July 2008

Only Five More to Go

stargrace July 10, 2008 4Comments

Day two of the troubador Xegonite hunt. The screen shot above is my permanent home, or has been for the last little while. I need only two more xegonite, and then I’ll have my 10. So far I’ve spent a total of 4h30m harvesting, which isn’t too bad. I have 10 spongy loam, and so many common materials I think I can supply alts for a while. I’ve made some money while I worked on this portion as well from the shinies that spawn on occasion close to where I’m harvesting.

The area is fantastic. There’s three alcoves with nodes, roughly 3-6 nodes in an alcove. From time to time someone wanders by, and I send them a tell explaining I’m here for my troubador epic and if they’d like the common materials I’d kindly pass them off in the hopes of being able to harvest my last two Xegonite. The first two people didn’t reply back, but they did move. The next two wished me luck and also moved. I don’t like “claiming” an area, but I do really want to get this quest done.

I also caved in yesterday and moved my 58 necromancer / 80 sage over to Najena. It was the last transfer I’ll do – vowing to myself to stay here until I’m old and decrepit. I’ll be starting the sage epic on her later on, hopefully. I’m going to look for the same guild who helped me out last time and see how that goes. I’m excited to have the necromancer over on this server, even more so to have an 80 sage kicking around.

I did manage to squeeze out a carpenter level last night too, hitting level 62. The grind has slowed down some, but mostly just because I’ve been busy with other things and can’t devote quite as much time to it as I’d like. The recipes for this tier are exciting and fresh to me, I knew once I passed T6 it would just be a wonderful experience. I’ve been browsing the housing forum on EQ2players, the Norrathian Homeshow. If you haven’t checked it out (and some of the absolutely amazing creations people have in there) I highly suggest it.

Anyhow, I suppose it’s back to xegonite harvesting!

Simple Leveling

stargrace July 9, 2008 2Comments

Last night Mayadhros and I decided to hang out in Enchanted Lands and try to get a little experience, and maybe complete some quests. I tagged along with Melisand, my 32 defiler, and mentored down to his 29 paladin. We picked up the quests from the docks and began smushing all the cute cuddly woodland creatures – which the paladin was quick to point out to me since it went against his nature. I told him it was ok, he could just blame me for defiling him, I was sure the Queen would understand.

It was a lot of fun just to hang out and do things that I haven’t done in a very long time. I can’t even remember the last time I was actually doing quests in enchanted lands.

I did manage to get my 5th xegonite, after 3h and 36m of harvesting. I was at one spot and there was someone there – or someone who would stop by every so often on their rounds of harvesting other areas. I asked them if they could just let me harvest for a bit since it was for my epic, and I’d give them everything else I got while I was there, but they didn’t reply. So I moved on, and it went much better. I managed to get a total of 5 xegonite, 8 spongy loam (which I will probably save for my monk), 1,079 porous loam, and 1,311 adamantine clusters. There were some shinies close by, so I grabbed those and hopefully can make a little coin from the time I spent there. I feel worse for warlocks, who have to harvest 10 mantrap roots — and also need to harvest 35 smoldering materials. Seeing as I only got 12 scintillating materials while I was out there, I can see how painful their harvesting must be.

It feels good to be playing EQ2 again. The guild is leveling a little slower now, as I’ve been taking a break from the crafting grind. It was bound to slow down. We invited a new member, Ssirius, you can find his blog over at Stroppsworld – so be sure to check it out. He’s from Australia so our time zones are not exactly optimal, but I warned him of that before hand. It’s still always nice to have a ‘home’ in a game and a number of people to talk to. If anyone else is wandering around EQ2 and happen to stop by Najena, be sure to /who all nostalgia, and say hello!

I’m hoping to get a few levels on my monk today – but we’ll see. It’s currently 110F outside, and 90% humidity, so I’m definitely not feeling too great. I’m already grimacing at the thought of what my AC will cost this summer.

The Score

stargrace July 9, 2008 0Comment

I’ll do a proper post later, but for now here’s where things stand.

