October 2009

How Did you Spend your Weekend?

This weekend was pretty good as far as getting stuff done goes. Little Willamina the ranger is sitting at 40% into level 77, so she’s inching her way up there. I have a lot of gear stored up for when she finally hits 80, as well as a fabled shield from Outer Stronghold. It procs a dps buff and since rangers are typically using their bow, it will make a good pair with a main hand weapon and her mythical. She has set up a little room in Baubleshire, and I’ve been decorating slowly. What a change the new L&L quests have made, she has 20 of them completed so far which is more then any other character I have simply because I’ve never really been bothered to pick up the books in the past. Vampire will still have to be quested, but the rest are fantastic.

The ranger managed to complete all of the Everfrost instances, and she’s been through the lavastorm ones as well. She has been to CoA in Commonlands, but still needs the two others. I’ve also taken her to Evernight Abby, Obelisk of Ahkzul, and Anchor of Bazzul so it’s easy to see where the experience is coming from. Hamal crafted her three pieces of T1 void armor last night that I’ve added to the collection of ‘things I can wear some day’ and I’ve been working the three factions she eventually needs for her epic. If all goes well, in two weeks she will be sporting her mythical.

The ranger is completely different from the classes I typically play, which is probably why I enjoy it so much. I love being ranged and I’m used to it simply because of playing mages and healers. I love being able to actually DPS (granted my enchanters and bards do their fair share but it’s simply not the same) and I’ve got attacks that hit for more then I’ve ever personally been able to hit for before (sniper shot is hitting for 25k or so when it crits) which is a lot for me. Sure, it’s not that impressive when you consider an assassin and their skills, but it’s still neat.

Most of the weekend was spent in EQ2 with some time devoted to Wizard 101 too. This week is going to end up being fairly hectic but I should still manage to get my daily posts done here.

How did you spend your weekend? Be it in Norrath or some other game (or no game at all, maybe you were busy with family going ons?) I want to know, so post in the comments section!

Remember, happy gaming no matter where you are, and I’ll see you in Norrath.

Wandering through Krokotopia (still)

I spent some time playing little life / storm wizard Angela Ravendust, and I’ve come to a few conclusions. First of all, being life / storm is quite painful when it comes to the later part of Krokotopia. The first section was fire, I had no issues with that, I met up with a little ice, also no real issues, but now everything I fight is storm and that’s proving to be difficult as it’s the main portion of attacks I have aside from my life attacks which are not really helping me out all that much except to keep me afloat.Lots and lots of resists.

I created a second account so I could try boxing my way through some fights, but the wizard on that account is barely level 10 so far, and I’m not used to boxing, so it will take some time. That, and the fact that I haven’t actually upgraded her account so she’s still doing the freebie areas. I will probably look into changing that today – of course the announcement about henchmen coming to the game has me thinking about whether or not I want to bother leveling up another wizard along with my main if I can just hire NPC’s – but I still think I want to.Why bother when I could just group up with other wizards to help out? Well, most of the time I’m playing Wizard 101 at odd hours, when people are at work or school and I end up finding myself running through these areas alone. I think the henchmen will be a great addition, but as Tipa mentioned they don’t fill the role of an actual person and they can get pricey. “This becomes a rather expensive way of playing Wizard101, though. Also, the henchmen apparently don’t work much on their gear, so you’ll likely end up tanking anyway”

When I got to the point in Krokotopia that I had to take a break (I’m just about ready to move on to Marleybone from what I can tell) I decided to go back and complete some of the crafting quests I still had. I managed to finish the first one in Wizard city and they sent me to Wul’yahm the apprentice crafter in the Oasis and there I picked up the first quest to create some rings. At this point I still only had one timer with an hour cool down, so it took a little while to create the items. I went back and turned them in (making a good chunk of cash) and picked up the next crafting quest for some daggers.

These ones had a far longer cool down but I was able to craft two at a time which was a huge help. Once they were done I received my apprentice crafter badge and a quest that took me to Marleybone. Problem is my adventure level hasn’t quite caught up and until I get access I won’t be able to do it. In the mean time I decided to start a small goal of picking up all of the crafting recipes that I could find, which quickly caused me to run out of gold – not that I mind in the least bit, it’s a nice goal for me.

I still haven’t adventured through very much of Grizzleheim and I haven’t touched any of the Halloween events that are in game yet – but I’m hoping to find some time this week to do both of those a lot more. Maybe I can move past Krokotopia too and onto the elusive Marleybone that I’ve wanted to play in ever since Tipa started talking about it a year ago.

