May 2010

Deathtoll Access Obtained

I know it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, especially since Deathtoll is a raid zone a few expansions back now. However, it’s also one of the very few raid zones that still requires a complicated entrance quest – and I’ve always loved that feature. I don’t like it when SOE removes the access requirement to zones even though I understand their reasoning behind it. In order to access Deathtoll you have to complete a series of quests that start on a little island in the sky in Bonemire. I can’t remember the number of times I died trying to jump onto that little island. The final ‘test’ is to take the marks of four dragons, which are all raid encounters. You also require having completed speak as a dragon (of course) in order to speak with Nagafen to get the quest to that step – and once you’ve FINALLY brought all of the marks back to Nagafen he gives you a quest for the flame shield that allows you past the barrier in Deathtoll. You know the one in the main room that’s blocked by a little gnome invention?

Out of all of my characters only ONE has ever completed Deathtoll access – and it was way back when Deathtoll was THE place to be. Completing it on a second character is quite exciting to me, and even more so because I’ve been making my way through the Claymore quest chain. I’m on the Ascent of the Awakened portion, and the drop we need to spawn the 2nd named just refuses to spawn. Yesterday after hours in the zone we gave up, but should be going back some time later this evening.

Once Claymore is completed it’s time for another run of Prismatic 1.0, then Godking, and Soulfire. Each of these quest chains have an incredibly rich history of lore, and I love re-visiting them. I’d also like to get the mark of the awakened completed, but we’ll just have to see about that one.

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

Claymore Progression and Vasty Deep: Labs

Last night was a mixture of achievements in EQ2. Torrent Knights got together and managed to take down Vasty Deep Labs, which was fun – except it was also stressful. There’s one in every group (we were three TK members and three PUGS) a player (or two) who think they know how to play their class as well as everyone else’ class better then you play and they’re not afraid to bring it up. Constantly. That was my experience last night as we made our way through the zone. I kept quiet but really wanted to say something to the player about their attitude. It’s not typically like me to sit quietly by while someone rips into the group. There are bad groups and good groups and if you think your group is doing poorly there’s always ways to offer advice without being condescending.

Eventually the zone was completed, my coercer managed to pick up a master spell (which was a M2 choice but that’s besides the point, I changed it to something else so I could scribe the spell. I also got a small ring upgrade, which replaced a treasured one I was wearing. The coercer is still sporting a poor collection of gear since all of the gear I used to have was deleted when I deleted the character.

I also managed to progress Claymore to the point where I need 200 gathering and lets just say that mine is no where near that, so it’s a project for tonight. I’m slowly catching up in achievements, hitting 162 last night. It’s been fun working on the coercer, and I enjoy the class a great deal. I’m still eager to get my fury up there so I can be healing again on Antonia Bayle (currently all of my healers are on Oasis) but I really am burnt out from leveling characters, so questing is a lot more fun.

Hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming Area Revamp

This weekend I decided to organize my gaming area a bit – I’m now sporting dual monitors (which I absolutely LOVE) and I also crossfired two ATI Radeon 4870s which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I have to admit, the i7 quad core was an amazing purchase, even though I’ve had it for going on two years now. I run it with 8 gigs of ram, and have had very few issues. I’ve also not regretted switching from Nividia to ATI, I burned through so many Nvidia cards, ATI has yet to let me down.

On a semi related note, I picked up Age of Conan for $7 at Best Buy (the box, I realize digital versions of the game have been pretty cheap lately too), and I also picked up Dark Ages of Camelot for $10 (including all expansions). I’ve never played DAoC before, despite the fact that it’s been around forever, and LOTS of people have talked about the game. I’m excited about giving it a try for a month and writing about it over on NomadicGamer.com – I haven’t been very Nomadic lately, which has been nice, but I’m getting restless (as I always do).

I hope everyone else is having an amazing weekend, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself.

Busy Weekend

It was a busy weekend gaming, and it was great. I worked on the fury who is now high 70s, did Unrest with guild mates as well as Shard of Love and a few other instances. On my troubador I managed to do all three Vasty Deep zones yesterday which were also the 5 shard (weekly) zones, and ended with 19 shards in total. No idea what to spend my shards on yet, I think I’m going to just save them up for the new gear that comes out.

I also picked up a few upgrades for the troubador, and passed off some items that I looted with greed rolls to the dirge, and casters.

Worked on the guild hall on Oasis some, and all in all? It was great. The city festival is in Freeport until the 7th, so don’t forget to stop by! It’s up the road from the docks, towards the crossroads. While I’m not a fan of the black marble walls (they have more brown then black in them) the floor tiles are amazing.

Safe travels, and I’ll see you in Norrath!