Sentinel’s Fate is about a month away, give or take and I’ve started preparing for the expansion on a few characters that I think may be ‘mains’ in the future (I’m attempting to limit myself to 1 per server that I play on currently, which means 3). One thing I’ve decided to start doing is stock pile shinies. Not just stock pile, but collect as many as I possibly can (there are plenty that I’ve never completed) and get them ready to turn in when the expansion goes live. There are a lot of people who have the same mind set as me, and that also means that shinies are going to be selling VERY well for the next couple of months. They always do when a level cap increases, people are always looking for ways to gain extra experience and alternate advancement.
I’m also trying to get ready on the crafter front. That means ensuring I have enough supplies to get from 81-90 although there’s a chance I could simple do the TSO crafting quests in order to get the levels at a low cost of no fuel. Since the new level cap is going to be 90 and not 80, I’m going to be losing the 50% bonus that my characters currently receive for both crafting and adventuring, and I’ve been looking for other means of obtaining bonuses. Potions is a major one, and there are potions I’ve yet to claim, as well as rewards from LoN that I haven’t bothered with yet. There are also those recruit a friend mounts that offer a 10% adventure bonus to people in group that I plan on keeping handy, not to mention that all important vitality, and the five and six year veteran rewards that replenish that vitality once a week.
How are others preparing, if at all? Any words of wisdom to share with readers on how they can better themselves in preparation for Sentinel’s Fate? Let me know in comments below!
The only thing I want to do is clear out my quest journal so I have room to pick up new expansion quests (currently I have I think 69 active quests on my main). Other than that, I don’t have any desire to prepare artificial means for jumping ahead on the leveling process. I don’t play MMOs as a competitive sport!
I’m looking forward to getting XP slow, so I can really dig deep in the experience of the new content. In no way do I feel I need to do anything to hurry the leveling speed, or get plats. Mind you, I’m not saying the above ways is in any way wrong. We all can play the game as fast/slow/effective/lazy we want. It’s part of the beauty of EQ2.
Not only getting collections to turn in, but I was also thinking about going through my journal and getting any/all quests to the completion step and have those ready to go too. Even gray quests still give some xp, and AA now, so regardless of level they’re still worth doing. 1% is 1%. /shrug
Im also colleting the shinies, (not really stockpiling, but definately saving them).
Apart from that im saving up plat and try to restrain myself to by loot rights for (alt)gear ;)
Im also focussing more on getting the AA on alts up (main has 200 alrdy) to be up to speed on that..
I’ve been stockpiling shinies myself. I’ve also been getting level 85 quests that I know are big rewards to the last stage. Beyond that though I plan to just go about it my usual way. Putzing along through the levels!
Personally, stockpiling shinies is the very last thing I’d want to do to prepare for an expansion. Presuming that there’s enough content to go around – and in my case I have some of TSO’s solo content to supplement TSF if needed – I’d rather level by actually playing content.
The tradeskill front is potentially interesting. I didn’t actually need all of my first pristine bonuses to hit 80 in the first place, so I have a fair number of those available before I start on anything that would consume the new materials. I wonder how far we can get with level 80 recipes? That said, I’m probably going to take a laid back approach to crafting for the early part of the launch. The market should be flooded with handcrafted T9 gear, if it’s actually useful for anything, and any rares I do obtain will be so valuable that it might be better to sell em and buy em back to craft with once prices settle out.
In short, I’m not actually doing all that much to prepare for the expansion. I have made a slight shift away from working on my level 80 main – I can get exp for stuff I do with her if I wait a month – to getting my alts and their trades up and running while I still have the 10% bonus for one capped crafter. Otherwise, it’ll be here when it gets here, and I’ll be happy to see it.