2010

Gear and Books Galore

The little troubador managed to get some more T4 gear last night, even though I wasn’t raiding with her (the benefit of being Friends and Family in a raid guild), her hat which as you can see on the right is a fairly nice piece. While gear WILL be getting replaced in February, it’s still important to me to be able to have gear to make it through that content, or at least that’s how I feel.

Yesterday was a quiet day on the gaming front. I spent some time on Antonia Bayle picking up new player written books that I hadn’t already purchased, and adding them to my library. I’m very happy that I’ve broken the 200 book mark, and now I’m sitting on 214 player written books, written by more then 80 different authors. I’m not sure if I’ve got the biggest collection of player written books out there, but I think I’m fairly close. I need to start working on the other half of the library, which is to gather all of the in game books that are out there. That project will probably take forever, but I’m looking forward to it.

Aside from that, things are slow, which is not a bad thing. I’m still just preparing for Sentinel’s Fate in February, and I’m excited about it. In the mean time I’ll continue to work on alts, and play other games here and there.

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

Glimps At Sentinal’s Fate – The Hole

Once upon an evening dreary, while I gamed, weak and weary,
Over many a dead void beast, I admired gore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a beeping,
As of some one gently sending, e-mail at my mailbox door.
“‘Tis some spam,” I muttered, “tapping at my e-mail door –
Only this, and nothing more.”

Presently my urge grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
I’d just check the e-mail,quickly, and implore;
But the fact is I was PvPing, and so gently mail came sending,
And so faintly it came beeping, sending e-mail at my door,
That I scarce was sure I heard it- here I opened wide the e-mail; –

These screen shots there. And nothing more.

(( Please click the images for full view, and enjoy! ))

66-70 on the Inquisitor

Well, the inquisitor reached level 70 yesterday, and it took about 10-11 hours (her time is posted on the left) an hour or two (maybe even more, but I’m just guessing roughly here) was spent in transit between my leveling areas, and putting things on the broker, and goofing off talking to friends. The rest was spent leveling. Yesterday I took Lithe (as my inquisitor is called on the Oasis server) through Vaults (Barren Sky), and to each of the islands in Kingdom of Sky (for the discoveries) and then finished up in Palace of the Awakened (which has a LOT of named and discovery in each room, especially on a server that barely has anyone playing the hours that I do). Sadly, it will probably take me at least another 12 hours if not more to make the 71-80 grind, as I have yet to find a way to do it ‘quickly’. One method that I’ll probably try (more for gaining shards in preparation of 80 and aa then experience) is to run through the TSO instances – at 75 she can start getting the shard quests, and at 79 she can get the daily double quest. Since almost every instance (minus the Guks and Fens) mentors to some degree it works out nicely.

Again, I wouldn’t suggest this method of leveling normally. It’s not ‘fun’ unless you’ve already done the content numerous times before and are just interested in preparing for the next expansion. It leaves your character without a lot of achievements, but as I’ve stated, that’s really not a concern of mine. I’m looking forward to having a level 80 healer (in specific) on Oasis again, since I have moved mine off (not that I regret moving them off, I just enjoy playing a healer). I should be able to gain enough shards to get a set of gear made by the time I reach 80, and then it will be time to work on my epic (which I don’t think I should have too many issues with) in time for Sentinel’s Fate.

I can still squeeze out a few levels before I have to do any quests, if I can help it, I want to avoid RoK quest grinding all together. I’ve got a few more KoS instances that I can do (Halls of Fate, and the other Bonemire instances) that should help a little. I’ve been out of vitality since day 1, so that makes things slower then I’d like, but they still move at a steady pace.

I suppose one of the ‘best’ things I like about leveling up in this manor is that I don’t have to dedicate a whole lot of time towards getting where I want to be. I see a lot of people upset that games don’t ‘start’ until you’re end game – and I want to state here and make sure people know that this is NOT the case for EQ2. There is constantly things to do at all levels and the only reason I am eager to reach the ‘end’ in leveling is because I’ve already done this 13 other times, and I want to prepare (yet another) character for Sentinel’s Fate in February. I think it’s important that people know there’s constant game play in EQ2, and it’s not all about the level 80 stuff that I tend to talk about on this web site. As a veteran player my views (and I have no shame in this) are biased.

I also managed to get a little World of Warcraft time in, as well as some LotRO which was quite fun. My hunter inched towards level 41 (and snagged it, after a friend ran me through Uldaman) and my minstrel is almost 27. Those seem to be my three ‘main’ games at the beginning of 2010, and it’s been going pretty well.

Today I plan on picking upĀ  my ipod touch (32g) from the post office, and then hopefully I’ll be pestering friends for app suggestions (grins) and playing with that most of the day, maybe I’ll manage to squeeze some work in too I suppose. I hope everyone has a fantastic day no matter where you find yourself, and I’ll see you in Norrath!

Levels 31-66 in Four Hours

I had a pretty good day gaming yesterday, I have to admit. I didn’t play that much, I was out for a bit (groceries and some shopping!) but I did get three or four hours in which I spent leveling my inquisitor. She’s now level 66 – with just slightly over 8 hours played total. When I tell people about how many levels she’s gotten in such a short period of time, they tend to stare at me like I’ve got four heads.

When it comes right down to it, there’s really nothing unique that I’m doing, and it’s a combination of things that allows me to level that fast – which others could also do easily enough as long as they also had those means. So what is it exactly that allows me to gain the levels as fast as I do?

  • I box an 80 Shadowknight who is geared in top end raid gear, which gives me a constant tank (or I make him play his own character, which is far better then me trying to play teehee).
  • The Shadowknight has a recruit a friend mount, which grants anyone in the group a 10% bonus to experience
  • I have other level 80’s, and for each one you have (up to a max of 5) you gain 10% extra experience. This gives me a 50% bonus to experience
  • I have the five year veteran reward that allows me to replenish my vitality once every 7 days (and you can use jesters cap when you use this item to shorten the time).
  • I have a HUGE stock of potions from various veteran rewards that grant 55% bonus experience for an hour (and some times two hours). I have more then enough for every level, as most of the /claim rewards come with 6 potions (3 adventure and 3 crafting).

All of these items stack with one another, and since I’m blowing through content fairly fast, the leveling comes easily. Of course there ARE downsides, like my huge lack of aa – I’m not concerned about that. I’ll have all sorts of time once I reach 80 to work on those. Also keep in mind that this is not my first character, nor my first healer, I’ve played through the EverQuestII content numerous times before, I know where to level – and I don’t see anything wrong with skipping content after the length of time I’ve spent working through it. I would never suggest this method of leveling for anyone who hasn’t played through at least once (or more) at a regular speed.

I have other characters who take their time and work through each and every quest, slowly leveling up (my level 22 shadowknight is one of those characters for example) and this is just ‘yet another’ way to keep the game interesting for me, getting to level 80, getting my epic, and waiting for Sentinel’s Fate. Actually that is one of my main reasons for wanting 80 before February, I still have no idea who I’ll be playing once the expansion goes live, and I’d like to have a good selection of characters to choose from. No doubt it will depend on my mood at the time, hehe.

Anyhow, I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. I know Monday came too fast today, and it’s sad to be going back to a regular work week, but that just lets us appreciate the family times and holidays that much more.

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

Nomadic Gamer