March 2009

Hanging Out in Crystal Caverns

I was a little confused yesterday. The level 20 hot zone is Stonebrunt Mountains, which makes sense. You head there and the mobs are yellow and higher near the warrens at level 15, so level 20’s can easily gain experience there in groups, or with mercenaries. 

The level 30 hotzone is The Overthere. At level 20, the entrance to the zone around PoK and heading up towards WW is pretty easy to gain experience off of. The mobs around these areas are blue at level 20. 

Now the level 25 hot zone is currently Crystal Caverns. This zone is a huge pain in the arse to get to, for one. You have to run from the Great Divide, to the Eastern Wastelands, and then walk through a camp of VERY red and mean angry giants. If you’re not one of those lucky classes who comes with invisibility (or if you haven’t picked up your spells yet) and have no means to potions, this makes for a very difficult run. Thankfully my group managed to train there. We didn’t want to gain experience in The Overthere because – lets face it – due to the ease of the zone, everyone goes there. Yesterday there were 10 people in small clusters scattered through the zone. 

So Ninga (also known creatively as Bardface in this scenario) and myself trained to Crystal Caverns – made it to the entrance, where the mobs at level 23 were bright red. They continued to remain red, and are still red at level 27. Zam even suggests the zone as level 30-45 rather then the level 25 hot zone that it’s become. It must have once been the level 30 hot zone because there are multiple types of augments that drop from mobs – and one of them is required level 30. 

Now, don’t get me wrong here the experience was amazing. We also died a lot from wipes, being unable to snare the glorious Ry’Gorr creatures that pathed the hallways. Then there was one amazing wipe as I had my ranger on autofollow and she decided to randomly veer off of the edge of a cliff and fall to the depths below, I peeked over the edge to try to get an idea of where she had fallen, and promptly pulled up 10 more mobs onto the group. We decided to bee-line it for the zone out, but I couldn’t remember the way to get there since I had never even been to the zone before yesterday.

Ah yes, it was an amazing time. 

That’s exactly why I’m playing EverQuest right now. It’s everything I love about the game. 

We didn’t bother getting our corpses back from that foray, since experience is plentiful at lower levels. The paladin reached level 27 and about 70% into it while the ranger is just a little shy of 27, sitting at 26 along with Bardface. I have 7 levels worth of spells to purchase on both characters, thankfully paladins and rangers get significantly less then the usual casters I play. 

It was a great weekend. 

Before playing on the alts we did attempt another LDoN raid with our trio, and we decided to attempt the Guk one again. We did pretty well, making it past the 2nd named that sends you spinning out of control (often) if you have low alcohol tolerance. Of course Minxes (the necromancer) didn’t make it through that fight, but everyone else did which was great. 

Then we attempted a yellow (at 74) con mushroom who gradually weakens in power the longer you fight him. The tank died pretty much on incoming, not his fault. It went down hill from there and we called it a day on those. Before we headed there we did spend a bunch of time in Dreadspire which is the level 75 hot zone – and completely empty. Everyone seems to hang out in the level 70 hot zone which actually has higher level mobs then Dreadspire. We camped the ballroom and farmed two names that spawned there, they dropped multiple glowing runes that I can turn in for my spells. The necromancer finally obtained all of her level 70 spells, and the enchanter has one of hers (so far). Next one will give group haste (woohoo!) and the one after gives group mana regen. Both of which I’m looking forward to. Aside from the glowing runes, we also managed to snag me another pet focus item! This one is a 25% bonus, 5% better then the previous one. 

The enchanter hit level 72 and is about 50% into her level, the necromancer reached level 74! I’m almost (almost) only 10 levels away from the current in game cap. I decided to turn my achievement experience to 10% only for the next little while. I’d love to finally be at the level cap in game – I’ve never actually reached it before. Typically another expansion always comes out. I realize that it’s quite a climb to get to 85, but I’ve managed to hit 74 in two weeks so I think it’s do-able before the next EverQuest expansion comes out. We’ll see how it goes though. The enchanter doesn’t have Seeds of Destruction on her account, so level 80 will be her cap unless I can get myself a copy of that. 

I’ll have to look up the spells for each of them, as well. It never ends! Hope everyone has an amazing Monday! See you in Norrath.

List of current EverQuest Veteran Rewards

I have long been a fan of how EverQuest, EverQuestII, and Vanguard all reward their veteran players each year. Some times the rewards are more useful then others. Out of all three games that I play I find the ones in EverQuest to be the most helpful. The topic of veteran rewards came up in discussion yesterday as my trio was playing, so I decided to look up what the current veteran rewards are. 

You can find a list of them here, on the EverQuest tip of the week news archives. 

 

1st year – Lesson of the Devoted:
The player is surrounded by a beautiful blue/white glow as they gain double experience for half an hour every 20 hours.

2nd year – Infusion of the Faithful:
The player enjoys maximum resistances and statistics and a faster run speed for 15 minutes while he glows brightly with power. Usable once every 20 hours.

3rd year – Chaotic Jester:
Summons a Bristlebane puppet that persists for 15 minutes and will randomly cast various spells that provide benefits or minor penalties. Usable once every 20 hours.

