February 2008

Crafter Epic.. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly..

stargrace February 6, 2008 7 Comments

SPOILER don’t read if you don’t want to know!

By now you’ve all probably found out that the crafter epic starts in Bathezid’s Watch. You need to have some faction before they’ll talk to you. I know you don’t need max, but I’m not sure the specifics yet. It worked fine with -17,000 for me. You talk to an npc standing by the forges, who asks for some help with supplies. He sends you on a little quest to make 20 items — and pays you 31g which means they take 69g of your hard earned money.

After you complete that little quest, they want to hear about the shattered lands and what’s been going on. You respond with one of five answers, and none of them lead anywhere except for the talk of Rivervale. He tells you about th cabbageleaf family- and in my specific case, about some jewelry that they made, suggesting I go check it out.

So I wandered to The Fool’s Gold, the tavern right close to the entrance of Rivervale. Find one Cabbageleaf with a quest icon, who decides that she’ll help me- if I can get her some honey. It’s not that simple though, of course not.

First I have to find a way to get into that hive (drafling tower) undetected. So she sends you to Steamfont mountains, to talk to an npc there, a gnome, who agrees to help you if of course you help him. He sends you running around for bits and pieces to create a smoke bomb type contraption that will knock out the bixie. You have to collect piece from Steamfont, look along the walls that lead towards loping plains. They’re clickies, the power source right before the zone. Head into Loping and you’ll want to go to the village, in the graveyard is where you’ll find your plant harvests. They can be targeted with tab.

Return all those to steamfont, get your smoke machine, head back to Rivervale. Lots of walking, bring good shoes.

You’ll get ported into a special crafter instance of drafling tower, which for me was filled with level 93^^^ heroics. Joy. Smoke bomb them before they can hit you and you can walk past them harmlessly. If you’re lucky you’ll have EQII maps, follow the left path, and in the center of the room not too far is your honey. Collect some of that, and use your necklace to port back to Rivervale.

Of course the journey doesn’t end there. Oh no. The quest differs for some people I believe, but for my jeweler the rest of the quest looked like this:

Head to Maj’Dul, and find someone in an observatory tower who can help you out further. Zone into the Tower of the Moon, and upstairs an npc tells you that there are recipe book pages in the library, but be careful because they don’t like strangers there. Great. They were not kidding. Zone into a special instance where the door is now open at the front right hand side as you enter Maj’Dul, and you’ll be faced with a library. Lots of books. Lots of very angry librarians. To your left and right are book shelves with clicky books. Gather a few. Wait, gather more then a few, gather a good few. Hotkey them in easy reach, and WHOMP throw them at those mean nasty librarians. That’s right, abuse those books and throw them.

The quest wants you to collect 4 pages. They’re all on the shelves in the basement on the right hand side. Knock out the librarians as you go, they turn agro again in one minute, so collect a few, run back to the stairs, if you have to. This part was the bane of my evening, I died at least 12 times, and when you die, you loose your harvested pages, and get to start all over again, and again, and again.

Finally, you manage to snag all four pages, and you’ve got to put them together. Go back upstairs and on the bookshelf to your right you’ll find a clicky with a recipe book there to fix the loose pages. Scribe that, level 100 recipe. With those four pages you collected you can create the object you need. Head back to Rivervale with all of that done, and you’ll get a recipe unique to your tradeskill class that she’s shared with you. Anyone who played EQ1 remembers these ingredients:

• Blessed Fishing Rod
• Celestial Solvent
• Ceremonial Solstice Robe
• Mistletoe Cutting Sickle
• Misty Thicket Picnic Basket
• Protection of the Cabbage Spell
• Ruby-Encrusted Stein
• Smithy Hammer
• Demi-Sec Champagne

With your unique recipe you cheer to yourself, not really looking at the quest. Then, the smile slowly fades. You’ve got to be kidding. It can’t be. Oh, but it is.

You need to commission 8 other crafters, for 8 other lore no trade parts. One from each crafter + your own piece. Oh. @#$%.

Each combine uses a T5 rare (and if you’re lucky enough, your server still has some priced fairly cheap, on Najena, everything was bought up by one rude crafter– not me, and re-sold for 6p each). They also each use two smoldering materials, and two scintillating materials. Flowers will work in exchange if someone bought up all those too and is pricing them at 60g each.

