March 2008

No Cluck (or, Cluck You)

stargrace March 7, 2008 4Comments

Growlius was curious whether or not he could petition to be turned into a chicken in Vanguard. I dared him to do it, of course I didn’t (at the time) think about how the GM’s would react to being interrupted in their daily schedules of ‘more important things’ but oh well. 5 minutes later, this was the response. An indication of dedication, or just too much time on their hands, we didn’t care. It was great. Growlius and I are by Trengal Keep, working on our shadowhound quests, with our own pet chickens (veteran rewards).

We each need two levels before we can finish the quest (and before we can even get the next portion) so tonight we’re headed to River Palace, which is beautiful. It should be fun.

Crafting, is painful. I’ve managed to get level 39, and two more sigils. Two more levels and I’ll be tier 5. Not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with 1 level a day though. We’ll see how it goes.

I had a worry, in game. One that doesn’t creep up often, but ever once in a while. I worry about what my readers think about me after they meet me in game. I don’t exactly write the same way on this blog as I act in game. Sure, there are similarities, but once you meet me I often wonder if people are left with a sense of “woah, I didn’t expect that..” or something of the sort. I don’t swear on this site but I do from time to time in guild, or on vent. Especially if I’m excited / flustered about something. I try to keep the site at some what of a ‘professional’ level and leave the childish remarks out of it (when possible) but in guild I’m quite easy going and relaxed, I talk a lot (that doesn’t change between blog and game or even in person) and I’ll talk about anything at all. I do mean anything. I always worry that readers will almost expect me to behave a certain way, and that I will some how let them down.

I have read other people’s sites, and then met them in game and thought to myself ‘wow, this person is really interesting and neat’ which I’d probably already thought if I was reading to begin with. It’s nice to see the attitudes in a relaxed atmosphere though, and it doesn’t get any more relaxed then the Safe Haven ventrillo server, where I spend most of my evenings just chumming around with guild mates.

Ah life is good.

Now, who wants the 50cm of snow that is due here tomorrow…. I’m thinking of packing up and leaving before it arrives.

Alice The Camel

stargrace March 6, 2008 0Comment

Is that one hump or two? An indication of just how friendly the GM’s in Vanguard are. Growlius (thought he) misplaced an item from the mail, and figured it was deleted. So he petitioned. Within 15 minutes a GM was standing before us, and they indicated that you can’t accidentally delete mail with attachments still, but that it was probably returned to sender (which it was). Not only was the response prompt, but they had the curtsey to show up where we were adventuring. Another such example is when I spent the day trying to learn my T4 Thestran cornerstones and bricks. I could not for the life of me figure out why the npc would not give me the quest. I’d read walk throughs and thought I did everything right.

It turned out that the whole time, I was at the wrong npc trying to get the quest. The GM ported me to the proper npc, asked me if I could get the quest (which I could) and ported me back to where I was before that whole mess. Since it was my fault to begin with, I was exceptionally surprised the GM didn’t just tell me I was at the wrong npc, and have me go on my way.

For the past two nights I’ve been working away at the Shadowhound quest. Growlius and I teamed up with Photons (a sorcerer) to complete a bunch of “kill 45 of these guys” type quests. I also got an upgrade for my wrists, not difficult since I was wearing level 8 ones (woopsie). I managed to get level 38 crafter today, which is a nice milestone for me. Three more levels (three more days? Hopefully, that’s what I’m trying for) and I’ll be T5 officially. I’ve been trying to level up diplomacy at the same time, which is also slow going. I did a few parles today involving some pirates around the coast of Tawar Galan, and then ‘accidentally’ poisoned someone who carves bows, and stole one from them (why didn’t I just pay? Not sure, does it matter? Dead bodies rock).

The guild recruiting has slowed down some after a very busy week last week (we had over 10 new members join in the last week and a half or so) and I’m hoping that we’ll still pick up people here and there. We have a constant base of 10-20 people on nightly and then a lot of casual people who log in as much (or as little) as they can. Either way it’s all good. I’m thinking of a guild event to host, part of being an officer is of course being involved in the guild as much as possible, Gozad hosted a sloop race on the first of March that was a lot of fun (even though I had to miss it due to a snow storm) and I’d like to take a turn at it. I’ve no idea what I’ll plan yet though, I’ll have to see how it goes.

This weekend I was going to go see 10,000 BC, but we’re due for another huge snow storm on Saturday so I may just be keeping indoors and waiting for it all to melt. Again. I’d also like to buy the next book to my Kushiel’s series that I’ve been reading, the books are so intriguing to me and I openly admit that I base a lot of Satia’s character traits on the little anguissette from the novels. How can a blood mage be anything but.

A friend of mine mentioned in an email that she thought I was leveling very slowly in Vanguard, where as in EQII I rushed through at a steady pace. One thing I had to mention to her as a reminder is that EQII now has a level cap of 80, and Vanguard still has their level cap of 50. Some people say leveling is very quick and easy- and it’s not the case with me. I don’t find it THAT slow, but I do find it slower then EQII. Of course, in EQII I also have three years of playing backing me up, I know where to go and I could box, it made a world of difference. In Telon I’m stumbling around trying to figure out where to go next and not die along the way. Plus I’m working up the three spheres. So I craft during the day when I’m tending to real life stuff, and then adventure for a few hours at night when more people log on. The game is still very exciting to me though, despite how ‘drab’ these posts may seem like.

