June 2009

Lore for the next EQ2 Expansion – in a book!

Curious about the new expansion? Want to hear a cool new way that it’s being implemented into game? Well here’s what I found out yesterday:

Kiara says: “we’re going to be doing something fun with the lore leading up to the next expansion”
Kiara says: “with the introduction of the player written books, we’ll be putting lore installments in those books and putting them on random vendors”
Kiara says: “the books will only be available for about a week”
Kiara says:  “and we’ll be giving clues on which vendors are carrying them on the forums.  sort of a treasure hunt sort of thing.”
Kiara says:  “and they’ll be written by our lore dev :)”
Kiara says: “we thought it would be a fun way to introduce the new lore :)  the first installment should be coming the week of fan faire.”
Kiara says: “so you guys will have to keep an eye out :D”

How neat is that!

For more information on GU52 and little tid bits that came out during the tour I participated in yesterday, be sure to check out the Beckett MOG forums! I’ll be adding a whole lot of screen shots and other great things that I got to see on the test server later today.

Just a Glimpse!

Busy night and not sure if I’ll get around to posting first thing tomorrow morning (which is my usual routine) so as a teaser post here’s a screen shot of just a small portion of GU52!

Once I get my other articles done I’ve got a whole slew of GU52 information to process and I’ll be posting it over on the new (and improved) Beckett MOG forums, and of course mentioning it here on my site. This is a major GU, and it’s going to be wonderful to see it all go live (slated for the 16th for those who are curious – but that is always subject to change so don’t write it in stone quite yet!) if you’re curious about everything that’s going on yourself, remember you can always head over to the test copy server and peek around!

See you in Norrath!

That’s what Friends are For

I meant to mention this weeks ago but things have been a little frantic here. A little while ago Tipa brought my attention to an online contest being held on twitter. If you followed the great Merle Ambrose you would receive daily hints and clues to a puzzle he had that spelled out a word. By the final day when the flood gates opened, 100 players could enter that word into the Wizard 101 web site (log in with your account and you will see a section that says redeem card or code) and have a chance to win one of the pets they were giving away.

Well, I’ll be the first to admit that I slacked on figuring out the puzzle, but Tipa was kind enough to help me out, and so when the time came I rushed off to the web site and entered in the code, and managed to be lucky enough to find myself sporting the new death beetle pictured above. Emma is my Myth / Death wizard who I’ve been leveling up through wizard city getting all of the house items that I missed with my main Life / Storm wizard.

Now, the sad part of this story is that Tipa herself did not manage to win one of the pets. I felt absolutely horrible because she has been so kind to me and I only received one due to her helping me out, I was going to ask if there was any way I could give her the pet or transfer it to her some how.  I only have two pets in Wizard 101, and none of them were rare (though I have added a 3rd one that I will talk about another time) so while I was exceptionally excited to be able to show off the new rare pretty, I was also sad that she didn’t get one herself. She told me it was alright and she was happy that I was able to get one, but I was still disappointed.

No doubt there will be opportunities in the future, and hopefully we’ll see some more great prizes then.

As far as game play goes, the alt is reaching level 10, and owns a handful of house items now. I’m still trying to save up to purchase my first home, I only have access to the first two worlds in Wizard 101, and may have to call upon some friends (I’m looking at you two!) to help me reach the other areas. Of course until I raise another 3,000 gold there is no real rush anyhow.

Wow, that was.. short?

A quiet day in EQ2, but those are also good, right? Right!

I’ve been working away at transmuting which is slow moving at best. I managed to reach a skill of 300 last night which allows me to transmute items up to and including level 65. My next goal is to reach 350 so that I can finally begin working on T8 items. Arysh’ bank is completely filled with items I have been stockpiling for her, and guild mates have been helping out with items as well. It’s a shame that supplies don’t sell back to the vendors for nearly the amount that they cost, but such is the way of transmuting.

Aside from that, it was a quiet night. I hung out in the guild hall and chattered to friends, and prepared for a busy day today. After Friday things should be much calmer, we’ll see how that goes!

Sorry for the short post, but safe travels and happy gaming!

Dungeons, Crafting, and Transfers – Oh My!

Yesterday I decided to move my 80 troubador over to Kithicor. It wasn’t exactly spur of the moment, I had been thinking about it for quite some time but when I filled out the typical petition email to transfer I was told that I would have to actually call San Diego in order to initiate the move. On the plus side even though I would have to call long distance, the move would be instant.

I have never had too much difficulty paying the $50 character transfer fee – of course like everyone else I wish it were cheaper (and easier) but gaming (the bits I do for ‘fun’ as opposed to work) factors into an entertainment budget. If you consider the amount of money someone may spend on alcohol (I don’t drink), movies, vacations or other sorts of entertainment as opposed to the amount that I spend on video games and MMORPG’s in specific, I actually spend a good deal less then the average person. When you take into account the fact that the cost of my SOE accounts are also covered due to work, I’m getting a huge bargain on time spent entertained vs. cost of said time.

When the decision comes to move a character, I don’t spend any time berating myself over the cost (unless I have a hankering to move all my characters which would cost over $500 at once, that’s a big chunk of cash) but rather just move on with it and filter it under that entertainment budget. I know that not everyone can do this, and there are plenty of people out there who think that I’m crazy for having spent so much money moving characters around. Ah well.

The troubador is settled on Kithicor, I celebrated by picking up a few cheap masters and then spent the evening doing a few easy things from the laptop while I continue to battle health issues. Wpus had to head to work, but Kasul and Ultann were still around. Ultann and I headed to Karnor’s Castle to take down some named (farming in there seems to be all the rage as of late) and while I didn’t win anything of note it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards I decided to get some crafting done on the little bard, she was a 71 alchemist when I moved her over and she’s now sitting slightly into level 74. I have plans of getting 75 with her today so that she’s the appropriate level to make adornments. Speaking of which the little ratonga also happened to transfer along all of my adornment supplies, so I should be able to get the illusionist a few more skill ups today.

The troubador (aside from being an alchemist) is also a max level tinkerer, which comes in handy. Ultann, Wpus, and Kasul are all also tinkerers. My favorite item (by far) so far is the ‘call of the tinkerer’ and I’m glad there are a few handy bits out there that we can make use of.

The guild is inching its way to level 45, and new harvest bots. We purchased the root NPC when we hit level 40, and now we’re looking to get the mining NPC. This makes crafting a LOT easier, especially in a smaller guild. With only four of us in the guild and Kasul still fairly new, I’m exceptionally pleased that we’re coming along so well in levels. I still have a whole lot of Heritage Quests to complete one of these days. Ah the persistent quest of ‘how many things can you achieve in so little time’.

Hopefully everyone is doing fantastic this fine Tuesday. Have fun where ever you end up, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Nomadic Gamer