There’s nothing worse then being attacked by cave men in loin cloths. At least, that was my experience yesterday. Teamed up with a Dreadknight to do some adventuring on the psionicist who managed to hit level 12 by the time all was said and done. Her gear is still exceptionally under where I’d like it to be, but I spent yesterday afternoon crafting some jewelry for her, so it’s only the regular gear slots that are lacking at the moment. Forgot to actually go and buy the new spells I got at 12, oh well. Filled up my journal with quests from the Halgarad area, and a few little outposts close by. We were sent to kill Corrupted Varanjar, who acted like psycho vodo men and were worshipping some gnome leader, I kid you not. Once we smacked a few of those around we were sent after the leader who dropping a pair of nice cloth booties for me, and on the second time around dropped a belt for the DK. Not plate, but it was better then what he was wearing.
Guild was quiet, a few people are on vacations and what not, we have a few new members, so people are playing their lowbies again. I’m still not sure what craft I want for the psi, if any. The guild already has a few high level tailors which would be the obvious choice for me since I wear cloth. I think I’ll just stick with the three I have, and then perhaps make a carpenter if I ever actually get my house crafted. The guild crafters are mostly 30-40 range, none are 50 yet. Crafting is long and tedious in Vanguard, and takes a lot of work, nothing like any other mmo I’ve ever played before. A lot of it is also random, and you hear people cursing the “RGN” gods frequently. You need to grind a lot, faction at outposts to learn continental styles, WO’s (work orders) to get sigils to buy recipes starting at 20+ and just the skills themselves in order to get any where. Then there’s the crafting quests people need to do in order to upgrade their gear and what not. It’s a lucrative business, in Vanguard if you’re a crafter at all and sell any of your supplies, you’re basically rich. Well, not rich, but you’re guaranteed to have more coin then your average adventurer. Though there’s plenty of stories about gold farmers and duping coin out there, so I imagine the market for that is fairly strong as well, even though yes, it’s against the EULA.
Slowly moving the adventuring party to the West, now that we’re over level 12 we can start the URT quests, even though we’re a bit small yet most of it should be ok over time to duo. Once those are done it’s off to Qalia to start the Hunters League quests. I still haven’t spent a whole lot of time on Qalia, but I’ve gotten to know Thestra pretty well now, and I like it a lot. The Kojan continent used to be my favorite until I branched out and explored, then realized how half assed it was done compared to the other continents. It may be good until level 17 or so, but then you’ll really want to move out. There’s plenty of quests on Thestra to take you where ever it is you need to go, not to mention long chains.
Tonight, aiming for level 14, you get new spells every two levels (and I get a new gestalt at level 15, forget what form it is though) that you buy from trainers. In the screen shot I’m actually not invisible, I’m standing around in my astral form stance- I hate the way it makes me look invisible though. Not sure what my next stance is, just know that I get it at level 15, and that I’ll have to look up where the block is (again) because I keep forgetting.
Other then that, and counting down the days before the concert, things are blissfully quiet. I’m hoping Vanguard’s next big patch (due at the end of February, or so people were told) will implement a few key things (at least for me). Tells were supposed to work across games much like the rest of SoE’s games work, as well as channels- but it broke some time ago and hasn’t been fixed since. It would be nice to be able to talk to the rest of the bloggers no matter the game I’m playing. Universal channels, that’s what I want! I’m not sure if character revamps go in this patch (probably not, I haven’t heard that much of a buz about it, at least not lately) but that would be a dream, especially if they want to get players back.
Every day on the continental channels I hear plenty of new people trying the game, but I’m not sure how many are actually sticking around. The chat is filled with ‘wow I love this game I should have tried it earlier’ and yes, it’s fair share of frustrated pissed off people (like when social chat servers went bonkers last night). Either way, I still hold steady to my thought that the game’s got potential, it’s a shame that for the past year the reputations just been getting worse, if they want to honestly fix things, SoE will need to do something drastic (change those character models!). Oh. Riftways are changing too, and I’m really not keen on the changes. They’re adding them to more locations (making it easier for people to instantly teleport from city to city to play with friends, not so bad at a low new level, but just dumbing down travel at higher levels) and they’re adding a constant charge to using riftways- as much as 50 silver for a level 50 rift. That’s a huge amount of money to me, I think I’ll just continue walking by foot (or hoof, as the case may be).
P.S. I hate the text font they use in VG. That screen shot would be ten times better if I turned them off. Didn’t have time in the fight though.
My favorite part of that picture?
Who broke that Caveman’s foot…and just how effective is he with that broken foot…is that why you guys look like your just standing there? He runs up (excuse me…”limps” up to you) “Rawr…oo…ow, URGh…oo…ow”
The battle cry to end all battle cries….
Uht oh Tipa, don’t let the Vulmane hear you say that (most of my guild is vulmane, go figure)! They’re very spiritual.. they’ll send ancestors after you.. seriously bad juju!
You know what would be cool? If you could give cavemen, et al, some new clothes, some better weapons, and then they’d start wearing them and perhaps begin acting more civilized. Clearly, if there are hostile, technologically and magically backward peoples living so near civilization, you have to wonder why nobody has taken action to get these people dressed, in schools, becoming useful members of society.
That’s something that bugs me about EQ2, too. Really, most fantasy MMOs. In EQ2, why wouldn’t some orcs from the Zek empires decide to come out of the cold and swear loyalty to Lucan and move to Freeport? Okay, maybe that’s not fair, since there ARE orcs loyal to Freeport in the world (though the ones that live in the low level adventure zones adjoining Freeport aren’t among them, oddly). Also, Orcs are fairly technologically sophisticated. Maybe Frogloks, I hear some of them can even make speaking sounds. If they weren’t so tasty, I bet they could be taught to do simple things, carry packages and such.
Maybe it’s just because it’s winter and snowing outside, but looking at that mostly-naked caveman makes me feel chilly. The guy with the dog head looks nice and warm. And speaking of which, which one of that guys parents was doing unmentionable things down at the local pound?