January 2008

Traveling Through Stormhold

stargrace January 30, 2008 7 Comments

I love Stormhold. I think it’s one of those older zones that isn’t used for far too much any more. I remember when it used to be absolutely filled with people doing their dungeon crawls. It doesn’t seem quite so big any more, one or two groups is enough to feel crowded if they’re moving from named to named. There are still quite a few quests that use this zone, as well as a heroic one that rewards in a legendary bow. Remember when the scions used to be epic? Someone would spawn one by clicking the lion heads in the main entrance and BAM suddenly you’ve got an epic on your head chewing you apart. Those were good times. I remember almost at the very start of the game, when you used to be able to group with someone far higher level then you and have them ‘grey out’ zones. My friend managed to agro a scion and he dragged it through the zone on purpose, having it aoe on other travelers. They didn’t look too kindly on him (not that I can blame them) but it was still fun. I died from the aoe’s too, not that I minded, even if I did have to run back for my shard (ah, shards, good times).

Over time, pretty much any ‘difficult’ aspect of the game is toned down. That’s just one example, there are many. Crafting is another that’s been constantly tweaked and changed and adjusted over time to suit the wants of the players (some, players, not all). Speaking of which, Lader clued me in on this post, talking about new crafting cloaks, which yes, I did squeel about. They look like they have nice graphics. I’m all for nice graphics. The mannequins also seem pretty interesting, looking forward to getting a few of those in time. You’ll need 30,000 status with your crafting faction to purchase the recipe, and I know I’m a few away from that, but I’m sure Calreth won’t mind crafting me a few if I’m that impatient.

** Edit** There are crafting EPICS being put into game?! Now that I had no idea about. I knew about regular epic weapons, sure.. but tradeskill ones? Is that what those new cloaks are, epics? Woot!

In game I’ve been restless (again, big surprise I’m sure) and floundering about from character to character, not really sure which I’d rather play more. That was the purpose of closing one of my accounts, to be able to focus slightly. It’s not working.

In real life, we’re having a nice day full of ice and rain and wind. Be careful on the streets you people in Ottawa, it’s slippery.

Lazy Afternoon Projects

stargrace January 29, 2008 7 Comments

I love making signatures, they’re a lot of fun. I don’t even have forums that I belong to really aside from the Eq2players one, but I still love creating signatures for my characters. So today while enjoying a nice lazy afternoon (the weather outside is horrid, it’s freezing rain and ice and all that other gross winter stuff that we happen to get here in Ottawa) I decided to create a signature for Ishbel.

I had a lot of fun making it, the tattoo on her neck is the symbol for Innoruuk which I managed to find on the EQ2 wikia, along with brief summaries of each deity. The signature itself is made up of four screen shots, plus three separate text layers. The backgrouns is one screen shot, and has not been manipulated in any way. It’s one of the windows inside of the mage tower in South Qeynos, which is ironic since Ishbel is Freeport aligned. The image of herself I used from a shot in the crafting instance earlier today, touched up her eyes (Ishbel has a strike of red that cuts through her left eye) and her hair, added the tatoo and lightened things up a little from the original. Wanted to keep it fairly simple, so I didn’t add a fancy boarder, the text is kept to a minimum as well. It probably took me two hours from start to finish when all was said and done, but that’s also taking into consideration the amount of time I spent rescuing the cat from pillow attacks (don’t ask) in the living room.

Her hair is a little more blurry then I’d have liked, especially that strand on the left side, but I can’t be bothered to fix it right now, maybe a project for another time when I decide to make another signature, it’s been a while since I’ve made any. I suppose I could stand to make a few more paper dolls as well for the EQ2player profiles. A few of mine are missing (though Ishbel does have one here). Nice to see profiles haven’t been updated in quite some time, it says she’s level 73, she’s actually 77.

In game today things are quiet. I’ve been harvesting (how exciting is that hmms?) for crafting supplies. Late last night I hit 30 carpenter, so it won’t be too long before I’ve caught up to the 35 carpenter on the closed account. As far as crafters go, that leaves me with:

1. 80 Sage
2. 80 Jeweler
3. 80 Provisioner
4. 63 Alchemist
5. 60 Weaponsmith
6. 30 Carpenter
7. N/A Armorer

I haven’t started the armorer quite yet, that’ll be Ysandria’s profession once I get around to starting it. On another good note, the guild hit level 29 last night as I grinded some alchemy writs (woot!). A huge congratulations to Torrent Knights, since there are only 5 members (if that) to the guild, and no one has mains in the guild pretty much, I’m glad we’ve managed to come that far. I’d still like to at least hit 30 for that extra row of bank slots, as well as being able to buy some fancy new clothes from the status merchants, but we’ll get it when we get it.

Epics come out next week (supposedly) and everyone is mighty excited, can’t say I blame them. I won’t be getting mine any time soon, but I’m not sorry about that, the mad rush of folks working on them I’m sure would be enough to make me pause and wait anyhow.

Oh, and Tipa, if you’re reading this, fix your site! We’re (the readers) getting restless waiting for it to come back online, hope you got my email about it!

Home to Freeport (again)

stargrace January 28, 2008 4 Comments

Yamini just wasn’t suited to Qeynos. Every day she heard “have you ever seen a gnoll before?!” she had to resist the urge of throttling the little twerp who irked her. So it was that I decided to move her back to the comforts of Freeport, where she could lurk in alleys and steal pie from window sills all she wanted. It’s not like she hasn’t already betrayed before, numerous times in fact. Yamini is my second character that I ever made on EQ2, and she’s only level 53 with 37aa. I made her shortly after Dasie my templar, who’s also a halfling, go figure.