Promoted to Officer, Surprise!

stargrace March 5, 2008 10Comments

Well, like the title says, yesterday I was promoted to Officer within Safe Haven. Came as a surprise to me, but at the same time I could understand why. Not because my leadership qualities are all that extraordinary, but mainly because I play during the day time and the guild has a small lack of officers who play during that time, the majority play during the PST hours, when I’m headed off to bed. Of course I accepted the position and was tickled pink that my name came up none the less. It doesn’t mean I’ll be acting any differently in guild for the most part, aside from being able to recruit people to the guild and adding them instead of just telling them to wait until an Officer logs on.

Screen shot above is my house, coming along slowly. The fireplace I built myself, and there will be fire in it once I buy some. Yes, I have to actually buy the fire to put into the fireplace. The bed was a gift from Skaara, fellow officer, one of his veteran rewards (that are not supposed to be on live yet, but there’s a small bug where people on test who claim theirs can now claim them on live) thankfully this time around it’s per character, and not per account. At least on test it is. The rug is a thestran round one from Lanatra, who is one of the guilds resident tailors. A huge thank you to her, who also crafted that basket by the fireplace that you can just barely make out on the left hand side.

Last night Growlius and I teamed up with a bard and a sorcerer from guild (their names escape me right now) to work on the shadowhound quest. I found out you can do both mount quests (thank you Skaara for the information) so I’ll do the unicorn another time. We ripped through everything we had to kill, which was great. Spent a few hours working on it and Growlius managed to ding level 27, and I hit 28 which meant new spells. Nothing exceptionally exciting there, it seems that level 30 will be the new ‘big’ level I get spells at.

Borgio was on this morning, showing off a weapon he made for his wife, and I had to giggle at the pride we all take in our crafted goods. Satia hit level 36 crafter, and today I’m aiming for 37. Of course if a sigil or two dropped along the way I wouldn’t complain. It will simply be nice to hit T5 in something, even if it is crafting. Upgrade recipes will come with time.

Mayahdros (hope I spelled that right, I’m going by memory) was on last night as well, and I’m going to assume today has a snow day (though maybe not everyone is experiencing the huge storm Ottawa is being pelted by right now) so maybe I’ll have some company in guild at least. Things have been nice and calm in guild for the most part, we did just recruit 7 new people from another guild, so there’s been an influx of new members. Of course officer or not I make it my duty to get to know everyone and say hello and what not. Community is key in a game like Vanguard especially (it’s key in most mmo’s) and without it, folks will leave. I’d rather them stick around and explore Telon as long as possible.

There’s a Storm Brewing..

stargrace March 4, 2008 1Comment

There’s a storm brewing in Telon these past few days, and I don’t mean the beautiful one captured in the screen shot above, although that one is far more interesting in my opinion. GU4 was supposed to hit live servers today, but from what I’ve seen so far it’s not on the schedule. There was one brief comment by a dev about the supposed release, and nothing more. This makes for some exceptionally restless players. This GU is a huge one, implementing the flying mount quests, a revamp of the riftway systems, numerous fixed bugs regarding quests (we hope), and helmets. Veteran rewards are also making a showing (although some lucky people are able to claim them on live now due to a bug). Even the typically calm and quiet craft channel has been abuzz, and people’s tempers seem to flare easily. It could just be the weather, or maybe it’s a full moon in the world of Telon.

The screen shot is taken at River Palace, in Qalia. I’m standing on the side of a mountain looking down, and one of the unique features that Vanguard offers is weather patterns. You can actually watch a storm rolling in. This one’s about to hit the arena way off in the distance. What was I even doing here? Well my Kojan housing brick and cornerstone sent me to the ruins that are just on the right hand side, to study stones. A huge thank you to Skaara, (level 50 guild ranger) who helped me collect my bricks among the level 35 three dot mobs (mean and nasty to this 27 blood mage). In return I built him a house.

My own house is coming along nicely, but very slow. Most of the ‘nice’ house furnishings are carpenter made and people on Seradon are not afraid to charge what they think their time is worth. Too bad I don’t value their time quite as much, and thus my house will sit mostly empty for the time being until I can either make the items myself, or inherit a large sum of money. Whichever comes first. The items are beautiful though, and I adore having four chests for storage in the home which all of my alts (and friends who I give permission to) can access. I’ve been stashing my lower tier crafting supplies there for now to free up some space.

Satia left off at level 9 diplomat when I left Telon last March, though that was before diplomacy had actual levels, and back when it was skill points. Some where along the way she managed to get 500 presence with Tanvu, which is always great. I believe that’s what I need in order to start writs, but I can’t seem to find any other information on that in the time being- vgtact has been down for two days now and I’ve no idea if it will be fixed any time soon. Hopefully it will, I know a lot of diplomats rely on that site for their quest information. I managed to ding her level 10 this morning before servers came down for maintenance, and got her diplomacy bag so that I can stop stashing clothing items in my banks.

Tonight Growlius and I will be starting the Shadowhound quest, which I’m excited about. Though I’d rather ride a unicorn I think, I will do that quest another time. There’s more people who want Shadowhound, and the quest requires a group where as unicorn can be done with a small group or duo team. We’ll have to see how it goes in any case.

Oh, also, welcome Anakh to Save Haven! Fellow blogger and EQII player. It’s great to have such a wonderful community of people.

Home Sweet Home – Telon Style

stargrace March 2, 2008 7Comments

My two story thatch roof house is finally completed! I don’t have time quite yet to write about the process, but wanted to stick up some quick screen shots. I’ll post more tomorrow.