2010

Instances are an Alts Best Friend

stargrace March 3, 2010 0Comment

Having spent very little time in any instances that went live with Sentinel’s Fate, I was excited to join up for four of them yesterday. We started with the two that I have already been to, the Erudian Library, and the Research Halls. Afterward we decided to head to the Vasty Deep zones, Conservatory was our first mark, and then Labs. Unfortunately labs is still currently broken, one of the named refuses to spawn and it’s required in order to reach the final named, but it was still quite fun.

One thing I really love about running these instances is that it’s an alts dream come true. Pretty much every piece of scout related gear that dropped was an upgrade for my troubador – specifically because SOE changed us from being int / str based bards to agi which is a stat I have never focused on. It was very nice to be able to replace a great deal of my int / caster based gear for agi, and I also managed to inch my way closer to getting UT which is the only thing anyone ever seems to want from a troubador. Since this is my alt (and one of many) I admit that I’ve neglected her achievements quite severely, but I’m about 6 away from picking it up thanks to the plethora of quests available in Vasty Deep.

When I wasn’t running instances, I dove back into battlegrounds. It’s getting to the point now where people are gearing themselves up with ‘toughness’ gear which is mitigation / critical mitigation for PvP. In other words it means it makes them harder to hit. I don’t like where this is going, because eventually for anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor, you’re going to have to face a large number of loses until you can save up enough tokens to also gear yourself out with that critical mitigation gear.

I also really wish the numbers meant something. When the game ends you see a screen pop up with number of death blows and healing done etc. I wish there was a (even small would be alright) coin number associated with the locations on that list, so if you topped the killing blows and damage dealt list, you would receive some coin for your troubles. Since Battlegrounds can prove to be an effective method of leveling from 80-90 and also even grant achievement experience, I think that awarding a coin value to doing well in them would be great and then you wouldn’t feel obligated to go quest in order to earn money.

As it is now those stats are for nothing but bragging rights, since you earn 1 token for losing, and 3 for winning. There’s nothing else to be gained.

In the mean time I hope everyone is enjoying their game of choice, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

Exploring Battlegrounds

stargrace March 2, 2010 4Comments

I decided some time last weekend that what I really wanted was a battleground character. A character who would do nothing but battlegrounds (there for 80 is my goal) and not have to worry about too much more. Most of my regular characters are support classes, and aside from the illusionist I find them a little difficult to play in battlegrounds. The mystic casts very slow, and aside from run speed I haven’t really found a use for the bards. A lot is due to my gear and lack of achievements on these smaller alts, and the fact that for PvP they’re simply not suited for it. I know that ranged casters have an easier time of things because they can stand back and nuke, and scouts can stealth, assassins can put out some massive dps and stun (especially if you’re using poisons) but none of my characters are those classes.

When I finished moving all of my characters to Oasis I also did a little spring cleaning. That left me with three character slots on my main account. Something I haven’t seen in quite some time. I decided to create a necromancer, and level her up (power level to be exact) to 80 so that I could start doing battlegrounds with her. I managed to inch my way to levle 40 yesterday, which was the half way mark at least.

I’ve been having fun in the battlegrounds, it doesn’t matter if I win or lose. I’ve found the 24 person to be a lot more fun then the smaller versions, and I like going with an 80-89 character so that you’re not dealing with level 90 mains. It’s hard to fight against the Nagafen players because they’re used to constant pvp and they have toughness on all of their gear already, but I managed.

I’ve only managed to win one of five battles so far, but since you’re rewarded (although at a smaller level) either way, at least your time is compensated for. I wish that corpses had a chance to drop coin or some sort of other reward for spending your time in a battleground as opposed to say – leveling, but maybe that will come in some where down the road.

I haven’t played the smaller battlegrounds yet, but I do know that if you come up against a guild group and you’re in a PUG your chances of winning decrease drastically. Organization is a killer in battlegrounds, and the more organized you are, the more likely you are to win.

Other then that, I’ve still just been taking my time and exploring Sentinel’s Fate. It’s a beautiful expansion with a lot to do. I hope everyone else has been having fun, I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

The Changes in Raiding

stargrace March 1, 2010 0Comment

I don’t consider myself a very hard core raider. Even back when I was raiding full time I never joined a guild that used call lists to gather members, and I’ve never fought an avatar. I enjoy raiding a great deal, but with so many games on my plate some times it’s simply not in my best interest to spend that much time in it. Thankfully Paradise Lost is quite aware of my unique hours, and I’m able to raid with them casually. Last night they were off to Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory which is one of the new Sentinel’s Fate raid zones. No, I’m not about to post strats here – but.

I did want to make a comparison between TSO raids and SF raids. First of all, developers had already stated that they didn’t want Sentinel’s Fate to be a repeat of The Shadow Odyssey where healers paid more attention spamming cures then anything else. If someone asked me what Zarrakon looked like I would have to check the guild hall trophy because I spent most of my time curing and running for red and blue pools (and trying not to fall off the edge of his platform). SF has a little less curing, but a lot more jousting (at least what I’ve seen from it so far). Jousting to avoid massive “bad things” that will happen to your raid if you don’t joust.

