September 2009

Crucible, Obelisk, and Fun!

stargrace September 9, 2009 2 Comments

Yesterday was a good evening for gaming. Today all SOE games are down for a 12 hour database maintenance, so everyone was in game doing their thing. The daily double was Obelisk of Ahkzul, and the hot zone was Crucible. I picked up the quest for the daily double, but ran out of time before actually doing the zone, thankfully the quest stays in your journal for a little bit of time, so you can save it for another day. Maybe once the servers are up I’ll get a chance to do that today.

Crucible was very kind with the drops, a templar master dropped off of a mini named (the one that spawns before the real named in that room where you place the happy little trees?) – the fabled robe dropped off of the Master, and a fabled ring / earring dropped off of the final named in the zone which went to a bruiser. A good time was had by all, even if we didn’t do too much after that.

Before the instance runs I helped Ibeogur get level 80 on the berserker, and made him a full set of T1 and T2 shard gear – over 150 shards later, he was completely decked out. Now he just needs to work on that epic!

When I switched over to Kithicor from Najena (and a few other servers I was playing on) I also started playing on Oasis with some friends that I’ve known for quite some time. Instead of splitting my time between four or five servers, it’s down to two – Antonia Bayle, and Oasis. I decided to start a little guild on Oasis, just out of habit, and leveled to level 5 which is not that big of a deal at all but since I’m the only member it’s fun. I think a little place to escape to when you’re not really in the mood to deal with anyone is very important and not a bad thing at all.

Time to get back to the regular work grind for me, also, expect a few more Vanguard posts later this week if I can squeeze in the time!

Gaming

Anathema, again and again and again!

stargrace September 8, 2009 No Comments

I was browsing through my screen shot folders and realized I have well over 2,000 screen shots from the last four years that I’ve been playing EQ2 (or is it 5 now? 5 this November? I always forget). Every once in a while I clean them out and move them from the EQ2 folder into another section, and I’m simply in awe over the fun I’ve had in this video game over the years. The people I’ve met and the friends I’ve made. It’s been fantastic.

Yesterday was a holiday here in Canada (as well as the US) and I spent it in game – almost all of it, which was wonderful and a lot of fun. The hot zone for the day was Anathema in Everfrost – the previous days it was Guk, which I didn’t get a chance to take advantage of. Anathema is fairly easy, and I ended up going to the zone three times. Once on my dirge / mystic with Ibeogur (berzerker) and Ultann (shadowknight) and another time with my warden, and the third time with my illusionist. The first time we went two fabled pieces that I had never seen before dropped, a ranged item for the dirge, as well as a caster / bard earring. I was hoping the healer necklace would drop but alas we would have to be content with the other two. Ibeogur also managed to get himself a very nice legendary cloak and inched himself closer to level 80.

The second time I went, another two fabled dropped as well as two master spells. The throwing item (which went to a bruiser) and – the healer necklace. Even though my mystic didn’t manage to get herself one my warden did, which is almost as good since the mystic is currently wearing the TSO blue shiny necklace.

The third time I went to the zone we didn’t see any master chests at all, and no fabled loot. I figure all my good luck must have worn off by that time. It was still a great way to spend an afternoon, I collected a handful of shards and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I’ve been working on gearing up my baby defiler who is lacking pretty much every slot of gear aside from her T1 set that she’s wearing. Since she hasn’t done a lot of quests that gives me a lot of options.

The swashbuckler also inched her way through the majority of levle 76, and is just 30% shy of 77. Before too long I’ll want shards for her gear as well. This will make my 10th level 80 character. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I’m not that upset over having 14 characters as I may have once been. It’s just my play style, and I don’t need to be the best or at the top of everything in order to be having a good time. I figure I’ll continue on with this play style until February when the new expansion hits, and then I’ll settle down to two characters (one per account). Of course I always say that and then end up with a million characters strewn about all over the place with no real decisive action. We will just have to see!

It was still a great way to end a holiday weekend, especially after having some fantastic time with the family earlier on. Now if only this Tuesday didn’t feel like a Monday! Happy gaming, no matter which realm you find yourself in, I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

Getting there slowly

stargrace September 7, 2009 No Comments

Yesterday was a pretty progressive day, though not exactly in the ways that I had thought it would be. I decided to play my swashbuckler, struggling to get her past the 71-75 hump in order to be able to pick up shard quests for her (those daily quests give quite a fair amount of experience). Teaming up with a few people we wandered through Sebilis, getting discovery as well as fairly good experience, and a lot of aa from named. In fact the entire zone was empty the whole time we were there, which really surprised me. I know Sebilis is going to be undergoing a little bit of a make over as far as named and timers are concerned in GU53, and I guess now I can see why.

