2009

Late Summer Festivities

Lord of the Rings Online is free to play (for those who have inactive accounts) from the week of August 18th to the 24th (or so my email told me yesterday morning). I decided to patch it up and take a peek, as one of the (many) games I love to play but simply don’t have enough time to warrant paying monthly for only two or three sessions. Plus it’s very similar to games that I’m already playing and paying for monthly. Anyhow!

I patched, logged in, and received in game mail telling me that there was a summer festival going on, and I should rush right there and take advantage of it. Which of course I did. I forgot how to actually get anywhere in game, so I decided to walk. It was a long walk. I did some harvesting along the way (and completely forgot what tier I was on, or what any of it was used for) and checked through my quest journal to see if I recognized anything at all about my level 17 rune keeper any more. Which I didn’t. It’s been a little while.

I did make it to the festival, picked up all of the quests in the area, one involving a whole lot of drinking. Wobbled around the dance area, found lost objects for one of the hobbit, and then decided to call it an evening.

I enjoy the free weeks that Turbine constantly throws my way, even though none of them have enticed me to re-subscribe to the game. It’s nice to be able to dive in for a short while without a cost – if I had of thought about it at the time I’d have signed up for the lifetime membership way back at release. Ah well. There’s still just not enough time to play everything I want.

Shards of Destiny – Excited?

I love reading up about the game updates that are coming to EQ2, I enjoy the way the world feels as though it is always evolving and changing – and with so many other games on the market these days I think that it’s an essential part of game play. People will grow restless and bored if their online world remains the same year after year.

So game update 53 is just around the corner, supposedly set to go live in September. I am not too excited about the new content being added per say (after all, I haven’t finished Lavastorm yet since its revamp, nor have I explored the order of Rime) but I am excited about a few of the features coming to the game.

The number one feature that I’m excited about is auto mentoring. I’m of two opinions about this particular bit of news. On one hand, I am exceptionally excited because it will mean I can go and mentor down by talking to an npc, and be able to complete quests and raids at a level that won’t turn them all grey. This is fantastic news to complete old quests, kill named that I haven’t killed before, work on quest chains that I’ve never completed. I’m excited. It means Spirits of the Lost may be a potential target once more, not to mention all those other raids that I’ve never managed to do with various characters. I’ve posted numerous posts in the past about how I dislike the fact that in EQ2 you can out level content rendering it all but useless. I miss being able to obtain loot from all levels like EQ or even WoW. You don’t WANT your player base to look back and say they have no reason at all to enter a zone. Ever.

On that same idea, I hate the fact that now people will have even less of a reason to help out their friends and mentor new players. You could typically find all sorts of people willing to help you out if they had not defeated an instance or a boss in a dungeon before because they could mentor you to help out, but with the ability to auto mentor you could just set yourself 10 levels higher then the encounter (rendering it “green” which is easy mode) and defeat it yourself. Whether or not this actually creates any issues will have to be seen, but it’s something that stays on the back of my mind. Maybe the opposite will happen and even more people will mentor down and group together helping one another out. Wouldn’t that be grand!

Being the avid house decorator and owner that I am I was also pleased as punch to hear about the new revamp coming to housing. I believe it’s only a select few houses that are getting updates, but as I look over my collection I’m fairly confident I own at least one of every type of house available, something some where is going to get a face lift.

I hope there’s enough content coming forth to keep people entertained until February. I do have to say I was quite sad to hear that the next expansion is being pushed back from its typical release date – but I know these things take time and the developers schedule is certainly not bound to my personal wants and needs (aww).

We’ll just have to wait and see!

Still leveling in WoW

Since things have been so very busy I haven’t exactly had a great deal of spare time. I’ve taken to playing World of Warcraft in the few spare moments I have because it’s so simple to play and it allows me to shut off my brain completely for an amount of time. It’s never been my main game for that exact reason, too.

I own burning crusade (though I’ve never taken advantage of it aside from making a blood elf or two) but don’t currently own Wrath of the Litch King. I haven’t had any reason to buy it – for as long as I’ve played I’ve never made it past level 50 before. I’ve played off and on since release, so that may seem a little sad, but it’s just because I’ve been playing on a very ultra casual mode. Off a month on a month for four years.

