October 2008

Nostalgia Meets Again – BoT

stargrace October 25, 2008 3Comments

Last night Nostalgia met again, as they have been since last April. Hard to believe so much time has gone by. I had not been going for the past little while, caught up in other things – but decided it was time to rejoin the gang. We had a full group last night, and we’re still hoping maybe a second will start up. It’s not too late, though I completely understand how people don’t want to be starting from scratch or leveling alone. We had a mercenary tank who did exceptionally well – despite breaking mez a few times. A real tank would of course be better, but we’re just so very happy that the adventures are not at a stand still when we can’t fill the group. As Tipa said “It’s hard to explain just how much the mercenaries of the Seeds of Destruction have changed EverQuest. It’s like a whole new game, now.”

Qutey is now sitting at level 62, and part way into it. The experience was not amazing, but none of us expected it to be, BoT is not a hot zone any longer. We got a few drops (and a few drops over and over) as well as some vendor fodder and a few gems that can be cut.

We all gathered in the voice chat in game, our resident bardling was having some issues with his computer unfortunately so we switched over to vent. It was nice to hear everyone again. We didn’t even have any deaths last night, go-go team awesome! Not to mention I had an absolutely wonderful time. Every time I play, it reminds me why I love the game, why I love the people I’m with.

I’m thinking of leveling up a bard, just for fun. We’ll see how it goes.

Today I’m headed out for Pho with my brother (it’s the most awesome Vietnamese soup evah) and then after that I’ll be headed into the city (contraire to popular beliefs I don’t actually live IN the city of Ottawa, I sort of live on the outskirts) to watch Feist in concert at the NAC (National Arts Center). I’ve mentioned this a few times now, I know. I can’t help it I’m VERY excited. Concerts give off an aura and feeling as you watch, surrounded by everyone else. It’s just amazing. Plus – I have 3rd row center seats.

WOOT

Real Life

National Novel Writing Month – 1st Time Participant

stargrace October 24, 2008 3Comments

You may remember this post over at Gestalt Mind that talked about how he was going to be participating in the National Novel Writing Month – also known as NaNoWriMo. I’d never even heard of this before, but apparently this will be the 10th year of it running. You can find out more information as well as how to register at http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I’ve always loved writing, but lack direction or any proper training. After spending a few hours going through the site, I decided what the heck, I would register. You can find me on there as MorrowS if you’d like to add me to friends. I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m going to write about yet. I have a little bit of time to think about it before starting and that’s a good thing. I’m excited, and like this sort of motivation.

I’m going to be posting any future posts about this and any related information on my personal site so I don’t clog up the gaming portion, but wanted to mention it here first. Gestalt I hope you don’t mind that you’ve inspired me to take this up, I’m already curious and eager about the whole process.

I’ve also set up a very small goal of trying to raise $200 towards The Office Of Letters and Light, below is their mission statement:

Mission: The Office of Letters and Light organizes events where children and adults find the inspiration, encouragement, and structure they need to achieve their creative potential. Our programs are web-enabled challenges with vibrant real-world components, designed to foster self-expression while building community on local and global levelsPrograms: November is National Novel Writing Month, a program which challenges children, teens, and adults write a novel in 30 days. OLL also hosts Script Frenzy, during which participants write a 100-page script within the month of April.

You’ll also find my own little statement:

Thanks for coming to my fundraising page for National Novel Writing Month. This fall, I’ll be joining 100,000+ authors in the challenge of writing a book, from scratch, in November.

It’s going to be a busy month! As I write my novel, I’ll be raising money for the nonprofit Office of Letters and Light, whose free programs such as National Novel Writing Month have helped spark a lifelong love of writing in kids, teens, and adults around the world.

If you can think of anyone else who might be interested in sponsoring me, please forward this page along to them. PS: You should think about writing a novel in November too! Find out more at http://www.NaNoWriMo.org

Want to donate? Please? Just head over to my donation page here. It’s all secure, and I’d really appreciate it, every little bit helps. I’m using this as motivation to actually get the 50,000 words done within the month, even if I get no donations (which is very likely) I’m still hoping to finish.

Now.. where did I leave my muse..

Gaming

Crafting Woes

stargrace October 24, 2008 1Comment

Screen shot is taken of Silhouette’s desk in her 1 room home. I didn’t play that much yesterday, but I did get a little crafting done. Very little. Goudia, my alchemist, managed to hit level 50. Which means I now have two characters who are in those ‘hell’ levels. The levels I hate crafting through more then anything else for only one reason. The harvesting.

