May 2009

All in the Roll of the Dice

stargrace May 23, 2009 No Comments

It’s bonus experience weekend due to Monday being a holiday in the states (have a wonderful day off!) and EQ2 has 50% bonus for both tradeskilling and adventuring, while EQ has doubled their experience so you have 100% bonus. Yesterday my dirge managed to inch her way to level 77 and part way through, which also meant she had some new gear to wear that I had stashed away. She’s got quite a bit of things from our daily instance runs that I have just been waiting to use.

Speaking of daily instance runs – CoA again nothing that we’re trying to get dropped. No Farseer, no burdened signet, no cardiocutter. At least we’ve seen the burdened signet once. We also headed to Maidens where surprisingly enough the gi of the swifttail dropped for a second time (the fabled one from the sisters) but of course since we got it yesterday there was no need for it any more (until Hamal can use it and he wasn’t around) so we just sold it to vendor. The Gift of the Queen fabled ring is what I’m after in particular from that zone, though I know there are a few other nice items. We’ve yet to see them.

Which is alright, it means we spend more time finishing the instances in the hopes that (one day) the items we need from each drop. Since the bonus experience this weekend is for crafters and adventurers alike, I may spend some time trying to get my provsioner a few levels. Of course then there’s the fact that my bard is fairly close to 80 and wouldn’t it be nice to get that finished off – as well as my paladin who is sitting at level 73 currently.

It’s fun to be in Kylong Plains doing the beginner RoK quests at level 77 as opposed to level 69. Since my characters lately have all been power leveled up through the ranks they have a huge lack of aa and being able to kill at level 77 is a lot faster then had I attempted it at a lower level. Though my gear is not exactly up to snuff (yet) and things can still hurt if I have too many at once. I do have all of my bards adept3’s which is a blessing. Paladin has her 71+ ones as well – and I managed to purchase her defensive stance master for 70p a few days ago (I forget if I mentioned it here or not, I probably did).

No doubt this weekend will see lots of gaming in both EQ and EQ2 and maybe some others thrown in there just because. We’ll see how it goes. I hope everyone has an amazing Saturday, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

O M G – The Sky is Falling! (Ok, not really)

stargrace May 22, 2009 4 Comments

For the last week or so on Kithicor the discussion in 70-79 has revolved around one thing and one thing only. The ‘nerf’ coming to procs. What is said nerf? Well simply put people are doing too much dps. So this change that is coming will tone it down, and it will tone it down by quite a huge amount for certain classes. What the change is going to do is remove any bonus’ that currently get stacked onto your procs. This means they will no longer crit, nor will they be affected by base spell damage or + spell damage or anything more then achievements and what have you.

This is going to mean a lot less dps especially for scout classes, and enchanters who rely on those procs to do their extra damage. Now, if you don’t raid you may not think this is such a big deal, and in fact I personally don’t feel like it’s that big of a deal. Not because I don’t think dps will drop drastically, it will (take a look at an ACT parse to see how often you crit on a proc and you’ll be surprised at the amount of damage it counts for) BUT the reason I’m not all upset about this change is because: We should be used to adjusting for things like this.

That’s right. Games change. Things that were once a good idea some times are not any more. As players we should be adept at rolling WITH the changes and finding new methods of combating it. If your DPS is going to drop THAT much that not having procs crit is going to significantly affect your progression and your game play then find a way to change that, be it more procing items (or perhaps less), master spells, gear, whatever. Fights will take longer – healers are going to be hit VERY hard with overloaded heals and a few other spells no longer being affected or able to crit. Why everyone is screaming that the sky is falling before the changes are even on test instead of acting maturely and sending in feedback about it, I have no idea. Remember that fighter revamp that was supposed to happen? People sent in their feedback and the idea was scrapped. Despite those of the general gaming audience who like to paint the employees of SOE with devil tails and horns, the developers DO actually listen, and contraire to what we as players may think – they do try to have the best interest of the player base at heart and they know what they’re doing! If you don’t like a particular change and have good solid reasons and proof as to why, then feedback it and let them know! If your guild is affected THAT much by the change and you can SEE this with some solid proof on the test server and the whole game is going to crumble and collapse because of this one change then let them know – logically.

Every time a big change comes people break out their ‘I’m leaving’ card and roll it around in channels for all to hear. Wait for things to get situated on the test server before breaking out the doom and gloom, and then go through the proper channels if it does affect you so much as to be game breaking. That’s all I’d like to see.

