Experience and Sebilis
stargrace Yesterday was another great adventure in EQ2, and not all of it (again) was spent in TSO, which is something that I’m enjoying quite a bit. Gnewton created an alt on Najena (his home is typically Kithicor) and played the monk halfling for a while, it’s always great to see people in guild. We’re still really small (and casual) so there’s not a lot of people on. We did manage to hit level 31 though, and are well on our way to 32. Kasul helped me get some experience on Petites (my templar) in Jarsath Wastes. The quest grind there is just as boring as I remember it though. I used to be able to play for hours on end with no issues but as of late I need a lot more breaks before I start getting bored. It was still a nice chunk of experience though for the time spent.
The alchemist (along with carpenter) also headed off to a tradeskill zone. I used a potion and moused over my experience during the process. Not bad! I gained two levels, sitting me at 63. The group instance yesterday was the Firemyst one, where you have to gear up a few dwarves, and I encountered my first ‘bug’ though it did fix itself. Sort of. When the army was finally geared up, they got cold feet, and refused to follow their Commander into battle. For five minutes or so I stood around waiting for the end encounter to happen so that we could go get our chest. After a few minutes the Commander (sans army) ran off after the bad guys who instantly died the second he got close to them. Powerful fella. Even though the script didn’t run properly, the chest did spawn once the commander made it to the end of the field. A piece of rare wood, an artisan item, and the tailor item that I’d already gotten were the rewards. There was also a new solo tradeskill quest that I picked up yesterday that requires you to harvest some items in the Fallen Dynasty zones. Didn’t have time to complete it because as soon as dinner was done it was off to Sebilis!
Azztec is a friend of mine from Antonia Bayle, actually an old guild leader. The guild I raided with fell apart when some officers took control and made some choices that not everyone agreed with. They sacrificed friends and a friendly atmosphere to ‘go after the prize’ and shortly after that I moved to Najena. A few months later Azztec followed. He has a few level 80’s already, but a little while ago started up a templar. I was impressed by how fast he leveled, and before I knew it he was asking Shadowgeist for help with his epic. So yesterday Shadowgeist, Azztec, Kasul, Gellawyn, Mindblade, and I (on Silhouette, the coercer) headed to Sebilis to finish the last few bits he needed. Along the way we hit every named that was up for aa points, which was great. We also took down the named that dropped the tunic on the right hand side, except Azztec rolled greed instead of need (ack!) and I rolled greed (even though everyone else declined and I should have declined as well). This is just another example of why I absolutely love customer support at SOE. I have petitioned them for two pages worth of things on my main account over the past few years and have never had an issue with them so long as I wasn’t asking for something impossible, and I wasn’t rude. I petitioned last night to see if there was any way that the tunic could be returned to the rightful person, and less then 20 minutes after I had sent in the request I noticed that there was a blank spot in my inventory where the item used to be, low and behold, Azztec had it. Thank you! Between the guide events and the customer service, I really think SOE has done things very well. I realize everyone has their horror stories, and I’m really sorry for those who have had bad experiences, but my own personal ones have been nothing but good.
Azztec finally got all of his Sebilis updates with minimal pain, and the group split up to take a break. That wasn’t the end of the adventures though, a few hours later I headed off to Miragul’s Phylactery: The Crucible, which I’ll write about more later.
I love EQ2’s guide events, even if we don’t hear about them that often. That’s part of their mystery. The reward for this event was a frostfell dress, which can only mean one thing, that the holidays are fast approaching. I like the colour of the dress, even though it doesn’t exactly match Stargrace. It’s tradable, and I’ll probably give it to another character who can make use of it. The event was fun (although short) and I had a lot of fun talking to the ‘baby dragon’ and roleplaying leading them back to their home. 
Kasul crafted the piece for me, and he also got a discovery for the item which was a nice little bonus. The void shard armor can be crafted via the commission system, although before you craft for someone else you may want to make sure you put your own personal void shards in the bank. That warning comes from EQ2 traders and their post about void shard gear. The old bracelet I used to wear was treasured and had an overloaded heal proc on it. If you recall, overloaded heals used to be zone wide (making fights like one particular one in VP easier) but it was nerfed in GU50. Rumor has it they’re changing them again in GU51, but they still won’t work zone wide. Anyhow, it was a piece with lesser overloaded heal, which means the proc was just over 100 points. 
For some reason my computer is still having issues ever since TSO released. I find it amusing that I can play VG now on fairly high settings with no issue, but a few hours into EQ2 and to image to the left will happen. The entire computer will freeze for a good solid 30 seconds, and then everything will become distorted in some weird 2nd world way. Yesterday the wood in South Freeport changed into icons of death, patterns of bones, skulls, and chicken beaks. The NPC’s wore bright green clothing, and Shadowgeist (who typically is dressed in black) was sporting a bright shiny metallic garb. I already underclocked my video card and turned the fans on it up when I was having crashing issues in WAR and scenarios. This fixed the issue. I never used to have issues in EQ2 either, but since the day TSO went live, I’ve experienced it. It’s typically in TSO zones, most commonly the crafting ones. Yesterdays happened to be in CT though. I get no other errors or messages from my computer along with it, just this oddly scary version of EQ2. My text also messes up along with all spell icons so it typically always requires me to restart my computer, of course not without taking a few screen shots of the changes to post here (or send to friends) while I giggle and wonder what exactly is going on. Stargrace pictured in the 2nd shot looks like she’s been coated with a nice layer of some sort of acid. Anyone else experiencing this? I haven’t bothered looking at the forums because when it comes to technical issues everyone seems to experience something slightly different and the solution that works for one doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. 
