April 2010

Crowded Times

stargrace April 30, 2010 No Comments

Last night was spent trying to progress the Claymore chain of quests but since Antonia Bayle is a fairly populated server (understatement) there were others in the zone power leveling their alts floor by floor which made it next to impossible to find the encounters we needed. I didn’t feel like spending an evening trying to fight with others for mobs in the zone, so we moved on to something else. As I mentioned in a previous post I’ve been boxing my 2nd account, and created a fury for this occasion. She is now level 67, and quite pleased to be there. I absolutely love this class and were it not for the fact that I eventually developed a case of alt-itus I’d have probably continued to play her throughout the next few years. Ah well, c’est la vie. Instead of fighting with other players for mobs I’d rather spend my time in instances to level up. At least that way you’re not stepping on anyone else’ toes.

The next city festival begins tomorrow, and I am VERY excited. I believe it should be Freeport, which has an amazing selection of black marble housing items to choose from. Stock up on those city tokens in the mean time!

I’ve got some roleplay posts that center around the fury dancing in my head, so don’t be surprised if you see those pop up over the next couple of days. Aside from that, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself! I’ll see you in Norrath.

An Evening Boxing

stargrace April 29, 2010 No Comments

For those who have asked previously, the UI I use in EQ2 is called profit reborn, and you can find it on eq2interface. The main reason that I love this UI is that you can update it automatically with a launcher that runs, and you can customize pretty much every single aspect of it, which is pretty important to me. You can keep windows open or closed, and it also allows you to click to cure, which means clicking on a persons name in the grp / raid window will target them and cast your cure. Allowing you to cure faster then hitting F2-6 and then clicking cure. The UI is also filled with helpful tidbits like walk throughs to all Heritage Quests, and a spell list, and other bits of EQ2 information.

I decided yesterday that I’d start boxing again. I’ve had two accounts in EQ2 for quite some time (approx 3 years), but get into spurts where I want to box them together, and then spurts where I do not. I like the utility of being able to heal and DPS or heal and have power regen at the same time, not to mention the fact that my main account is full of characters that I can’t delete. The second account only has 1 level 80 character (a swashbuckler) and that’s about it. Well, that WAS about it until yesterday when I created a fury on Antonia Bayle. My old raid character used to be a fury, so I’m no stranger to the class. I betrayed her to a warden to better suit the needs of my guild at the time, and instead of betraying her back to a fury I’ve decided that it’s probably just a lot easier for me to create a new character.

The evening was spent running through zones like Firemyst Gully (an instance in Antonica), Kaladim, Sinking Sands (and the instances there) and Clefts of Rujark (as well as the instances there). We finished up in Mines of Meldrath (awesome instance in Steamfont Mountains) and Klak’Anon. Since I was boxing my 90 coercer in the group power was never an issue, and she also obtained a lot of achievements and alternate advancement points. It was a pretty productive evening over all and I had a lot of fun. I’m excited that it’s almost May, and curious to see what that brings to the game.

For those who may be curious, I do still write about and play EVE Online (as well as other games), and you can find my posts over on NomadicGamer. I am also still looking for volunteer writers for that site, so if you’re interested in games at all (they don’t have to be MMO specific) please feel free to email me at nomadicgamers@gmail.com and let me know you’re interested. All that’s required is a wordpress.com account, and just let me know what email is associated with that account. I can add you as an author from that.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath.

Claymore Progression

stargrace April 28, 2010 1 Comment

As many of you know by now, one of my absolutely favorite things to do in game is to explore older content. I still haven’t completed the quests to TSO nor SF – but last night I spent the evening working on my Claymore quest and progressing through access to Deathtoll. Both of these quests are something I rarely see others doing and I’m pretty excited about it. The access to Deathtoll especially. This requires you to complete a series of quests that send you off to instances and then defeat dragons. The less exciting part is that it requires Talendor and Gorenair which are in a zone called Ascent of the Awakened x4. In order to access THAT zone you need to have completed a quest in Ascent of the Awakened x2 – and that must con to you (ie: the mobs must be at least green) in order for the symbols to drop. To make matters even more complicated you can only spawn and defeat one dragon at a time before gaining a five day lock out. That means there’s at least a five day break in between starting access to Deathtoll and finally obtaining it. Progress was made though! It had been years (literally) since I completed Ascent of the Awakened x2 and while it wasn’t the most exciting thing I’ve done at least the zone has changed enough to keep it interesting. Basically there are four ‘floors’ and you need a symbol that drops from a named for each floor. This is why the zone must con to you, because those symbols only drop from ornate chests. In order to spawn the named for each floor, you need another item that also drops from chests. These items will drop from grey con encounters, so it’s not quite so bad. Once you’ve obtained the items, you click on a little dragon statue that will be located on that floor (or you can search for it for a good 20 minutes like I did because apparently I’m blind).