Aside from the general chatter in channels – Kasul managed to inch his way to level 71 yesterday, which was amazing. I didn’t spend a great deal of time in game (we all have our days) but I did manage to level the dirge to 76 and she’s part way to 77 now. 9th level 80 here I come!

Wpus, Ultann, and I headed to Crypt of Agony in the hopes that either Ultann’s Farseer would drop (negative) or the Cardiocutter would drop (also negative) or even the burdened signet (another no). The guild is crawling along to level 31 and more amenity which is fantastic at least. Afterwards I had enough energy in me for a Maidens run so we attempted to get the healer ring to drop (no luck) but – the fabled gi did drop, and I quickly relogged to my dirge to pick it up since scouts can use it.

One of these days the items we’ve been trying to get for well over a month will drop. Until then, we’ll just keep trying!

I hope everyone has a fantastic Friday, and a delightful weekend. I’m not sure where I’ll end up yet, but as always if you’d like to contact me you can find my information on the top left hand side of this site. Best bet is typically xfire or twitter, as I keep those up constantly.

Safe travels, see you in Norrath!

Gaming

Feel the Love (again)

stargrace May 21, 2009 4 Comments

So much has gone on over the last few days, I figured I’d jumble it all into this one post. To start, I know I’ve been quiet on the Twitter front (and in general) lately, but real life has been slightly difficult, and will probably continue to be so for the next few weeks. Nothing much I can do about that. As I’ve watched all the wonderful and amazing blogs and fan sites for various games crop up over the past three years I’m wondering if I want to keep up with my own. While I do make it a fairly good habit to write every day (and I just crossed the 1200 post mark not too long ago) there doesn’t seem to be much desire for ‘hey I love the games I play’ posts as opposed to everything else. Now, I know these moods of mine come and go (in regards to writing) and it’s spring (almost summer) so I’m feeling the itch of change, I’m sure this mood too will pass and I will indeed continue writing. I need some new avenue to venture down.

In other news, by now most people have heard that Alan “Brenlo” Crosby is moving over to a new position on the EQ2 team. It’s not so different then his current position, and Greeblen will be taking over his job. Congratulations to both of them for the promotions. I had a blast interviewing Brenlo (as well as other members of the Community Team) in San Diego when I was down earlier this year, and I’m sure he’ll do a fantastic job. That being said, Bruce Ferguson (who I also interviewed) will be moving to a new project. Wonder what it could be.

If you enjoy playing EverQuest, or (like me) play off and on remember that this weekend is a bonus experience weekend from Friday May 22nd until the morning of Tuesday May 26th! I will be in game on Drinal, probably working on that hand augment quest. I intend on dragging Wpus and Ultann with me because both of their characters are just inches away from level 85 which is the current cap. We’ll see how that goes.

Vanguard had some pretty big changes happen this week, including a level cap increase to 55, new zones, new quests and all sorts of other goodies. I do still play my bloodmage on Seradon (as well as other characters) but just never seem to find the proper time in between everything else. I’m going to try to find some time to explore the new content, as my bloodmage is pretty close to the old level cap of 50. We’ll see how that goes. I also saw that you can now do spell crafting which would be pretty nice.

In EverQuestII we’re all eagerly awaiting GU52, and there’s a preview out for one of the new Kurn’s Tower zones. I’m not sure if it sounds exciting or just frustrating. If you remember The Crucible (which it makes reference to) there’s puzzles to be solved and books to be burned that require more then my little trio (most of the time). We’ll just have to wait and see.

Game wise for myself personally I spent some time yesterday helping Hamal level, and he inched his way to level 66! We did the Crucible (mentored down to his level) flawlessly, and also managed to do Scion of Ice, and Necrotic Asylum (which happened to be the daily double). He got a few upgrades, and we got a few more discoveries. We also headed to Obelisk of Ahkzul and my mystic gathered together enough shards to get her T2 breastplate which means I only need shards for two more pieces, her hat and shoulders (for tier 2 that is). I played the paladin earlier on in the day and inched her to level 73, and the dirge later in the day who is closing in on 76. I spent far too much money buying adept3 skills for her but they were really needed. Getting resisted on practically everything (I took her to Obelisk, where the mobs were orange) is not fun.

