December 2008

DING! Nostalgia hits 35

stargrace December 27, 2008 6Comments

Yesterday Nostalgia hit level 35! I’m so exceptionally proud of Ecor and Kasul who have been working really hard to get us those levels. It was an important milestone, though it may not seem like it. First, it’s one step closer to 40, which brings us extra bank space, and it also allowed us to purchase two more guildhall amenities! They were expensive, but worth it. I’ve donated close to 300p towards the hall, and millions of status. Of course once we hit level 35 it was time to decide what we wanted our two amenity to be!

There’s the harvesting depot that the guild could really make use of, as a central location for craft supplies, as well as the hirelings that will go out and harvest for you. That was pretty high up on my list of things to purchase, but I think we’ll try to get some of that around level 40. So instead, we purchased (finally) a broker, and a hireling who we can sell looted items to – including all of those status items we gain from mobs. That means no more running around everywhere trying to find the proper merchant to sell to (or in my case, no need to head to Maj’Dul to use the faction instances to sell to since the merchants there also accept everything).

Our total amenities include: Druid porter (since we can’t afford to purchase all of those bells, the druid porters are great to get around Norrath), banker, broker, rush order writs, fuel merchant, and junk buying merchant. Since we are so small, and such a low level, we really had to be careful about where to spend the two extra items. They each cost 10p and 1,000,000 status. Kasul and I donated some more plat towards the escrow, and we still have 13 million status in there, so that should do for a while more.

Eyenstein and Albrta asked if Shadowgeist, Kasul and I wanted to do a few of the vampire instances in Nektulos forest for some aa. Of course we agreed, and it was a lot of fun, I gained 1.5aa with Arysh, and I also had the quest to receive vampire smite on me, I finally completed the chain of quests from the encampment by the waterfalls. I’ve only had that quest on me forever.

Kasul was also gracious enough to let Shadowgeist and I into his empty Crucible instance and The Deep Forge so that we could get the void shard updates (clickies) and earn some shards. Since Crucible was the daily double, we managed to get five shards without having to actually do the instances. I’m saving up to upgrade the shoes, gloves, and shoulders I have – which means I’ll be saving for a while, I need about 60 shards. Ugh.

Since I’ve decided (for now) to settle on Arysh as far as ‘mains’ go, things have been going really well. It’s easy for me to log her in and decide what I need to do. This week hopefully I’ll be getting both my tailor and alchemist to level 70, which means then it’s just a hop skip and jump with writs to level 80.

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend, I’m happy that the holidays are winding down a little bit.

Gaming

LineageII, The Witcher, Dungeon Runners and W101

stargrace December 26, 2008 5Comments

Today being Boxing Day in Canada, it just wouldn’t be complete without some shopping. I typically avoid the stores because there’s a million people out there all shopping too, but this year I wanted to brave the crowds and go out. My parents graciously gave me $100 certificate for EBGames (as well as numerous other gifts) so that’s where I headed. I was looking for a few pc games that I’d never played, had heard very little about, that were maybe not exactly my typical games, that I didn’t care if I got bored of them 10 seconds after I bought them. This was “fun” money after all.

I contemplated getting a game card for WoW. Looked over at the rack of pc games (small and all alone) as the crowd swarmed around me. I almost picked up LoTR, but decided against it.

Instead I came home with The Witcher, Dungeon Runners, and LineageII.

The Witcher was slightly annoying to install. For some reason my copy didn’t come with a code (and it said it should be on the back cover, inside the phone book sized manual that came with the game) and without that code yes you can play but you can’t patch the game. Annoying. There were a number of solutions, and the one I found worked. I didn’t want to be waiting forever for customer support to email me a code (which was another option).

Decided to install and activate the two free months that came with LineageII. Reminds me of guild wars (gee wonder why) to start. VERY pretty game though, and it was fun running around learning commands. No idea how to claim the black mask I apparently got with the 4th anniversary edition, but I’m not too concerned yet. I know very little about this game at all. I know it looks pretty. Hey that’s all that should matter, right?

Haven’t installed Dungeon Runners yet, but for $20 and 6 months of game play I’m not expecting all that much. They advertise it as a game to play when your ‘main’ game is down, perfect.

I forgot to mention, renewed my subscription for a month for Wizard 101. Over the holidays I (of course) had my laptop, which the game runs perfectly on. I managed to creep into level 14, part way through as I finish off a few last Wizard City quests before moving on to the next world. Also got a new outfit, which is just as important as those levels.

Lots of games to keep me entertained, and lots of learning about them to do. I don’t mind that though, it was exactly how I wanted to spend the game certificate, hehe.

Hope everyone is still enjoying their holidays!

Gaming

Not Quite Working as Intended

stargrace December 26, 2008 0Comment

Logged in to EQ2 yesterday and the MoTD mentioned something about all the dervishes losing their loot and the instance Hidden Cache being closed. I believe this has to do with the increased master drop rate – and not the fact that the drop rate was increased, because Scornfeather’s roost was not changed, not were any overland zones that are ‘contested’ but because of the way that this zone could be abused. Hidden Cache is filled with encounters, and unless you get a named you can kill those encounters (which were dropping an abundance of master chests) zone out, reset the zone, and head back in. Rinse and repeat. As long as you didn’t accidentally kill a named, you never set the lock out timer. I figured it was just easier to go to living tombs and kill to get masters, but apparently a lot of people were using this method. So for now the instance is out of commission. Since I got the rare masters that I wanted (a lucky drop saw me with Enraging Demeanor on Wednesday) I didn’t head back to LT to see if it was now heavily populated with people farming. I know the increase drop rate was intended, but I guess this specific zone was not meant to be used that way. If the drop rate was not meant to be increased, then I assume the other zones that are dropping masters like crazy (silent city, living tombs, scornfeathers roost, etc) would have also been changed.

