February 2011

Different Play Styles for Different Players #EQ #Rift #MMORPG

stargrace February 28, 2011 16Comments

With both Rift head start ongoing, and the EQ progression server there is one line of thought that I hear more often then not. These are direct quotes taken from each game.

• “Those MORONS who rush to end game”
• “Then there’s those retarded people who just rush through the levels, and yes, I do mean retarded”

What I don’t understand is why we’re all so quick to judge someone else’ play style. We expect other people to understand our own perspective, whether we enjoy soloing our way through the game or we would rather group up – and yet when it comes do casual vs. hardcore we’re all too quick to put our finger on the trigger and start name calling based on someone else’ enjoyment. Some players ENJOY being first. They enjoy the competition, they enjoy the thrill. They don’t care about the pretty walk on the way to the top they see only one goal. You may not agree or even understand this frame of mind but that doesn’t give you the right to look down on someone because of it. Even if they’re of the mind that rushing to the top is the end all be all of a game only to bitch about lack of content when they get there. It’s still a valid play style, and if you expect anyone to respect the way you choose to enjoy the game, you should at least have the common courtesy to do the same for others.

After all, we’re all paying the same monthly fee to enjoy the game. How you choose to spend your time logged in (or not logged in) is completely up to you. What other people choose to do with their subscription is also really none of your concern. Whether or not someone rushes to end game isn’t going to change or affect how YOU play your game. It’s just one more thing to complain about in a long list of MMO gamer grievances.

The point? Next time you want to call someone a name because of some game-related incident take a second look at yourself. You may not like or understand why a player is gaming a particular way but does it really matter? Let them enjoy the ride their way, and you enjoy it yours.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Proud Moments of Gear With Stats – #EQ

stargrace February 27, 2011 4Comments

The cleric is inching her way towards level 16, the enchanter hit 14 (breeze!) and a little into it. I decided it was time to see if I couldn’t get some gear with stats on it. I had tried to do a few quests thanks to Arkenor’s suggestion, but my luck in video games is non existent, and I failed all the quests I attempted. Until this one. It starts in Rivervale, from one Gapeers Johhanis in the cleric guild. He wants you to collect three items for him:

n Erud’s Crossing kill a zombie sailor.
–You have looted a Algae Covered Flesh.–

In Feerrott kill a drowned caravan guard or a Greenblood Zombie.
–You have looted a Swollen Flesh.–

In Freeport Sewers kill a drowned citizen.
–You have looted a Waterlogged Flesh.–

The hardest piece was the one in the Freeport Sewers, the mobs in this place are still yellow at level 15, and (surprisingly) there was pretty much no one in the zone. Until I happened to mention to my guild that there was no one in the zone and then they all went crazy and swarmed. It’s rare to find zones without a huge influx of players these days. A lot of people avoid the Freeport sewers due to the fact that they are the revamped version and not the one most remember.

I do still have my bear-hide boots, but I can use those for buffing, and then switch out to the newer ones. This is my first ‘real’ piece of gear with stats on it that are useful to me. I do have a few dervish cutthroat rings but the stats are not exactly the most helpful for me. I attempted to work on a quest for a new weapon last night but once again faction is my enemy and I couldn’t get very far. Actually I tried to work on two weapons – I turned in 150 orc picks to have the freeport militia still con indifferent to me. Then I got pummeled by the griffin floating by, numerous times and when it wasn’t the griffin it was the blue con bears that the guards decided not to assist with (they only assisted with the grey ones) AND lets not forget that I was encumbered with 30 pick axes at the time and had bound myself right beside the guard. Ah. Death loop how I have not missed you.

I would have been level 16 were it not for my adventures to the bind point. Which makes this single piece of gear even more valuable to me. I have worked REALLY hard on my ‘new’ EQ characters, I have over 3 days played time on them – something that’s unheard of for a character so low. I have no idea how everyone else is leveling up so quickly, but I am just not good at it.

