October 22, 2008

It’s getting Scary

Nights of the Dead went (a)live (giggles) today slowly in EverQuestII, there was no downtime for it, but as the morning wore on we all gradually saw items  being added to zones. Of course I was excited about all the new crafting bits, and as Kasul went out and killed scary creatures to swipe their treats (and got a lot of discoveries might I add) I stayed in TD and crafted the new bits with them. Above Silhouette is sporting one of the new outfits. 

I almost feel as though I should be swinging from buildings and humming the spider-man theme song. 

Back in Silhouette’s house, some new items have made their way to the decor. A couple of guests who never made it out. I promise it won’t happen to anyone else if they come visit me. Seriously. I mean just because Nostalgia used to be compromised of over 100 guild mates and then they all mysteriously vanished that one dank night doesn’t mean that I.. well, never mind. 

Trick or Treating made a return in both West Freeport and North Qeynos, as did the Halloween houses in each zone. You’ll remember them from previous years. What’s new though aside from the fantastic craftables, is the haunted house in Loping Plains. The zone is scary, and was done VERY well. It was a little difficult for my 80 coercer to solo this zone, I think I’d have a much easier time in a group (since there are heroics in here) or if she were a healer. I died twice, and lets just say that bats are no longer friends of mine in any mmo, lease of all EQ2. 

The new haunted house comes with two choices of rewards, and the cloak pictured above. I didn’t check it out enough to see if it could be transformed into a tapestry like many of the other cloaks these days, but it would be very nice if it could be (ie: The Ethernaught cloak in Sinking Sands, and the Fan Faire cloak from /claim). 

I had a LOT of fun completing the quests, and watching everyone in game dress up. The haunted house had a LOT of lag for me, but it wasn’t that surprising knowing the number of people who were in it and the crowd gathered outside was just as bad. Hopefully everyone has a fantastic time and enjoys themselves. Trust me, the house items alone are worth it. You can take a peek at them over at EQ2traders if you have not yet.

Only Halflings Need Apply

I meant to play EQ2 last night. I created the level 73 spells for my defiler who had gotten her level earlier in the day, and I had every intention of logging in and finding something to do, inching my way perhaps towards level 74. I had not logged in long before all that changed. 

It was all HER fault. Again. Reading the Nostalgia chat channel last night you’d have felt the pull and I like any others were unable to resist the lure of this siren’s call. She was having FUN, and I wanted to have FUN too and before I knew it I had hit subscribe to my EQ1 account. 

Yup. That’s right. I was minding my own sweet innocent business and Tipa started talking about how awesome these ‘hirelings’ looked. How she was going to find a little halfling gentleman to hold her hand fight for her and take the brunt of any hits. I wanted a piece of that pie too. So I resubscribed to EQ1, patched for an hour (it’s been a while since I played) and dug up my old UI which was (surprisingly) updated for the newest expansion Seeds of Destruction (which I ended up with a free copy of, so how could I NOT subscribe?). 

I logged in my druid and we went to play in Griegs End, experimenting with the new toys tank. Wow. That’s the only thing I could think of to say. The hirelings work AMAZING and I think they’re a huge help for players who may not be end game yet or who are unable to get a full group and who need a little ‘help’ getting there – for no other reason then the fact that this is a 10 year old game and the population (while it’s still quite larger actually on Luclin) it’s not what it used to be. 

Kanad decided to log in and we headed to Plane of Storms to see how the mini-tank held up there. He wasn’t much of a talker but he was quite easy to heal. We did have him completely buffed up (thank gawd you don’t need an aa for that) and at one point or another we found ourselves with 4-5 adds. He taunted them off of whoever shouldn’t be tanking (that would be everyone) and though folks did drop down to around 40% health or so, we had no deaths and things went pretty smoothly. My cleric managed to ding 61 in our brief trip (granted, she was 97% into her level when I had set her to aa only) and 30% or so into it. 

Since Nostalgia The Guild has been tank-less for a little while now, these hirelings seem perfect for us. Of course, we’d love to have a REAL tank in there as opposed to an artificial one, but it’s nice to know that the Friday night adventures won’t come to a stand still because we lack a class (or two). Looks like I’ll be re-joining the Friday night fun as well. I had stopped just because I didn’t feel right spending $15 on a subscription for a game I played once a week, but perhaps with these hirelings (which you can read more about in more detail at West Karana of course) I’ll feel a little more inclined to play. I had a LOT of fun last night, and I’m looking forward to more. Dang that Tipa and her ‘fun’ in MMO’s.