November 2008

Museum of Norrath

stargrace November 23, 2008 3Comments

This is a work in progress, it’s one of my rooms in the new museum I am building on the Najena server, in the LoN free 5-room house (this one happens to be in Freeport, in the mage tower) feel free to stop by and check out the work. I have to get some groceries done (IRL!) but I’ll be working on this throughout the day more then likely. It’s coming along nicely! The walls and the display case are made out of the new Mara recipe furniture.. about 50 pieces of it to build that against the Freeport cracked granite walls. Ouch!

The goblins who reside in that little area are quite happy in their habitat might I add!

More postings with pictures about this later.

Group Crafting Instance Details

stargrace November 22, 2008 4Comments

Now that I’m a little more awake (mark that as very little, it’s 6am) I’ll talk about the group crafting instances in a bit more detail. For so long games have underestimated the number of people who play their games for the more ‘casual’ aspects. It feels odd for me to say this, because until RoK released I was a pretty steady raider. This is not an indication that I’ve given up completely on that scene, but I am having a pretty good amount of fun playing the game the way I do now. Last night was the weekly Friday EQ1 meeting (minus me, when I decided to stop being a guide and when I opened up the 2nd EQ2 account I decided to close down all other games) and I waited eagerly in the background for it to finish up so that we could head into some instances. I got my NaNoWriMo for the day completed and I’m now sitting at 40,218 words. 

Tipa and Kasul logged over to EQ2, where I told them I should be able to share the group quest I had. Little did I know that this was not actually the case. Each day the one group instance you can choose changes. The day before yesterday it was Commonlands, yesterday it was Steamfont. Thankfully the merchant in the Far Seas building also sells you gate orbs. I headed to Steamfont, unaware of the dangers we would be facing. 

I did not look through any guide to figure out what we had to do, and it was better this way. We zoned in, eager to help gnomes (ew) with whatever issues they may have had. Aside from being vertically challenged, one of their creations had gone awry and was roaming around the bottom portion of their building. This creature looked amazing, and it was a level 100 epicx4 that was AGRO to us as well. Don’t let anyone tell you that crafting instances are for babies, when was the last time YOU trio’d a level 100 epicx4?

The quest itself was made up of four parts, with 9 craft types involved, 3 parts per craft archtype. It worked out well that each of us came from one of the three archtypes, so we split up the work and off we went. The recipes were level 70, and while they were blue to me that meant that only one used sculpting (carpenter) and two used the skills that were far lower. This is where buying the gear from the Far Seas Merchants may be a handy thing, the crafting process is quite long (and dangerous!) if it’s not your archtype. 

Nostalgia persevered and in the end, completed everything in each stage. I’m not sure about Kasul and Tipa, but I failed three combines total while in there. I had 12 critical fails in a row. The woodworker machines hate me. 

We had a lot of fun as we crafted. When it came to actually doing the work we buckled down and there wasn’t much talk, but while the other two waited for me to catch up and in between stages we chattered and enjoyed ourselves. It felt so weird and I actually giggled to myself a little when we first zoned in and I saw a LOCK OUT timer of 1 day and 11 hours for a TRADESKILL instance. The very idea just made me laugh. The instances do have an 18 hour timer, so it will be a bit before we can do another one. We got one piece of gear from the chest at the end and I wish it was smart loot as you can tell by the picture it was a +fletching piece. I passed that off to Arysh. I figure if everyone gets their own base sets first, then they can concentrate on getting sets for the classes that they don’t have. Silhouette certainly could have used +fletching last night. 

Things brings me to the one and only issue I have with all of these innovative crafting gear pieces coming out. Where am I going to keep them all. I *could* keep them in my appearance gear slots, but what happens when I want to wear a different outfit, or when there is no appearance slot for it. My bags are becoming cluttered with crafter gear, and Vanguard jokes aside, this is quite a lot of gear. I have two charm items a cloak and an earring so far, and that’s without owning any of the new Far Seas Merchant craft gear. 

All in all it was a fantastic Friday night, even if we didn’t spend it in some ‘regular’ instance getting slaughtered over and over again. The loot was a little sparse, I know I got a chromatic essence for countering one of the craft pop ups correctly, but it also rewarded a fair amount of experience for those leveling up (ie: Tipa’s tailor was the only one who was not level 80). It looks like this may be a great alternative means of leveling if you’re bored of the regular craft grind. 

I still highly suggest getting together with at least three other crafters though, one from each archtype. It took us an hour (?) or so to complete the instance with the three of us. It takes approximately three hours when you do it alone, and while it’s fantastic that it can be done this way, wow would that ever be boring.