That’s the step I’m on right now. As of this moment I’ve got 5/9 pieces, and it’s a long long night. I need an alchemist, a woodworker, a carpenter, and a weaponsmith to finish my epic. At least, I think it’s the end. I hope it’s the end. I’m praying it’s the end. It’s probably not the end.. *sighs*

I was disappointed to see that the valentines stuff didn’t make it in, though I suppose they only had room for so much today. Maybe tomorrow? Other then the crafter epic, which is about all I’ve been working on, the channels have been spammed with “where’s my epic starter!” “I want to know such and such about my epic” etc etc. for all those adventurers out there. It’s crazy. A good portion of me is thinking I should have just left EQII alone tonight.

On the plus side. I did disco everything up to this portion of the quest. There are other crafters ahead of me now I’m sure since guilds have advantages of knowing people who, you know, craft. Which I don’t have available. Ah well. I’m happy I got this far!

GU#42 – EverQuestII Notes

stargrace February 6, 2008 No Comments

HIGHLIGHTS

• A new epic quest line is available for every class of adventurer and crafter who has reached level 80.
• The Avatars of the Gods have returned with renewed strength and new members: The Tribunal, Karana and Bertoxxolous.
• New mannequins are available for displaying armor and weapons in your house. You can acquire them from some of your more dedicated and advanced crafting friends.
• Two new UI windows are available: Pet Options and Connection Status. Check out the User Interface section for details.
• PvP armor sets and PvP based writs are now available on the PvP servers.

GAMEPLAY

• Summoners are now granted an additional spell at level 2 so they can complete Arcane Storm properly.
• NPC’s in raid zones that you would normally see will no longer disappear when running on low graphics settings.
• The Clockwork Menace Factory will once again allow you to enter as long as one group member has the power cell key.
• AFK flags will no longer be removed when zoning.
• Racial innate abilities are now displayed in the achievement window along with the traits, traditions and trainings.
• Mount Merchant Laydin Haggus of Teren’s Grasp will now sell high level mounts to those allied with the forces of evil.

PvP RULESET

• At long last, PvP Armor Sets are now available! Seek out Lady Arlen Sunbeam and Sir Drofecid Tops in Kylong Plains for more information.
• Spread throughout the world, you can now find characters that give out pvp based writs. Tokens have been removed from player drops and are now obtained through the writ system.
• Shrink effects will no longer work on PvP servers
• Charmed mobs should not be as powerful as they once were
• Transcribers should no longer give out temporary spells from the Necromancer Siphoning of Souls line
• Coercers
  -Agonizing Silence line has had its stifle duration reduced

BROKER

• You can now search for items on the broker by effect name. For example, open the advanced search page and enter “Aura of Agility” in the item effect field to find all items with this effect.

ITEMS

• Frostfell themed food house items now remain edible all year round.
• The lust, devotion, passion and love candles can now have their hearts lit or extinguished.
• Rare leather pelts found in treasure chests should stack with harvested rare leather pelts from now on. They still may not stack with older pelts, however. (Local tradeskill society advisors suggest pack rats may therefore wish to use the older ones up first.)
• Clockwork Earring has been renamed to Clockwork Ring to reflect its equip slot
• Red-saddled Midnight Mistrunner Horse Whistle should now be usable by Good-aligned players.
• Heartfinder should no longer give error messages about lacking the required skill to use.
• Seared Bandolier and Buz’zard’s Shortbow should no longer move to your overflow after zoning.
• Most power healing procs will no longer break stealth.
• The proc on Bristlebane’s Cane of Trickery should now trigger correctly.

ZONES

• Gorowyn
  The elevator in Gorowyn will now stop in line with the platforms.
• Sinking Sands
  There should now be fewer unreachable mining nodes in the Sinking Sands. Should you encounter any after this update, please submit a /bug with the location.
• Kunzar Jungle
  Repeatable quests in Kunzar Jungle now give more faction.
• Charasis: the Maiden’s Chamber
  -Bilithu of the Old Ways:
  Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities.
  Bilithu’s power pool has been reduced.-Drusella Sathir:
  Drusella’s Necromantic Aura now initially clears all hostile spells cast on her.
  While under the protection of her necromantic aura, Drusella will no longer auto attack.

