2008

Festival of Discord – Beauty Pageant

stargrace October 15, 2008 No Comments

The contestants were a unique bunch. The only ones allowed to partake in the Festival of Discord’s “beauty” pageant, were trolls, ogres, sarnak, ratonga and of course the scaly iksar. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, after all. A fair number of people showed up, something I was pleased to see. The event itself was hosted by one Ariania, who was having a few computer issues ahead of time. 

The participants were asked to show off their ‘talents’ which ranged from dramatic readings, to a demonstration of their abilities. Kanad and I inched closer to the front in order to get better seats. I had thought that /says worked over a greater distance, but apparently I was wrong. They were also asked some pretty hard questions, like what would they do if they found an injured paladin along a deserted road, and what would they do if they had Antonia Bayle in a room alone for an hour. Answers ranged from serious to just outright amusing. 

I joined the festival channel (shown above) on Najena, so that I could listen to the announcements and the activities. After the beauty pageant was a pumpkin carving contest, and then a trivia event. Once all of those were done it was time for some relaxation with a drink and good food at a local tavern. 

I was handed some food and drink by one kind Ratonga who informed me that their supplies this year were actually provided by SOE, which is fantastic. 

Events like this typically have a snowball effect, inspiring others to host their own player events. So I’m happy to announce that Nostalgia will be putting on a performance in the near future in our guildhall for the good people on Najena (of course visitors are also going to be more then welcome). Our very own Tipa Tanglewood (also known on Najena as Dinah) has agreed to write the script while I work behind the scenes on promoting the event. This is just an idea for now, and will become more fleshed out as time passes. Excited? Yes, I am!

Last night was a lot of fun, and it was a perfect ending after spending the early evening decorating.

Visitors, Decorating, and Just Plain Fun

stargrace October 15, 2008 3 Comments

A few things to start off with today. First of all, thank you SOE – it’s not odd for me to catch a link from their town crier or see that of a friends blog but when I checked out yesterdays listing on the EQ2players site and saw four of my posts linked, it was a nice little surprise. Since I was having “one of those days” it made me smile. 

Second of all, /waves and hello to Caladwen if she’s reading this! Caladwen sent me a tell yesterday asking to come visit Nostalgia’s guildhall. Of course anyone is more then welcome to stop by (Hey, Rao, that means you eh!) and I chattered with her a little while she ran around. Good thing Buddy didn’t take a bite out of her arm or we’d have a lawsuit on our hands! It was nice to be able to show off every ones stuff, the crafting areas with little bits of personality all over as well as the two new designs we added to the hall yesterday. Remember, this is very much an ongoing work in progress. 

So what was worked on? Well, I finally got the theater stage completed. It’s formed after the one I built for Tipa’s house. Now that we’re able to scale furniture it’s a bit bigger then the one she has, and we’ve decoreated it for Halloween. There’s also a music area, and a bar as well as seating to view the theater. A rug or two in the center of the room and I think it will be complete, maybe some extra seating, I haven’t decided yet. It’s difficult to make sure we won’t run out of house items in the hall. I actually had a dream last night (a sure sign I’m decorating too much) that Tipa called me to tell me we wouldn’t be putting any books at all in the hall because they counted towards the item limit. A huge thank you to Kasul, who built all the twisting stairs used in yesterdays designs. There’s no way I’d have the patience to align those. 

Does anyone know or have an idea of which Bayle that is pictured above? The painting is simply titled “Bayle” but I’m not sure if it’s Kyle Bayle (that’s what my vote was for though) or Antonious or someone else. Kasul went searching through lore archives last night to see if we could figure it out. Ah, what another fantastic aspect to EQ2 (and EQ1 of course). 

Besides decorating I did end up heading to Antonia Bayle to partake in some of the Festival of Discord events, but I’ll be posting about that in a second post. It was a LOT of fun! Remember that the event runs until Saturday, so you still have lots of time to check everything out.

