Solo Tradeskill Quests in Mara
stargrace 
I managed to get the next solo crafting quest today, after having completed the first one last week. Last week’s required me to craft a number of things from various skills and turn them in to the supply deposit. This weeks was incredibly different from that one, requiring no crafting at all to speak of. It also only rewarded 6g plus the Far Seas Token – and since I died four times and my repair bill was quite a bit, I would rather have done the crafting one.
That’s not to say it wasn’t well done and fun, it was both. I have run speed though, and that’s not your friend in this quest.
The Far Seas division wants you to recover relics from the stone men inside of an instance in the Tower of Four Winds, which is in the Village of Mara. You zone into a special instance on the main level of the tower, and get a revamped version of an older instance, you may recognize it as being one from an adventure pack. Inside are terracotta men – and one fallen ally on the ground. Right clicking the ally allows you to collect a special hammer from them, and then you get to run around throwing that hammer at the mobs who are far higher level then you.
You need to tag 50 of these creatures, and then grab relics off of them. The lay out for the instance can be a bit confusing if you’ve never been there before, or if (like me) you tend to run around jumping off of ledges and gliding down to the ledge below.
Once you’ve collected the 50 relics, you return to the supply depot in Mara and turn them in. Unlike last weeks quest that rewarded 25,000 faction, this one only rewards 2,000 faction. This is quite a low amount for a quest you can only do once a week. The group quests (which can also be solo’d and are only once a day) reward you with 1,000 faction (it may be 1,500 faction, I can’t quite remember). I wish they had a better timer then once a day.
So after doing various group instances, along with the two solo quests, I accumulated a few tokens and 30,000 faction (finally). I was going to try to get my 40,000 faction and purchase the two carpenter recipe books, but the books don’t look like they reward house items, they’re some sort of expendable item with five charges. I decided to forgo these, and spend my tokens on the forest set of gear that gives bonuses to crafting.
Silhouette is proudly wearing the outfit, pictured above. It’s in my appearance slots for now, and I’m really wishing EQ2 had ‘tabs’ much like Vanguard does, for crafting gear. That way I:
- Wouldn’t have to lug all sorts of crafting gear with me in my bags
- Wouldn’t have to keep switching my gear around when I wanted the stats off of the crafting sets
Maybe this will be looked into in the future. With crafting being such a huge deal lately in EQ2 (and a popular one) it would be great to see a few more things implemented that gave players the idea that crafting (and just crafting) is a valid option aside from just adventuring. Not that I want to see EQ2 revolve around crafting, I don’t, but I’ve said in the past that I thought a lot of games underestimated how popular these methods of advancement are.
People in the states are busy with thanksgiving as I write this, makes me wish it was Thanksgiving in Canada again. All that turkey. Yum!
The latest edition of Beckett MOG (Massive Online Gamer) has come out in the states for those who have a subscription (it should be in stores shortly as well in the US and Canada), and with it two of my articles. One was a class guide on the templar and inquisitor, and the other a dungeon guide on Veksar. (Keep in mind both of these articles were written well before the expansion was released). I wanted to add the 
I didn’t do any of the crafting quests yesterday either, which means I may be slightly behind in those. Today I should be able to obtain the solo quest once more, and max out my faction (finally) on Silhouette, which means she’ll be able to buy some new recipe books. Today I’m going to head to the Moors and work on the quests within the zone so that I can purchase the faction books there as well. The appearance armor located in the Moors is also quite fantastic, I especially like the new lambent type armor. Truth be told, I’m quite happy that I’ve stayed out of TSO for the most part (aside from the crafting bits). It’s a little over a week into the expansion and I’m not bored. Of course this does mean that I don’t know all of the secrets to beating all of the encounters in the instances, and since most use puzzles this may be a hardship for any groups I join – but I’m a fast learner and I’ll pick them up as I go along. I keep meaning to get out there more and the craft tables keep drawing me back.
We go out, in Norrathian Night,
Yesterday for some reason the npc’s in Mara turned their nose up at Tipa, Kasul, and I. So we didn’t get to do our nightly Tradeskill Instance. Tomorrow or the day after I should be able to do the solo quest again and that will give me enough faction to purchase the two recipe books with the tokens I’ve been collecting. Then I can start working towards something else. Even though I couldn’t do the instance with my main (I was unlocked from the instances as well, so I’m not sure what the issue was) I decided earlier in the day to solo one with my tailor. My tailor is on the 2nd account I have, and therefor doesn’t get the experience bonus that those on the main account have (which is a 50% bonus). How noticeable was it? In the time that my alchemist managed to get 6 levels, the tailor got 3.5 levels. Though my alchemist also used a 55% potion, and I did not use one on the tailor. For three hours of work that requires no raw materials, I still find it quite good. I got her to level 56 tailor. So that leaves my current crafters at 80 sage, provisioner, woodworker, carpenter, jeweler, 59 alchemist, 56 tailor, and 40 armorer. The armorer is a few levels shy of being able to do those Moors quests and the instances, so she’ll be next while the other two regain their vitality (why doesn’t the 5 year reward replenish the tradeskill vitality as well as adventure?!). I didn’t get any rares this time around, but I did get a recipe book along with a piece of sage jewelery. I traded the sage piece off to Misako and I’ll have to wait until level 70 to scribe the book. It was still a fun run though.
One of the rewards was the statue pictured in this post. It lines up flush with the wall, so I’m trying to think of something unique and exciting to do with it. Maybe I’ll just add it to