Group Crafting Instance Details
stargrace 
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.
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. 
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. 
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 
For the past few days I have been working on 
I quickly put my new cloak on, and transformed into the small rock pictured above. The illusion is great in itself, you roll along the ground and there are some faint sparkles that tumble off of youl. While doing the quest I managed to gather a LOT of rares. It figures that the one time I really want commons and not rares I end up getting 15+ rares in one harvesting session. The guild bank is happy at least.