2007

A different type of grind

stargrace February 27, 2007 1Comment

A little tired of playing my blood mage lately, so I’ve switched a little to my necromancer. I didn’t like the dark elf starting areas, so I moved her to Tanvu. Of course being a dark elf, she’s KoS (killed on sight) to just about everything out there, so I had to do some faction grinding once I left the teleporter. A few things in Vanguard that I like regarding faction. Number one, teleporters are not KoS. So even if the city is, the porters are typically on a dock away from anyone else, and I won’t get squished trying to get to another continent. Another thing I like, you can actually work your faction by doing WO’s (work orders) – all of the npc for crafting are on their own factions, and they start as neutral to you. It gives you another way to work your factions up. Instead of doing that, I wanted to kill my way to non-KoS. You need 201 dynamic faction in order not to be KoS. So that’s only 201 kills (unless you’ve made the faction worse). I grinded away on easy little level 4 mobs out by the Tanvu starting area. In two hours I had the required faction, and I decided I may as well start doing all of the little quests, extra coin, boost up my quest count, and some items to sell, as well as working a bit more faction. I also like the fact that while I did work my Tanvu faction up, it did not lower the faction for my own home town. I know you used to need 501 dynamic faction, and I’m glad they changed it.

I picked up reaping and skinning, working those a little bit as I did those little quests. Figure I may as well be a tailor. Make some bags for all of my alts, and gear to wear. My duo partner and I had a sort of falling out, so I logged off early for the evening. No fun to play a game when the majority of the time is spent fighting.

The Rp server I’m on is fairly populated still, and I like that. If the population stays the way it is, I’ll be happy. If it shrinks though that would be a fairly bad sign. EQ2’s “unrest” zone is due the 2nd of March, so next Friday. Not sure if that will help to bring players back to the game or not. Lucan really needs to merge with AB for the population to flourish. Too many people have left that game over the past few months.

So while I cool my heels (heals?) on the blood mage, I’m going to craft a little (hopefully) and maybe play some alts. We’ll see how it goes.

Hrms.. that doesn’t look right

stargrace February 26, 2007 2Comments

Satia, in.. some sort of weird military goggles?

The above image is what happened to my screen once I’d gone through one of the ‘invisible’ zones yesterday morning, the whole screen turned to a nice bright pink, with a dark blue sky. Relogging fixed this issue, /flush failed though. It’s these issues and more that are going to hurt the population of Vanguard. When you log in at character selection, it says the population of each server. Out of the ones listed – only 3-4 are ever flagged as high, on the weekend I watched to see what it was like, no difference from the week days. I’d have expected the servers to be jam packed with people it’s only been a month since release.

Of course it’ll be interesting to see who stays once that free month of play runs out (mine should be up within the next couple of days, though I do have station access starting for both EQ2 and Vanguard as soon as it does). Etching knives work again, some saws do not. Crafting clothing was not being recognized at all. Every day there is a restart where small issues are fixed (with no patch notes, so we’re never sure what exactly is being fixed) but in all honesty, I don’t think Vanguard is going to survive. It will be a pleasant game for people to play with a small population of those who were fed up with EQ2, but I expect a majority will move on to other games. Not saying that I hate Vanguard, just that people are getting tired with paying for this beta version of the game. They could have had something really great, it’s a shame that they had to rush to release.

I didn’t play much yesterday, completed one quest and then logged off for the day. I wanted to get some diplomacy and crafting done, we’ll see how it goes.

A much better day

stargrace February 24, 2007 2Comments

Rask, fast asleep after a long day of questing

Today was a far better day. Thanks to some tinkering from Shadowgeist, my computer finally doesn’t hate Vanguard quite as much. I also didn’t spend the day bickering with Rask over petty things that don’t matter. He and I spent most of the day questing around the Misthaven area, and Satia hit 20 (he hit 21, grats!). I really wish we could hold more then 20 quests at a time, I’ve had to delete a whole bunch to move onto the new ones in order not to be left behind. A very annoying thing to do. Especially since some times I’m worried I won’t be able to get the quests again (such as diplomacy ones). Speaking of diplomacy, I’ve pretty much done nothing but quest and level the past week, so it’s been put on hold. As have my beloved alts, but that’s alright I’m sure I’ll get back to them. Today’s big news: Etching knives work! People are happy. Yes, my crafting has been at a stand still too, what can I say.