4th year- Expedient Recovery:
All the player’s corpses are summoned to their feet and given 100% experience resurrection if they are still eligible. Usable once per week.

5th year – Steadfast Servant:
Summons a creature that casts healing spells upon the player and others nearby. Lasts for half an hour or until you zone. Usable once every 20 hours.

6th year – Staunch Recovery:
The player is healed with health, mana, and endurance fully restored. Usable once every 3 days.

7th year – Intensity of the Resolute:
Surrounds the player in a glow of energy and increases the power of the player’s melee abilities, spells and heals substantially for 1 minute. Usable once every 4 hours.

8th year – Throne of Heroes:
The player is teleported to the Throne of Heroes in the Guild Lobby. Usable every 72 minutes.

9th Year – Armor of Experience:
The player is granted several layers of protection from harm for 90 seconds or 10 strikes. This protection lessens as you take more damage. Usable once every 20 hours.

10th Year – Resupply Agent:
Summons a mechanical merchant to the player’s side who sells supplies and buys loot. He will stay up for 10 minutes or until dismissed by the player. Usable once every 20 hours.

 

The rewards from EQ2 include things like experience potions (that have a time range before they expire so it’s not exactly an endless supply), little appearance things (fairy that sits on your shoulder) and items along those lines. The five year reward also gave you an object that you could use once a week that would replenish your vitality – adventure vitality only. Still handy to have. 

The rewards from Vanguard include a lot of house items (which look incredible) and experience potions, as well as unique titles. Each furniture bundle consists of items from a particular race, with a distinctive look (which I adore). 

It’s these little things in game that I absolutely adore. While people were upset when the living legacy seemed to mainly reward new players and returning players and leave those veterans out in the lurch, it’s nice to see some sort of ‘thank you’ for being loyal to a game. Especially this day in age when everyone is bouncing all over the place playing multiple games for short amounts of time and never really settling (I can be blamed for doing this as well). 

Anyhow, hopefully everyone had an amazing weekend gaming this weekend and playing whatever game (if any) currently hold your attention. See you in Norrath!

A Little Bit of Everything

Yesterday was another one of those game days where you are not really sure what you’re going to end up doing, but you know you’ll do something, and it will be fun. I set my trader up for the evening, and sales were slow, go figure. It’s pretty hit and miss with the market on Drinal right now. Some days I can make 10k plat easily and other days it drags by. Either way, the coin is used simply to fund my way through crafting, so it’s not very essential to me. When I had some free time I decided to create two storage characters for Kameeko (my crafter of course) to move things onto. I created Kamsmith and Kamtailor – gee very creative, I know. I promptly filled both up with delux tool boxes and then transferred all of the supplies used for those two skills over. I didn’t get it all, but I got a great deal and it was refreshing to have a little space in my bags again. Now some time I need to transfer all of the junk off of Minxes to those two characters. 

We did some DoD missions yesterday in the hopes of obtaining the 68-70 spells, Ultann left early so that he could spend the evening with some friends, leaving just Ninga and I. After a little break (did some artwork, a new render of my necromancer that turned out fairly well) we decided to spend a little bit of time playing those lowbies we’d created a few days ago. My paladin and ranger are still pretty much naked as far as gear goes, but Ninga helped me out and gave me a few new bits to wear. One of those pieces included the clicky (need a few levels of course) paladin breastplate, which was pretty awesome. 

The hot zone for level 20 is Stonebrunt mountains, not a zone I enjoy a great deal but it was better then the ‘regular’ experience from other zones. I actually miss the previous hot zones, the Moors used to be one and so was Stone Hive, two zones I really liked. Anyhow, we headed to the Gunthak stone in PoK and from there ported over to Stonebrunt. Down near the Warrens (remember, we were only level 15 at the time) were a few camps of Kobold, and we set up a few paces away and began our leveling. 

While some people may not enjoy this type of grind, it’s actually one I relish. It’s one I’ve missed. In EQ2 you are constantly moving around, there’s no such thing as a puller, your tank is the puller (grats on the added roll) for most instances. I enjoy setting up a camp and dividing the roles between people (including puller). I would lull with my paladin and then snare pull to the camp with the ranger, it worked out pretty well. After a little bit of time went by I was surprised to see that we had already reached level 20, a great accomplishment. Of course now I have to look up five levels worth of spells (again) and maybe even think about getting some gear. All in all it was a lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed my alts. One of these days (when i have time of course) I’ll have to look into tinkering on the paladin too. 

The trio makes quite an amusing group. I hired a healer mercenary (only one of my accounts has SoD so that’s what I’m limited to for now) and the make up was gnome – halfling – dark elf (mercenary) and drakkin (resident Ninga on his bard). The little gnome paladin IS sporting an incredible purple pair of goggles attached to her helm which I adore. 

I also logged into EQ2 for a bit to make sure all was well there, updated some guild stuff (I WILL be back, I always am) and checked sales, made sure nothing had been falling apart. The new Lavastorm revamp is just around the corner along with some other changes, and I’m looking forward to writing about those. 

I hope everyone is having an incredible weekend, no matter where you find yourself. See you in Norrath!

Nomadic Gamer