A friend managed to drag themselves over to WoW with me for a little while, and we entered the recruit a friend program. Having bonus experience is nice. So far we’ve made it to level 50 – I have a now 51 priest, though she’s not especially well geared and I have no idea where I should be questing.

I’ve also got a 40 hunter, 40 shaman, and 36 mage. Those are my four alts – used mostly for crafting and farming (especially the hunter). The hunter and priest own epic mounts since I use them the most. Making money has been fairly simple the few times I actually played, if I don’t play of course it’s harder to make money (explains why I’m currently broke in EQ2 on the AB server too).

It’s been fun. Relaxing. It’s always nice to have a secondary game to fall back on when you just don’t want to think about anything at all.

How a Saturday Should Be

Despite the heat wave Ottawa seems to be going through lately (ugh I’m eager for snow) yesterday was a fantastic Saturday. It was one of those days I could just play whatever game I wanted, I had no obligations anywhere, and I had a blast. I love days like that. In fact I love them so much I think Sunday will be following in Saturday’s footsteps.

I started the day out in World of Warcraft. I’ve settled down on the Ravenholdt server where I have four characters, one actually being a main. I play a blood elf priest the majority of the time tagging along with a friend who plays a troll warrior. I love playing my healer classes, and we’ve just hit level 47, almost 49. With the latest patch giving us epic mounts at 40, we’re now running all over the place at light speed. I’ve never gotten a character over level 50 before even though I’ve played off and on since release, so we’re coming up to content that is still quite new to me. I enjoy it. I also have a 38 shaman, 38 hunter, and 21 mage. They’re mostly just craft characters, with the hunter being my ‘farming’ character. Skinning and mining so I can make some coin for the others. We joined a small little guild (I mean, maybe five people in it) and it’s actually been a lot of fun. WoW still won’t ever be my main game of choice, but when I want to just kick back for an hour or two it’s certainly fun and easy.

The remainder of my day was spent patching Aion (ugh it had been a while, there was a lot of work to do) for their last beta testing weekend, and then playing some EverQuest II.

In EQ2 a few things happened. First of all, I decided to switch from playing my illusionist to my troubador. I know, I flip flop more then, well, pretty much anyone I know. I had a line of thinking for this, and it still (so far) makes sense (in my head). The illusionist has far more gear then the bard but if I concentrate on the bard for a bit that’s easily fixed. I was wearing two sets of T1 gear, and with my spare shards decided to switch so I was just wearing the bard set. Now I need more shards (as usual). I really miss being able to trade shards via the craft system.

There was a pick up leviathan raid going on, and I decided since it’s my troubadors next update I should try to get in. After sitting in group for 30 minutes we discovered that no one in the raid actually had access to leviathan – and so I decided to leave and free up room for someone who DID have access.

Many people don’t realize that YES you do need access to enter the Leviathan raid. So what is this access?

You need to kill the Overking, and you also need to kill Venril Sathir. I had already defeated Venril Sathir the previous week, it’s the first encounter I needed for my epic. All I needed was the Overking. Low and behold Paradise Lost decided to head to Chardok and take down that Dizok, so I tagged along to get my Leviathan flag.

There’s no quest involved, and there’s not any way (currently) to tell in game exactly what you have access to and what you do not have access to. This day in age I think that’s very important to a game. How do I know if I can get into Poets Palace – while there may not be a whole lot in EQ2 that requires access, there are still things. Not to mention those blasted druid rings, how on earth do I keep track across so many characters who needs what. It’s frustrating to say the least – I did hear that they’re adding a keyring type command in an upcoming patch / expansion, so we’ll just have to be on the lookout for that.

We had two groups of guild mates and two groups of PUGS who needed the update. The raid was incredibly smooth, no wipes. Exactly the type of raid I enjoy! I was starting to get a little irritated at the heat by that time, with both the fan and the AC going, so I logged off for the evening and decided to spend an hour or two in bed reading before I fell asleep. All in all, it was a perfect Saturday, and I had a great time. Hopefully everyone else had a fantastic weekend thus far as well, looking forward to hearing all about it!

