Taking a Ride
stargrace 
I love doing older quests in zones I don’t remember too well. Like this romp through Antonica!
October 2009
Saturday Book of the Day
(Every Saturday I post one of the player created books I have gathered so far in my library for everyone to read. You can find this library in the Magical Housing on the Oasis server under the name of Minxes, in North Freeport. If you’d like to donate a book to my library, simply create a character on the Oasis server and send Minxes mail requesting a blank book, I will gladly send you one and you can send it back to me once you’ve written your story. Then I’ll add it to my library.)
THE BALLAD OF BATTLE BRIDGE
attributed to Doctrina Fidus
edited by Arthalion Gatecaller
“WHEN we first came to Odus
We were strong, and wise and bold!
The Erudites were brothers then,
In braver days of old.
But as the days did lengthen, and
We set our minds at ease, then some
Questioned, saying, “Why shall we
Not do whate’er we please?”
Is not all knowledge bountiful?
Will not the greatest fall?
O brother, let us study death:
The greatest power of all!”
But others held that Erud’s Vision
Such things did gainsay.
For surely if we searched all things,
Our minds would go astray?
More heated grew the speeches,
And more tension filled the air,
When passion grows, our reason shrinks,
Our intellect to impair.
As we grow hot in faction,
So in culture we grow cold.
And the fire and mind of Erud fled,
From glorious days of old.
So those who pledgéd forward,
Fled the city of their birth.
And travelled further southwards,
To abide beneath the earth.
And there they gathered knowledge,
And their minds they filled with hate,
For those they thought had drove them out,
And cheated them of their fate.
Years passed in preparation,
When at length they judged it right,
A challenge came to Erudin
To muster their strength and fight.
So the mighty host of Paineel marched out,
Well armed with spell and shield,
But northward, war had slumbered;
There were few to take the field.
The armies met in darkest wood,
Across a river wide,
Where but a lonely stone-wrought bridge
Divided side from side.
Each side surveyed its enemies,
With frowns and purséd lips.
And spells were readied, weapons gleamed,
Hands whitened on shield grips.
And to the fore of Paineel’s host
Came dreadful and mighty Cunart.
A shadow knight of awesome pow’r,
Hed vowed this war to start.
To the centre of the bridge he came,
Defied the kin of light:
Your skills are small, your magic weak,
You have no will to fight!
But hark! The cry is Atos!
And lo! The ranks divide!
The paladin of Erud
Comes stately in his stride!
And Atos faced to Cunart there,
And scorn was in his eye.
Ill smite thee dead, in Erud’s name,
And the gods that you defy!
And Cunart looked on Atos,
His lips were in a sneer.
I stand for right, and knowledge,
And freedom from foolish fear.
So, come and fight me, paladin!
Believest thou art tough?
Call all thy strength, and cursed be he,
Who first cries Hold, enough!
Thus said, he rushed on Atos,
Who, not a thing dismayed,
Took up his shield, and charged him,
With fearsome clash of blade.
They clashed upon the stone-wrought bridge,
And strove with might and main,
Their swords rang out, smacked back and forth,
Till blood flowed down like rain.
About them rose the war cry,
As the armies locked in fray
When Erudite fought Erudite,
On that destructive day.
For the arrows sped, and the swords they flailed,
Death wrought on every side.
And in the middle, on the bridge,
Atos and Cunart strived.
The battle raged about them,
And they struggled hand to hand,
While magic zipped, and corpses piled,
Upon the blood soaked land.
At length, Atos and Cunart,
When day had turned to night,
With bruising flesh, and gasping breath,
Allowed a brief respite.
As they stood there, all heated,
Though neither’d his fill
They saw the sun had fallen and
The forest had all gone still.
And Atos eyes grew wide, and they
Beyond his hated foe,
Beheld the corpse of Cunart,
Torn apart by a magical blow.
And Cunart could see Atos there,
His face relaxed in peace,
His breast transfixed by arrow-shot,
His troubles were all at cease.
