2008

Questing in The Moors

stargrace November 30, 2008 2 Comments

There’s only one major downside to having too many characters (two accounts, one with station access) and that is when it comes time to deciding what to do, or who to work on, unless you’re in a very specific mood, that process could take hours. I’ve been meaning to do the Moors of Ykesha quests (there are a lot of them) and work up my faction at least enough to be able to purchase the crafting books, but the lag on Najena has been so incredibly bad that after 30 minutes or so I give up and decide to work on something else, instead. I’m sure it will get fixed before too long, but in the mean time I’m content to work on other things. I still only have two void shards and I’ve barely seen a fraction of the instances available. Since the content has to last a year, I’m not in a great rush (even though the gear you can purchase with void shards is quite amazing for non-raiders, and even a few pieces for raiders).

The paladin who was at 35 ended up reaching 42 on that same day when I wrote about leveling her. Shadowgeist and I headed to Runnyeye, which is a zone that’s pretty empty these days except for level 80’s who are trying to get boarfiend parts. Those level 30’s boars within the zone drop the lore and legend pieces. In fact, I sold one single piece for 5p that’s how popular they are. The next closest price was 17p. For something that dropped off of a level 30 mob, I was quite happy.

At 42 the paladin is still wearing her level 22 and level 4 gear. I’ve been contemplating whether or not I want to bother upgrading it, or if I want to wait until 52, since that tier will last longer (I dislike leveling in the 50’s, always have). On that same note, I’m trying to decide where I want to level her. Perhaps purchasing some gear and heading to Everfrost to quest would be a good idea.

The alts are fun, I love leveling through the older content, even if it’s rushing by only long enough to have shadowgeist harm touch an encounter and have them instantly die. I also contemplated re-betraying my dirge back to a troubador yesterday. If it wasn’t for the fact that silicate loams are 4-5p a piece and I’d (naturally) want adeptIII of all of my skills. Perhaps a work in progress. I betrayed to a dirge because I wasn’t playing the bard and when I did play her I wanted her to have a little more group utility. I’m not playing her as a dirge either though and there are far more dirges around then troubadors. Plus, well why not. I betray all my characters all of the time, that’s nothing new. It’s one of the methods I use to keep things interesting. Weird? Of course, but hey that’s who I am.

Real Life

NaNoWriMo 2008 – winner

stargrace November 29, 2008 4 Comments

The final word count: 50775 words in one month. I’ll be posting this story online for people to read on my personal site once I go over it a tiny bit (and let things sink in). I have a more detailed post over here too.

I owe a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated to The Office of Letters and Light, that motivated me to get this done (on time). I don’t claim that the story is amazing, or even good, but I’m proud of myself for finishing.

Gaming

Ding, 43 Bloodmage!

stargrace November 29, 2008 No Comments

I spent most of the evening yesterday in Vanguard once I’d completed the daily tradeskill on my tailor in EQ2 (and dinged level 60 might I add, nice accomplishment there!) it’s common for me to bounce between multiple games, and station access is letting me bounce between a few without feeling too bad about the cost. It was a pretty exciting day.

My goal was to hit level 43, which was pretty lofty because I just hit level 42 yesterday. What I decided to do was give up the sand in the underwear zones for a bit and head back to Thestra. I noticed there were a lot of green quests in Beranid Hills, all of them solo. Looking at my meagre collection of a whole 10% experience, I figured even if most of the encounters were grey (which they were) I could use a potion and gain 50% on top of whatever the quests would rewards with me. I probably picked up at least 20 quests and one at a time spent the evening clearing them out. By the time I’d killed everything I needed, explored some druid stones, located some dead dogs for some poor old lady, found someones dead daughter (the Beranid Hills are filled with dead things or undead as the case is) I headed back to camp and turned them all in. I was at 14% experience from kills, and after using the potion and turning what I had over to the npc’s I was at 77% experience. Very worth while.

After getting so close to my goal of 43 I couldn’t just give up, so I headed back to Razad, the land of sand in uncomfortable places. I ran around completing the last few quests I had in that area, and before too long DING 43! This is a big level for me. Number one, it means I can now group with level 50’s and gain experience and credit for quests. Huge plus. Number two, I’ve had a robe on me for the past 15 levels. It’s crafted by tailors and it’s level is red. That’s pretty much the equivalent of fabled gear back in T5 for EQ2 before raids were really popular. There’s purple gear (basically mythical) but aside from my craft bag I’ve never seen any. This robe is VERY nice for me and I’m sure I’ll be wearing it for a long time to come.