Tomorrow evening we’ll be attempting Harla Dar, and Vyemm. Also making progress through Claymore and hopefully getting past the Sanctum of the Scaleborn portions are high on my list. We’ll see how that goes. Since there’s a five day wait before we can complete access for Deathtoll I’m not exactly in THAT much of a rush.

Aside from Deathtoll, I’m interested in completing Godking, Prismatic 1.0, Soulfire, and any other number of old ‘important’ quests that EQ2 has added over the years. I was talking with a friend about how if EQ2 added a progression server I’d be there in a flash, or if anyone knows of a progression guild that is just getting off the ground (ie: level locking each tier for quests / raids) please don’t hesitate to let me know! That’s one aspect of EQ2 that I just absolutely adore.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

The Number Game, and Another 90 Crafter

stargrace April 27, 2010 3 Comments

Last night I decided to do a little experiment. Since I have so many characters I’m constantly fighting with myself over who is my ‘main’ and which character out of the 12 I enjoy more. There’s no real way to measure this especially since I tend to float around from character to character so for fun I decided to make a list of who had how many achievements (remember these are different from aa) because there’s a fairly good chance that the characters who have the most achievements are ones I’ve spent the most time on, and thus are probably some of my more favorite characters to play. Does that make sense? Well, it did in my head. The results were about what I expected with a few surprises thrown in there.

• 288 – 90 mystic. I played this character almost constantly through TSO and it’s no surprise that out of all my characters she has the most achievements. I love the mystic. Sadly, I rarely play her these days. She’s also got the most aa to her name, as well as spell upgrades and gear. Why am I not playing her? Not really sure.
• 239 – 90 warden. Another character who does not come as a surprise to me, she has been my favorite for so many years but I’m always reluctant to play her because EVERYONE and their dog has a druid. They’re a very simple class to play, and if you know how to play one well it just makes it all the more fun.
• 229 – 80 illusionist. This one was a surprise to me. I haven’t really played the illusionist that much, and I can’t even recall playing her often in the last year or so. She used to be my raid main but that was well before achievements came out. She did do a little TSO raiding, but I never thought it was that much. Apparently I was wrong.
• 216 – 90 troubador. Not really surprising, I’ve raided with this character and there’s a lot of achievements that come from that. I’ve always tried to make her my main, but no one seems to want the bard unless it’s for raids. With SF that has changed slightly, but not enough for me to want to dedicate myself to playing just this one character.
• 199 – 80 templar. Another big surprise to me. This character has not been my main since I first started playing EQ2. She’s crafted and that’s pretty much it for years now. I love playing the templar, but there’s been very little reason for me to play her with the other (better) healers I have, so she sits on the sidelines for the most part.

The others in order were:

• 139 – 83 coercer and 90 paladin (explained on the paladins part at least because she is still a brand new character)
• 133 – 90 dirge (power leveled character)
• 122 – 90 coercer (just returned after deleting, on Antonia Bayle)
• 103 – 85 ranger (never played seriously)
• 80 – 87 inquisitor (mostly power leveled)

Now, knowing these numbers really doesn’t do all that much for me aside from confirming (slightly) who I enjoy playing more then other characters. I’m really a numbers and lists sort of gal though, and it was still fun to figure out.

In other news! My woodworker reached level 90 last night. That means 6 crafters down, and three to go. Jeweler, Provisioner, Woodworker, Alchemist, Tailor, and Carpenter are all resting at level 90. The Sage, Armorer, and Weaponsmith still need work.

Happy gaming no matter where you find yourself, I’ll see you in Norrath!

So Many Memories

stargrace April 26, 2010 5 Comments

I have been playing EQ2 since release, and for the last few years I’ve played fairly steadily. Typically I take a ‘break’ and wander off to other games but I’ve learned how to multi task so well that I’m able to juggle multiple games without too many issues. Lately I’ve been thinking about how many memories I have of in game events and friends, so many years worth. It’s incredible how much a simple video game can affect our lives and how we interact in it. I wouldn’t give it up for anything, and I don’t consider it a ‘waste’ of my time.

However. As the years pass I notice that things change. Players change, and those who I used to game with on a fairly frequent basis are (well to put it bluntly) growing up. Moving on to real life responsibilities and in some cases that means no more gaming. A lot of my friends have families and children who are growing up and require a lot of attention (as it should be). The gamers are not the only ones changing, but the games are evolving as well. At first I tried to dig in my heels and demand that everything stay exactly as it was but that’s a pointless effort on my part.

I often wonder how many of us are gamers for life. Whether we’re 12 or 120 will we still be playing these MMOs as we do right now. How do we make the choice to finally let go and move on to another hobby to fill in that void of time if we’re not gaming. While I don’t think that games have an age limit, I do think that as we get older the desire to game perhaps grows less. Or at least the desire to play games as we did growing up, with the community that is out there now. Perhaps I’m wrong, but those are just some of my thoughts this morning as I sit here thinking.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!