2009

An Instance, some leveling, and a Party

I know I already used a similar picture not that long ago, but in this one we’re all showing off our incredible moves, so it had to be posted. I haven’t found a lot of time to play EQ2 lately but I managed to squeeze in a little time here and there. Yesterday I did Obelisk of Ahkzul with my troubador (much neglected) – it was the hot zone, but my luck held steady and we didn’t see anything drop. I am not sure what I would have done had I see the healer shield drop, I’m pretty confident I’ve done the zone at least 200 times and it’s never dropped.

I also managed to level my bruiser up (along with some help of course) and she inched her way from level 15 to 47. With vitality, and an experience potion running (as well as the 50% bonus from having max level characters) it wasn’t that difficult. There’s a system of zones I head to now. Wailing Caves from 10-20, Fallen Gate from 21-30, Runnyeye from 31-42, Cazic Thul from 43-48 or so, then it’s off to Sinking Sands, Clefts of Rujark and all of those wonderful places. These of course are zones I head to when I have a level 80 mentoring me, on my own it would take quite a few quests and a lot more zones.

I haven’t attempted to obtain many of the newer achievements yet, the ones that required timed runs through zones, but I’m hoping to later this week. I’m also eager to see the list of changes / fixes go in, some have been a long time coming.

Don’t forget that this time a round the 5th anniversary of EQ2 is being celebrated on the TEST server, and if you plan on attending you will want to patch WELL ahead of time, because it takes a while. This means that we won’t be goodies to take home to our mains (unlike previous years when it ran on all servers on individual days) but I’m still expecting a whole lot of fun to take place. Hopefully I’ll see lots of people there, too!

How has everyone else been keeping busy? There’s got to be some gamers out there still playing MMOs, right? Right?

Saturday Book of the Day

(( Every Saturday I try to post one of the books from my collection in the Norrathian Museum I have on the Antonia Bayle server. If you’re interested in donating a book to my library please feel free to mail Ellithia in game (I’ll even send you a blank book if you’re creating from another server) and if you’d like to visit the museum yourself, please feel free. It’s located in North Freeport, at the magical housing in the mage tower. There are over 100 player written books in my collection so far, and I plan on adding as many as I can. ))

Sarek the Betrayer: Vol. 1 by Rezikai

It was some time after Rallos Zek and his sons had been defeated during the second invasion of the Plane of Earth. After executing one of the Raethe council that our story begins, it is with the remaining Rallosian forces on old Tunaria. The Ankexfen had became ravenous goblins, and scattered quickly as their curse hit, as did the Giants. The Orcs stayed as vicious as they could, but started to loose their knowledge of history and such lost future ways to obtain better tactics, theirs was a race doomed to slow decay of their cultures history.

The last of Rallos’ children to suffer were the Ogres, cursed with stupidity their mighty empire slowly crumbled, but they fought to retain much. Learning what they could of the new arcane art of necromancy. Trying to ensure their older generations held strong in their minds, and the old ways.

The Council of War in Oggok, horded their remaining forces on Tunaria, they knew that eventually all of the old generations would die and their knowledge of tactics and war with them. They had precious little time to conquer all that they could before these generations fell to the curse.

They put their faith in the greatest of their field generals, Sarek. They entrusted him to become the great warrior of Oggok that K’Ven had been for the Teir`Dal of the Rallosian mercenaries.

Sarek was a formidable warrior, one of the few remaining generals who had survived the invasion of earth and returned. But his lust for power was so great he was willing to forsake his people for it. He called out to the gods, asking their favor in secret.

He wished power that was beyond the mortal realm. His call was answered when many of the good gods agreed to raise him to a semi-deity if he agreed to stop the remeaining Rallosian armies from destroying the rest of their creations.

He agreed, and set in motion his plan of treachery. He went before the Council of War in Oggok, and made his case for the invasion of the unknown lands to the far southwestern reaches of Tunaria, and the northern mountains of Raethe where the many maddened mages resided deep past the northern pass into the Geomancer’s Citadel.

The Council of War foolishly agreed, too worried of their time left to conquer for mortal kingdoms while Sarek had his sights set much higher. His grand plan laid before him, as he ordered three quarters of the Tunarian legions of the empire to Oggok to set forth a mighty campaign. The War Council were cautious at so many warriors assmebled, but their blind faith in Sarek, and his assurances that so many were needed to complete more campaigns before the final years of the curse fully engulfed their race let their better judgement slip aside for their own lust for power.

Sarek ordered the massive force into two main columns. The first would head North into the Geomancers Pass, on until it seiged the citadel. Taking the knowledge the crazed mages had back to Oggok to learn from and help slow the god’s curse on their race. The second column were destined south deep into the land of the Dead Hills, where the fabled Tal`Thex secrety rested with its secrets of the Elddar’s most powerfull mages, that could be exploited for the Rallosian empire.

The plan of attack was for Sarek to lead the second column of legions to search for the  pagoda of Tal`Thex. While the first started the great trek north to seige the citadel and overtake any resistance of the geomancers.
If so needed forces from the second column could reinforce the first. The Pagoda wasnt expect to have much resistance aside from some old living golems and perhaps some ancient Elddar soldiers, it was expected to be a quick victory. The two massive armies set out from Oggok, marching towards what they thought was the saving of their race.