Besides the leveling, I also found myself a home again in Vanguard. I returned to Safe Haven, which is a guild filled with amazing people. They span across multiple games (including an EQ2 branch on Antonia Bayle) and much like nostalgia in EQ1 and EQ2 I could not ask for a better bunch of people. They’re simply amazing. It was nice to be welcomed back in – and learn that they now have a proper guild hall. This thing is MASSIVE. Screen shot above is me standing in some sort of ceremonial room. We do have a small amount of dues that we pay once a month (I think for my level it’s 5g a month) but it’s well worth it, especially because our guild hall houses our guild trophies. These are statues within the hall that place buffs (three of them, one for each sphere) permanently on guild members.

It’s nice to be back, if for no other reason then to have others to talk to. We had 10-15 people on tonight, which is about what I remember. The guild also organizes events, and I’m looking forward to partaking in a few of those over time. We’ll see how it goes.

Now, onwards to 50!

Gaming

Fallen Gate, Ruins of Varsoon, and Steamfont Crafting

stargrace November 28, 2008 No Comments

Shadowgeist offered to help level up my paladin yesterday morning before the work day began, and who am I to say no to leveling! My paladin (Lithe, a Kerran) started off as level 29. I haven’t been very diligent with her gear, she’s sitting in a few pieces of steel and level 4 jewelery, but that’s alright, I don’t need gear until level 40-50 or so. Not for what I had in mind at least.

We headed off to Fallen Gate to start, it’s the older (broken) version of Neriak. There was no one in the zone (not odd for Najena, most people play end game and there’s not that many lower level characters these days) and we quickly took down all of the named in sight. We also headed into the smaller instance at the end of the zone, it’s a guaranteed fabled chest, and the item was a ring that was an upgrade to my (by now) 32 paladin. Not bad, gained quite a few levels. My vitality was running thin and I suggested we stop there (I just wanted to gain enough levels to be able to wear the new mastercrafted stuff) but Shadowgeist insisted we head to Ruins of Varsoon and take a peek around.

We traveled to Thundering Stepps and before long I found myself taking down skeletons and zombies as well as the golems of Varsoon. We headed to the instance within that zone as well, which is 2 guaranteed master chests. One from a magic user who likes to charm (meanie!) and the other from Varsoon himself.

By then I had leveled from 29-35, and that was enough for me. We called it a day and I gated home to clear out my bags, put items for sale and send off master spells to those who could use them.

Later on that evening Kasul, Eyenstein, Albrta, Shadowgeist, and I headed to Steamfont to do one of the crafting instances. Albrta and Eyenstein had never been there before, so I explained how it worked and how instead of making 3 of an item as the quest suggests, we make 12 instead, and turn them all in at once.

It went well, though the crafting was difficult for some when it was outside of their subclass. I brought along my 58 tailor, who managed to get 59 from the zone. Getting there slowly.

Of course when it came to the giant battle bot fight at the end, Shadowgeist couldn’t sit out. Well. Now we know why Tipa died that first time. If you help out in the fight at all, the robot fighting for your side turns on you and smacks you pretty badly afterwards. Guess he’s a solo’er. Eyenstein and Shadowgeist picked themselves up off the floor and we opened the chest –

Wow. Nice rewards tonight. We received a crafting book (went to Albrta), a sage ring (went to Eyenstein), and also a piece of Artisan gear which means any one of us could have used it. For once the dice were on my side, and I won it. Looking forward to being able to use that in the future!

When the chest goodies were finally dealt with, Shadowgeist decided ‘just for fun’ to see if we could take down one of the level 90 ^ clockwork bots that were still in the room. There are three types, and believe it or not, we managed to take them down AND they each reward you with aa. So there’s the potential to gain it from three different encounters. Not bad. I’m not sure if that’s intended or not, as they don’t really LOOK like named, but it was a nice reward none the less.