I managed to get my CoM update last night with a small group. Decided I did not want to start harvesting xegonite at midnight, so I started today. I figured I’d get 5/10 out of the way. Then get the other 5 tomorrow. Splitting it up made it look less daunting. For a short while.

3 hours and 9 minutes later and I have 4 xegonite, 7 spongy loam, 12 scintillating materials, 9 blue-silver sheets, 7 perfectly cut geodes, 1,000 regular loams, and 1,200 regular metals.

One more xegonite to go (for today) and I’ll call it a day. On the plus side, Goudia is also a level 62 weaponsmith which means all these adamantine clusters that she’s getting, she can use.

Troubador Tails.. er, Tales..

stargrace July 8, 2008 1Comment

I joined a raid guild, almost. Ok I suppose the better word is that I’ve got prospects with a raid guild. They raid 6 days a week – but you’re not required to attend every one of them. I believe attendance is 20% required of the ones scheduled, which sits far better with me. My issue with playing the troubador has always been the fact that it’s near impossible to get groups. I’m required on raids, but heaven forbid should I see the inside of an instance more then once. However. I’m willing to give things another shot, and we’ll see how it goes.

It’s been a long time since I’ve raided in EQ2. I have raided PR and Thuuga with the troub, but only a few times, and we never completed PR at the time. My gear is not horrible, but it’s certainly nothing to get excited over. I have missed raiding, a great deal and I’m excited about things this time around. We’ll just have to see how it goes. I have a lot of other obligations, and the guild is aware of that.

So of course the first thing I set out to do was at least get the fabled version of my epic, since I will eventually have a very real chance at getting the mythical version. I headed to Chardok with a trusty shadowknight – and that’s it. Crazy? Yes, yes we were. We managed to duo to all of my clickies in the zone, including the one in the water by the barracks. How did we manage it? Well, thank goodness for divine aura and feign death number one. We trained all the way to the area with the barracks, then the shadowknight ran to the bridge where I needed to drop, fell down, cast divine aura, which was just enough time for me to snag the clicky I needed down there. He  died, and I evac’d to safety before everything ate me. As any good scout would do, of course. The items I needed in Korocust (also known as the-zone-no-one-goes-to-any-more-unless-it’s-for-epics-since-they-changed-the-zone) were easy. Now I’m off to CoM with no idea if I can solo getting to my mandolin or not. Maybe I’ll get lucky and run into someone adventuring that way. If all else fails, I’ll move the coercer to the zone, clear the way, then relog to get it. After that comes a journey to the temple of the white lady – and then begins the real epic, of harvesting 10 xegonite clusters.

That’s the part I want to get to today. We’ll see.

Roleplay, not just for Rp Preferred

stargrace July 8, 2008 2Comments

Most people are familiar with the two ‘roleplay preferred’ servers on EverQuestII, it’s Antonia Bayle, and Lucan D’Lere. AB is one of the largest servers in the game (ie: most populated), and in fact houses both rp’ers and non-rp’ers alike. We ALL play on rp servers though, when it comes right down to it. These two specialty servers have a much stronger community, and utilities at their disposal – but we are all playing a roleplay game, and we all have the ability to roleplay (if we so choose).

One thing that really ticks me off, is if attempting to roleplay on a server other then the two preferred, you get mocked. Now, don’t get me wrong here – this degradation by other players also occurs on the other two servers but at least you can back it up with “this is an rp preferred server!” and some dirt throwing or what have you. On other servers, it’s a little harder to justify your characters quirks.

Some folks are brave enough to do it none the less, and I like them all the more for it. It takes guts to throw caution to the wind even in an online setting and to be able to ignore the /ooc (out of character) jeers and calls from fellow players.

My characters all have a background story, and from time to time I get the urge to roleplay with them. It’s mostly just me wandering around talking to npc within earshot of players in case they want to contribute (which has happened on a few occasions). I love roleplaying, and I love encouraging it, and I think it’s a wonderful addition to any mmo – even if you’re not the best at it. Give it a try some time, you may be surprised.