April 2011

Are You a Fan of Using Guides and WalkThroughs?

I have to admit, I’m a little undecided when it comes to whether or not I want to use a guide or a walkthrough. On one hand I do love exploring a world on my own and I think games have come a long way to allowing me to do this without having to resort to guides and walkthroughs. Adding locations to the mini map, and allowing for better directions in the quest text all allow me to remain submersed in whatever world I happen to be playing in. Then there are the ‘harder’ things. For example, crafting in EQ1. How many people have tried to craft from scratch without resorting to a single guide. Where would you even start and how would you even know where to begin. There’s little to no indication in-game of where a player would go if they were sitting in their home city and wanted to pick up a craft. For these types of games I feel that guides and walkthroughs enhance the experience. Sure I may not be 100% involved in my game when I have to resort to using a browser to look up recipes – but I don’t really seem to notice it.

There is also something to be said for the communities involved in creating these guides and walkthroughs. After all, it’s a forum players use to bond with one another. It gives you a platform to ask questions (typically) to others who may have come across the same sort of issues. You know that the people posting on these guides are perhaps players just like you who enjoy the games at the base core.

There are numerous guides and walkthroughs available for every game imaginable; like this CardsChat legal poker guide. You can find them for games ranging from Farmville to Street Fighter. One thing I’ve noticed is that there are a lot more guides published online these days then there are in paper. I own a few guides for games like Little Big Planet, and really liked being able to follow them.

So how do you decide whether or not you want to know everything there is to know about a game, and when you want to simply wander along your own path? Is there some deciding factor for you as a player? Are some guides ok where others are not?

Let me know your thoughts in comments!

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

Event Stuff (Or Not) #Rift

It was just by luck that I heard about phase 2 beginning at all on Saturday, I was convinced the date was set for the 17th (Sunday) – but I happened to tab over to the Rift forums where they announced that the EU event had already taken place, and that the next events would be staged between 1pm-3pm PST. I quickly let friends know, and watched as many of them attempted to log in (and met up with horrible queues). Myself? I decided not to log in at all. I heard that phase three would be taking place in a higher-level zone, a place I would have no access to port to, and I wasn’t about to walk there at level 25. I also didn’t really want to deal with masses of angry players all trying to figure out what was going on.

I happily watched friends participate, take their videos, and it did look like a neat event for those who managed to make it in game and participate. It opened up a new raid rift, which is pretty awesome. After a two week phase one I felt a little let down by the 30 minute phase two and then the nearly instant phase three.

It didn’t take long before the forums were filled with outcries of players who were all upset about how things had run. Trion decided to compensate everyone by making a post stating that if you have an active account, they are going to assume that you meant to take part in the event, and will be mailing you your goodies. These goodies include achievements (minus the final phase three achievement because you can currently go out and bow to the npc required still), goodies ranging from common to ultra rare, and some sort of quest satchel with enough time to complete it – as well as 250 shards, and the shards shall continue to drop for a bit for those players who wanted to collect more items from the vendors (myself, I’d like the companion pets at least. I own one but there’s still three more to collect).

Congratulations, you didn’t even have to log in or do anything (except complete phase one?) in order to end up with a mail box full of goodies. It’s a learning experience, and I appreciate the effort that went into putting on an event like this, but I think simply handing out rewards diminishes the importance of the event to begin with – whether Trion considers portions of it a mistake or not. It may also come to be something players expect, to be handed out free goodies when things don’t go their way.

While it would have been neat to have been involved in something on that large of a scale, I just didn’t want to deal with all of the other headaches that went along with it.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

 

1-300 Brewing Guide #EverQuest #EQ

One of my favorite places in EverQuest would have to be Brell’s Rest. It’s an amazing looking zone, and of course with Brell’s own house not that far away, looming over the rivers, well. It’s just outstanding. I’m still working on my crafting, and there’s still a lot to go before I hit 300 in all my trades and then attempt to work on the prayer shawl 2.0 but I look forward to it with an odd excitement. I didn’t get a lot of gaming in this weekend due to some health complications, but hopefully once I visit my doctor on Tuesday everything will be back to normal. I’ve found a number of guides for leveling up tradeskills, but none are exactly up to date with the latest and greatest recipes. Where most crafts have plenty of House of Thule additions, I found that Brewing, was quite lacking. This was the method I took:

