March 2009

Stepping out of my Box

((A portion of my online game collection – games include Warhammer, LoTRO, EverQuest, EverQuestII (and lots of expansions) LineageII, World of Warcraft,  GuildWars, Vanguard, Dungeon Runners – I don’t have a box for W101 but that’s on my computer as well as Dungeons and Dragons Online, and multiple free to play games.)) 

I make no excuses to the fact that I am a fan of the fantasy genre, my book shelves (only a small portion pictured here) house books I’ve had since I was a teenager. Subsequently my gaming choice (remember I haven’t been gaming all my life, I’m still pretty new as far as that’s concerned) has followed a pretty straight and narrow path. I’ve played pretty much nothing but fantasy-type games with a few others tossed in for good measure, nothing too serious. 

So it was that I came to a decision that I should expand on this a little bit, especially if I’m going to write about games. For no other reason then personal experience for myself. I like exploring new things, I like embracing new perspectives and this is an easy way for me to do that. I have a few friends who are playing EVE online, and I decided to see if I couldn’t get a 21-day trial (a buddy pass, longer then the typical 14-day ones). Apparently the game is going through a re-launch on the 10th of March, with a revamp to the beginning experience for new players so that the learning curve (which has been referred to as more of a learning cliff then a curve) is easier to grasp. I was lucky enough to be sent the 21-day trial and as soon as that goes live I’ll be signing up to give things a whirl.

So why EVE?

Well. It’s COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone. I actually don’t care for sci-fi at all. It puts me to sleep. I’m not a fan of space ships or galaxies or anything else. I know, I should be flogged. I’m looking at the game with an open mind though, and I’m even excited about it. With games like DC Universe Online and others on the horizon I really want to be able to step out of my box and explore games (and enjoy them) that I would have never pictured myself playing. I did give City of Heroes a shot a while back, but I found (at the time) that the controls were really difficult for me to get a grasp of, and while I absolutely adored character customization it simply didn’t grab me. Granted, I also didn’t play for a large length of time. 

So here’s to new experiences, and exploration. I’m going to continue writing about (and playing) my games of choice of course which will probably remain and always be some sort of fantasy type game since that’s what I love to play. Nothing wrong with breaking out of my personal mould a little though, and giving something new a try. Even if I don’t end up liking it.

Finishing off DoD Missions

My gaming session started off some what poorly yesterday as I completely forgot a key fact in crafting. Specifically when you’re working on baking, and brewing. My enchanter has been some what neglected in the ways of food and drink, and of course I had a whole bunch of supplies stored on her to make misty thicket picnic baskets when I had a few free moments. The key word there is had

I finally had some free time – and harvested an egg so I could make dough (finally) and 10 veggies which was all I was missing. I logged the enchanter in and began doing my combines. I sort of shook my head as I noticed some ingredients I had previously purchased were no longer there. In fact, NONE of the edible ingredients that I had purchased were there. No food, no drinks. Nothing foraged.

Ack! I’d COMPLETELY forgotten that if you store food and drink supplies on your character – your character will EAT IT if you don’t have a supply of regular food and drink placed before all of the crafting bits. Dang it!

So I spent a few hours re-collecting all of the supplies I needed (I was attempting 100 combines, which is 400 baskets and needless to say requires a lot of room). Once that was done I proceeded to work on my baking skill, and while I didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have liked I did get a great deal of space back in my inventory by the end of it. 

When Ultann and Ninga were around it was off to finish the Depths of Darkhollow missions for level 70, and subsequently get my last spell on each character. I was excited, it was all stuff I’d never done before. One of the prettiest zones I’d been to was the one pictured above. I can’t remember the name of the zone, but it was one of the last ones needed for the level 70 spell. The mobs were all very cool looking (like the dragon pictured above) and the whole zone actually reminded me of the void shard zones in EQ2 where there’s open sky with stars all around. Apparently this zone is not used for anything else aside from this mission, which I think is a shame because it’s really spectacular. Another of the 70 missions included being transformed into a mob and finding hordes of Drachnid which was fun but frustrating. It’s hard to learn how to play a new character and even harder when the mobs you’re trying to take down hit hard, and when you revive you have rez effects. It was still fun, but required a little patience. 

The missions were painless, and before too long both my enchanter and my necromancer were sporting their level 70 spell. We also killed Gloomfang again who dropped another greater and glowing rune for the enchanter, who finally got her group haste. Next glowing I get goes towards her group mana regen spell, another nice one to have. She’s about 75% into level 72, while the necromancer is 40% into level 74. 

Once we finished those missions we had to do 69.1 in order for the enchanter to get a spell she had missed. It was pretty quick, and we rounded up the evening doing the DoN missions for Ultann so he could get his 250hp/mana aa that he apparently missed out on the previous time we did it. This included “raiding” Emoush again, who we took down before he even respawned his shaman buddies. 

I believe we’re going to be working through The Buried Sea next, something about a whole lot of faction needed to purchase spells (and gear) and earning lots of orux. I have explored a little through this expansion and done a few missions as well as some quests in Katta, but I haven’t ventured too far into it yet. After that is Secrets of Faydwer, and then of course the latest expansion that released in October, Seeds of Destruction. There’s still so much of this game that I haven’t explored yet, and I’m loving every minute of it.

Nomadic Gamer