My favorite encounter by far was Perah’Celsis himself for one very specific reason. First of all, the fight is intense. Understatement actually. He has a buff that has a chance for random raiders to become charmed. The charm can’t be cured for a specific duration, once that passes you can cure it. There’s nothing more fun then having healers, mages, scouts, and fighters of your own raid all running through the ranks and killing everyone. In so many encounters it is the mobs who get to do the smushing, but this time around I think the guild got more kills then the named.I love learning a new encounter and being able to explore a new zone. It’s refreshing. It’s also exceptionally nerve wracking.

My mystic managed to land two pieces of gear (sure, no one else wanted them but that’s besides the point) which was nice and I really did have a good time even though I spent most of the night doubting my healing capabilities. It’s hard when you’re in a full raid of people who are geared up properly and who have been playing together for years. My character is still sporting T2 from TSO and some pretty poor jewelery slots. I did the best I could, and hopefully that was enough. It also comes in handy that mystics are armed with a whole lot of buffs for their group, so even if my healing wasn’t top notch, I was at least providing some awesomeness for everyone else.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath! I have a post in mind about Battlegrounds, but until things are a little more ‘fixed’ and not so ‘broken’ I’ll be holding off on that. The few that I managed to get into were actually a LOT of fun, and I’m looking forward to talking about them!

Gaming

Erudian Library and Research Halls Instances

stargrace February 28, 2010 4Comments

Yesterday I finally managed to wiggle my way into some instances in EQ2 – the first time I had actually gotten to explore the Sentinel’s Fate areas on live servers. My group first headed to the Erudian Library which is one of the easier zones included this expansion and also one of the most fun. Players get to figure out which NPC murdered another (and where, and with what) and accuse them of it. If you guess right, you get some extra rewards and neat house items. Afterward we headed to the Research Halls, which was also a lot of fun and not too difficult.

SF has new shards (and on a side note why did SOE implement the fix to disallow gray shard runs after they made those shards obsolete?) and I have a handful of them stored up. There are shards (tokens) for pretty much everything now, PvP, Crafting, various forms of PvE gear. Even all of the live events have a ‘token system’ of some sort (Erollisi day, Magical Grottos, etc). My banks are filling up with these things.

I managed to get a lot of nice upgrades for the troubador through these in instances including some very nice charms. I’m still inching my way towards upbeat tempo (the troubadors bread and butter) but I’m not that far away now. I haven’t played the bard seriously in quite some time. It’s been fun so far.

I did have one major change this weekend. I decided that playing on multiple servers is simply too difficult. It’s too hard to spread characters all over the place and expect them all to accomplish every ‘major’ goal in the game. I love games that only have one server so the choice is made for me, but since that is not an option for EQ2 I had to make a pretty hard decision. In the end I came to the conclusion that I would play on Oasis, and no other servers. This weekend I spent most of it packing up belongings from Antonia Bayle and moving my characters over. I don’t even remember the last time I was only playing on one server, it’s been 2-3 years. The decision was a long time coming and it certainly wasn’t an easy one for me. There were a lot of outside factors that came into play (that I’m not going to get into here on my blog because it’s simply not the place). I’m very happy with my decision, and I’m really excited on playing on one server. I’m already fairly settled in over there as it’s one of three servers I was attempting to play on.

I did also get some battleground time in – and I have all sorts of thoughts on that subject, but it’s a post for another day (maybe backlogging yesterday, since I didn’t make a post).

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

Gaming

Games can have Bad Days Too

stargrace February 26, 2010 8Comments

Games have bad days, just like people, go figure.

That’s what I learned yesterday in spades, as EQ2 had probably one of the worst days I’ve ever seen in the game. It was horrible.

To start it off, the game was taken down for what was supposed to be a two hour downtime to implement battlegrounds, and turned into an almost 6 hour downtime. Now if you’ve played any sort of MMO for any amount of time you’re probably already used to this as extended downtimes happen. For those who are not aware, battlegrounds were supposed to go live on the 23rd with Sentinel’s Fate but were held back two extra days for fine tuning. Apparently not tuned enough.

If you were one of the first people into the battlegrounds when the servers came up you’re probably regretting it now. Upon leaving the battlegrounds players lost all alternate advancement over 200, as well as levels in both crafting and adventuring if you were below level 90 and had made any progress. Instead of doing rollbacks, those people affected were told to send in a petition so that they could be adjusted by hand, and we all know how fast those get answered. My guild leader on Oasis was fuming, to say the least. As of yet he still has not gotten an answer back. Thankfully it was an ‘off night’ and raids were not being planned, or else it would have been a lot worse.

If the bad news had of stopped there it would have been an ok day none the less, but it wasn’t. Players who were looking for quest updates that drop from chests were out of luck, as every single chest that dropped a quest piece was opened to be found – empty. If you were working on a particular heritage quest found in Sentinel’s Fate no doubt you were very angry when the quest pieces refused to drop. I had about 15 empty boxes drop for me before I just decided to ignore them.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though! Battlegrounds did go in, and they’re interesting. Sure, your entire guild spams you with ‘log in’ and ‘log out’ messages because it ports you to a different server, but apparently they can also be quite fun. The new adornment recipes also made it in game, as well as the new tinkering recipes. Personal harvest box? Yes please!

I worked on gaining achievements for my ratonga troubador, and giggled to myself at everyone being upset. It’s alright, games can have bad days too. I’m sure it will get better.

Instances are an Alts Best Friend

Exploring Battlegrounds

The Changes in Raiding

Erudian Library and Research Halls Instances

Games can have Bad Days Too

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