2008

The Search Continues

stargrace December 20, 2008 0Comment

Hopefully Sabaki doesn’t mind me posting this here, but anyhow as you can tell from the screen shot on the right, I got a response about looking for a raid guild. I’d love to take them up on the offer, but there’s no way I could handle raiding at 3am my time (EST). Which is one of the down sides to Najena (but not really). I could handle raiding during the day time, or early morning, but 3am is a bit much. Najena is a heavy EU and Aussie populated server, which means during the day there are LOTS of people around and I really enjoy that.

It was nice to at least get a response. Because I’m not 100% sure what I want out of a raid guild yet, nor what character to play I have not been dedicating myself to it. Instead I just have a brief little ‘looking for raids’ type of blurb in the description of my level 80’s, so that those who are examining me (and lets face it, everyone examines everyone else in EQ2 to check out what they’re wearing and how you stack up!) will at least know that I am interested.

I realize that I’ll never find a guild when I don’t know who I want to play or how often I want to raid and that I’m going about this backwards. I figure there is no real point in settling down and searching until after the holidays, when people are not all off at Christmas parties and doing the family thing. This also gives me a little more time to reach 80 on the defiler and templar and perhaps narrow down the search of who to play a little more. I’ve always loved the defiler, but she’s been behind in levels, and that’s a huge incentive NOT to play her. Grinding RoK AGAIN is a slow and exceptionally painful process, especially with a healer. Thankfully I have a level 80 sage and jeweler, I can honestly say that all of my ‘end game’ characters have adept3’s of all of their spells, something I really take pride in.

This weekend is filled with lots of Christmas action going on, but of course I’ll sneak in a little play time early morning (it’s 6am as I write this) and I should be back safe and sound at home later tonight. Tomorrow Ottawa is getting blasted with yet another snow storm, so I’m determined to get everything done today that needs to be done. Wednesday I’ll be heading to my folks place (when we are due for, you guessed it, ANOTHER snow storm). We still have another 5 months of this, it’s going to be a long winter.

Gaming

Anchor of Bazzul

stargrace December 19, 2008 5Comments

Restless last night, though it was no fault of any games. Just too much on my mind as happens this time of year. First of all, happy birthday to Calreth a good friend of mine on Antonia Bayle. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I joked with Tipa about playing ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ to try to figure out which character it was that I was going to play for the evening, but it wasn’t really a joke. I couldn’t settle down so I logged off for a few with the intentions of doing some art of some sort. Took far too long to come up with an idea for that, and after fumbling around with an image I eventually decided I wanted to do, I was asked if I wanted to head to the Anchor of Bazzul, a zone in The Moors of Ykesha that I’d not yet been to.

I was asked to go on my troubador, who had not yet seen any TSO content per say. This zone doesn’t reward any void shards, but it was great aa and a few bits of interesting loot (that no one wanted). Goudia got her 141st aa (yes, I am that much of a slacker) and here’s the kicker – I JUST betrayed to a troubador and what do I win?

A DIRGE master.

GAH!

I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck in games, I’d have no luck at all.

The zone has a really fun encounter (that’s also sort of bugged) where you have to clear around The Keeper of the Banished, and then each member of the group clicks one of the cells where the Banished are being held, and morphs into the creatures much like you do for the Mark of The Awakened trials all uber and what not. You defeat the mob (and here’s where it gets tricky) once the mob is defeated you each have to click off the illusion, and then you have to defeat the banished guys that you just possessed. Apparently if it’s done correctly and all 6 of the banished forms are used, you’ll get a chest. More often then not though there is no chest reward at all and this is just a ‘get by me to the next stage’ of a zone. It was still a lot of fun though.

The zone itself was fairly easy. A few named have kickbacks and my Internet decided I was no longer going to play without LOTS of lag, so I left the group a few minutes to reset some computer stuff. Annoying. Everything worked fairly well after that. The final named required members to move three objects to the center of the room surrounding the named in a triangle pattern, we had enough dps that the group members only had to do this once. All in all fun zone even though nothing of any note dropped. A healer cloak that no one wanted, and a bunch of other trash.

It would be really nice if I knew which character to settle on, but as of yet that hasn’t happened. It’s really hard to gear up 5+ characters, get them all their epics, and make sure they can all handle whatever it is they need to handle based on their class. Getting masters is also frustrating. So no progress in that direction yet.

Still, a fun evening over all. I think the only instances I have not been to yet now are the ones in Loping Plains.

Gaming

Gone Fishing – In Telon

stargrace December 18, 2008 2Comments

I spent the afternoon fishing in Telon (Tanvu to be specific) and quickly lost track of time. Hanging on the wall behind Faydai is her very first Kelp Bass, which I was able to mount to my wall in my home. How awesome! I figured fishing out a little better this time compared to when I was playing on test. I now know that when the ‘hit a combo’ button comes up you have to hit four key combinations before the fish moves again. I also learned I’m not good at learning their ‘moves’ or doing combos. Fish have levels and you have to work down their hit points by following their moves. If they do combos that you can’t counter they win and they’ll eventually get away. Watching them at max health as you try to mash buttons is frustrating but when you finally land one, it’s great.

Leveling up is slow. I spent a few hours fishing and only reached a skill of 5. Whether that’s because I just suck, or because I need to be fishing some place else I’m not quite sure.

It was a LOT of fun though. I also ran around Telon grabbing Christmas presents for house decorations. My lonely tree has had no gifts under it for far too long.

Next on my list? Well I have to build a boat of course, so I can take friends fishing with me out on the open water. I’m excited about it, not to mention the fact that carpenters make some pretty nice house items, and my home has looked quite bare for the past two years.