Tomorrow is the start of an early weekend, and I may (hopefully) be feeling well enough to travel to Upper Canada Village to take those pictures I have been talking about forever now. We’ll see how it goes (fingers crossed). I hope everyone has an amazing Thursday, no matter where you spend your time.

Gaming

Vanguard Patch Notes – Level Cap Raised to 55!

stargrace May 21, 2009 3 Comments

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard Build 2427. 0 Patch Notes
Halls of the Pantheon

The Halls of Pantheon is finally here. The first part of the great architect Artera’s story has finally been released and now is your chance to prove to the gods of Telon you are worthy of their blessings. Within the halls you will be asked to do many things as you increase your favor with the gods until finally correcting the imbalance of creation and unlocking the path that leads into the halls of shattered souls and the truth behind the gods of Telon and their years of silence. It is up to you adventurers, crafters, and diplomats to unlock the secrets within the halls and prove once again that the inhabitants of Telon are a force to be reckoned with.

Feature Details:

200 new quests
1000+ new items
2 new flying mounts
Choose your alignment and reap the rewards
Find out the truth behind the schemes of Kamelott
Become a god warrior and unlock the way to the Halls of Shattered Souls
Craft enhancements making them more powerful
Craft god armor
Craft a unique epic weapon for each class
New item mods
New resistances

Level Increase

New level cap is 55
95 new abilities
Spell crafting added
Item levels increased
New crafting related quest series

Items

Bow max ranges have been reduced.
Fixed an issue where the Kamelott Rucksack had slots when it was not supposed too.
Fixed haste buff on panther mask to increase attack speed and not decrease it.
KDQ crates can now only be opened in Kamelott’s landing
Fixed an issue with fireseed refresh discrepancy

Abilities

All counterattacks now have a minimum endurance/mana cost.
Stroke of Fervor now has an endurance cost
Stroke of Conviction now has an endurance cost
All rogue abilities requiring piercing now properly check for the dagger in the main hand.
Accuracy buffs should now properly buff spell accuracy
Fixed an issue where some abilities that were supposed to only modify the refresh haste of modular attacks were affecting other modular abilities
Fixed the Halfling racial (FINALLY!!!)
Fixed an issue that prevented minions from assisting properly as intended.
Dementia now has a max target limit
Hewing the Mountain now buffs your group for 10 seconds or 1 attack
The Dark elf racial has been modified.
Warrior offensive form should once again have its accuracy bonus
Fixed an issue where abilities affected by zeal would not display added attack damage.
Time Trick 2 should now work like 1 and 3
Fixed an issue with quelling winds it should actually work now.
Treeshape will now wipe hate while it is in effect.
Many secret chains should now display their icons again.
The body enhancement buffs from KDQ should no longer wear off

General

All corpses now last 2 hours max
Paladins should now have archery skill
A camp of KDQ agents has popped up near the Bridge of Destiny.
All npcs in KDQ should now drop tier 6 skins
Tier 6 metal can now be harvested in SOD
Mobile Power suit should work correctly now
Fixed an issue with caps that has been around for the past few years. Many items and ability caps should now work properly.
Updated the character sheet to show new resist types.
Added new hairstyles for most races.
Thinned out the density of the bridge NPCs just a little.
Fix for escrow items having incorrect prices show up
All exp debt has been wiped.
All exp into 50 has been reset to 0.
All brotherhood exp has been reset.
All tombstones have been sent to escrow.
Adjusted the loot tables of Yerkj & Rinipin. They will now only drop 1 class specific item per kill.
The Ruined Jharuu Sword and Runed Jharuu Sword are now longswords.
Synchronize now works with the Summoners Cap of Control version of Time Trick.
An altar has been added to IOG
Zyxil and omac have had their pathing adjusted
Yiminil no longer roams.

Quests

KDQ quest rewards have had their monetary amount reduced.
Fix for quests not abandoning properly sometimes when expired

Raids

Karax is now level 59
Karax loot tables have been overhauled due to his level increase.

Crafting

Kaius Rufish and his excavation team have work for skilled crafters in the Pantheon.
Shajin Graywine is doing research in the Pantheon and is requesting help from talented diplomats.
Geoffery Wallsten in New Targonor has a new rumor about an artisan’s treasure from long ago. Interested crafters should seek him out.
An informant in the Pantheon named Delroz is willing to trade prestige for lore in the Pantheon to diplomats.
Skilled diplomats can parley the avatars of the gods in the Pantheon.

