2009

Order of Rime – Icemare (and other happenings)

stargrace June 19, 2009 No Comments

If you’ve been exploring the new ‘monument and might’ content at all (or if you’ve been listening to channels) you’ll have heard the excited voices crying out about the ‘new Order of Rime mount’ pictured above. Actually, there are two, one is a large creature like the ones you get from TSO via shards, and the other one is this beautiful icemare with ice particle spell effects. If you’ve heard about this mount you have probably also heard everyone curse and swear over the HUGE amounts of faction you need in order to obtain this mount. On Kithicor some people quested from 5pm until 2am (straight) in order to get this mount. No, it wasn’t me (I still have not experienced much of the new content, more about that soon). The mare is beautiful, and I’m looking forward to obtaining one – but – it’s also 40p and I have been having a difficult time making money lately. I’ve been purchasing spells for my characters (masters) which has been a lot of fun but also very expensive.

Emperor’s Athenaeum and The Crucible

Wpus, Ultann, Kasul and I (the guild of three plus one) headed to Jarsath Wastes last night to attempt the new instance we found there. It was said to be the difficulty of Crucible which we have done many times before – but – I think it is quite a bit harder. At least the golems we found throughout the zone certainly were harder. We managed to get the first four named down without too much problems once we had discovered the ‘tricks’ but when it came to the area where there is a crowd on either side (Drago I believe) the lag was beginning to cause huge issues for us. We didn’t realize until after we wiped a bunch of times and left the zone what the ‘trick’ to that encounter was (calming the crowd, anyone?) so we headed off to The Crucible for our final instance of the night. I did manage to get Arysh a neck upgrade from Athenaeum which was nice, but it would have been better had we finished the zone. There are just some things we can’t complete on the first try with only four of us.

Crucible was kind to us, and it dropped a very nice symbol that Arysh and Wpus rolled gainst each other for. Wpus of course had his loaded dice, and ended up winning – afterwards Wpus and Ultann headed to shard of fear and managed to get a bloodthirsty choker to drop which I was given for my troubador (thank you)! Now I just need to get one for the coercer, and I’ll be set. We have better luck in those zones if I don’t go along (plus I was VERY tired).

Bits and Pieces

Thanks to EQ2 traders, I know to be on the look out starting the 20th of every month for the ‘moonlight grotto’ events that will be making their way through EQ2. These are small mini events that reward players with some neat house items and a lot of fun. To read more about the event, please be sure to check out the article here. I’m excited about all the house items (as always) and I’m looking forward to these neat events. The aa experience increase has been VERY nice, despite some people saying that they don’t notice the difference, I think it’s amazing.

I had enough shards to get another T2 piece yesterday, and things are moving along nicely. The Fan Faire starts soon and I am exceptionally eager to hear all of the announcements that result from that. So many people I know are going, it’s going to be great that’s for sure. Maybe next year!

Have an amazing Friday, no matter where you find yourself. I’ll see you in Norrath! (and Telon, and I’ll probably be playing some Aion this weekend if anyone wants to meet up).

Gaming

A few Instances, and some crafting

stargrace June 18, 2009 1 Comment

Day two (after the game update) and I still haven’t seen any of the new content. Not too concerned though, I’ve had plenty of other stuff to do. Yesterday was one of those rare days when everyone was home – but we still didn’t get a lot accomplished for whatever reason. Is anyone else experiencing some horrid lag ever since the update? I checked the technical forums and I appear to be the only one. My PC is down to 5 frames a second at best in instances, no matter what graphic setting the computer is on, the laptop slightly better at 15 frames. Our guild of three plus one headed to Ykesha’s Outter Stronghold to test the waters and the zone completely ate us up and spit us out – I am willing to bet 80% of our issues were due to the lag I was experiencing (Ultann was also having massive issues with his laptop and has for a few days now which are frustrating at best since he boxes the 2nd healer).

After our failed romp through Ykesha’s we headed to Evernight Abbey, which is a very easy and simple zone. Of course my characters ended getting stuck out in the sunshine when it hit because I was preoccupied with curing the main tank and not moving myself out of there, but aside from that it went well. It was the daily double and we were rewarded with extra shards, which I promptly used to make a third T2 piece for the coercer.

