June 2008

Housing Goodness

stargrace June 23, 2008 0Comment

Now that I’ve got three level 80 characters, and a few level 80 crafters, it was time to decide what to work on next. I’m contemplating between the 75 illusionist, the 74 templar, and the 45 carpenter, 72 woodworker. What I’ll probably end up doing is working on all of them all at once because that’s what I’m so used to doing. Last night I pinged off a few rush order writs on Stargrace and Nostalgia 2.0 dinged guild level 14. One more level to go and we can pick out a guild cloak design (at least the base for one). Exciting? Well, for such a very small guild, I think it is. It’s typically just myself and Kasul in there working on whatever happens to be going on for the day. At level 80 the writs give over 1500 guild status (15k personal) and can be completed in 3 minutes. Far more profitable then running an instance even if you did have a full group.

Once I’d worked on a few writs (I’m fairly close to 30k crafter faction finally with Stargrace as well. Looking forward to being able to shop a little more from the merchants) I decided it was time to work on Silhouette’s house. She owns a 5-room Gorowyn house, which has no status upkeep and is just over 5g a week in coin. Couldn’t really get a better deal then that. I’ve decided the upstairs will be a library, and so I began working on that, slowly. Silhouette doesn’t have nearly the amount of house items and books and nick nacks that my other characters have. She was a heavily power leveled character and solo’d from 55+ using the charm spells coercers get in New Tunaria. Great zone.

So it’s coming along slowly. I need a lot more crafting levels in order to deck out her house the way I’d like to. Including the faction recipes from RoK. Yesterday I did manage to get two carpenter levels though – which places her at level 45. Again, you’d think the one sort of crafter I’d have 80 before all others would have been a carpenter due to the sheer number of houses my characters own and how much I simply love the whole aspect of decorating. Alas, it’s one of the last crafters I’ve tried to level.

So for now I’ll ponder what I want to concentrate on, if anything in specific. If I haven’t mentioned yet, it’s nice to be back in EQ2. I love EQ1, always will, and of course I’ll continue to play it, but there’s just something about EQ2 that draws me back every time to make it my main game. I’m also excited about the events going on this summer and I hope we get a glimpse into what they may be soon.

Coercer Epic Completed

stargrace June 22, 2008 0Comment

That’s right, after one day of working on the coercer epic, I completed the fabled portion. There’s no way I’ll be doing the mythical any time soon especially since I’m not in a raid guild. I am more then happy with the fabled version in the mean time though. The quest line was very simple and straight forward, and highly amusing. Especially since for the duration of the quest you’ve merged bodies with a woman who speaks to you, through you. Crazy? Of course. Isn’t every coercer? I absolutely loved the story line.

There were only a few difficult parts to the quest – and I owe my thanks to everyone who helped me out. Especially Shadowgeist, Eyenstein, Albrta, and the good folks from Siege. Karnor’s Castle was the easiest update, but after that I headed to Sebilis for an update from the lab area (which dropped on the first kill) and then it was off to *gulps* Chardok. The palace of Chardok in fact. You need green, blue, and red shard access to get to this area. The group consisted of a fury, templar, two dirge, myself as coercer, and a shadowknight. We did have a few deaths – no wipes though. Made it down to the palace in record time, clicked my book shelf, and off I went to Kunzar Jungle to kill 30 random mobs for essence updates. Gathered all those together, and the final bit I needed was to kill Drusella in Maidens.

Entered the zone with a Shadowknight, Mystic, Ranger, Conjurer, Dirge, and myself as Coercer. Cleared the zone with a few wipes on the very first named since the Conj. and myself were unable to withstand the tail lash AOE. Yes, we’re just that gimp.

Compared to what I’ve read of the warden epic (and a few others) I got off easy. No faction work at all. The mythical version is a little more annoying, I need Venril Sathir as one of my updates – if I ever make it that far. The first update is the Spider Mistress, which is easy enough.

Aside from the EQ2 updates, last night I played with Gnewton on his new Shadowknight, and Lackey, Magician. Boxed my Druid and Beastlord, and we tore up Dulak for a few hours, managing a few levels before practically falling asleep at the keyboards and calling it a night. Still lots of fun though.

