If you’re planning on going to the 2009 Fan Faire, and you’re eager to get details on where it is, and when it will potentially (more then likely) be – you’ll want to listen to postcast #57 because there’s some hints and details there.
It should be a lot of fun (and yes, I’ll be going this year for my first year ever.. fingers crossed!)
Yesterday was relaxing, and a great time to play alts. The paladin, ranger, and bard were all hovering around level 26-27 and so we decided to head to Crystal Caverns again to gain experience. The zone was great, except eventually I knew it would happen. One of the mobs would run off too fast for me to land a snare on, and before we knew it there were 50 (it felt like it at least) of the mobs on us and we wiped.
By that time we were all level 31 though, and after respawning in Plane of Knowledge we decided to head to The Overthere which is the level 30 hot zone.
Creatures ranged from grey (at the entrance by the book) to red still (over by the Skyfire ramp) so we set up camp and the trusty bard started doing his thing. Before too long we were all level 35, which was great. Almost 10 levels in the few hours we played. Experience certainly has gotten faster for lower levels especially with the hot zones. I know it won’t always continue this way but it is pretty fantastic in the mean time. Of course that means now I’ll have to look up 10 levels worth of spells, and since I’ve been almost 100% melee since we started leveling, I can barely cast the few spells I do have. I’ll probably spend a few hours today working skills up so I can at least buff and snare successfully, and being able to lull properly would be wonderful too. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t have any huge plans for this weekend, hopefully it will be relaxing and gaming with good friends. I’d like to inch the necromancer closer to 80, the enchanter too. I had a little time to play Runes of Magic, and I’d like to play it a little more, I’m still waiting for the 10th of March before I begin with the EVE trial. I hope the Free Realms closed beta is going well (checks her empty mail box, aww) which is another game I’m looking forward to trying. Sorry for such a short post but perhaps I’ll have more to write about later today. Safe travels!
I spent most of yesterday evening hanging out with Kiara and others on a guided tour of the new (EQ2) Lavastorm revamp, and then working on a future article for MMORPG.com about said revamp – it was loads of fun! If you’re interested in seeing the changes for yourself you can always head on over to the test server and take a peek, or you can read all about the changes that are coming in the spoilers that have been released on the EQ2players site. You can find the lore behind the events, what’s new with crafting, the new solo content (for levels 45-55), as well as a little glimpse into the 12-person raid zone, Ward of the Elements. There is so much more coming aside from these things though, if you (like me) don’t have the patience to wait for the update it’s certainly worth checking into.
While I was doing that on my PC (always the multi-tasker) the laptop had my necromancer hanging out in Dreadspire with Ultann and Ninga, who were busy grinding experience. We were later met up with a beastlord friend of theirs who joined in the fun. Since I was mostly AFK while they were doing their thing I missed out on a great deal of the excitement (not to mention conversations) but everyone seemed to have a good time none the less. Oh, and my necromancer managed to hit level 76, and now she’s 60% into that level!
The enchanter also hit level 74, though I didn’t box yesterday aside from a brief bit later, so she’s not very far into it. The leveling has slowed down a considerable amount, but it’s about what I expected for these levels. I hear the grind from 80-85 is a lot worse, I’m still looking forward to it because to me that’s what EQ always was. Grinding out levels with great friends, and it’s comforting to know it hasn’t changed all that much.
Once the levels were earned we decided (for fun) to head back to the Guk LDoN raid zone – the zone had hurt pretty bad last time we were there. This time we dragged along the beastlord and every named within fell to us. For a level 65 zone, it was difficult, even for us ranging from level 74-80+ one of the encounters was level 80, and all of the encounters had mean nasty dots that liked to trigger and send my poor girls spinning into low health. Thankfully we had Nocbot around who provided some wonderful heals, and Ninga who was great DPS. I am always in so much awe as I watch everyone fall naturally into their roles in game. It’s a fantastic sight.
I hope everyone else had an amazing time as well, and that this Thursday is great no matter what game you find yourself in. See you in Norrath!
Random bits of stuff today, full view is better of course, you can find it here. Just patching the test server and getting read to make some dinner, needed a distraction. Far too much real life stuff on my mind lately!