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

Magelo Profiles and Trains in North Ro #EQ

stargrace February 26, 2011 3Comments

I’m still having a lot of fun with EQ, enough now that I feel confident in saying I’ll stick with this progression server (and the game) as my main game for quite some time to come. I’m really eager for Kunark to come out if for no other reason then to give players a little breathing room. Honestly, I thought the population may suffer a bit when the free accounts closed down but I think the opposite has happened. I see just as many people around now. Take last night for example, over 100 people in South Ro. Over 50 people in North Ro. There were 15+ in the catacombs, and I think the least amount I’ve seen in any single zone I’ve walked around has been 10. The most being too large for /who to work properly since it caps.

Yesterday started out as a frustrating day. Finding a quiet camp to settle down at is difficult when you don’t remember anything about the classic game (even more so for me, I never played classic, I started playing after PoP came out). Ninga and I hung around in the Karana’s a few times but each time a group of bandits would over power us and we’d be running for the zone line – or to be more specific my enchanter and him would run for the zone line because the cleric was already dead. She did so many times she almost fell back to level 13, again. Ouch.

After a very long day of unsuccessful hunting, we made the trek back to Riverval and bound ourselves in Freeport instead of hanging out on Antonica. We decided to settle in at a little goblin camp in Dagnor’s Cauldron. Most of the mobs con red to us but there is a nice little camp around the side of the zone that has four blue / white con orcs, and that’s where we sat. The cleric got a few pieces of gear upgrades, and the enchanter managed to ding level 13. That means ONE more level and she’ll have breeze. I am pretty excited. As you can see by the magelo profile above, Velours is almost level 15 and I’ve joined a guild. I browsed the EQplayer forums in the guild recruitment section to find out what guilds were active on Fippy (there are a lot of them) and this one seemed to best fit me. So far they are a great bunch of people not hung up on being uber and rushing through all of the content.

The remainder of the evening was spent battling trains in North Ro. The enchanter now has charm (it lasts for a little over 4 minutes) which helps in a difficult situation. I spent many months perfecting my charm ability on live servers but it’s been a little while and I’m certainly rusty – especially while boxing the cleric. I had a great time until people would wander by with their massive trains of orcs and sand giants and I’d be forced once more to flee.

I’ll be really happy when I can hit 15-20 and move on to some place that may be a little safer for experience. Yes, it’s slow. But I have so much pride in my characters and the work that I’ve put into them, it’s quite fascinating.

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

Preparing For the Long Walk to Qeynos #EQ

stargrace February 25, 2011 3Comments

Thanks to some tips from Arkenor, I decided it would be best if Ninga and I headed over to the great continent of Antonica, and Qeynos sewers from there. Ark pointed me to a few quests that I could complete, one for some bear-hide boots, and another for a golden ear stud. I’ll admit, the day started out quite frustrating. The sewers were not empty by any means and players kept coming along and standing directly on top of my poor little halfling / gnome combination oblivious to the fact that players used to respect camps. I would typically send them a tell asking if they could please move, and made it known that I was camping Cuburt. In most cases people have been polite and moved off once I sent the tell, but not always.

The first time the cube spawned he decided death by piranha would be better then death by me, and he ran under towards the frogloks near by and was promptly eaten. Lost the corpse to that one. It took another 6 spawns to finally loot the dress I needed, which I then turned in to the appropriate NPC and was rewarded with the common gem drop instead of the earring I longed for. Phooey. Having wasted pretty much my entire day after that one item I was getting REALLY frustrated.

Lets step back a few. First of all I had to actually walk from Greater Faydark to Qeynos, and it was no easy walk. First I headed to Butcherblock, took the translocator to Ocean of Tears where some random NPC promptly killed me and I reverted back to level 12. I could tell this would be a great trip (heavy on the sarcasm). Take two. Back to Butcherblock, Ocean of Tears, and from there – Freeport. Boats were not working very well back in 1999 and they don’t work very well in 2011 either, they’ve added the gnome porters.