There’s no great place to harvest T6. Your options are sinking sands or pillars of flame where the nodes like to hide or are already being camped by other players. Aside from that you have Lesser Faydark where I’d be hard pressed to find static spawns most of the time. Someone had given me a suggestion for rock nodes, but it’s really roots and pelts that I need most of.

Speaking of expensive crafting – Najena has a very low population of low level characters, and that means less harvesters. Most people would rather just buy their supplies with their mains – T2 (level 10-19) raws (not rares, just regular harvests) are going for over 2g each right now. Of course I’m sure it’s directly related to the fact that the Halloween goodies out there use these materials to craft them and hopefully the price will drop over time.

I don’t mind the crafting grind except for the 50-59 stage. Now that I have two crafters sitting there and potentially a third if I get my armorer a few levels, I’m going to have to just suck it up and either spend the money to get the 10 levels, or go out harvesting for a good long time. Days like this make me wish Nostalgia was level 50 so we could have purchased the harvesting bots. Those things are simply amazing, especially if you have the harvesting depot to go along with it.

Ah well, we’ll get there in time!

Gaming

Good Friends, Good Fun

stargrace October 23, 2008 4Comments

Last night was another one of those “hmm I want to play, but what do I actually want to DO tonight” sort of nights. They happen and there’s nothing wrong with that. I started out in EQ2, where out of the blue Mayadhros logged in! I thought he was lost, gobbled up by some sand creature, or perhaps wandering the void for all eternity. After hugs and “wow you’re BACK?!” congratulations were passed around I took him on a tour of the guildhall, making sure that he picked up the ‘recall to guild hall’ for easier access next time. There’s a definite sense of accomplishment when I get to show someone the work we all put into it, and knowing how much it cost us in both status and coin. I think Mayadhros needed a moment to pop his eyes back into his skull when I told him how much it had cost us, what our weekly rent was, and how much people had generously donated to our escrow.

Aside from wandering around and chattering, and a few random decorating bits I didn’t actually get too much done in EQ2. That’s alright though, some times it’s nice to just take a night off and enjoy socializing. I did spend the afternoon doing all of the Halloween goodies – as a side note, there are treasure chests apparently in the haunted houses where you can select masks. I did not know that! I’ve been trying for a bandit mask forever now, with no luck. My gaming motto tends to always be if I didn’t have bad luck I’d have no luck at all.

After running around EQ2 for a fair amount I decided I would log into EQ1 with Kanad for a bit and try to level Qutey up some. That’s my little halfling druid who had been level 59 for some time now. I rented a Dark Elf tank and we headed to Plane of Storms, camping in a little area of the desert. There was a 64 druid camping in around the same area and it seemed like every time we moved the druid was sure to follow. PoS is a hot zone and the experience was amazing. In the hour and a half we stayed there I managed to ding Qutey to level 60, as well as 80% into her level. Now I did use my veteran reward that doubles my exp gain and that helped a whole lot, but still. GREAT experience.

The only downside to PoS is that the loot is not so great. We did end up looting two pieces of defiant armor (not into the elaborate tier yet) and we gathered about 7 pieces of trash loot. The great thing is that the 7 pieces of trash loot were enough to pay off the cost of renting out the tank for the evening. It wasn’t enough to cover the initial purchase of the mercenary, but it was enough to cover the 14p every 15 minute upkeep. Since I leveled, the merc is now dark blue to me – but since I plan on hanging around PoS for a while yet, and it was tanking just fine, I don’t think I need to upgrade it for a few more levels. This tank for some reason only had 6k hp or so (granted they didn’t have cleric buffs and were two levels lower then Ellithia’s Vah Shir tank pictured above) but they did seem to do more dps then the Vah Shir tank. I’m not sure if I accidentally chose a different setting (I don’t believe I did) or if maybe the different races have different attributes (which would be cool and also confusing when it came to picking one). The Vah Shir had about 12k or so hp as a level 61 tank, kills were a little slow though. The Dark Elf tank only had 6k or so hp total, but the dps seemed increased. Could have just been my imagination I suppose.

All in all it was a great night and I’m looking forward to Nostalgia meeting up tomorrow. I’m installing EQ1 on the laptop right now so I can set up a trader to sell while I’m not using the account. Some how I need to make money for spells as well as money for mercs and my enchanter (who happens to be my master jeweler as well as my spell maker) is on the closed account. Woopsie.

Gaming

It’s getting Scary

stargrace October 22, 2008 3Comments

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.

Nostalgia Meets Again – BoT

National Novel Writing Month – 1st Time Participant

Crafting Woes

Good Friends, Good Fun

It’s getting Scary

You Missed

The Search For Hrada-Oki Bivouac

Personal EVE Economic Update (October)

Expensive Month (preparing for fun)

Locked Out (again)