Brewing
Quick Trivial List
Tradeskill Trophy Quest
Brewer Charm

Brewing Freebie: Work for Yitimis
0-122 Fetid Essence (can be used later in Smithing Bile Spine)
135 Ol’tujim’s Fierce Brew
162 Jumjum Spiced Beer
188 Faydwer Shaker (all store bought)
248 Minotaur Hero’s Brew
335 Kaladim Constitutional (requires ground spawns)

Alternative Routes:
150 Sherry (all store bought items)
187 Shar Vahl Essence (requires foraged or ground spawns)
250 Clear Absinthe (all store bought items)
282 Fish Fungus Wine (requires fishing in Depths of Darkhollow)
295 Blindfish Pale Ale (requires fishing in Depths of Darkhollow)
300 Rose Absinth (requires ground spawn from Oceangreen)
335 Brut Champagne a bit more expensive but less farming

Right now my brewing is at 263, which means I’m working on Kaladim constitutional. The problem is, so are many others on Drinal, and that means the ground spawns in Kaladim are not always available. I attempted to make Brut Champagne, but it’s an expensive endeavor, requiring enchanter created parts (which I do make myself, but still a pain to gather). The other down side is that brut champagne is not something my characters will actually make use of, since it’s an alcoholic beverage and not an actual drink with stats. Most of the house of thule recipes I came across were for much lower levels of brewing, although the drinks have nice stats they’re not things I can use to skill up with.

For now, I’m content with the 500 jugs of Kaladim constitutional I’ve got on my main, and look forward to filling many (many) more casks with the sweet liquid. After brewing I’ve got the wonderful decision of what to work on next. It’s a tie between smithing, fletching, and pottery. The last three skills I need on my road to making out my crafting.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Cleric Finally Hits Stonefield #Rift

I’ve been leveling really slow. I mean, REALLY slow. It’s for a few reasons, the main one being that I haven’t actually played Rift a great amount in any one sitting. It’s a few hours here and there in between playing a lot of EverQuest. As such, I just hit level 25 last night, and myself and Ogur (pictured above) just hit Stonefield when I reached 24. Someone asked me how I managed to stay in Freemarch for so long, and it was quite simple. I did a LOT of rift fights when the game first released. Now they’ve slowed down a considerable amount, I haven’t seen the map crowded like I once did and I find the large invasions have become a bit rare. Whether this is due to my server specifically (I play on Deepwood) or because everyone is crowding the higher level zones thus leaving mine barren, I’ve no idea.

I wanted to make sure I finished all of the quests in Freemarch before I moved on, and I think I managed to complete all of them but two. Those I deleted because I was tired of the same zone, I’ve been there since release, after all. Stonefield is pretty and the quests I’ve done so far are enjoyable. One had me battling gigantic trolls, which really made me feel incredibly small and powerless – which was great. In the same chain I then had to turn myself into a troll and read some glyphs scattered throughout the area – towering above everyone else was a fantastic feeling (until an invasion landed on my head, combat morphs you out of the transformation). Crafting supplies seem a bit sparse compared to Freemarch, but it could be that everyone else has been collecting (except plants, those I found in abundance). I’m finding a new difficulty with playing a priest in Rift fights. When everyone first started the game this wasn’t an issue, because there were no level 50’s running around completing level 20 rifts. I was healing a LOT, and there for contributing a lot. As time goes on I see more and more players above the level of the rift participating in the events – which is fine except that my personal contribution goes WAY down because no one is taking any damage for me to heal.

My only solution has been to switch to my DPS spec (Justicar / Druid / Shaman) and wail away at the mobs. Then when the invasions are over I switch back to my heal spec so that I can keep my tank alive as we plow through our quests. I’m not really surprised at healers having a harder time, the same happens in EQ2 public quests as well, healers are second rate citizens (especially lately, there have been major issues with heals not counting towards contribution) and making a contribution to what is going on always seems hard. My tank friends on the other hand is always way up there in contribution. I would really love to see some sort of magical ‘easy answer’ to this problem but I doubt very highly that one will come.