The route of the first coulmn lead through geomancers pass, the legions encountered the crazed mages, free roaming animations, summoned elementals, golems, and unliving amalgamations. They encountered light resistance at first slaughtering the maddened wizards and enchanters they encountered who defied them.

The Ogres pressed on, fighting through more and more heavier resistance passing massive golems and larger enchanted animations. The assualt of the animations and golems were relentless they needed no sleep they needed no food, they just kept coming. The Ogre commanders searched for the mages summoning them but rarely did they ever find a mage or enchanter in control of these pets, as if they lived on their own.

The tide of battle seemed to turn when they finally reach the base of the geomancers citadel. A massive set of arcane towers created from ages past resting atop sheer cliffs of a ashen covered mountain, now inhabited by the most powerfull of animations and mages created their own dark rituals of elemental magics.

It was here the true number of defenders of geomancers citadel were shown, thousands of animations and golems, elementals and amalgamations stood assembled as they readied to defend their pinnacle of power. The Ogres had taken losses but would not be turned away and launched their armies at mountain fortress.

The Legions of Oggok took heavy losses but to die in battle was honor in the eyes of Rallos! Days into the seige the animations and elementals withdrew shortly, which bewildered the Ogre commanders, they saw this as a chance to gain more ground up the massive cliffs, they pushed their remaining forces foward into the wrah of the amalgamations and golems.

It was here the few powerfull elven and human mages that dwelled within the citadel unleashed their trap. massive waves of water elementals came from the beaches on the western shore of the mountain cutting a swathe deep into the Rallosian lines. Those cut off turned to battle in front and behind while the commanders held stubborn unwilling to withdraw. “For Rallos! For Sarek!” they cried.

Their cries of war would be their last, as many were slaughtered. The Ogre commanders realized the dire situation but tried to hold ranks to retreat and reassemble,  the true nature of the mages and wizards trap very quickly became far to obvious. The dead soldiers cut off, from the rest were being pounded and burned into lumps of flesh, reformed with elements to create more amalgamations, golem, summoned pets, and now the geomancers force had grown two fold.
The Ogre commanders in less then a day were now in peril of loosing more then the battle, their soldiers were being slain and risen against them too fast, and they needed no rest of battle. They dispatched messengers to Oggok and to the second column to call for reinforcments immediately, mere days before they would soon meet their end. Few fled battle in the Rallosian ranks most stayed until their death, all but a handfull of the messengers were slain trying to make it through geomancers pass back to Oggok.

Those very few that survived the travel back through geomancers pass reach Oggok to tell the tail of failure, they were thrown in chains as failures, traitors to the
empire. The Council of War sent messengers to contact Sarek’s column.

No word was ever recieved from Sarek’s column of Rallosians.

Simply Not Enough Time

Ellithia is sporting the Shard of Love headgear that dropped for us earlier this week – and that’s been the extent of my time in EQ2, which hasn’t happened in literally, months. I haven’t logged in. It’s not that I don’t have things to do in game, because I certainly do but I just don’t have enough time lately to do everything I want to do. Isn’t that always the case?

EQ2 is always my home base, and I’ll always return there. Especially after I glanced through this HUGE list of patch notes that are currently on test. Wow. Some pretty amazing stuff is finally getting fixed. This has been a very long time coming. Earlier this week I also transferred my 80 swashbuckler over to Antonia Bayle, so I can get back into boxing. I had closed my second account for a little while but decided that 12 alts was simply not enough, so I’ve got both accounts once more.

Vanguard is my home away from home. It’s the game I play for pleasure with a few friends when we all happen to have time, and I really love the game. The problem is it’s not one of those duck in real quick for a minute or two games, so it looks like it gets a lot of back burner time.

Aion is what I’m playing a lot of lately, mostly for work. I play during the day, when it’s quieter then normal and I can’t say I’m hating it. Leveling is slow, quests are grindy but it’s beautiful and still new, and I’ll be sticking with it.

Torchlight and Dragon Age are still on my play list as well, but I’ll probably be playing those more on the weekend when I’m not busy with other things. The weather is getting much colder and it’s almost time to hibernate for the winter. No doubt my adventures there will be fun as always.

NaNoWriMo is eating up a lot of time. I’m just over 12k words right now (although I completely slacked yesterday and didn’t do any writing – today I should be making up for it) and I’m excited about my story. It’s something that I’ve been meaning to write for a very long time, but simply never got around to. Now that the motivation is there I just need to stick with it for the month of November. I’ve also been very excited watching all my friends work on their stories, and the inspiration and motivation that bounces off of one another is fantastic.