Randolph is back as well, I dug mine out from the bank and took a brief flight over Tanvu before I settled in for some fishing.

Doesn’t that lookbetter?!

Gaming

Update Notes

stargrace December 18, 2008 0Comment

I don’t typically post the notes unless it’s a Game Update (big major patches) but there’s some nice fixes going in today, so I figured I may as well (that, and I’m waiting for DOMO to finish patching).

EverQuest 2As a special gift from the developers to you..

The master scroll drop rate in Desert of Flames has been increased to more closely match those of the rest of the game.

The twin dragons in the Pedestal of Sky now drop 3 pieces of fabled armor.

Godking Anuk now drops 3 pieces of fabled armor.

When clearing a filter your last scroll location will be restored.

Collections can be sorted by:
Ready to turn in status (Default)
Name
Level
Category
Progress – sorts by the number of items needed to complete the collection, starting with the smallest number needed. (Does not including ready/completed collections)

The harvest supply depot can now hold up to 150 unique harvestables.

The max player / detrimental spell effect icons has been increased from 30 to 45.

The player house window will now display the address of the house below the house name.
Your full house address and location will be shown on the Details tab of the Persona window.
Players who currently own a house will need to enter then exit their house before the data will appear.

Also included in this update..

GAMEPLAY

Many of the deity avatars have enhanced damage abilities, and will grow stronger during long fights.

The Pythoness should no longer cast a de-level, and players should be able to obtain Clan Leader powers if they return to a saved instance.

Void Shard and Far Seas Trading Company Tokens are now No Value to prevent accidentally selling them to merchants.

When you /camp to a specific character the client will choose the character on the existing world if that character name exists. (Thank you Blackburrow.Rheem for the feedback!)

The guild bank transaction limit has been modified so you no longer become throttled for an hour.

ITEMS

Swapped the 3 and 5 piece bonuses on the Dauntless void shard set back to their original places.

Raid Armor Sets have been altered to better match progression from Veeshans Peak raid sets. Several of the effects on leggings have been improved.

SPELLS AND COMBAT ARTS

Empowered Essence now enhances Combat Arts granted by achievements.

Displacement and Disruption will no longer refresh themselves while their stoneskins are still in effect.

QUEST JOURNAL

Fixed a bug where all collections would not be sent down to the client if the client returned from being linkdead before the server unloaded their character.

Gaming

Stargrace Dings Level 80 (finally)

stargrace December 18, 2008 3Comments

I finished the bards betrayal back over to Troubador, made all of the skills she’d need in adept3 (that’ll have to do for now) and then felt a slight ‘ping’ some where that I had not yet gotten Stargrace to level 80. Stargrace was my ‘main’ a few years ago when I was in a raid guild called Torrent Knights, on the Lucan D’Lere server. I don’t recall if she was actually called Stargrace at the time, I don’t believe so. Since I’ve moved servers a few times I’ve had her name changed (and the wardens, and the templars, and the defilers). I remember doing EoF raids with her, Inner sanctum and Freethinkers Hideout. I was so excited, and I was parsing really well (for that expansion).

When I move to Antonia Bayle and joined Arsenal I switched to my bard. Then eventually switched to my warden, and then just after dipping my toes into RoK raids (T1-T2) I stopped raiding all together and moved to Najena. It was just too much drama, too much time to devote to it. Stargrace became a much neglected character, sitting on the back burner while I played other alts and crafters. She’s been an 80 provisioner for months now, being one of the easiest skills to level up. She’s had a wonderful 5-room home in Qeynos that hasn’t been re-decorated for two years now and basically is a giant sized dust collector.

I’ve been at 40% experience for a few weeks now, having no wish to grind out that final 60% doing quests that I’ve already done on a number of characters. Looking at the best plan of action, I decided to work on Jarsath Waste quests, the repeatables. They give roughly 10% when you turn in each round. Shadowgeist came along after raids, I was 80% into my level and he suggested we head to the Moors because the quests there were very quick and easy to do.

Finally, I dinged the illusionist level 80. Woohoo!

So what’s the big deal? Well, number one she’s the 4th character I have to reach level 80, so that gives me a 40% bonus experience on my account for adventuring. It also means she can work on getting void shards, and get into instances with groups easier. She had every M1 from 70-80 but I’ll have to make those all into adept3 because even though the damage may be greater, so are the resists from the previous tiers masters. I bought 30 tynnonium cluster last night and I’ll set my sage to work today.

Ok so it’s not THAT big of a deal that I reached level 80. It means I have a 5th epic to obtain (I have warden, coercer, dirge, troubador epics) and it also means that if I really wanted I could start working on getting the templar to 80, she’s been sitting at level 77 for months now. That’s even more painful then leveling up the illusionist though.

I’ve been spending a lot (and I do mean a lot) of time thinking about what to do in regards to raiding. Do I want to join a hardcore guild, or do I want to start from the ground up. WHO do I want to raid with (which is the most difficult question of all). People typically respond with a “play whatever is fun for you” but what if all of your characters are equally fun, or if you’re simply used to bouncing around to alts over and over. It’s been years since I’ve settled on a ‘main’.

Anyhow, I’m happy to have finally reached 80 with another character. I’ve had doppelganger (the level 80 illusi spell) for almost a year now, waiting in my bags to scribe. I also got to put on a few new pieces of gear. Can’t get any better then that really!

The Search Continues

Anchor of Bazzul

Gone Fishing – In Telon

Update Notes

Stargrace Dings Level 80 (finally)

You Missed

Personal EVE Economic Update (October)

Expensive Month (preparing for fun)

Locked Out (again)

What’s Going on?