In the mean time I just try to participate in every single rift and invasion that I see. I’m toying with changing my spec’s around a lot. I find myself not using warden (thinking of switching to druid for the pet but I’m unsure) and on that same note, I’m not fond of the shaman build either. Perhaps that’s a goal for today, to play around with my builds some what and see what appeals to me on a greater level. I love playing justicar for DPS, and I love sentinel for healing but I would enjoy branching out a bit. Then there’s also my 10 scout and 10 mage to level up eventually. For now they’re acting as crafters, I have Stargrace (25 cleric) who is my Artificer / mining / forager – then Kameeko (10 scout) is my Outfitter / butcher / armorer, and Velours (10 mage) is my apothecary / runecrafter / misc (I haven’t decided yet). It’s one more thing that makes me truly appreciate EverQuest where I can focus on ONE character, and work on aa to unlock every craft that I’d like to work on. I wouldn’t have the alts if I could do it all on one.

P.S. WRU player housing. Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

EverQuest Patch Notes #EQ #EverQuest

*** Highlights ***

– Corrected an issue that could cause corpses to lock incorrectly.
– Added /kickplayers, a new command that allows expedition leaders to kick everybody from the dynamic zone and shared task leaders to kick everybody out of the shared task, which results in them also getting booted form the dynamic zone associated with the shared task.  See the Miscellaneous section below for details.
– Many problems with boats have been fixed.  See the Miscellaneous section below for details.
– The minimum fizzle rates for all classes have been reduced, as well as the amount of mana used by a fizzle.
– Zones with key or flag requirements will now unlock themselves automatically when later expansions open (on standard and progression servers). Meldrath’s Mansion and Crystallos zones are now unlocked on standard servers.
– Keep an eye out for Grundle Cogwelder in the Plane of Knowledge.  He has been hearing some interesting rumors about hares.

*** Items ***

– Corrected the lore group on bottles of bleach.
– The Portable Forge should no longer spawn on top of the user.
– The Which Came First item will create a more limited variety of eggs now.
– The Potion of Divinity can not be used as often as it could previously.
– Removed the Encompassing Nightmare IV focus from Doll of the Nameless Child and added it to Shiliskin Metamagic Totem, where it would actually be used.
– Slightly increased the backstab damage on House of Thule daggers.
– Added detrimental haste focus to the all/all legs from House of Thule zones.
– The Katta’s Signet charm and those like it will now have much more reliable stats.
– The Whirligig Flyer now properly grants AC.
– Corrected typos on several items.
– Corrected several mounts that were not usable in combat.

*** Tradeskills ***

– Good Iva’s in Paineel now has an oven.
– Failing to craft Prepared Dream Meat no longer returns any items.
– Older alchemy potions on the Progression Server recipes now stack to 10.
– Fire opals are back in stock at their normal vendors.

*** Quests & Events ***

– Some missing kobold parts have been restored to Toxxulia.
– Wellis Pestule will now ask for the correct item when you are sharpening the Rusty Scourge Knight Saber for him.
– Norten Magmaflinger will now speak to characters at maximum level.
– Corrected the items that Kugaran asks for in the Troll Shadowknight weapon quest.
– Shana Liskia now asks for the correct items in the quest for the Dagger of the Academy.
– Corrected the requirement for reforging rhodium into Burning Ash of the Lake.  It now correctly requires completing the Keymaster’s event.