She did the old school betrayal quest at level 14 where she was cast from Qeynos and lost her shard (ah, the good ‘ol days) and became an assassin, then not too long ago she went back to Qeynos, embracing the ways of the ranger, until yesterday where she’d had enough and went back to an assassin. A friend asked me if there were any characters aside from the new monk who I had not betrayed, and I had to answer honestly- no, I’ve betrayed them all. Tipa asked the question of how many had only been betrayed once, which was a clearer answer, two have betrayed once. The druid I have, and dasie, who only made the trek to inquisitor once before I’d decided the class was simply not for me.

I like the versatility of being able to betray back and forth even though I absolutely hate having to work the faction up afterwards. It wasn’t so bad this time around, I choose to wander through Neriak and do the quests there instead of my usual sneaking into Qeynos method. It would have gone by a lot faster were it not for the sudden influx I saw of people who were also moving onto greener pastures in Freeport. At least 4 people also sported “the exiled” as titles to their name, a permanent fixture until you finish pledging your allegiance to your new home town.

Once I’d finished getting her all settled I made for Freeport, did the citizenship quest over there, and bought her a (mostly) empty house to stuff her potions and poisons in. Oh yes, of course she’s a crafter. 53 assassin, but 62 alchemist. It comes in handy to use her own crafted poisons with all the adept3’s I make and dusts I have kicking around for use. Not to mention it can be quite profitable when I actually get into a crafting mood (which I have not, lately).

I spent quite a few plat upgrading her skills, buying the new home, and getting settled. Browsing through her quest journal I noticed she’d completed 6 heritage quests, but not missing mask, which is typically an essential HQ for all my characters, as I love popping into dark elf form. So once servers come back up I imagine that’s what I’ll set off to accomplish, not to mention the guild is quite close to level 29, and I’d love to see us push for 30. We’ll see how it goes. Cordanim mentioned he was going to be doing some crafting, so hopefully he’ll be pounding out a few writs as well *nudge nudge*.

Other then that, and making fun of some roleplaying tactics, I had a blast talking to Tipa about her WoW rp days. They sounded amusing to say the least. I wish I had known her when I was playing the game.

I’ve Said it Before, but Thank You.

stargrace January 27, 2008 1 Comment

I know I’ve mentioned it from time to time, but probably not enough. I write because I enjoy doing it, and there’s no better reason for me. So when I get a comment or a mail in game from a reader, it always brightens my day exceptionally. I don’t expect to hear from anyone, but to those who read, thank you. I’ve met so many wonderful people, from both the blogger community and the readers. Everyone likes to know that they’re doing good, everyone likes to be praised, even if they don’t outright seek it.

So again thank you, to writers and readers alike. It’s nice to have a little space on the web to be able to vent frustrations or share joys about a game that plenty of us have in common, and form communities from it. EverQuest is all about our own epic stories after all, and I’m thankful for having such a wonderful bunch of people around to share mine with.

Oy. Enough with the sappy stuff now eh?

Ysandria explores the Forest Ruins

stargrace January 27, 2008 1 Comment

Since I closed one of my accounts, it means I’m without my monk, who was my quest character. Also means I’m short an armorer, and I wanted to have one kicking around mostly for adornments, they get to make some pretty nice ones. So with my final character slot on the one open account, I made a high elf monk named Ysandria. She’s also a roleplay character, though I haven’t decided on any sort of background or story line to her yet. I’m sure it’ll come to me in time. I spent most of yesterday questing around Gorowyn, and it didn’t take long to get to level 18 with 14aa that way. The new zones SoE’s added over time have been wonderful for new players, providing far better gear and rewards then the old shattered lands starter zones. I actually think both of the islands could use a revamp, as none of the gear is on par with the starter zones of Darklight Woods, Kelethin, nor Gorowyn. Though it is nice to start there for quest credit, then move on to greener pastures.

So once I’d finished off all of the Gorowyn chains, which ended with me lighting some machine up and exploding aviak out of the air (best quest ever lately) I headed to the shattered lands zones. I enjoy doing the smaller chains there as they reward you with faction for your respected city. So I hung out in The Caves, The Forest Ruins, Oakmyst Forest (how many times I died to that named bear back in the day I couldn’t even start to tell you, he was a bane of my lowbies existence) and did the small quests around those areas. Some have been revamped, over time npc’s have moved, though there are still a few oldies. Npc’s in Baubleshire still ask you to hunt forgotten guardians for a few goodies, and ask you to explore the mage tower. At level 19 these zones were mostly gray to me, but I still had fun and got about 1% exp for turn in. The quests didn’t warrent any aa at my level either, but I’m not too concerned.

It’s nice to be taking a break from the T8 grind, and exploring the smaller zones that I fell in love with when I first started playing this game. I miss the T5 raids, and how difficult I thought they were at the time. When frogloks were introduced the raid zone gave you a title as well as a house item and I fell in love with it immediately. I still remember doing my prismatic 1.0 and how proud I was to have been going with my templar at level 45 (which was the min. to get into the zone to begin with). I remember that I went with Allure, an Australian guild on Najena. Ah good times.

I gathered up a small handful of house items while I did these lowbie quests, four books for my house (which was nice, none of them are L&L’s) a small lab flask, a small cage that hangs from the ceiling, and a bench. I’ve outfitted Ysandria’s small inn room with these, and promptly put her meager gatherings for sale – which all sold, go figure. I priced level 1-19 stuff for 1g and made 31g just from that. Thank you transmuters.

No idea how long I’ll keep playing the character, but in time I hope to make her into a crafter, and continue on questing. Ah yes, the break from T8 is nice.