Known issues

The last hair selection for those races that received new hairstyle has an issue. Please try not to select this or you may see some funkiness with your avatar’s hair.

Gaming

One more Trophy Joins the Hall

stargrace May 20, 2009 2 Comments

There are very few trophies a guild of three people (four since Kasul has started playing more) can obtain unless we start running raids ourselves which is always a possibility but I think that remains a very faint possibility. There are a select few that we are able to get ourselves. We already had Darathar and Gynok (who was a mistake I believe, as he dropped for us out of the group instance) and last night obtained our third trophy – Godking. The raid for Godking used to be really hard back in the day. It’s an instance located in Silent City, which is all but deserted these days. You used to need access to even enter the zone, as well as access to Silent City. The access to Silent City was fairly easy, obtained by completing a quest in Living Tombs, given to you by a monkey who hangs out right at the entrance. You kill multiple named which could take a while as their spawn timers were not that friendly, but it was still a fairly easy quest.

The access to The Fountain of Life (where Godking resides) on the other hand – not so easy.

Every time my guild said they were going to ‘farm eyes’ for the Godking raid, suddenly multiple ‘thunderstorms’ would show up and people would start losing connection all over the place, real life would suddenly intrude, and a million other reasons why people could not be online during that particular time. Farming eyes was long, boring, and not fun whatsoever. What’s worse is you needed to farm eyes EVERY single time you wanted to attempt Godking and he is used for the Prismatic 2.0 quest finale, so guilds liked to go there often.

However, access to Godking has been removed, you no longer need to farm eyes. We zoned into the Fountain of Life with no problems. It’s a single beautiful room with peacock feathers everywhere, a long river of green ‘life juice’ that spawns skeleton adds, and various named that you have to defeat in order to get the Godking to spawn. Actually, he ‘saves’ you from the named you’re trying to defeat, and they vanish before your eyes, leaving just him.

Since the trophies are a body drop (thank you sony) we were able to obtain ours even though we have out leveled the zone. I realize that this may be looked at as being unfair, but it’s really nice that there are at least SOME trophies that a smaller guild can obtain without having to mass together 24 people. Leave the bigger / better trophies to the bigger guilds.

There’s an amazing painting that hangs behind Godking which I really wish were available to players. You’ll know the one I’m talking about if you’ve ever set foot in the fountain. It’s absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I was too busy gawking at it to actually take a screen shot, so maybe next time.

Afterwards Ultann had to head out for a bit, so Wpus decided to mentor Hamal in Sinking Sands, where they spotted two epics (Brog the Banished, and Meathooks) that we could kill for achievements. We managed to down Brog with just three of us and no healer (yes he was green but none of us aside from Wpus is that well geared) and then I logged the healer in to take down Meathooks which is a x3. Neither dropped anything at all aside from treasured (ew, why is that not fixed?!) nor did they reward any guild status as other contested epics do, but they did grant achievement points. Better then nothing I suppose.

It was getting late by the time that was finished, so I did a quick search on the broker for master spells – my paladin is going to be the next character I try to hit level 80 with I believe, and I found her defensive stance for sale for 70 plat in Freeport. There are a few things I know every tank should try to obtain, stances, and taunts. I’ve never spent that much money on a single spell before, but a stance is a great thing. My offensive stance was also for sale for another 75p but alas after purchasing that one I was down to 50p – most of my money is still on Najena and not Kithicor. Another time perhaps!

It felt nice to get my first ‘real’ upgrade for the paladin, an important one at that. She’s sitting at level 72 (with lackluster aa might I add, a mesely 58) and that is the level of the stance. We’ll see how leveling goes, but I’m excited about it. Even if I don’t have the recruit a friend bonus any longer.

I hope everyone else has an amazing day, and I’ll see you in Norrath! I’m looking forward to doing some tanking.

All in the Roll of the Dice

O M G – The Sky is Falling! (Ok, not really)

Feel the Love (again)

Vanguard Patch Notes – Level Cap Raised to 55!

One more Trophy Joins the Hall

You Missed

Leveling Up With Timewalking

The Construction of Quail Landing

Making Gold – One Sale at a Time

Timewalking, Gets me Every Time