The champions gazed about the scene,
The carnage of the strife,
The Erudites that lay so still,
Forever bereft of life.
And they realised as they looked about,
At bodies stained with red,
The war had long been over,
And now they themselves were dead.
The ghost of Atos looked on Cunart
Raising his weapon once more,
And rushed upon his foe again,
To never abandon the war.
And Cunart, nothing loath at this,
The spirit shadow knight,
He readied spell and summoned skill,
Returning himself to the fight.
And though that war is ended now,
The weapons gone to store,
The shades of Atos and Cunart
Still clash in ghostly war.
When travelling, dear Erudite,
Do listen close, I pray:
For oer the bridge, the whisp’ring wind
Still carries that dismal fray.
There Atos combats Cunart,
There the darkness meets the day.
They struggle still, and shall until
We find a better way.”
Mentoring, Crafting, and just Exploring
Instead of wandering around wizard city, or questing in Norrath, I decided to spend most of my evening yesterday (once power was restored) exploring Telon again, getting familiar with my characters in the hopes that I’d spend more time in Vanguard over the next little while then anything else. I’ve played off and on since release and while it’s never exactly been my ‘main’ game, I’ve always had fun. A huge factor of this is of course my guild, Safe Haven. Every time I log in there are no less then 10 people around and in the evenings that expands to 30-40 people. We’re not even the largest guild on the server (Seradon) I believe the Platinum Order is the largest.
Kanad from Shattered decided to play as well, and we met up in Thestra (Renton Keep) to test out the mentor system. He was playing his 14 shaman and I decided to play my 19 psionicist (enchanter). In Vanguard mentoring has a level range of 5, and there seem to be a few bugs. The instructions claimed I could still use my spells, but I would get unknown error messages if I tried to cast a spell that I had not already gotten one version of by level 14 (my mentor level). Once I was unmentored the spells worked fine. Once he leveled to 15 I was no longer able to mentor him until I hit level 20, granting the 5 level range again.
We worked on URT (United Races of Thestra) quest chains. By the end of the evening we had completed both the gloves and the shoes, then we decided to break and mend, get our new spells, etc.
It had been a LONG time since I crafted anything for anyone, but I still remember the click frenzy known as Vanguard crafting. I spent hours upon hours working on orders in order to farm sigils. One feature Vanguard has that I really enjoy is the vgplayers web site, where the achievements of your characters are auto-blogged. You can find the blog I have for Faydai (my 44 blood mage) here. Of course the main reason I mention crafting is that a guild mate requested an upgrade to five pieces of jewelery and I actually disco’d two of the five pieces (granted, only one shows up on that blog atm). I believe discoveries re-set every time the server re-sets but perhaps it doesn’t any more.
In any case, I was pleased to be the first person to make those particular pieces, and happy that I hadn’t forgotten how to craft. I delivered the bits and decided to call it a night, I may not have done a whole lot of leveling, but it was still fun. I’m looking forward to getting a lot more Vanguard time in the future (especially since this happens to be a long holiday weekend, Monday is Thanksgiving here in Canada).
Until then, happy gaming and I’ll see you in Norrath Telon!
Shard of Love and other Goodies
Yesterday I did the shard of love, hoping for some of the more rare items to drops like the sai (beautiful particle effects) the flaming buckler (fabled), and the tower shield (my paladin would love to use it). Hamal has been hoping a pair of valor wings would drop, something else we still haven’t seen yet. We didn’t have much luck the first two times through the zone and yesterday proved to be no different. We got a few of the rotten pomegranate, some benches and a whole slew of fireworks.
I saw the snow globe to the right linked in chat, and absolutely fell in love with it right from the start. Hamal happened to have one, so even though it didn’t drop for me in the instance he gave me his and it now joins the other goodies I have stock piled in the rangers house.