A Simple Morning

stargrace October 14, 2008 No Comments

Picture taken by me this morning, watching the sun come up. Full view is better, of course. 

Yesterday and the day before was spent with family, enjoying the Thanksgiving Holiday. I didn’t get to do an enormous amount of things in game. I’m looking to transfer my 71 defiler from Antonia Bayle back over to Najena with the rest of my ‘crew’ but SOE’s automated transfer service is down. There is a work around to this, you can submit an email request and they’ll send you the form – however this can take up to two weeks to finish apparently. I sent one off this morning and we’ll see how it goes. 

I didn’t get to attend any of the events yesterday at the Festival of Discord, but I’ll be looking over their schedule today to plan out some events to attend for the rest of the week. I know Friday night and Saturday are probably going to be heavily populated with other roleplayers, so I’ll try to make a point to attend those days. 

The pre-order for TSO (The Shadow Odyssey) started today. You get a ‘special’ item for the retail version – a dire bear mount. The digital version also has a ‘unique’ item, a house item creature. I used to buy the retail versions of EQ2 but EBGames (where I do most of my game shopping here in Ottawa) started getting their shipments in late, and I would be unable to play the new content for a day or two after release. Silly that I want to be right in the thick of things right away? Not really. So I started purchasing the digital downloads every release instead and have never had an issue with them. 

Now I’m wondering if I’ll go with the retail box just so I can get this dire bear, apparently it levels and grows along with your character as you level and grow. I’m not sure if it can be claimed on all characters or just one (my gut goes with just one) so I guess we’ll see. 

Little big planet releases a week from today. Still very eager about that, though I won’t be able to play until that night, either. Ah well!

EQ2’s Festival of Discord – Simply Amazing

stargrace October 13, 2008 3 Comments

Gnobrin, hanging out in the center of one of the tented areas for the Festival of Discord. I took some time today to wander around the area before events start later on tonight. The opening ceremonies were yesterday, and unfortunately I had a thanksgiving dinner so I could not attend. 

I expected to see a few tents, as I did with the Festival of Unity. 

I did not expect this HUGE fair ground site that I encountered today. Wow. What an amazing time and effort put into this by the players who are hosting this. That’s right, this is a PLAYER run event, where GM’s have graciously come along and aided them in their yearly celebration on one of EQ2’s roleplay servers. Isn’t it amazing to see where creativity will take you?

Again, if you haven’t gone to visit the Festival grounds, I urge you to give it a shot. The roleplay is fantastic, the grounds look amazing, and people put a lot of hard work into running these events. These are the things that make EQ2 home.

Festival of Discord Returns to Antonia Bayle

stargrace October 13, 2008 1 Comment

I wrote last year about the Festival of Discord, a player run event that takes place on Antonia Bayle. Checking out the eq2players front page, I learned that it’s returning this year. 

You can find a map of the festivities here, as well as a calendar of events. 

Antonia Bayle is one of two roleplay servers, and has an amazing community. I’ve also got a level 30 guild over there (I moved to Najena to be with friends, but still have a small number of characters over there) not that we’ll be purchasing a guild any time soon. 

Discord and it’s counterpart the Festival of Unity, are two amazing player run events that GM’s have gotten involved in over the years, adding decorations and a fair-like set up to the grounds in both Commonlands and Antonica. If you’ve never gone before I would HIGHLY suggest you check it out, I’ve gone to the festival of Unity twice now, and I went to the festival of Discord last year also. The passion and heart that these people put into their events is astounding. With the release of guildhalls even more so, there’s a ball and taverns set up as decorators frantically finish their designs for the public. 

Be sure to check out the offical forums for the festival here, you can get a clear idea of all the work that gets put into this, the guilds involved, and the times / locations of each event every day from October 12th to the 18th. 

Remember what I said about community being key in any mmo? This is why I game. It may not be every ones cup of tea, but for me, it’s everything.

Edit: Happy Turkey day or Columbus day or whatever you’re celebrating today!