Happy Gaming!

Saturday Book of the Day

Tenth Annual report on the Activities of Autumnmist Enterprises – by Xharel

Steelday, the second of Firstchill

My dear sirs,

It should come as no surprise to any of you that Lord Malfi Autumnmist has a most excellent relationship with the Far Seas Trading Company. This conjuror extraordinaire has worked with the trading company since the moment he was discovered by their Captain Varlos adrift in the high seas surrounding the Shattered Lands. Long ago he became so popular with the Company they stopped offering him any incentive to continue such menial tasks as they offer to the common adventurer and now only call upon him when they are in need of his superior skills. This makes the advent of the new Supply Division of the company quite vexing to him.

Many of you know my lord well, but allow me a moment to introduce him to those among us who have not had the pleasure of making his acquaintance. Lord Autumnmist is a world renowned Sage. He has gained the trust of the residents of the Village of Shin, creating the Legendary Paper for the Augren family and earning their Auspicious Inkwell. He’s proven his Master Sage abilities to the residents of Teren’s Grasp in the perilous lands of Kunark, earning from them the Fabled Earring of the Solstice, thought to be lost in ages past. He has spent months harvesting resources all across the globe to show, again to the villagers of Shin, his mastery of harvesting and receiving the coveted multi-colored cloak they honor in recognition of such abilities. And of course he has spent countless hours harvesting resources and crafting spells for you, the good people of the Iron Forge Exchange, as part of your certification programs. These hours were well spent hunched over the Engraved Desk workstations in the Willow Wood learning new techniques for crafting more and more powerful spells of mystic and divine force, as well as supplying the spells needed by his employees.

But given all of his accomplishments, you can imagine that the prospects of proving himself, once again, to this all new trading group in order to earn the rights of access to the special books and bits and bobs they’ve discovered in the Moors of Ykesha is, well… disappointing to say the very least. Especially considering the missed opportunity to garner the enormous amounts of favor they were granting in the heady early days of discovery due to his commitments here at the Exchange. It may be that in the future he will focus on building a personal relationship with this group, perhaps when he has the time to advance his skills in spell crafting again. For now, however, he is content to explore the Moors, helping to tame the new lands and continue on in his administrative role with Autumnmist Enterprises.

In his stead he has appointed a number of talented staff members to the task of building a relationship between our firm and the new division the Far Seas Trading Company. Allow me to introduce to you Maellendy Briarthorn, Trincket Gnimbledigits and Yrkin B’Gurggle.

Maellendy Briarthorn is a rambunctious young Halfling ranger who, at an early age and much to the dismay of her parents, took a strong interest in chemistry. The family farm still bears the tell-tale signs of many of her early experiments. Who knew that one shouldn’t mix sulfur with an open flame in a barn full of dry hay and milk cows? Over the years she has turned her talent for explosiveness into a lucrative career as an Alchemist and is currently working through her Advanced Tradesman certification with your most esteemed organization. Recently she has taken great strides forward in her abilities and is hoping to journey to the Village of Shin in the near future in order to be introduced to Supply Division representatives.

Lord Autumnmist discovered Trincket Gnimbledigits while adventuring among the ruins of Ak’Anon, now called Klak’Anon by many, when she was very young. The distraught gnomish lass was nearly comatose, in a state of emotional shock and clinging to a bag of intricate carving tools. She muttered to herself constantly and exhibited an unnatural, for a gnome, fear of anything clockwork. Lord Autumnmist coaxed her out of her hiding place and brought her back to Qeynos where, after a good cleaning, a hearty meal and many years of intensive therapy, it was discovered she had a knack for working with gems and soft metals. She quickly rose in the ranks and became one of the leading Jewelcrafters of the company, now entering your Advanced Tradesman certification training program and eagerly looking forward to traveling to the Village of Shin with Ms. Briarthorn. She does, however, still have some issues regarding her early confinement in Klak’Anon and approaches clocks and other ticking objects with extreme caution and much reluctance.

Yrkin B’Gurggle is a talented young Froglock Paladin from the idyllic Castleview Hamlet. Raised in a family of devout Marr followers, even when it seemed the gods had left us, Yrkin firmly believes that helping others is the highest calling one can achieve. To this end he has cultivated his natural abilities with wood and metal to help shelter and furnish the homes of the steady influx of refugees joining us in Qeynos. With the recent discovery of the Moors of Ykesha, he is eager to return to his people’s ancestral homelands and strives to forward his knowledge as a paladin, righting wrongs in the lands surrounding Qeynos. However, he understands that his considerable talents as a Carpenter will allow him to have an impact in the Moors much sooner than his ability to swing a sword. Recently graduated from your prestigious Advanced Tradesman course, he immediately took an internship with the Supply Division. His talents have grown expansively under their tutelage and he is rapidly becoming one of their favored Carpenters.