The evenings here at home have been VERY warm, even if it’s not that warm out side I face west, and the sun is directly in my apartment from 2pm onwards. Even with fans going it’s uncomfortable, and so for the rest of the evening we puttered around the hall and I worked on my transmuting.

In the end that went VERY well, I can now transmute items up to (and including) level 80 on Arysh my coercer. She is my second transmuter to have made this treck, the first one being my warden (also named Arysh) on the Najena server. When I did it the first time I swore I’d never do it again (just like I’d never betray again, right) and I’m hoping I will never level up another transmuter again.

A huge thank you to my guild mates Kasul, Ultann, and Wpus for helping me work the skill up. They crafted items with level 1-9 rare ingredients and I transmuted them for supplies (as did Kasul) so that the process would be cheaper. I spent a grand total of 10p and only that much because I got tired of doing T1 stuff so I purchased a few higher tiers in between to break up the grind.

I am amused to see people spouting doom and gloom about the sales of masters on broker. The sales are still going fine, we just are not going to see the 300-600 plat masters selling for that amount when they can be researched in 30 days. People will STILL buy masters, for their alts and if the price is right because lets face it, we’re impatient and if we have the cash we’d rather have instant gratification then wait 30 days. I’m glad the prices have gone down a little.

As far as the nerfs to procs – my group IS doing less DPS, by about 100-300 DPS but it’s not earth shattering or game breaking. We’ll find other bits of gear and items to wear over time that will compensate for this, or our fights will last a little longer. Of course if I wasn’t lagging all over the place I’d be able to judge this a little better.

I’ve been checking the broker daily for player-written books (remember to filter through the ‘type’ tab, this is done to prevent players from titling their books after in-game books (like craft) and ripping off players) and so far have only spotted one for sale. I purchased it but it must have been more of a test book then anything else (thanks Buds, the author) because it was only two pages of text. Kasul also placed a book for sale (and it sold!) so there is at least a very slim market for those on a non-rp server. The only issue being that the rares actually cost far more then the books will sell for at higher tiers. I really wish they had used common materials. Granted, if you sell 100 copies of a T8 crafted book for 5 gold a pop you’re going to more than make that money back.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday, no doubt I’ll be spending most of it in Norrath. A few days left of my quiet week, woot!

Gaming

The Ultimate EQ2 RickRoll

stargrace June 17, 2009 8 Comments

In case you’re not sure what that is: Here

Gaming

Aion Beta Impressions

stargrace June 17, 2009 3 Comments

Now that the NDA is down for NA, I’m free to talk about my Aion beta impressions. Don’t forget to take a look at Tipa’s impressions too, they closely mirror my own. The game is not innovative, but that’s not what I was looking for. I don’t need everything to be new and make me think that it’s the most unique game of all time – I want specific features, coupled with a few bugs as possible, and that’s exactly what I got.

I love the beta, I’ll be honest. I had not given much thought to the game this past little while but as soon as I was playing, I knew I’d probably end up buying it when it came out. Will I keep subscribed? Not sure, we’ll see.

Character creation grabbed me and pulled me into the game before anything else did. I’ve always loved the character models from Guild Wars and Lineage II (even if I didn’t love the games quite as much) and there is so much customization, I haven’t seen this much since Vanguard released (and when it did most of their character models were looking more like 3rd world children then anything resembling people). While you can’t exactly make an ugly character, there are so many options you can at least look unique. There were over 30 hairstyles for females, with a huge selection of colours, and many sliders to adjust proportions all over the place. People WANT to feel a personal connection to their character (not because they look alike, though if you do that’s neat, but rather because you put the time and effort into making the character the way you wanted to look). Already I was impressed.

When I logged in there were people EVERYWHERE but the game still ran smooth. It was much like every other MMO where you have quest hubs and they send you out to slay creatures and bring back body parts and goodies to the NPC’s. People were friendly, talking in channels and exploring. It was a little difficult to obtain my quest objectives because there was just a huge mass of players, but that was to be expected. Re-spawns were fast which helped.