From East Freeport, it was West Freeport, then Commonlands, Kithicor Forest, and to Rivervale for a quick bind because I really didn’t want to do the entire walk again. From Rivervale back to Kithicor, and then to Highpass Hold. Highpass was pretty busy, and I had no issues running through it but the journey was really only just starting. From there it was East Karana, then West Karana, and then Qeynos Hills. From Qeynos Hills, it was time to finally head to North Qeynos, and South Qeynos to bind. Shew.

Now back to the sewers. Even though we were feeling pretty discouraged, and spent most of the evening running around (unsuccessfully) looking for camps, we didn’t give up. The whole reason I’m doing this progression is because I want to experience exactly this. Giving up would be silly. Eventually we returned back to the sewers and made a camp of the thugs and ring leaders and smugglers that spawn. The enchanter managed to ding 11 and the cleric is just a smidgen from 14. The experience may be four times slower then normal, but I’m not about to let that stop me.

In the mean time, while I happily camped I watched everyone with their queues in Rift. I hope that issue is solved sooner rather then later. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! Remember you can add me to friends as Velours (cleric) and Pumpkins (enchanter), and /join fippy.twitterchat to say hello!

See you in (old) Norrath!

Ding, 13 – Camping the Nybright Sisters #EQ

stargrace February 24, 2011 1Comment

Even though the free accounts have been turned off for now there are still a lot of people on Fippy Darkpaw, which is something I’m really happy to see. Yesterday I got to explore a little more, and made more coin for crafting. The enchanter is now sitting at level 9 (she seems to level incredibly slow) and the cleric managed to snag level 13. The enchanter doesn’t have any type of charm yet and that always makes things annoying.

I started out in North Ro, which is off of the East Freeport gate. After getting annoyed with multiple trains to the EC tunnels I moved down to South Ro along with Ninga (who is also level 12). We found a nice little area to set up camp and spent a good hour there before things started going drastically wrong. For some reason Sand Giants would just show up out of no where and bee line for our camp. We would haul ass out of there for a zone line before any combat could be initiated and wondered what was going on. Zone back in, make our way back to our little nook, and look over the top of the hill only to see another sand giant way off in the distance running straight for our camp again.

Getting tired of that fast we decided our best bet would be to head to Faydwer – so we teleported ourselves to Ocean of Tears (the boats still don’t work, it’s truly a 1999 experience) and from there Butcherblock. We bound ourselves in Felwithe so we wouldn’t have such a long walk back and then walked to Lesser Faydark. This is by no means an easy zone – there are brownie scouts (as we found out) just waiting to take a bite out of unsuspecting players. Not to mention we ran into the evil dark unicorn. Eventually on one run to Mistmoore to zone before we could die, we came across the Nybright camp that hosts four sisters. All of them rogues who apparently still have the ability to do frontal backstabs even though players don’t get to do that until aa are put into game.

A few cleric soothes later we had broken camp, with just barely enough time to take down three encounters before the camp would respawn mid-pull and we were back-stabbed to death.Ah, good times. I probably would have reached level 13 a lot quicker, but each death means -5% experience, and it seemed that when ever I was within 2% of the next level (or actually dinged) I would revert back down 5% and lose it all.

I also learned that my level 11 symbol spell doesn’t take any reagent (woohoo) so not EVERYTHING is back the way it was. I do really wish they’d do away with the servers being 4x slower then live servers. That sort of deterrent doesn’t stop the hard core (ie: Nagafen, Vox, Phinny, and Innoruuk have all been taken down, unsure if CT was taken down last night or not) and it discourages those who can’t invest quite so much time in leveling up. That’s not to say I want things *easier* but 4x slower and even slower then the game was upon original release is something that I think the casuals would be really pleased with changing.

DoV went live on the 22nd (amid many bugs) and Rift goes live today. Me? I’m still playing EQ, and living vicariously through everyone else. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! I’ll see you in (old) Norrath.