I attempted to make a bard today, curious about how they work because in my Tsang dungeon group one joined up and they can do some pretty cool things. They’re complicated. You compose your own songs (you can even write the title and description for each song, wow how is that for in depth role play!) the only issue is – no one teaches me HOW to compose these songs. I managed to play around with a little flick and twitch of buttons but how do I even know how many songs I can play at once? Is there a limit? One “main” portion of a song at any time with a choice of secondary accompanying pieces? Seems to be something along those lines. Until I can figure it all out, I think I’ll attempt to level my psionicist – maybe. Still so many choices. The bugs and graphic glitches seemed like just a distant memory today, hanging out with my friend (and not fighting) was certainly a huge bonus. I’m happy, it shows what can I say. It’s a huge difference to go from playing at 10-15 FPS (max, in an open field, third person) to going and playing at 30-50 FPS (in that same field, in third person). The largest difference is in town. I still stutter at times but I know now it’s not me, everyone has those stutters on occasion. Especially with those “invisible” zone lines.

Geregor: I saw you today in Silverlake! I buffed you and you shouted thank you as you rode by, I sent a tell and told you hello but didn’t get an answer, so maybe you were in a rush. Always nice to see though! I was on Satia.

Anyhow. More updates tomorrow, for now, some sleep!

Sanity? No, you won’t find any here..

stargrace February 24, 2007 1Comment

The Outside of New Targonar – a confusing place for new visitors

Satia managed to get most of the way through 19 yesterday in what was an exceptionally frustraiting day. Pet peeve number one. I get about 2-3 FPS in dungeons. Being the only healer in a group, that’s painful. Literally. People who ignore my pleads and cries about just how much fun the zone is NOT for me, bothers me. I’d rather just not go instead of having to chug along mooching exp and loot at 2 FPS. How anyone would enjoy a dungeon crawl at that rate, I’ve no idea. My best friend told me to suck it up and tough it out, then they took off and went afk on the group for over an hour while we crawled through there and completed quests for everyone else — except me.

I even mentioned one part of a quest I was just about done, and we turned around and got someone else their part instead. Sighs. Not a good day. I ended up just being annoyed and frustrated and cursing how many resources VG takes. I know there are people out there who have gorgeous beautiful wonderful machines and can run it just fine. Mine is not *that* bad, I do have above the recommended specs for it. I rarely get over 20 FPS though. I can run EQ2 in max settings flawlessly — on raids! WoW is a joke I think a cardboard box could run that game. But not Vanguard, no way. It runs fine every other time — except in dungeons. I can struggle through the lag towns, and in open areas it’s ok at 20-22 FPS, but a dungeon at 2-3 FPS.. sighs.

Crafting is still broken. Servers came down for a restart right now, so we’ll see what else they break. As an artificer being unable to use any etching knives at all really just.. sucked. Half the saws out there don’t work either, and people have to resort to using the newbie ones.

Welcome to Vanguard, where every day is beta.

Sorry, I just really had to vent.

And the quests continue

stargrace February 23, 2007 0Comment

Misthaven’s Crossing

Ding, 19. At level 18 my blood mage got 11 new spells. I’m still finding making money slightly difficult but I was able to afford them at least. One of them summons group members to me within dungeons and of course with a range limit. It seems buggy though as the disciple in my group kept getting summoned when I was targeting the sorcerer. Not to mention the one being targeted would just end up falling through the floor of the dungeon we were playing in. I didn’t stay long, a few kills in I realized it was probably a little over my head. Vampire slaying always is fun though.

So now I’m almost done getting the key for the Tomb of Tsang, where there is a weapon quest I’ll apparently adore, and I’m also able to work on the cloak quest now. I really have no idea about that one, I’ll have to read about it as I go and find out where it comes from and so on and so forth. I also joined Raskolnikov’s guild, Shadowhaven. They have branches in pretty much every MMO out there. Their team speak server is huge. I typically shy away from these sorts of guilds. Team speak is not fun for me, how can I delve into the mmo if I’m talking away to people on a chat program. I also don’t care for large guilds, and this one is giant. 158 in there so far I believe. I wanted to give it a try for my friend though, so I said no promises that I’ll stay, but I’ll try it for now. We’ll see how it goes.

Finishing up my Jin’Ka forest quests, and working on the few outstanding quests I have at Misthaven I’m hoping will push me towards 20. I’m about 20% into my level currently. I haven’t done any trade skilling, and today I can’t because in the patch yesterday they broke artificers tools. Specifically the etching knives no longer work at all. Nor are legendary pieces being recognized as tools. Wonderful eh? Makes you wonder why there’s no test server.