2008

An Empty House but a Full Heart

stargrace January 18, 2008 0Comment

The high elf glanced around the sparsely decorated Inn room located in the Willow Wood and shrugged. It wasn’t home, but then again these days what was. She’d unpacked her few possessions which consisted mostly of her instruments, and settled in for the night. A wandering minstrel traveling across Norrath, she wasn’t about to complain, she’d seen worse.

Faralithe (or just Lithe, to those who knew her well) had a purpose which was (to her at least) very apparent. It was her job to record and sing about the tales of great and mighty people – but not only them. Her job was also to bring awareness to the smaller communities, about the great deeds their own people had done. She tried to make them uplifting, but also tell about the rich history people had. Especially since much of her own was lost to her. Which was fine, she preferred it that way, having no ties to anything at all.

Over the years she’d discovered that people liked nothing more then to hear the sound of their own voices. This was a simple fact, neither good nor bad, just something she’d observed. She made sure through her travels to take no sides, which allowed her access to establishments that may other wise slam their doors in her face. She knew as a high elf she should feel something for Tunare, but she didn’t. How could she with the upbringing she’d had. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in the Gods and Goddesses who’d returned to Norrath, no, she knew they were there. But she treated them all with a sort of vague indifference. The matters of the gods did not concern the mortals who walked below.

About her own life she’d kept quiet. Not letting anyone in. It wasn’t as though she’d lead a horrible one, nor was it particularly interesting though she thought when compared to those she sang about who had done so many amazing things. Wandering around Castleview Hamlet she learned a little of the Koada’Dal, scribbling down notes where she could. Barely learning anything about her own people before now was due to nothing more then forgetfulness, she’d always wanted to, but just couldn’t seem to find the time. That was the one thing life was short on, time.

She gathered her lute and headed out the door, wondering where the people of Qeynos gathered to collect and share their stories. She knew in Freeport people frequented the Bloodhaze Inn, but it would be some time before she could come up with a disguise to get into there after the last fiasco involving an over zealous gnome and his rotting thrall side kick. She glanced around the wooden doors that lead to Qeynos Harbor, searching for scraps of parchment that people may have stuck there indicating their events. Nothing. Curious.

Faralithe would just have to wait for another time. She wasn’t the most patient of people, but she’d learn.

A Man and his Chicken

stargrace January 17, 2008 1Comment

Sensual thumbed the wallet stacked full of coins and groaned. She still didn’t think she was getting paid nearly enough to warrant dragging herself through the streets of Freeport in search of this one character. Not this one, in particular. Who thought so highly of himself (especially since the 2008 elections were upcoming) that he thought it fit to hire a personal guard of some sort. After wandering around meeting dead end trails, she finally tracked them down. Disguised in the Inn.

Sensual sighed, and listened to the on-goings of other patrons, all eager with their own stories to tell. She blocked them from her mind as she walked along, searching for this one. Lord Udoaka. She knew him only by his name and the one photograph she was given for the job. Who this other.. person, was with him, she had no idea. Eventually she heard his name whispered, Corrydonn. Why on earth he was dressed as a cockatrice, she had no idea. It must have been some sort of campaign management.

She reminded herself of the hefty price tag this assignment came with. Find anything, just some little bit of information, that could put his presidential campaign on a rocky start – was what the person requested. Whether they were to be seen as future competition she had no idea, and left it at that. All she cared about was the coin in her purse.

The doll and the chicken wandered around in what seemed like an aimless pattern – stopping once or twice on the roof, to shake Sensual off their trail. She simple shrugged and continued to follow, oblivious to anything else ongoing.

At least, something finally happened, just before she was about to go home. This Lord, this Udoaka, in the shape of a doll, spilled poison all over some innocent sarnak child. This was what Sensual was paid to capture and report on, this was it! So she scrambled to collect her notes, and without even a fair well, jumped into the night sky to report back to her customer.

She informed them of everything that she had seen, everything that had happened, and by the end walked away with another few coins for her trouble. She slipped her totems into her pouch for future uses, noting that it was easier when people didn’t try to run away from her as she was collecting her information. If only everyone worked that easily.

Another day in Game

stargrace January 17, 2008 0Comment

I’ve been working on the coercer some, managed to ding her level 73 last night. Nothing exceptionally eventful, aside from just plain having fun with the class itself. It’s complicated and fun at the same time. I’ve died, a lot. Doesn’t bother me though truth be told. It’s all about learning the class and it’s limits.

In game, I’m still fairly restless. Happier though now that one of my accounts is closed. Probably going to make more characters or a healer to fill in one of the extra slots I have in the account, and then I will also have a healer slot incase I ever feel like playing one. I’m thinking Arasai defiler in the mean time. I hear a lot of lower level groups looking for healers, and I’d like to take the quest rout with her perhaps, and maybe work at getting into a smaller guild. We’ll see how it goes. I’d like a craft type for the character too, since I’ve left behind five crafters on the other account.

I spent some time today browsing EQ2flames, which is a site I’ve never actually gone to before for a few reasons. Number one, a lot of very angry people hang out there. It’s very lightly moderated when moderated at all (usually it’s not at all) and there are server sections, class sections, forums for everything you could ever want to complain about in game. It lets people get things off of their chest I suppose, but if you were ever the target of one of those posts I’d assume that you may be slightly upset with what people had said about you.

