October 20, 2009

Shattered Lands Raids, Guilds, and Fun

Most people who know me realize that I play on two servers in EQ2. Oasis, and Antonia Bayle. I try to split my time between them but I pretty much just play where I want when the mood strikes. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I play on two EQ2 servers, I also play a lot of games. This can create issues and hurt feelings when it comes to guilds that I join, since there’s no real guarantee that I’m going to be there playing or that I won’t just leave to another game for a few months, or another server. It also creates some hardships between friendships (online ones in any case) for those who want to play with me, constantly feeling as though they have to follow me from game to game which is not something everyone can do. What I’ve learned over the years to do to combat this is to just make my own guilds, if friends want to play and join that’s great, if they don’t then that’s alright too. Hence I have my own guild on Oasis, and one on Antonia Bayle. I belong to Safe Haven in Vanguard but they are an ultra casual guild who are very used to my coming and going as it’s been years like that. In most other games I stay without a guild, though I did join the Nostalgia branch of Free Realms and I’m in Casualties of War in the Lord of the Rings Online. It has taken a lot of time and effort to figure out what sort of guilds will work for me and my nomadic play style, but I’m happy with my choices.

On that note – Torrent Knights (the guild on Antonia Bayle) managed to pick up two new guild members yesterday. We tend to be an eclectic miss matched bunch, a rag tag team from all walks of life – outcasts even at times, which is probably why we all get along so well. There is myself, Tipa, Calreth (via alts only these days), Kasul, Wpus, and Ultann plus the two new members from yesterday bringing our total membership to 7. I couldn’t be happier.

We also managed to ding level 48, which means we are two levels from new amenity as well as the ability to purchase a T2 guild hall which is something I’ve dreamed about for quite some time. Not bad for such a little guild. Especially since the guild only had two members until level 30 and then grew from there.

Yesterday was an amazing day of game play, for all members of TK. Wpus, Ultann and myself decided to work on the Shattered Lands achievements – specifically the raid achievements. We headed to each and every raid zone using chronomagic to lower our levels to 60. The three of us managed to defeat every one, though we at times did have some issues. We gathered a lot of achievements and a good chunk of fabled loot that we can sell or pass down to alts depending on our mood. Afterward we noticed that there was a contested epic x2 up in Zek, so we grabbed the two new members and off the five of us went to take them down. It was a long fight, we were defeating it at the appropriate level after all, but in the end we were victorious once again.

Once that was done I worked on my baby shadowknight a bit, who hit level 20 with a handful of aa. She’s a lot of fun, a relaxing character to go along with the others that I have. Hopefully I can continue to quest with her and rack up the aa. When she hit 20 I logged over to Stargrace (the illusionist) and helped Ultann out with his baby dirge he’s been boxing. We headed to Nest, Vaults (the one in Barren Sky) and then Halls of Fate for some massive experience and a good time was had by all. In the end it was a very busy day, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Days like that just can’t be beat.