Anyhow. Since yesterday was Christmas I decided to splurge and purchase three masters for my warden. I always told myself that I would settle on a main first before investing too much money into a character, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never really settle. I enjoy the warden in every aspect on so many levels except the fact that they’re a popular healer, so it makes my chances of actually getting some where with them marginally small. Maybe I’ll get lucky.

Shadowgeist rounded up a few guild mates and I asked Kasul if he wanted to come do the daily double, which was Anathema, a zone I had only been to as a lower level character and not on Arysh. Seems the daily double quests alternate their rewards, and yesterday was 1p and 2 shards as a reward. That brought my shard count up to 15, which was a lot for me. I had a few choices. I could either upgrade my gloves to the greater version, or purchase a few more lesser pieces, and get the three set bonus. In the end that’s exactly what I did. The pieces themselves were not exactly upgrades stat wise, they all have less power on them, but wearing them reduces the recast of my spells by 5%, and gives my heals a boost by 3% (which also counts for overloaded heals) and increases my crit chance a huge amount (crits trigger my epic weapon). In the end I am at 9,400 power (self buffed with no food and drink) 8,500 hp (I’ll be getting stamina adornments) 8-10,000 in every resist, and sitting at 1022 wisdom.

For a non-raid geared person, I don’t think that’s too bad. I’m just touching 50% heal crit chance, which I know is still a little low, but I’ll get there eventually. I bought the shoulders, gloves, and shoes for the set bonuses. Now it’s just a matter of saving up enough shards to upgrade all of those pieces.

The master spells I bought were not that impressive, they were level 80 spells that drop quite frequently, but I was pleased none the less. I bought my level 80 fairy heal special for 16p, and I got a level 80 group heal for 22p. I also picked up my level 52 rare spell for 1p which is nice. Every healer comes with a single target “anti death” as I call it, basically if your target receives fatal damage instead of dying it’ll boost their stats and apply a heal. Wardens get a group version of this spell at 52 that gets no upgrade. It was well past time I bought it. Those spells can never be over used, they’re great in rough times. Kasul died due to some frontals eating through him, but the run was smooth and really quick. The group consisted of a Shadowknight, Dirge, Illusionist, Swashbuckler, Assassin, and myself as warden. Hope everyone had a lot of fun, too!

Now I get to decide what I’m going to use my $100 EBGames card on…

Real Life

Happy Holidays

stargrace December 25, 2008 2Comments

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas, and got to spend a lot of time with their families. This year was the first year that I can remember in a very long time where it was just my family, and not extended. That may not seem like a good thing, but it was really something special just to spend the holidays at home without a lot of traveling, no need to entertain, and just six of us at the table instead of 12. It was something exceptionally special to have both of my brothers there.

So enough of that mushy stuff, was Santa good to everyone? My father got a brand new computer a few weeks before Christmas, along with his 9800 graphic card (that he can install THREE off into the machine and apparently link them together or something? I have no idea that’s too technical for me) and three monitors. My Dad doesn’t game aside from flight sim (he built his own rudder one year) but it’s a dang nice computer. Of course along with that computer comes a brand new desk, so that’s what he spent most of Christmas day putting together. Of course he got other things (smaller) from us kids. Hopefully he likes them all. My mother got herself a brand new gaming number pad thing of some sort, where she can program all of her Call of Duty 4 short cuts into it, I forget the name off it right now. She also got a brand new wireless headset, it’s *really* nice, so she can scream along with her other clan members while she’s blowing things up. Smaller gifts were included of course.

Some times it’s really great to have parents who game. My grandma sent my Mom and Dad three wii games, so that was pretty nice. One of the traditions I have is that since my parents still do stockings for everyone, I do stockings for them. I bought my Dad a little plastic egg and inside of it was a volcano. You put some water in it, and it erupts, and then a dinosaur is left behind after 72 hours (and it grows). We had a blast making jokes about it and watching it erupt. The day yesterday was spent with the scent of turkey wafting through the house as Mom and me played Super Mario 3 on the wii (a game filled with memories, we used to play it in Germany when my Dad was away doing his radio show on Saturday nights) and playing the new games they’d gotten.

On TV in the picture is a show we watch every Christmas day called “The Yule Log” and it’s just a video of a log burning, haha. We make fun of it and laugh, they even change the log periodically which is a huge deal to us. *grins*

Anyhow. I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas, and have many more to come. I’m so thankful for so many things in my life, and this was certainly one of those things.

Real Life

Ouchies

stargrace December 24, 2008 6Comments

Finally found my muse. Right where I thought I left it.

Didn’t game much tonight, ran an instance in Commonlands that was pretty fast (I forget the name already) where you have to move the named to different statues or something. Anyhow, I got a master from there too (woohoo). Go see the art piece in full view because the little tiny one here sucks. That’s what I spent the evening doing though.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

DING! Nostalgia hits 35

LineageII, The Witcher, Dungeon Runners and W101

Not Quite Working as Intended

Happy Holidays

Ouchies

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Personal EVE Economic Update (October)

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Locked Out (again)

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