Nostalgia WTF PWNs the TSO Hardcore Crafting Instances

stargrace November 22, 2008 3Comments

It’s after midnight and I’m falling asleep at my desk but before I got to bed I just had to post about this fantastic night. I’ll go over it in more detail tomorrow. Tonight, Nostalgia set foot into a group crafting instance. We truely are hardcore crafters – but we are so much more. I had an absolutely amazing time. I would suggest going into these crafting instances with AT LEAST three people, and if you can, one from each of the crafting archtypes. That means an outfitter, a scholar, and a whatever the final one is that I can’t remember. You’ll find things much easier this way.

I walked away with aa experience, a Far Seas token (I just need the faction now to purchase two new craft books) and a chromatic essence for countering one of the pop ups correctly. The chest at the end also dropped a nice piece of crafter gear – but it had + fletching on it, so it went to Arysh, my woodworker (who was not in the zone, too bad it’s not smart loot). 

Anyhow, before I get some sleep. It was great. I couldn’t have met up with a more wonderful bunch of people to play EQ2 with. Tipa and Kasul, thank you both!

It’s Here, It’s Finally Here!

stargrace November 21, 2008 0Comment

It felt a lot like Christmas last night when I finally managed to get my hands on a copy of TSO. Two copies, one for each of my accounts. The 2nd account I have doesn’t have many characters who can take advantage of TSO aside from the crafting bits and the mount, but maybe some day. 

As you can see by the picture I also got myself two little pewter dire bears, perfect for throwing at people as Ogrebears pointed out, or I can use them as the new tokens in my monopoly game, they’re the perfect size. 

I always wondered why Sony didn’t just get rid of the whole ‘preorder’ or ‘digital download pre order’ business (and rewards) and put out a Collectors Edition instead. I don’t think I’d buy it (it would depend on what it included) and maybe the company figures not many others would buy it either so it wouldn’t be worth the cost. 

I would have gone with a digital download this year as I have in previous years, if it were not for the bear mount that can be claimed by all characters. It means I miss out on a house item but thankfully that item can also be claimed by multiple characters, so I’m sure I’ll be getting one or two placed in my homes. 

Was it worth the wait? You betcha. Of course I got to vent my frustrations out all over this blog and that really helps, thanks for putting up with it! The only concern I have is that the mounts don’t scale down in size with the character sizes (yet) so my poor girls look like they’re hanging onto this giant mount for dear life, afraid that they’re going to get flung off of it any moment. 

There were a few things I wanted to do first before diving right into the content. Of course I went and opened the booster pack that came with the expansion (nothing there, my luck holds true) and claimed the items that I could. That includes the Ethernaught painting. I haven’t redeemed it yet because I’m not sure who to give it to, but it’s waiting. I’m still contemplating building that ‘free’ LoN house into a museum of sorts. Having heritage quests on display for each one, as well as the (now huge) collection of LoN paintings I have. My reasoning for this is also stemmed from the fact that apparently these ‘free’ LoN homes have no vault slots so you can’t actually use them to the potential that you could with a ‘regular’ home. 

Once I had claimed everything I had worth claiming it was time to head to the docks and wait for the ship to arrive. The lag was only slightly better tonight, we had 4 Moors zones up with 50-80 people in each one. Silly me didn’t bother to turn down my graphic settings for the adventure, so once I had zoned a few times and evac’d through etc, I was starting to feel like I was running through tar. 

Kasul, Shadowgeist, and I met up and waited for Albrta and Lanerian and together we did the cannon access quest, where I had a lot of fun being shot through the air, even though it took me a minute or two to figure out where the npc was that I needed to talk to. I wasn’t there to look at any of the pretties or give a glance at the other quests, but that will be on the agenda for later today (or this weekend, or when ever I have a spare few minutes to get to it!). Last night was for crafting only. The introductory quests were well written, and they introduce you to the three factions in the Moors. Each of these factions also have a craft book associated with them and very specific sets of furniture that can be made by any class. These furniture pieces look amazing. Especially the Grobb set. I’m looking forward to seeing what people can create using those ‘stone’ looking pieces. I’ve already got some plans for waterfalls and my necromancer is looking forward to a house that doesn’t look quite as bright and cheerful as the ‘goodies’ homes that I have designed. 

Of course to get any of these books you need to work on faction first and I don’t have the faintest idea of how long this faction will take. I know there is both a crafter and an adventurer method of obtaining it and I’m assuming that the adventurer method will actually be quicker for me. We’ll see how it goes!

I haven’t set foot into any of the TSO instances yet, but I’ve heard people LFG for them and spamming the channels with their new ‘uber’ loot drops. Hopefully, all this excitement will last once three or four months has passed. For now? I’m liking what I see.