September 2008

Ruins of Varsoon Rambles

It’s around this time of year (every year) where I get utterly bored with whatever it is I happen to be playing (EQ2 for the past four years almost five now) and decide I suddenly want to play other games, only to stumble back to the comfort of EQ2. This year is slightly different. I have no real interest in playing any other games on a serious level (aside from my brief forays into Guild Wars which is also slow, and infrequent I know) so I doubt I’ll go down that path. Instead I’ve been logging into EQ2 briefly, to help a friend with a quest, or some leveling, then logging off almost right away once those are completed. I know I should be concerned with obtaining more guild status for Nostalgia, but it’s really tough with only a few of us working on it. My restlessness is nothing new, and I don’t take it too seriously.

I spent some time with my monk (level 44 now level 45) in Ruins of Varsoon, wandering around with three good friends. Nothing much dropped but it is 20% bonus exp weekend this weekend (not announced, but it is on the exp bar if you mouse over it) and I took good advantage of it. Mentoring and receiving 75% less experience then normal, I still managed to hit 45. I’ll have to shop for gear some time, the poor monk is level 45 wearing level 2 jewelery and level 32 gear. The new quests in Everfrost may be something I can do – if the locals don’t just shun me and chase me from the zone on entrance due to my gimp-ness, we’ll see! I also spent some time wandering around Fallen Gate with these same three friends. I died, twice. Apparently my monk is not as uber as she likes to think she is. Go figure.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with the DAZ Studio bit lately. Creating some images for friends, making a few signatures, that sort of thing. Nothing exceptionally fancy, but it keeps me out of trouble (for now).

Sorry that the blog posts have been quite lacking lately, hopefully I’ll feel more inspired in the upcoming week!

Hodgepodge

Lately I’ve been doing a hodgepodge of things, between real life, gaming, and artwork. So here’s a summery of what I’ve been up to:

EverQuest2: I managed to complete the Everfrost charm quests on all of my ‘main’ characters. Thankfully with the update yesterday, there are now two instances of Everfrost up. I was beginning to feel sorry for those who were of the appropriate level to be in Everfrost while they tried to quest – having random level 80’s swoop in and take their encounters. Whether or not this is tied to the double North Qeynos’ also open, I’m not sure. I also decided I did not like Silhouette’s entrance to her home, it looked like a garden mish mash of crud. So I took the entire thing apart early this morning and rebuilt it into a sales display area. I’m still not exactly happy with it (I suck at building display areas) but it will do for now. I’ve got big plans to create a dining / kitchen area with a wall length fish tank in one of the Gorowyn home windows. I like to work in stages though and I need some rares, so it will be a while before I have anything to show. Short term goals are to work up my smaller crafters, maybe get some levels on my templar, or illusionist (poor Stargrace) or my necromancer. We’ll see how that goes though.

Guild Wars: I played for a little bit last night, traveling around the starter area on my elementalist. Since I have one character who’s left the starter area already without completing everything that was offered I decided that this one would stick around until I cleaned out all the quests. I still think for a game that has no monthly subscription it’s got some fantastic graphics. Could just be me though. Since I spend a lot of my time soloing anyhow, I don’t mind the fact that the game is not a ‘true’ mmo. I expect to play more either today or this weekend, depending on my mood.

Life: I’ve been posting on the Beckett MOG forums often, trying to bring a few readers over. I’m the EverQuest2 correspondence, and while it’s not especially difficult work it does take time to do. I’m super excited about Beckett MOG issue 15 which comes out on the 24th of September – should have my articles in it if all goes as planned (there are four of them). I’ve been learning more about DAZ Studio, and taking a small break from it so that I don’t get burned out. I have a request for a fairy I’d like to get done for a friend, but again it depends on my mood. You can’t force creations (which is why art will never be a job for me, because I hate to feel pressured into doing things). I’ve been debating getting ‘Spore’ since it seems to be all anyone is talking about lately. For anyone who has a PS3 and wants to add me to their friends network, my name there is Stargrace, feel free! I’m still back and forth on the WAR debate as well. Chances are I may buy it when it goes live and play for the first month, but no guarantees. I’m thinking of buying a laptop, I’d really like one and I’ve wanted one for a bit now. Then again, there’s also a new zoom camera lens I want badly, 75-300 (the one I currently have is only 14-45) which means there will be a slight gap between my two lens, but it shouldn’t make too much of a difference. The leaves are all starting to change colours here, and hopefully I’ll get out a few more times to snag some shots of it.

Anyhow, sorry for the rambling, some times, it just has to be done! Safe travels no matter what realm you play in.

