September 2008

Veksar– What?

stargrace September 7, 2008 1Comment

Yesterday was my first trip into Veksar in EQ2. I had exceptionally fond memories of the zone from EQ1, especially since Nostalgia the Guild had just been there not too long ago. I spent days and weeks and months in the zone back in 2003. I even did the dragon raid as one of my very first raids and it was so much fun. Not with a proper raid of course, back then Veksar was already old news. I had high expectations though.

I was dissapointed with this new Veksar. I understand it’s just a teaser and therefor not very large. How come we couldn’t have gotten a completed Kurn’s Tower that we were promised with the release of RoK?

The zone reminded me of every other sewer zone in EQ2, especially the Freeport hideout where you have to kill an epic. Granted, there was one portion of this zone that was underwater (the entrance to zone in – and just past once you’re in the zone) but I had expected.. I don’t know, more.

There are only four named in the zone, and my group may have had a single death or two when someone took too much of an AOE, but we went in with 1 shadowknight tank, 1 templar, 1 assassin, 1 conj, 1 illusionist, and myself playing dirge and had no issues at all. We got three legendary chests and a master chest though I didn’t win a single thing. Not even a piece of trash loot – go figure. One item was an upgrade to the conj, everything else was just roll for greed. The master wasn’t anything anyone could use.

I know there are at least three fabled pretties within the zone, but no one saw any of them this time around. The entire zone didn’t even take 45 minutes. and that was with some pretty careful pulling by the tank. The final named had some adds spawn with the encounter that the enchanter made short work of, and has a nasty elemental AOE. The named before that one splits into pieces – but if you tank it in the front left hand corner (if you’re at the doorway facing inwards) you don’t actually get any of those adds and you can single pull them later. There are some worms that spawn a la Deathtoll style, and you have to turn some statues and place a rod – but other then that the zone left me with very little desire to go back.

There are four quests that involve the zone. One has you killing the mobs around the Omen’s Call docks first. Get that done and it opens up another quest for within the zone. Once you have the three quests you’ll find a fourth from a corpse in one of the rooms. The quests require some killing, some clicking, and you get nothing but some coin and a book.

I was far more impressed with the revamp of Everfrost then by the release of this instance. Did you know (of course you did) that there is a quested charm slot item from Everfrost that rivals and surpasses almost every single other charm slot item out there aside from high end raid charms? It’s better then the contested Mayong charm item. Better then the wishbone crafted item – there are five choices of charm, for every class, and the quest is simple.

Of course it’s not so simple right now because there are 40+ people in everfrost who are level 80’s trying to complete this amazing quest.

It’s like the Butcherblock charm item quest that people were doing, since it was pretty good (before the faction recipes were added that include the wishbone etc). A level 25 solo quested item can surpass T8 easily. Now we see it again with Everfrost. It’s great that all of these things are getting revamped, and I’m enjoying the extra content. I have to wonder to myself though what exactly is it doing for the balance of the game.

It’s Everything (for me), That’s Why

stargrace September 5, 2008 4Comments

For me, EverQuestII is all about finding an outlet. It’s an outlet for when I’m having a bad day and need to smush something, or when I just want to relax and hang out with friends – and even a creative outlet for writing roleplay stories, and more recently, decorating houses. Well ok so I’ve been decorating homes off and on for four years and it’s actually always been an intrical part of my gameplay, but it was never really a creative outlet for me.

I was asked today why I play EQ2 over other games. Over things that have a heavy social aspect like Second Life, over other mmo’s, and whatever else. WHY EQ2. My answer was quite simple – because for me, EQ2 has the best balance of everything I enjoy.

If I just wanted to decorate homes, I’d play the sims (and in fact played for a very long time). I never really enjoyed the game, but designing and creating rooms and houses was something I could do for hours. Then I’d be all ready to move my people in and I’d stop playing.

If I only wanted to raid, or if I only wanted to adventure, and didn’t care about the other aspects of the game that I so enjoy (housing, social, adventure, raiding.. etc) then I’m sure I could find a game that caters to those things. In fact I know I could.

EverQuest2 still offers me the best balance, of all these things. World of Warcraft doesn’t have player housing (at least, not yet) and though I have played it off and on for the last four years it just doesn’t give me anything that makes me want to stay there.

Vanguard has housing, and I love my T5 home. I worked really hard on it. It also has adventuring – but it lacks end game content, and even more importantly, it lacks the heavy social interaction I crave due to lack of players. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly people who play and I see them often but for me it just wasn’t often enough to keep me coming back time and time again.

I don’t like science fiction. Space ships and guns and what not simply put me to sleep (I know, I heard the sharp intakes of breath – I am so sorry!) so long story short – that is why I play EQ2. A combination of all of these things in an ever changing and evolving world.

I played my brigand for a little yesterday, and was sadly disappointed. Maybe it’s because I’m used to playing with a set group of people who I’ve known for years now, or maybe it’s just because I haven’t done any Pick Up Groups (PuG) in a while – but it was horrible. The tank could not tank to save their life. We ranged from level 35-40 and headed to the original Runnyeye. The group consisted of a fury, defiler (neither of which knew how to cure or group cure), shadowknight (I had 400 more hp then them), warlock (who pulled agro every single encounter), and a troubador (who was AFK the entire time – then came back from AFK to tell us they had to AFK for 15 minutes for lunch).