Now of course I get the fun job of deciding “what next”. In Maidens Silhouette got herself a very nice new hat. Bright pink, at that. I’ve got the 75 templar, 74 illusionist both sitting on the back burner, not to mention Sil’s crafting which has been 43 carpenter for some time now. With all of the aa I still have would like to get, and quests being implemented, it’s a nice feeling to think that there’s actually things to do in game again, things to keep me busy. Of course, if I didn’t have all these alts, I’d probably feel other wise. Speaking of alts. Come on SoE, let us transfer for free again! I have a lonely Troubador and 80 Sage / Alchemist and a few other alts still stranded over there on Antonia Bayle.

Another 80

stargrace June 21, 2008 3Comments

The image hasn’t been updated last I checked, but this is the ‘crest’ that SOE was promoting for EQ2 for their whole living legacy thing going on this summer. Silhouette, managed to hit level 80 today running through Sebilis, helping a friend out with the templar epic quest. Which was not fun, might I add. Well, ok it was fun but it was a lot of running around and a lot of killing trying to clear to get to places.

I gave up on the warden epic for now, it’s a lot of camping, and a lot more faction work. 40 faction quests or so just for one portion. Ew. We’ll see where I go with that one.

Once I hit 80 with the coercer, I attempted to start her epic, too. She got a little further then the warden but not by too much. She needs to kill 20 fishmen in Chelsith, which means a group – actually, it doesn’t NEED a group, but I’d be far better off with one. I managed to solo three of the little fishmen buggers before zoning out – which resets the counter.

Bleh.

So now a little time has gone by, and I’m in Karnor’s Castle, camping a named Drolvarg for the warden epic. Hopefully, I finish an epic on someone, some day. The hardest part of the warden epic is the +40,000 faction I need with the Reet folks. Not looking forward to that, and looking at the list of 21 Kunzar Jungle quests Arysh still has on her, I didn’t look forward to any of those quests. I’m not even sure how she managed to get to 80 not doing her Kunzar Jungle quests, nor her Jarsath Waste hammer quest, and I didn’t finish the wastes hunter chain of quests either. When RoK first came out I think the experience was better then what it’s sitting at currently, but maybe I imagined that.

Five place holders now, Drolvarg Lookout being the place holder for my epic update. Yawns. Only a few more hours here, I’m sure.

I’d almost rather be in Chardok or some other place a little more exciting.

One of THOSE Nights

stargrace June 21, 2008 0Comment

Yesterday was supposed to be Nostalgia, and I was excited about it. Then IT happened. What was IT? Well, I assume a service package from windows though I’m not exactly certain even now. Whatever IT was, prevents me from logging into EQ1 and staying connected. I manage to make it as far as the character select screen before it disconnects me happily. I spent 8 hours yesterday deleting, reinstalling, installing, moving, and trying solution after solution to no avail. I did manage to get in briefly, only to be disconnected and kicked out. Again. For now I give up. Thank you to the guild mates who have been patiently offering me solutions.

So after 8 hours of frustration I logged into EQ2, and was asked if I wanted to head to Runnyeye with Arysh. The run the day before was pretty sad, with nothing but caster loot dropping. This time was improved, but not by a great deal.

Most of the loot that dropped was chain this time. Arysh did manage to land herself a new buckler. It has less power then the one she was wearing before, but it does have + to heals, heal crit, and faster casting beneficial spells. Can’t go wrong with that. We also discovered there are three other quests for this zone scattered across Norrath – aside from the two within the zone. There’s a quest in Butcherblock at one of the Dwarven outposts, another in Maj’dul close to where you’ll find the silver dragon, and a third in enchanted lands in a room along the wall that stretches across the lower half of the zone. Each quest requires you to simply kill one of the named.

The rewards are much like the rewards for the RoK legendary quests, and I transmuted them all because none were upgrades. Druids / healers got screwed on rewards. Most were caster rewards, not a big surprise. I wasn’t about to give up my overloaded heals for +30 to heal, so it was fairly easy to make the decision.

I managed to get 92% through my level after doing RE, and turning in the quests dinged Arysh 80. Which means she can start her epic now. I headed to Kunzar jungle to attempt to get it to drop – it comes from a mob with a 1-2 hour respawn timer. Ugh. Maybe she won’t be starting her epic so soon after all.

I did get a LoN loot card – the ‘Drogan Distraction’ was a server discovery, and a cute little one at that. Suppose things could have been worse. This time around we did get one useful master on the RE run, no fabled at all though. In the times I’ve gone I’ve yet to see the cloaks drop either that others are proudly wearing. The healer version just makes me drool.