The swashbuckler struggled past level 73 Saturday, inched her way through 74 Sunday, and is now sitting at roughly 70% through level 75 thanks to doing a handful of shard quests in the Commonlands. Since she is on the same account as my mystic who has been hording shards forever, I had 40 of them already in my collection. I had another 40 but I used those to gear out my 80 defiler, also on the same account. Once this swashbuckler hits 80 that will be 10 (yes, that number is correct) level 80 characters. Probably a good spot to stop. I do love my alts.

There’s one benefit to having so many characters (aside from being able to fit into almost any group minus playing a tank role) and that is that when February finally comes around and the new expansion goes live (as well as an extra 10 levels) I’ll have a whole selection of characters to choose from depending on where my mood seems to settle at the time. There are a LOT of down sides to having so many characters (lack of achievements, lack of shard gear on some, etc) but since I’m not heavily raiding, and it’s so incredibly easy to level up, I figure why not.I love knowing the ins and outs of each class, and I think that I play all of them fairly well (healers and support stronger then dps and tanks for example).

I helped out part way with an Overking raid yesterday (pick up) but mid way through I was beginning to feel a little sick, so I had to call it early. It was still a fairly nice day and there’s still one more day left of this holiday weekend, which I will hopefully be able to take advantage of fully and game throughout. We shall see!

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you this holiday Monday.

Gaming

Gaming Tidbits

stargrace September 6, 2009 1 Comment

Yesterday I spent most of the day at the cottage with family, so I didn’t play a lot of any game in particular, though when I came home I did get a little time in EQ2 before crashing for the evening. It was one of those absolutely beautiful days outside with no humidity, and I had a really good time. There was family gathered who I haven’t seen in 15 years or so. I had to leave a little early because I was feeling pretty sore, but I hope everyone still had a fantastic time.

Game wise things are a little all over the place right now. In EQ2 I’ve taken to leveling up my swashbuckler who is sitting at 74. I hate leveling through these levels, unless you quest grind there is no real nice way to gain experience (I’m waiting to do TSO dungeons when I’m 75 so I can pick up the shards for those zones too). I’ve been questing in Kunzar Jungle which nets me a fair bit of experience and the mobs are still yellow and orange to me. The swashbuckler is a completely different style of game play for me – I’ve always played support or healer classes. This is my first true DPS class and I find it refreshing.

I haven’t done any decorating in game, but I did take my mystic out and do the dwarven work boots heritage quest – mostly because she had the quest for the fabled version from Unrest forever. It was nice to get both of those quests out of the way.

Aside from that things have been quiet. Waiting for GU53 to go live, Wednesday all SOE games will be down for 12 hours for data base maintenance, so that will be another quiet day. I’m hoping to get a little more Champions time in, as well as Dungeons and Dragons Online and who knows what else.

I played some Neo Steam earlier this week and worked my little mechanist up to level 10, it’s very much a grind game but some times that’s what you’re looking for.

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

Creating a Character

stargrace September 3, 2009 3 Comments

I love character creation. In pretty much any game no matter how large or small the options are, I love the way I can (at least some what) customize my character in order to suit my mood of the day (or some other theme I have going on). Yesterday I decided to play around a little more in Champions Online – I absolutely love their character creation, but at times it can leave me feeling a little lost, because my head is not already bursting with ideas for super heroes.

To the right is Silhouette.

I haven’t finished fleshing out a background story for her quite yet, but it certainly fit my mood yesterday and I had a lot of fun creating her. Once I was done character creation I popped into game intending on setting up the UI and key bindings to my liking, but for some reason it wasn’t recognizing that I wanted to bind the number pad 8 key to walk forward (or any other number pad key for that matter) so I quickly grew frustrated. Even though I’ve played quite a selection of games over the past few years I still like to play a particular way – in fact maybe even more so now because I’ve been playing for so many years and while a lot of the keys may not be similar, I am typically able to at least bind the movement keys into a comfortable position.

I am not your typical WASD gamer, I play with the number pad for movement (I also dislike mouse clicking) and switching takes time for me to get used to. Since I couldn’t seem to re-bind the keys last night (it simply wasn’t recognizing them, for whatever reason) I decided to log out early. It took me a few hours to create the character I wanted to begin with, so I was pretty tired by the end of it.

Champions Online is not my typical MMO. I’ve never been an enormous super hero fan – but I really do enjoy trying new things and I’m always pleasantly surprised when a game that does not fall under my ‘usual’ category ends up enticing me into playing for a length of time. The depth and time it takes for me to create a character certainly players into that, I can develop a sort of ‘bond’ with my character, and relate to her (no, I don’t dress all in black and red with chains wrapped around me and my eyes peeking out from a hooded mask but wouldn’t that be awesome?!) in some odd way.

It was still a relaxing evening, and I’m looking forward to exploring more today!

Happy gaming, no matter where it finds you.

Crucible, Obelisk, and Fun!

Anathema, again and again and again!

Getting there slowly

Gaming Tidbits

Creating a Character

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