Did we die? No. That’s not what made this group bad. Eventually you can get to a point in the game where you can be horrible at your class, pull 10 encounters at once, and live through random button smashing. That’s how yesterday’s group went. I like tanks who pull back to the group, or turn mobs, or at least don’t just run into a room sans taunt and just stand there for 15 seconds before initiating combat while the encounter beats on everyone else. Picky? I admit it. Rude of me to think? Maybe. I realize that not everyone has played MMO’s before, I realize that a certain amount of patience is required for these things – and I admit openly and freely that I am not the person who has this sort of patience.

I know it’s one of my major flaws. I have way more patience with friends – I simply don’t have it for random people that I haven’t met yet. I expect at level 40 for players to at least know SOMETHING of their class. I stayed for an hour or so and then decided I had enough, and went back to tradeskilling. The group simply was not for me (if you were in that group I apologize for this post, it just couldn’t be helped today).

Aside from a few crafting levels it was a very slow gaming day. I spent the afternoon sleeping trying to get rid of this horrible cold that I just simply can’t shake. We’ll see if today goes any better!

Coolest EQ2 house items EVER!

stargrace September 4, 2008 6Comments

By far one of the coolest house items ever – and if you want one, you’d better get it before guildhalls go live. This sweet little dragon statue is a reward from the newest game update in EQ2. It’s the reward for harvesting 20x for the Freeport side. After completing the quest 10x (it does not matter which tier, nor does it matter which combination of items you harvest) you get a scroll house item. At 30x you get a title (I believe).

Because the item is for a live event, it will be a limited edition item much like the miniature griffin towers were for building those, and the miniature wizard spires. I’m hoping SOE doesn’t cave in to the multiple posts of people requesting these to be every day house items, and they keep them rare – especially after the multitude of quests done in order to obtain it.

Not only did I get the amazing dragon statue (there is another statue for the Qeynos side, but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting) but I also built Silhouette an aquarium for her library, and within it (may be hard to tell from the screen shots) I’ve placed her octopus and her crab. The backdrop for the aquarium is mystical mirrors, so they actually ripple like water, and the sea creatures move. There’s one more plushie quest I have not completed yet from Everfrost, because it requires fishing and I can’t fish there yet. There’s also a fish (which does not move) that you get from a gorowyn quest and I haven’t done that yet either.

Looking around my house I was trying to find a skull that I wanted to put at the base of the aquarium, but I must not have done unrest on Silhouette before. I find that striking odd – but then again I practically flew through later levels using my master1 charm.

Unfortunately, as wonderful as this GU was – a lot of things also broke. People could no longer close the examine window when it came to patterns from VP. They also could not move to a new wing of VP after clearing, because the teleporters are all broken. Zoning into Leviathan last night dropped everyone to desktop and other random goodies that are just simply a part of an update. It happens. No doubt they’ll get fixed over the next couple of days – or at least I would hope so. There typically are updates after every GU.

In the mean time, I am just loving my house items.

So Much Game Update Fun!

stargrace September 3, 2008 1Comment

I’ve been having so much fun in EQ2 today, that I’m not exactly sure where to start (and the day is not over yet). Today was GU48 – highly anticipated by many. I haven’t seen it all yet, I haven’t even set foot into Veksar and that was supposed to be ‘the big hit’ this time around. I figured everyone would head there – Najena has a very high population of people who are end game. While everyone was off doing their thing, I hung out in the newly revamped Everfrost and had a blast.

There’s a huge selection of quests there now, and I got a lot of discovery on items (as you can see above). My two favorite so far would have to be the plushies, which are going into an aquarium once I build myself one. I don’t have one – yet, but the crab and octopus should be nice at home once I’m done with it.

The only annoyance with Everfrost is that one quest required me to camp a named for almost three hours, and that was not fun.

On the plus side, my 39 brigand joined the horde of alts on Najena (my second account) and I ran her through 11 of the harvesting quests for guild halls – which means she got the note proclaiming her aid. At 20 quests she’ll get a house item, and at 30 another house item. Of course I’m also going to want to do this on all of my characters so I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time on the docks of Antonica and Commonlands.

I like the fact that DKP is now built into the game. Not that Nostalgia will ever use it but for guilds who are worried about being hacked this is wonderful. It happens, sadly. People can get passwords from eqdkp sites and use them to break into people’s accounts if they’ve used the same password (which is not a good idea to do to begin with I know). Anyhow, while I’m not certain it will get used a great deal it was still nice to see.

I haven’t looked too much yet at the new mastercrafted gear. I believe the stats went (on T4) from +12 to +19 per piece, but I could be wrong. The graphics looked the same to me – but again I don’t really know what they used to look like so I can’t be sure.

I know there were a LOT more changes and updates that went in, but that’s what I’ve personally experienced so far. Next update SHOULD grant us guildhalls – and that will be simply amazing. I think the last few updates have been astounding, they’ve included not only fixes to the game but live events for players to enjoy, new crafted goods, and things for raiders as well. No doubt future posts will cover all those goodies aside from the few I’ve written about.