There are five games that are on my “dang I wish I had more time” list currently. These are the Lord of the Rings Online, Fallen Earth, Wizard 101, EverQuest and Dungeons and Dragons Online. Thankfully DDO is free to play, so I don’t exactly feel like I’m missing out by NOT playing right now. The Lord of the Rings Online recently extended their special Mirkwood promotions until mid November, so I’ve been debating whether or not I want to get in on that and plurge on a life time just because. It’s one of those games I’ve really enjoyed playing but just can’t seem to find the time. Fallen Earth I managed to score a 15 day trial for, and never logged in – sighs. Wizard 101 is something I should be playing a lot more of next week, fingers crossed. EverQuest currently has their closed beta ongoing for Underfoot – and if I could convince a few of my friends to play with me, I’d probably be there a lot more. I really love EverQuest, always have, even 10 years later. It’s just not fun for me to play alone.

After the list of “I wish I had more time” games, there are a few games that I wish I could simply afford to take a peek into every so often, even if I don’t have the time. These include Warhammer (I loved the game, but lacked friends to play with), Free Realms, and Champions Online (which I played a few times but honestly never got into it, I was right about it simply not being the genre for me). Of course there’s those games I’ve tried but never stuck with (and I’ve tried them multiple times), EVE and World of Warcraft. I even bought the latest EVE game and never actually installed it (it went on sale for $5 if I recall) because I just don’t have the time right now to learn another game. I’ve played WoW off and on since release, and I just think it would have been neat to make it to the level cap at least once. My highest level is 50.

Don’t get me started on all the free to play games out there that tickle my fancy.

There really is just not enough time for everything.

Yes, I’m playing Aion

While most people have been spending their time in single player or co-op RPGs this month (how can you not, with big titles like Borderlands, Torchlight, and Dragon Age all releasing at once) I have managed to squeeze in time to play Aion on a fairly steady schedule. There’s one main reason for this considering it wasn’t that long ago that I said I wasn’t going to be giving the game a shot. Turns out I need to write about it for work, which is why I haven’t talked about it until now.

I’m leveling up a cleric as both  Asmodian and Elyos, and yesterday I reached level 15 with both characters. The game is exactly what I thought it would be, offering nothing ‘new’ to the table but then again it doesn’t really have to. There’s a pretty heavy population on both servers that I find myself on especially later in the day. I spend most of my play time between 9am-4pm EST so servers are a little quieter, but there’s still a lot going on in channels and on the PvP front.

The quests so far have been your usual ‘go kill x number of y creatures’ and ‘go to x location and bring back y object’. I haven’t had to do any grinding at all to gain levels, I’ve had more then enough quests to get me through. I am enjoying the story lines, and adding campaign quests along with ‘regular’ quests give a nice feeling and flow to the over all picture.

There are some bugs, of course. There are quests that don’t work (I’ve stumbled into a few) drop rates at times are exceptionally low, and there are bots galore. While NCSoft has taken some great initiative in blocking spammers from channels (I typically only have to block one person a day if that per server) that doesn’t stop the masses from swarming on mobs. Thankfully, you can also switch ‘channels’ in game, which basically allows you to switch zones to a less populated instance of that zone. There are five ‘channels’ open at any one time (once you’re out of the starter area, there are 10 channels to those areas) so if you find yourself unable to kill the mobs you need for whatever reason you can switch to one of five channels. It will port you there (3 minutes between ports) and you’ll be in the exact same location. This is also ideal for farming named that may be up, although I haven’t encountered any quite yet.

I don’t dislike the game, but I also am not in love with it either. If it were not for the articles I need to complete for work I’m fairly confident in saying that I wouldn’t be playing the game, and I’d find my spare time eaten up by LotRO or some other MMO as my 3rd choice (VG and EQ2 being my first two choices). I do have a friend playing with me which makes a HUGE difference, there’s no way I’d want to play this game alone it would just be.. well, not fun. Thankfully I don’t write reviews, not that this would get a bad one but it’s just another game, imo.

Dragon Age Ramblings

Today was one of those horrible days where I barely got anything done, real life kicked me around and so for most of the evening I decided to just do absolutely nothing and sat down with some great story telling from Dragon Age, and a little Torchlight – that’s right, I didn’t even play an MMO (brr, feel that? Hell just froze over). I am absolutely LOVING Dragon Age – which is a giant surprise to me, because while I do like RPGs I’ve never really been a HUGE fan. I’ve never played another Bioware game before, and discovering how much of a fan I am now is a lot of fun for me. I’ve heard a few people complain about the graphics, but the stories are SO interesting and so involved that I can easily look past the flaws in graphics and lose myself in the story line.

The one issue I have is when I play in 3rd person (scrolled in) I wish the camera followed my character instead of me having to right click to rotate it. I’m getting used to exploring in the furthest view, and then scrolling inwards for combat or if a specific item requires me to, or simply to look around a little at the scenery. It’s just something I’m personally not used to, nothing game breaking.

I won’t give any spoilers, but I wish I had started playing this at the beginning of NaNoWriMo – the story I am currently writing would have probably been a LOT different then. It’s so easy to get involved with your character based on the decisions and actions you make throughout the game, and I’m just having a lot of fun with it. For those who use the Bioware social network you can find me on there as Stargrace and add me to your friends lists. I’m currently playing a Dalish elf, rogue, and I’m looking forward to hearing what everyone else is playing!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.