I was sad to see that the solo crafting mission only rewards 2,000 faction now especially because this quest can only be obtained once a week, and the daily ones rewards at least 1,500 faction. 5,000 would have been better then the current amount if they were looking to reduce it. My tailor (who is one of my lowest crafters) now has more Far Seas tokens then all of my other crafters, but she’s unable to purchase anything with her 6 tokens. Ah well, by the time she’s a high enough level crafter to make use of the gear and recipe books she has, she will have the faction (I hope). All in all, it was a fantastic night!

Gaming

The Blinding Sands of Razad

stargrace November 28, 2008 3 Comments

Having fun in Vanguard yesterday, I have been trying to decide where I should be for my level. I checked my quest journal and found a lot of old grey quests in there. Cleared those out, and at the bottom were some ‘heros are needed’ type quests. Basically these quests just send you to the Rift Seekers, who port you to the appropriate level area. Then you can wander around the quest hubs picking up new things to do.

I had a quest that sent me to Razad, in Qalia. I’ve never been overly fond of this continent because the bright blinding snow er, sand, looks horrible for some reason on my screen. Everything else looks just fine, but the sand is literally blinding. Walking through Aghram during the day I have to wear sunglasses. Since I really do have no idea where I should be, that’s where I headed to. I’m not sure how everyone else in Vanguard levels so fast, there’s people talking about having multiple level 50’s while I seem to trudge along. Not complaining in the least bit, Telon is a very beautiful and large world that I enjoy exploring. I was 70% through level 41, and by the end of my adventures (and a LOT of deaths) I finally hit 42.

There was only one ‘incident’ to speak of, and it’s one I know happens on every game. I was killing level 43 three dot (small group but can be solo’d by most) beetles outside of a cave when a 45 paladin happened to wander by. Noting that he was killing the same mobs as I, I asked if he’d like to join up. He sent me a tell back saying no thanks, that he wasn’t sure when he’d be leaving and didn’t want to. I told him it didn’t matter if he had to leave soon, I’d be ok with that, just thought maybe it would be easier then competing for the same creatures.

10 minutes later he brought a 45 druid (remember these are nukers in VG, not healers) with him, and they proceeded to clear out all of the mobs that I was killing. They made their way into the caves, and I decided for safety sake I’d stay outside. 41 vs. 43 tripple dot is still a challenge, and I didn’t want to get killed (again, some stray crazed wandering men had already killed me a few times).

Turns out I shouldn’t have worried so much about dying, because it was in the cards for me no matter what. The paladin came rushing out of the caves with at least 20-30 massive beetles trailing after him. Now, if you’re not aware of how combat in VG works – the instant a mob PASSES within proximity of you, while you are in combat with another mob, you instantly also incur agro from that new mob (if they’re not dealt with by whoever is running from them). You don’t even have to look at the mob, and the instant their target vanishes from their sight, they’ll come after you. Thus was my untimely death. Again.

Thank you Mr. Paladin, what holy ways you have!

I was frustrated, having already died of my own accord and decided to move on to an easier quest that didn’t require me hanging around ungrateful plate wearers. Searching through my quest journal I had a few solo quests that required me to kill creatures wandering around the desert, place some clues and frame someone, and other random sand-y things. It was actually a lot of fun and once I stopped dying I managed to ding level 42.

Level 42 means one step closer to the current cap of 50. It’s also a level where I obtained a bunch of new spells. I’m still searching for an active guild, and I’ve heard a few recruitment messages now, so I’m hoping to get into one before too long. My 42 bloodmage is also a 45 artificer (mineralogist to be specific) and I’m close to 46. I’d like to finish that up and then decide who I’ll be leveling next. I’m torn between leveling my psionicist (fun class, much like the enchanters of EQ1/EQ2) or my disciple (melee healer) and then deciding which crafter to level (which will probably be a combination, or at least a heavy focus on the crafter who makes house items and boats).

Speaking of houses. My T5 home is still standing! I was worried after my absense that I may have forgotten to put any coin into escrow, but it’s there. I added another 36 weeks worth of payments, and that should take care of it for a bit. I do need to get decorating it some more! The christmas tree, bed, and fire place are starting to look dreary with my harvest boxes.

Questing in The Moors

NaNoWriMo 2008 – winner

Ding, 43 Bloodmage!

Fallen Gate, Ruins of Varsoon, and Steamfont Crafting

The Blinding Sands of Razad

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