2009

Saturday Book of the Day

stargrace October 3, 2009 0Comment

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

stargrace October 2, 2009 1Comment

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?

stargrace October 1, 2009 5Comments

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!