The main reason I was browsing it is because their class sections are top notch. People who are knowledgeable do post there, suggestions and advice and they do also answer questions. I had a much easier time looking for class information on their class specific forums then I did on the EQ2player forums, so they do have quite a following. I still wouldn’t want to check out or read that forum too often though, it just seems a little too harsh for me personally. To each their own though.

Finished the Terry Goodkind book and spent last night watching American Idol and laughing talking with Tipa and Saylah about the show. It was the first time I’ve actually watched the whole thing through and I was trying to understand what made it so appealing. I’m not really one for television on the best of days aside from a little background noise.

Other then that, things are quiet, the way I like them. I’m going to try to create some sort of roleplay story for the new defiler I suppose. Hey, of course I can’t stay away from some new alts, that’s just the way I am.

Downsizing.. it Happens eh?

stargrace January 16, 2008 2Comments

I’ve come to the conclusion (after much discussion with Shadowgeist) that I have too many characters. It actually creates a lot of stress for me in game, on who to play, what to do, and then if I want to join a guild, who to do that on, and then I get into the whole two boxing fiasco and it just goes from there. Two days ago Shadowgeist got into Siege, a raid guild on Najena. He decided to transfer servers and of course I’m exceptionally happy for him because it’s what he’s been looking for constantly now, he certainly deserves the break as not many guilds ever search for a shadowknight (high end guilds, that is). So he’s happy, which makes me happy.

In the mean time though, I’ve now lost my personal tank – which is not a bad thing, don’t get me wrong here. It does however mean I’ve got to adjust my play styles. I don’t want to move servers, I’ve got too many characters here, and I like the community – a lot. With RoK, it’s rare you ever HAVE to group to level, so I’m not reliant on him as much as I may have been in previous expansions. Anyhow, after a lot of discussion, I decided it was time to close down one of my EQ2 accounts. The extra characters are just more hassle then they’re worth, and again it was creating a lot of stress for me.

So I literally wrote out all the pros and cons to each character. What I liked about them all so that I could decide a good method of choosing which account to keep open. It wasn’t actually a hard decision, it’s not like I’m deleting characters or that I can’t just re-activate in time if I want. I hate being asked to box on raids, I hate guilds deciding that I should just play whatever class they need for the night, and at the same time if I’m asked to do so, I feel bad saying no (so it’s my fault, is what I’m implying here). In the end, I decided to close down the healer account. I have more fun with my dps / utility classes, healers can be found (most of the time) with ease, and a lot of duos and teams are tank / healer combinations, so maybe I can fill a spot for a dps / utility. It does also mean I’ll be closing down the crafters on those accounts – but again, I’ll have 7 slots on the account I am keeping, there’s no reason why I can’t just have 7/9 crafters.

So that means instead of the 14 characters I have, I’ll have 7. Actually, I have 5 for the time being, as I deleted (gasps) some lowbies, and my 31 wizard that I just wasn’t into. What’s it leave me with?

• 80 troubdador – 60 weaponsmith – 400 tinkerer
• 73 illusionist – 80 provisioner – 400 tinkerer
• 73 coercer – n/a – n/a
• 58 necromancer – 80 sage – n/a
• 52 ranger – 63 alchemist – n/a

That’s not a bad collection still in my eyes, and like I said, the other characters are still there, I’m just disabling the accounts and taking all their money (guild bank is up to 200p now.. that’s always nice to see!) making sure to take anything I may need off of them as well. The only one downside is that I also loose my transmuter – and I refuse to work up another one. On the plus side though, my bank is filled with transmuted goods already, and adornments are not as pricey as they were some time ago.

I’m hoping the change will ease some of the stress I’ve felt in game. It’s a video game eh, I don’t want to be stressed. Then I can concentrate on what I have fun doing (which lately is the coercer) and not worry about boxing. Plus, that’ll cut down some of the money I’m paying to SoE every month. Both me and Shadowgeist had two accounts, that means four accounts to buy expansions for. It adds up. Not that we have to worry so much about money (if we did we wouldn’t be playing at all) but well, typical female here, I worry a lot. So it’s always nice to cut down some of the worries.

We’ll see how the change goes, and as a side note, a thought that popped into my head. Maybe the new RoK raid encounters that drop coin (this is the first tier to do so, and they drop a LOT of coin) is to prepare people for the expenses of guild halls once they’re released. Would make sense to me since you want your guild to all contribute to paying for the halls. Also, it would mean that the richest (raiding) guilds would be able to afford the best. I hope there’s still options for the smaller guilds as well as far as halls are concerned, and maybe I’m way off on my assumptions (as I told Calreth tonight – that thought was logical? Oh well nvm then, SoE doesn’t DO logical.. ) so I guess only time will tell. Yes, I like many (many) others are excited about the possibility of guild halls. Vanguard’s spoiled me in that regard what can I say.

Offering of Cookies

stargrace January 14, 2008 3Comments

(( To those people who’s rp I stumbled into in Zek last night, thanks for letting me listen. The best roleplay I’ve ever found has always been the type I just sort of walk into, literally. As I was heading to Zek to quest last night it was a plesant surprise to notice the group of people hanging out in the druid rings. ))