2007

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.

Ack, another TWO hours?!

stargrace August 14, 2007 4Comments

Oh ewies.. Just read this over at the eq2players forums..

The scheduled maintenance for today has been extended for another 2 hours in order to make sure everything goes right.

While I am a huge fan of seeing things fixed, and seeing things done properly.. that’s 10 hours EQ2-less… *twitch*

Questing.. and more Questing..and more..

stargrace August 14, 2007 2Comments

Just out of interest, I checked out my 4 level 70’s to see where they were at quest-wise

So the image above is my four level 70’s (I have 10 characters that I consistantly play) and where they stand in their quest rankings. Since I know my characters, it’s not difficult for me to tell the order they go in. The first character listed is Stargrace the illusionist. She ranks 33rd for questing illusionists on Antonia Bayle. I spent some time checking the leader rankings and the top characters don’t even play any more. The second one, with the least amount of quests, is of course Misako. She was power leveled through most of her EQ2 levels, and I’d done very few quests on her. Stargrace has her MoA and important quest lines, Misako has barely done anything. Most of her questing was done in the smaller levels, before I started power leveling her. The third one listed, is Dasie, the inquisitor.

Now Dasie has the most quests completed of all (and also ranks 33rd for quests completed by inquisitors) and there’s a good reason for this. She was my very first character ever in EQ2 (although she was actually named Qutey at the time before I moved her through a bunch of servers). She hasn’t done a whole lot of the newer quests. She does have her SoD, but she does not have claymore. She does have her MoA but does not have Godking. She hasn’t actually done a lot of collection quests (which count towards your total quests on Eq2players, but not on the total if you look in game).

The final one listed is of course Arysh, my fury. She was my “old main” for the longest amount of time. She also has her claymore, MoA, and Godking all completed. Those are long chains of quests and they make a good portion of the total counts. There are a lot of fury on the server, so being 71st in the rankings is not that bad (the rankings include characters of all levels by the way, not just level 70).

So that’s 2,527 quests from my four “main” characters. Lets see about the rest of them…

• Qutey – 226
• Faydai – 281
• Ishbel – 101
• Goudia – 378
• Sensual – 60
• Yamini – 152

So that’s 3,725 quests completed, not including the 20+ characters I’ve gotten to 20-30 and then deleted. Wow. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Although – there are over 4,000 quests in game. So I’ve not even reached the number that some single characters have. There are of course quests that people gravitate towards. Like the tome quests if you’re big on books for your home. L&L for the mastery smites and house items. The “big ones” like heritage quests and signature quests. How many people actually spend time doing any of the smaller “lesser known” quests though. . . .