March 30, 2009

Another Writing Opportunity (Shameless Plug)

For those who follow this site, and who are interested in my writing, well here’s a little shameless self promotion. I do currently write freelance for Beckett Massive Online Gamer (which people are well aware of because I’m always trying to promote it) and I do some infrequent articles / reviews over at MMORPG.com – but I’ve recently taken on a new project over at MMO Bin for my good friend David. 

He was looking for writers for the site, and I decided to apply – not that I don’t already love writing where I do, but I’m always looking for more. Seems to be a flaw of mine, but hey why not. I have the time to fit a few more things in there some where. 

The site differs from MmoQuests in the fact that it’s mostly news and discussion, rather then just plain play experience (which is what I typically write about here). I’m looking at my posts there as a challenge, a different form of writing for me. Since my articles are rarely ever informative and tend to cater to my personal views and experiences in each game – and will remain as such. I’ll be writing (mostly) about EverQuest and EverQuestII for MMO Bin, my two games of choice but there may be articles on other games depending on what I happen to be playing and where my thoughts happen to wander. 

So if you’re looking for more ‘news’ or ‘discussion’ orentated articles, please check over at MMO Bin. You can read my first post over there about the constant forward progression in games and my thoughts on that topic. Looking forward to this new site addition, and who knows what I’ll learn from the experience. He is looking for a few more writers for those who are interested (or was at least at the time of my posting this) so if it’s something you may be interested in, check this post here

Back to your regularly scheduled program!

Firiona Vie – Bitter Victuals

Last night saw me back in EverQuest, where as tonight I’ll be playing Lord of the Rings Online with Kasul – and I’m of course looking forward to it. After trying to decide what to do, my group (the ever present Ninga and Ultann of course) finally settled on progressing our way through a little bit more of Seeds of Destruction. It was time to head to a few zones I’d never been to before, first being Bloody Kithicor. 

What Norrathian hasn’t heard of the Battle of Bloody Kithicor, one of the most notable events in Norrathian history? 

Not so long ago, two great armies converged on the Kithicor Forest for one of the largest and bloodiest battles in Norrath’s history. Lanys T`Vyl, the Child of Hate and Firiona Vie, the Chosen of Tunare brought their armies to Kithicor to wage war for the fate of Antonica. 

You can go here to read all of the lore surrounding this zone, and there is a lot. I love these stories, I never really experienced them the first time I played EverQuest because – well because I was still new to gaming and I didn’t even realize what a draw that could be for me personally. 

The next portion of progression required us to speak to Firiona Vie (who hasn’t changed in all this time might I add) and she sent us off to an instanced version of Old Commonlands. Our first task was to take care of pesky spiders and loot their poison glands. While your “guide” Selkith takes the glands and makes a poison for you to use, he sends you out to kill the Murkwater Assassins, and then to insert each one of the poison bottles into various chests around the Murkwater camp. 

Selkith doesn’t want you to tell Firiona Vie what you did, because she wouldn’t approve of the method (sneaking into their camp and poisoning them all) you kill a named (who doesn’t drop any loot, boo) and you’re off onto the next mission afterwards. It took quite a bit of time simply because the spiders were onto us. Literally. We’d be a good 100 feet away from a spider and then all of the sudden we’d have a whole lot of them that just seemed to instantly show up all at the same time. It must have been my deodorant, or lack there of. I am a necromancer after all. 

You can read the entire progression quest here for yourself, and it was worth a fair amount of experience considering. Things are starting to hurt now though, the mobs are a lot harder and hit a lot harder then I’m used to. They all summon as well, making it a lot more difficult as a necromancer. I can’t kite. Since none of my characters have leveled over 80 yet, the encounters are yellow and white and it doesn’t take long before I’m face first in the dirt. We had a few tricky pulls last night but over all we did alright. I’m finding more and more use for my enchanter (it’s nice to have at least some version of slow) and still enjoying playing quite a bit. 

Hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, and I’ll see you in Norrath!