Speaking of little Willamina, she’s closing in on level 78, which means only two more to go before she hits 80. I’m really exited about this, though I am really NOT excited about all of the faction work she will have to do in order to obtain her mythical. I imagine that will be how I level her, by working on the faction ahead of time. She also needs to complete the Casualties of the War of Fae heritage quest which rewards the raincaller bow in order to progress her mythical. Only makes sense for a ranger. I’m looking forward to hitting 80 so I can start on this.
Has anyone else gotten some really neat things out of the shard of love? I have seen some tattered items that have a very unique appearance that I know people are clamoring over (they’re very expensive on Oasis though) and I’d love to get a hold of some of the 1h weapons – it seems like all I can get to drop are the 2h ones that are useless to me in my appearance slot when I never use a 2h weapon.
If you’re looking to explore the instance yourself, the starter quest begins in Antonica or Commonlands (outside the city gates) or in TD on the docks (and I’m sure there are starters in Neriak and Kelethin as well). You are sent to visit a number of locations and eventually find yourself in Everfrost. Until you are on this stage of the quest you won’t see the npcs gathered at the end of the dock, nor the portal to SoL.
Once you’re done running all over the place you can summon the portal to open as you wish. Only one person in the group needs access, and it mentors from 50-80 much like all the other TSO zones. There are a few quests inside related to the zone as well as named, and discovery (which means a lot of aa). There are no real items that drop in the zone, only appearance, so if you’re looking to get awesome loot you’re going to end up disappointed.
All in all, it was a nice quiet time spent in EQ2 last night. I spent most of my time in Wizard 101 which I’ll talk about a bit later, and spent some time wandering through Telon (Vanguard).
Hope everyone has an amazing Wednesday, just think only two more days until the weekend! Hugs, and see you in Norrath.
Hidden Cache and Gobblerock’s Hideout
I absolutely love the new chronomagic feature in EQ2. It was a brilliant idea, and while some people would have harped about the fact that level 80’s are mentoring down to farm zones I think even with that factor it’s an amazing feature. Why? Because those zones would have been empty were it not for chronomagic.
In case you’re still in the dark about chronomagic, there is a daily mission associated with it. Speak to any of the chronomages in Qeynos Harbor, East Freeport, Kelethin, Gorowyn, or Neriak (though Neriak is missing 2 of the NPCs) and you’ll be offered a quest to mentor down to a specific zone.
Yesterday the zone was Hidden Cache, a level 60+ instance in the Sinking Sands.
While the merchants who stand next to the quest giver do offer some gear for faction it’s not really that impressive. What IS impressive is the miniature dolls you’re allowed to purchase once you’ve completed the mission. Each mission has its own “boss” plushie – the ones for Hidden Cache and Gobblerock’s Hideout are pictured to the right side.
There are over 30 of these plushies (and hence 30+ missions) for players to partake in. I am not sure if they go in a specific order but so far I haven’t seen any duplicated. These enchanted replicas are VERY expensive, 1p+ a little change each but they also signify a task that you’ve completed, and are fantastic for any home.
Of course I’m collecting these little miniature bundles of fun and putting them on display in my Norrathian Museum. So far I only have two, but I want to add the rest to the collection over time.
Speaking of my museum, Oasis doesn’t have nearly enough books for sale. In fact there are pretty much no player written books for sale. If you happen to be a player on Oasis or a player on another server and have a book you want to donate to my library, please let me know and I will send you a free blank book to write it in. Simply send mail to me on Oasis, my character name is Minxes (well, one of them). I have over 100 player written books to date, and I’d like to keep that going.
What has everyone been working on since GU53 went live? Have you been going out of your way to actively pursue achievements? Perhaps you’re spending all of your time mentoring down to complete quests? Have you explored the new Miragul’s Planar Shard (I saw a REALLY nice healer charm that came from the zone yesterday, it was sweet). Has your gaming changed any since GU53 or is it pretty much you still doing the same things you would typically do?
Let me know!
Happy gaming, and I will see you in Norrath!