Titles, House Items, and Guildhalls

Finally, after doing the harvesting quest 30 times – Silhouette obtained her title. I don’t expect to wear it that often, it’s horribly long, but having accomplished it was nice enough. I had not done a single one of the quests yesterday, and that was my goal. It was easy enough to get the first 20 done, after all the reward of house items is always great. I got my scroll, and then my dragon – and decided to push for the last 10 rounds I needed for the title. I finally settled that I would do the evil version on one character, and then the good version on Arysh.

Nostalgia is sitting at part way through 26 currently. I’ll be away a portion of this weekend, and won’t have too much time to grind writs. I’ve been waiting for some crafting vitality to build up as well – and I’ll need to harvest more supplies. With 5 of my crafters at level 80, I of course have little motivation to actually want to craft. I have two sitting at level 40, and one at level 20. Those levels are so low that it’s difficult to want to grind out writs – status barely trickles as it is.

New member joined the guild last night, someone from splitpaw who had heard about our goals of reaching 30. Splitpaw is a EU server, so I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to see them online much, but I’m always glad to have more members.

Other then repeating quests (over and over) things are fairly quiet. I keep hearing everyone talking about Spore, and WAR, and it’s making me itch a little (as in, want to play) but not quite enough yet to actually draw me into them fully. We’ll see how it goes!

Only 14 more days until Issue 15 of Beckett MOG is released – I am SUPER excited about this, no doubt people will be hearing much more in future posts.

Temple of Life house item, and other goodies

Above is the miniature replica of the Temple of Life – part of the new live events going on surrounding the void storms and all that goodness. You also got another book with this ‘quest’ (I’m reluctant to call it a quest because your journal does not actually update at all while working on this) that sparkles. It’s part three to a series though which makes me wonder where part one and two may be located. I’ve started putting together a little shelf of information / items obtained while working through this lead-in to the newest expansion.

To obtain your very one replica of the temple of life:

There’s no real quest involved, which may be why this item is so difficult to find. What you need to do is head to North Qeynos, to the temple of life. If you’re evil aligned beware of the level 80 epic guards who may try to thwart you. Once you’re at the temple, step into the water and you will see a node called ‘a glowing school of koalindl’ that you can harvest. Fish up one of those, and open your inventory. You will see the fish there – right click the object and examine it, you’ll have an option to set it free.

Do so, and you’ll receive a key.
Now it’s time to head to the down below. Which is level 1 of the sewers of Qeynos. At /waypoint -206, 0, -24 you will find a chest – use your new found key on it and you will find a new book for your house, along with the miniature replica of the temple of life.

You can find my complete write up on the Beckett MOG forums here including how to get those cute little Everfrost plushies that were added.

Last night aside from getting the temple quest done, I decided it was time to work on the harvesting quest. Silhouette had yet to complete a single one. Something to keep in mind – each one of the four quests offered rewards you with aa for T2+ because they all have different titles. They also count towards your quest count, each one showing up in your journal. So what I have been doing is going through each tier and doing all the quests per tier, to get the aa from them, as well as getting my quest count up. Excluding T1 that will be 28 quests, then I can just run the simple ones the last two times to finish off the 30 I need for the title.

I did manage to wiggle my way into Everfrost for a little bit early yesterday morning, finishing off the charm quest on Silhouette – even though it took a few hours of hunting sheep. If people had of been willing to group together, it would have gone a lot quicker.

While I was in the Down Below working on my temple of life quest, I decided I may as well hang out and collect the red shinies for my jello cube house pet. You get a choice of three cubes, one is clear (the one pictured) another green slime, and another looks like a wooden crate. I’d rather be able to tell these items to sit still and not move anywhere, but they can freely roam around Silhouette’s 5 room Gorowyn house along with her billy doll (who is just weird, every time I zone in he makes for the stairs and wanders away).

TWO Non-Gaming Posts?!

I know, I felt the shiver too as hell froze over. Looking at my Xfire profile, I had to chuckle. On the weekends I typically have a lot of hours in game and my Xfire profile hovers around 70-89 hours a week. Of course a lot of that time is spent AFK while I do other things, or just chattering while I run other programs. While I’m working on art projects I try (some times unsuccessfully) to close down all other programs, and keep my chat programs to a minimum because I’ll just get distracted and not get anything done.

Anyhow. Since I’ve been spending far more time doing 3D rendering then anything else lately, Xfire dropped from 89 hours to 50. It was at 48 yesterday but I played a little bit last night.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with it (as is obvious by the post) and don’t get me wrong, I’m still in Eq2 as well. In fact today I think I’m going to finally get my miniature replica of the Temple of Life, as well as finish those harvesting quests for guild halls and we’ll see what else comes along. Sorry to those who are not interested in reading about anything aside from my gaming experiences, but I typically do try to keep them at a minimum. If you’re interested in looking at the detail work from the picture above, check out this image here. LOTS of details that you can’t really see in the over all picture (especially since it’s re-sized for this site). Anyhow. Enjoy!

P.S. Yes, Openendge, that one’s for you