It’s no surprise any more when I make alts in every single game I play. I’m an alt-o-holic, and I’ve come to terms with it. I envy those people who have 1-2 characters they can dot on while I have 6+ in any given game. So it was that I created two new alts to play in EQ yesterday. I didn’t really have a heavy DPS’er and I was debating a beastlord but I already have my necromancer pet class, so I decided to go with a dark elf wizard named Ashria. Of course I needed a counterpart to box with, and I’d already created a cleric and a druid on Luclin, so I decided on a shaman named Sharatan this time around. Barbarian at that (and pictured to the right sporting her defiant gear and the always awesome kilt-skirt). I really don’t enjoy the tutorial any more but it’s more then likely simply because I’ve done it so many times. I do the very first quest for the charm and then typically head to Crescent Reach to continue my leveling upstairs on bats and rats. I’ve got some roleplay stories in mind for the duo, and I’m looking forward to playing them when things are quiet and no one is around. I don’t expect that they’ll level too fast, but it should be fun. I think I managed to level 3-4 yesterday before relogging to my other characters to play for a bit.
We (ie: the other two I play with) decided to head to Dreadspire and grind out some experience. The zone is typically empty because most people hang out in the level 70 hot zone, which has higher level mobs. Dreadspire is the level 75 hot zone. We created a campfire in the ballroom ‘just in case’ and began mass slaughtering the room. After a little while I used my lesson of the devoted and the experience flew by.
It was such great experience in fact, that the necromancer hit level 75 and is now 50% into her level. The enchanter hit level 73, and is also 2% away from hitting level 74. Two levels in a few hours is really not bad at all, especially since she does not have any veteran rewards at all, it was just regular experience. I also managed (thanks to named smushing) to collect the rest of the glowing runes I needed for my level 70 spells on both characters, which means the enchanter finally has group mana regen (as well as her haste which I picked up the day before). I’ve bought a few base spells 71+ for the necromancer but I haven’t looked into the enchanter yet, and I haven’t been able to afford the RKII spells that are for sale on the broker. I keep meaning to work up my researching to 300 (the enchanter is currently at 200) but when you spend your time in game actually playing the game, it leaves very little time for crafting, go figure! This is a great thing though, not a complaint.
When lessons were spent in Dreadspire we decided to head to a GoD zone to work on some raid but it turned out we needed an annoying pre-quest that no one felt like doing so we went to Katta instead in TBS and worked on missions there for faction and more orux. I managed to get amiably with the merchants and purchased two new spells on the enchanter. The necromancer I decided to pass on, the spells were not that useful and were probably things I’d just let sit in my book and never do anything with. Now, I’ve never really solo’d in EQ (I know, how odd is that) in all of the years that I’ve played. I’ve always been with friends in a duo or trio type situation. I used to solo a little bit on my enchanter with dire charm when I was of level, but those days were long ago.
I know necromancers can solo fairly well with kiting, but I’d never actually attempted it because I’m always with friends as I mentioned above. Yesterday there was a lull in the group when everyone went to eat and I had already eaten, so I decided I would head to the greenhouse in Katta and attempt some kiting for experience. Now remember my necromancer may be level 75, but she’s also still very new to me, with under 6 days played and I believe she’s probably two-three weeks old now. In other words, I have a lot to learn still. I did get the hang of kiting though, especially once I stuck the enchanter pet onto the mob as well. I pull with snare, load up all sorts of dot’s on the encounter, and thankfully the path in front of the greenhouse is agro-free and there’s lots of room to move around. It does (at the moment at least) take me a good bit of mana to take down white-con mobs (about 50%) but I can do it. I was so incredibly happy and proud of myself. I realize it’s sort of silly, but it was a huge accomplishment for me. Now, I know that with time things will get better. I only have 73aa and nothing into crit dot’s yet, nothing into mana preservation or anything like that. I worked on getting my pet some affinity and some crits and then foolishly decided I needed an army of undead fighting for me as well. Hey, I don’t plan on doing anything too serious with the character, it’s all just fun, and so that’s how I spent my points. In any case, I know once I get more aa things will go better. I’m eager to hit 80-85 though, so for now I’ve got my experience set to 90/10 – 10 being the amount of aa I’m earning. I’ll get there, slowly.
I hope everyone else has an amazing Wednesday, no matter your game of choice (oh, and on a random side note, I decided to download Runes of Magic and play around in that a bit, more about it later – sure wish I was in the Free Realms beta instead so I could prepare to write about that! Teehee).
stargrace