See you in Norrath!

Saturday BoTD – Not ALL Evil – The Woes of a Gentle Assassin

Not ALL Evil – The Woes of a Gentle Assassin – by Clereece

Dedicated to: EKEKIA, the nicest assassin in all of Norrath ! Windday, Warmstill 18, 3821
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Livella had always believed that she had been born on the wrong side of fate.  Even her chosen field of training – that of an assassin – daily mocked who she really was deep inside.

Her mother, a Fae from Kelethin, had fallen mysteriously in love with an Arasai Mage, of all people!!   Her mother had thought it a novel idea to name her only daughter Livella, which spelled “all evil” backwards in the common language. Maybe being only half Arasai was at the root of Livella’s many conflicting moral dilemmas she seemed to always find herself in.

She knew that if her full-blooded Arasai cousins and relations on her father’s side ever caught wind of how she felt about killing certain creatures she found too beautiful to harm, she would never be able to hold her head up high around her extended family of evil persuasions.  But just thinking about killing such creatures as the Seamist Sprites, the little Nibble fawns, the regal Antonican stags or the glade deer, just to name a few on her can’t-touch list, made her feel ill.  However, the Nathsarian frog-biters – no matter how lovely of form – were some of the nastiest bunch of blooms she had ever come across! She would handle them on a case-by-case basis.
The only reason Livella had become an assassin was because it gave her the first opportunity to be out on her own.  She had sorely tested the patience of Qillara T’Despth in Neriak. But through it all, they had both managed a lopsided kind of loyalty and acceptance of each other.

Livella felt there was a whole BIG, beautiful world out there just waiting for her to make her imprint for the better!  Even though she had been trained to kill, she didn’t HAVE to involve any “innocents” in her slayings, did she?  She would just have to pick and choose her assignments very VERY carefully – and hope to Karana that word of her unusual “habits” never got back to her farther or any of his family. He would surely disown her!  And possibly, he might even turn his back on his wife of 40 seasons just for giving birth to such a misfit!! (Livella shuddered at such a thought and knew she would never be able to live with such guilt.)     Livella contemplated how even her style of hunting was unique among most assassins.  She preferred to use her magically imbued Oak Long bow to engage her “misfortunates” as she felt it gave them a more sporting chance, than sneaking up stealthily behind them, catching them unprepared.  Livella only used stealth when there were multiple unfortunates that needed to be dealt with.

Livella knew she should seriously consider re-training as a ranger. She had heard nothing but good things about the famous Ranger scout trainer Elendia Starleaf.  But she also knew without a doubt that she could not do this, not while there was even a slight chance  her Arasai father could learn of the betrayal!

So, for now at least, all the beautiful creatures of Norrath, who would not harm even a pesky dragonfly, were safe — at least as far as she had anything to do with it!

And her biggest secret of all?? She had become fast friends with Ferith’Anar, the stunningly beautiful white unicorn of Oakmyst Forest !
Livella wanted to do the  Fae  happy dance every time  she thought of the many talks she and Ferith had participated in over the past several seasons.  Her unicorn friend told of many stories and legends about pure magic, the power of belief, and the various moons-old laws of nature that worked tirelessly non-stop to keep the pure magic balanced.  She spoke often of just how important this balance was in holding back the ravages of  the more complex and malicious forms of evil.

Ferith’Anar had always treated Livella as someone worthy of her friendship.  For this, Livella was eternally grateful.  She had finally found a creature, the likes of which none in Norrath could compare — whose kindness, friendship and loyalty were totally free of conditions and restraints of any sort.  Unconditional acceptance — what a rare gift!

This gift was a blessing that Livella secretly hoped to spread to others; to somehow brighten and lighten this fog of indifference and chaos she came across wherever she went.

She was going to be a positive influence, even though she was an assassin, even though she was part Arasai — even though most of her family lived in that dark fog of most of her family lived in that dark fog of evil intentions, paranoia and distrust.

She was going to make a difference, even if it killed her !!
Thank goodness she had recently come across a distant cousin thrice removed — Clereece the Mystic — who could bring Livella back from such a consequence.  She knew she was going to need all the help she could get !!

~ The End ~