoid a price gouge on books since I’m already paying one on raw materials not to mention fuel.

So RoK is very much all about the faction. I like that aspect of it though, makes things pretty exciting.