• Isle of Mara
  Artisan quests on the Isle of Mara now grant tradeskill experience, instead of adventure experience.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Bruiser
  Enhance: Knockout line should properly update the damage now.

SPELLS

• Level 60 to 70 dumbfire pets should now scale properly with the caster before an upgraded spell is available.
• Berserker
  The adrenaline power drain will no longer be absorbed by wards.
• Brigand
  Amazing reflexes can no longer have its trigger percentage modified unless specified explicitly.
• Necromancer
  Siphoning of Souls should now return the appropriate level spell for Soothing Soul.
• Ranger
  Hook Arrow should no longer move stationary creatures and objects.
• Shaman
  An issue that might cause wards to have a long delay in their initial update after zoning has been fixed.
• Warlock
  Dark Broodlings should now cast at the level of the caster.

QUESTS

• Repeating the Sebilis quests “Swords To Be Swiped” and “Sathirian Hunting Party” will now reward more Synod Reet faction than previously.
• While on the quest, “In Honor and Service”, players that accidentally destroyed the orc expedition keys can now loot them again if they are on the stage requiring them to open the chests.
• The first stage of the quest “The Teachings of Yoru” now updates correctly on the number of wood pieces collected.
• The quest “An Ugly Bounty” has received a new reward, and players who have sold their previous rewards can return and purchase the new earring if they wish.
• The quest “Nothing on the Mind” in Jarsath Wastes no longer awards the same item as the quest “Deadly Waters!” For those that have already finished “Nothing on the Mind” Mirg Nel’Ron, The Sel’Nok Brigade Quartermaster, has a new item to sell you.

TRADESKILLS

• Grandmasters belonging to the tradeskill societies of the five starting cities now offer another quest for crafters level 30 and above who have completed their previous quest, Journeyman Service. Seek out Grandmaster Kawayzer (West Freeport), Grandmaster Kimbialis (Ironforge Exchange, off North Qeynos), Grandmaster Zyrythius (Neriak), Grandmaster Feldmanus (Kelethin), or Grandmaster Jayak (Gorowyn) to begin.
• Tradeskill societies in the five starting cities of Norrath now offer a new recipe book to those they regard warmly.
• Provisioners noticed they had two separate recipes for prickly pear muffins, and have reformulated the level 55 recipe to create prickly pear crumpets instead. Mmm, crumpets.
• The recipe for luscious cranberry pie with cream now requires 6 fuel, but the pie will last longer.
• “Hair of the Dog” is now a level 25 provisioner recipe, instead of level 35.
• Carpenters will find two new recipes, one in each of carpenter essentials volume 60 and 62, which should be pleasing for home decorators.
• The number of charges on the Gnomish Safety Recaller has been increased to 20.
• “Fizzlebottom’s Wondrous Hover-gasser” recipe book is now known as “Fizzlebottom’s Remarkable Rechargeration Recipes” and also contains a recharger recipe for the Gnomish Safety Recaller. It is still for sale in Steamfont Mountains at Gnomeland Security.
• The Gigglegibber’s Secret of Death now has only a 1 second casting time.
• Scintillating restorative stitching now has a minimum required level to use of 60, in line with other adornments of the same level.
• Condemning Smite Adept III now correctly returns 2 flickering dust as a byproduct.
• “Common Writing” and “Spectral Influx” sage reaction arts should now correctly prevent a failure when used to counter an event.

PETS

• Pets should now be able to keep up with their owners.
• Each pet will now keep his name when zoning instead of all using the current pet name.

USER INTERFACE

• There is a new command for un-equipping items in your appearance slots. /unequip_appearance <slot>
• Pet Options Window
  The pet options window allows you to set custom options for every pet you have.
  To open this window, right click on a pet and choose Pet Options or type /petoptions. Settings persist through recasting of your pet and include:
  Pet Name
  Pet Hide Status
  Controllable pet states:
  – Protect Me
  – Protect Self
  – Stay
  – Follow
  – Fight Melee
  – Fight Ranged

• Connection Stats Window

We’ve added a connection statistics window which will show your ping, bytes per second, frames per second and packet loss. The default key to toggle this window is F11.