As Tipa mentioned in her post, the weather affects your character. I went afk for a drink of water and came back to watch my character brandishing her make shift umbrella over her head snarking at the sky for opening up over her.

The world is absolutely beautiful. It’s as though they took the bits from Lineage II and Guild Wars that I liked, and left out the bits that I didn’t like (lack of jumping anyone?) which I find just perfect. There is a lot to see, little eye candy treats everywhere that draw the player in. Not to mention, the combat had me squeeling and going “woah that was SO COOL” every time I pulled off an attack – and I was playing a priest, not a melee character.

Maybe it’s the Asian flare (in a game that’s not a F2P which, well, we all know how those can turn out) and the awesome cries of battle the character makes as you choose them from character select, or the fantastic moves as you press your attack keys – but I loved every second of it. Sure, it could have just been due to the fact that the game is new (to me) and there for it’s not a move I have already seen a million times in the past, but it was wondrous and I enjoyed playing a great deal.

I’m looking forward to the next beta event which is this weekend, the download was REALLY slow in order to obtain the game (a full day and a half of downloading) but now that I have it, it’s much better. I don’t want to get too burnt out from the game already before it even goes live, but this is certainly one that I’ll be giving a try once it comes out. Plus, there’s flying. Who doesn’t like to fly?!

Gaming

It Begins!

stargrace June 16, 2009 3 Comments

GU52 hit live servers today, and I decided that instead of rushing right out to RoK zones and having to battle hordes of players who were also after the new updates, I would instead putter around the guild hall, crafting and ogling the new items from a distance. First thing I noticed is that a few previously no-trade items were made trade-able. Able to be listed on the broker, too. Neat. I attuned them since I still use them all, and set about having Wpus make me one of every book there is available for players to make.

I decided that much like my ShutterCal project, I would start an online diary – for every single day that I am online, my character will post a journal entry. Each journal will be added to her library, and I’ve decided to use 10% of the book each day per page. ABove is just a very rough first entry, I’m sure they’ll get more interesting as time goes on – or maybe they won’t.

I’m hoping that over the years that I’m playing EQ2 (I assume I’ll still be playing) I’ll have a fine collection of memories in game that I can glance through and remember fondly, friends and adventures that I’ve had along the way.

There are a lot of other ideas I have for these books, and I’m excited about them all. Ellithia is my wood elf, and that’s what she’s writing the book in. Language options are amazing. In fact the whole patch has been pretty neat, although there are a few bugs like Unrest is not working on Kithicor so I can’t try to get the new carpenter recipe book.

Once I was done playing around with the fancy new books I decided to work on the alchemist some. With 40k faction alchemists can make some pretty nice new poisons and potions that everyone can use (as compensation for the nerf to procs perhaps?) and as luck would happen, Goudia (my troubador) has that faction. She was at level 75, I’d stopped leveling her quickly after that level because she was able to make smoldering adornments and that’s all I wanted. A few quick hours later and I’d managed to hit level 79. Using a potion and having 50% bonus experience (due to my other crafters) is an amazing bonus, even without the vitality.

The amount of achievement experience that you can gain through quests and experience is a very nice change, and I’m glad they went through with the change. I worked on some Everfrost quests just to see what it was like, and was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps my characters will make the climb to 200aa before the next expansion comes out after all (though I’m not holding my breath).

I also set my research assistants to work! The coercer is expecting a copy of enraging demeanor before too long (it’s a lower level spell that doesn’t get an upgrade) while the mystic is waiting for her T8 single target ward. I headed over to Najena and set the research assistants over there to work on a new single target heal for the warden – even though I’m not playing there these days who knows when that will change (or when I’ll transfer that character and why not get a spell while I’m at it).

What has everyone else thought of the update? Anything that you particularly enjoy? Let me know!

Order of Rime – Icemare (and other happenings)

A few Instances, and some crafting

The Ultimate EQ2 RickRoll

Aion Beta Impressions

It Begins!

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