As you can see, gentlemen, Autumnmist Enterprises is committed to forwarding our relationship with the Far Seas Trading Company, further cementing the excellent ties between this expansive corporation and the great city of Qeynos. If any of you should have specific questions regarding our current goals, or wish to personally interview any of our staff members, I will be more than pleased to arrange a private meeting at the Lion’s Mane Tavern in the South of Qeynos.

Until next we meet, I bid you farewell and much good fortune.

Xharel Dalesong
Chief Executive Secretary
Autumnmist Enterprises

Live Event at the Spires

The call went out to 70-79, a live event was happening at the spires in Loping Plains. The Champion of Hate, an 84×2 epic had spawned just after the spires were completed. Little Willamina was too small at level 75 to help take this encounter down, but I watched eagerly on the edge of my seat while people gathered their forces together.

I love watching the server come together for an event like this. It’s not something that happens often in EQ2 as opposed to EQ where guide quests can have 100’s of players taking down encounters. The 12 people went and pulled – and a few seconds later everyone was dead except me, and the Champion of Hate.

The second try ended far better except that I went link dead just as the epic was about to die, guess I had my settings on too high. Figures!

It was still a lot of fun to watch and I hope everyone had a good time. I like events like these because they are encounters that are NOT taken down by your typical raider. They were a collected group of non-raiders who happened to be at the right place at the right time. Congratulations to those who got to partake!

What’s your best customer service story?

Yesterday little ranger Willamina (pictured to the right sporting her seafury buccaneer cloak) managed to inch her way to level 72 thanks to the help of Shadowgeist and Hamal. Between instances like Crypt of Valdoon, zones like Mistmoore Catacombs and Castle Mistmoore, as well as a brief stint in Sebilis (which was ‘fun’ to get to at level 71 when I had no sokokar or druid rings completed) she gained her levels as well as a few aa.

It was time to finally put on that level 72 mastercrafted gear, as well as make her first few skills. I am slowly going broke again (alts always seem to eat up all my cash) but I know I’ll make it back once I start actually questing with her again. I still need to get a cloak, some charms, food drink arrows and 1 weapon for her, but she’s well on her way. It helps that I have crafters who can create everything – and Hamal made me my jewelery as well as my skills.

Now the slow grind to 80 begins, and I do think it will be quite slow. Considering the ranger only has 1 day and a few hours played, I can’t really complain.

I’m also making adept3 for my bruiser who is level locked at 15 – and her paladin friend who is locked at 15 as well. We haven’t done any quests yet, and I plan on completing a bunch of those before we raise the level cap to 20. Having some adept3 should help the process. Once we absolutely run out of things to do at level 15 we’ll decide on where to level next. I’m excited about it, for once not rushing to end game and being able to enjoy the game in a completely new and different way that I haven’t experienced in a while. I do tend to take my time through the newer content, but stuff that’s been around for a while  I have typically already done a million times.

While working on my claymore quest (with the mystic) I came across a large issue. I had picked up the quest while my character was a defiler, the quest differs from the Qeynos version. Mid way through I betrayed over to a mystic, and upon completion of my quest the NPC would no longer speak to me because I was not the right alignment.

I petitioned when this happened, and after a bit of a wait (longer then I am used to because there are exceptionally heavy load requests going on at the moment) a friendly GM contacted me and asked me to log over to her so they could help me out.

After five years of playing EQ2 I stick to my opinion that the GM’s in EQ2 are some of the BEST you will ever find, in any game. They may not always be as prompt as you would like but they certainly try to take care of absolutely any issue you may experience. As long as you’re not asking for something impossible, and you’re kind and polite when you do ask, they will try their hardest to help you out. I have contacted GM’s a large number of times about everything from deleted characters, to housing issues, name issues, lost items, selling things to merchants by mistake, quests, and pretty much anything else you could think of. Each time they were polite and helped me to the best of their abilities. This sort of service is something I really treasure, and a service that I think more people need to appreciate. Sure, if you ask for something off the wall they’re not going to be able to help you, but they’ll still try and answer.

What about you, have a story of in game customer support (doesn’t have to be EQ2 related) that you’d like to share? What are some of your best MMO related customer service stories? Comment below!

In the mean time, happy gaming and I’ll see you in Norrath!