North Ro LDoN and Nostalgia

Now before I get too far into this post – I admit, that I have a few pet peeves in games. Some are pretty apparent, and some not so much. One of my very strong pet peeves, is when people sign up for an event, and then give no notice about their absence. Now wait – I understand that people have actual lives, that things come up. But when 10 other people are counting on you to be there, the least someone can do is get a hold of whomever is in charge of the event and let them know they won’t be there. That’s my one issue with Nostalgia. I know, it probably sounds harsh of me to say about something that is so casual, but it’s because it’s so casual that I vent about it. We only meet once a week. If there’s an issue with a once a week schedule, we really need to know about it so we can compensate for the missing class. Be it a tank, dps, or buffs (Aerrik, in case you’re reading this it’s NOT about you silly, you told everyone you wouldn’t be there this week!) anyhow, enough of my ranting.

Nostalgia hiked up their skirts and headed off to do some Lost Dungeon of Norrath (also known as LDoN) for the evening and wow did we have a BLAST. We split into two groups, this time with Tipa the ranger as my fearless tank. I had moved both the cleric and the necromancer to the North Ro camp, unsure of who we’d need. I do want to be playing the cleric, but the necromancer is a lot of fun as well. For the time being I’ll continue to level them both up until it comes to a time where that is no longer a viable option. I don’t have any veteran rewards on the necro, being out of /claims. In EQ, you’re limited by how many characters you can flag with veteran rewards by how long you’ve held the account.

I was expecting experience to slow down – and it did, which was great. I got two levels out of the three runs we did and ended the necro half way through 24. Was there risk? Was it hard? Well – there was certainly risk. At one point, rogueless, Tipa decided to go poke the chest at the exit of the room we stood in.

Bad idea!

In 5 seconds flat we were corpses on the ground, having been hit with an 88 point a tick dot. OUCH! We laughed and teased Tipa endlessly over it, walked back to our instance from PoK (Plane of Knowledge) and picked up where we left off. Gozad also had an ‘incident’ with the floor, the poor monk tripped, or so I heard, and was crushed by a barrage of undead. Or something.

We had a blast. It was so great. We were also fairly lucky in our drops. We walked away with quite a bit of coin, and THREE LoN (Legends of Norrath) drops. One starter deck, one booster deck (which sells for 45,000p) and one regular card. We also had two augments drop (which are fairly common for LDoN) and we of course gained points with the North Ro camp. Fantastic. I honestly had such a good time. The key point? Having a static group of people to do this with. It has made all the difference in the world.

Nostalgia the guild will be putting together a Tuesday group (I won’t be apart of that one as it’s one of my Vanguard days and honestly one is enough for me!) so if anyone is interested in being TRULY old-school in their EQ1 leveling, be sure to check out the forums for more details and to sign up. I believe Blackburrow is the goal for this Tuesday, with a maximum of level 10 to start the night off.

One thing I’ve missed about EQ1 (having played other games) is actually running all over to collect my spells. I’ve neglected them since level 20 or so – unsure of when I’d be playing the necromancer next and not really NEEDING any of my spells. There’s no automatic way to obtain them in EQ1, and you actually have to look up a spell list and typically write out what you need and who sells it and how you can get it. It’s fantastic. Odd thing for me to say? Perhaps. It was just one of those small things that gave the game character though. In EQ2 you automatically get all your spells from 1-50, and then after that you simply look up on broker or on a class merchant for 51-80 or have a player craft them all for you. There’s no skills in multiple zones, no real reason NOT to have any of your spells aside from not seeing it for sale on broker and not wanting to bother with a lower version of it. In EQ1 it’s quite common to hear “Oh, I haven’t gotten that yet, it’s research only” or “Oh, I have to go all the way to Shadowhaven for that and they won’t sell to me yet” and various other reasons for not having particular spells. It’s always fun to hum and haw over which spells you NEED and can afford to buy, and which ones are expendables.

Next week Nostalgia is headed to Solusek’s Eye which is just going to be a hoot I can tell. It’s still not too late to join up if you’d like (and can make the Fridays at 7pm EST schedule – though we are recruiting anyone who just wants to play EQ1 and reminisce about the good ‘ol days) just visit the forums and introduce yourself. We could use a second tank for group cool, and an enchanter. Our level cap for this week is 25, so anything between 20-25 would be perfect.