*** Spells ***

– The minimum fizzle rates for all classes have been reduced, as well as the amount of mana used by a fizzle.
– Players who are under a rabbit illusion will have their viewpoint set much closer to the ground.
– The ventriloquism effect works again.
– Resurrection spells now issue text messages so players can set an audio trigger.
– Fixed an issue with doom spells not working when the target is an NPC.
– Bard – Corrected the cap on the damage shield portion of War March of Dagda.
– Beastlord – Kron’s Maelstrom should no longer interfere with Funeral Dirge.
– Cleric and Druid – Increased the strength of Reject Corruption.
– Druid and Shaman – Corrected the amount of corruption cured by Chant of the Tae Ew.
– Druid – Corrected the cap on the AC reduction of Argent Frost.
– Druid – Increased the AE range on Lunamelioration.
– Enchanter – Baffling Constriction now reduces accuracy with all melee skills.
– Magician – Monster Summoning should now summon local denizens in House of Thule zones.
– Necromancer – Scapegoat has had its cost lowered and your scapegoat will now correctly cast spells at your target when summoned.
– Necromancer – Rebalanced the Splirt spell to decay faster and deal more damage overall.
– Necromancer – Corrected the damage added by the Irae Faycite Shard: Splirt to match the new damage values on Splirt (and corrected its name).
– Necromancer – Cascading Deathshield will now properly heal your pet when each bulwark expires.
– Ranger – Corrected the cap on the damage shield portion of Quillcoat.
– Ranger – Moved Burning Ash to timer 4 so it no longer interferes with Cataclysm Ash.
– Ranger – Moved Biting Wind to timer 3 so it no longer interferes with Windwhip Bite.
– Rogue – Removed an invalid cast message from Aggravated Bloodlust III.
– Shadowknight – Corrected the cap on the AC buff portion of Drape of Fear.
– Shadowknight – The snare component of Despairing Darkness will no longer ignore immunities.  It is still very difficult for normal NPCs to resist.
– Shadowknight – Corrected the heal cast when Gorgon Mantle Rk. III is broken by melee damage.
– Wizard – The Irae Faycite Shard: Brainfreeze Strike will now correctly add damage to Brainfreeze spells.

*** NPC ***

– Melee DPS mercenaries obtained via LoN rewards can now be buffed by players.
– Fixed some issues when un-suspending a buffed and geared pet that has been suspended across zone lines.
– Fixed a crash bug caused by attempting to log in on a character with no corpse.

*** AA ***

– Fixed a problem causing suspended pets to lose gear and buffs when their owner zoned.
– Magician – Theft of Essence will now work correctly with the Annihilate the Divergent spell line.
– Necromancer – Blood Magic should now behave in a more predictable manner giving full benefit to each rank. Please note, each step for Blood Magic is now shorter than the original.
– Paladin – Reduced the critical damage effect of Valorous Rage across all ranks.
– Paladin – Fixed the AC component of Blessing of the Faithful.

*** Achievements ***

– Epic titles should no longer go away if you place your epic items in your house as long as you have the epic achievement.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Corrected several recipes that were producing too much money and returned the alchemy vendors that sold the parts for them on progression servers.
– The Vial of Pure Water recipe has been made available on Progression servers.
– Newbie weapons (and other items from those quests) on Progression servers will now be weaker until more expansions are unlocked.
– Barbarian Northern Wolf and White Rose armor quests should now be working on progression servers.
– Quests for armor “of Ro” can now be completed on progression servers.
– Shaman armor quests that produce armor “of Justice” can now be completed on progression servers.
– Dark Elf quests for Orc Slayer, Bone Mail, and Ashen Bone Mail armors should now be functioning on progression servers.
– Druid armor quests that produce “Moss Toe” armor can now be completed on progression servers.
– Erudite Abattoir Initiate, Fell Blade, and Templar of Fright armor recipes have been enabled on progression servers.
– Gnome Plague and Initiate’s Watchmen armor recipes have been enabled on progression servers.
– Restored some missing gnomish newbie armor quest givers to progression servers.
– Half Elf/Wood Elf quests for Emerald Novice armor should now be functioning on progression servers.
– Halfling Thorn Mail and Bravefoot armor recipes have been enabled on progression servers.
– High Elf Art Keepers and Sylvan Initiate armor can now be created on progression servers.
– Human Coalition Trader, Sturdy Workman, Dismal Knight, Scourge Warrior, Scourge Sorcerer, Rage Sorcerer, Songweavers, Pestilence Priest, and Dismal Warrior armor recipes have been enabled on progression servers.
– Ogre quests for armors of Protection, Darkness, and War should now be functioning on progression servers.
– Troll armor quests for Da Bashers should now be working on progression servers.
– Krivn S`Tai has returned to progression servers.
– Some missing kobold parts have been restored to Toxxulia.
– Returned some creatures that were not spawning properly in the Butcherblock Mountains on progression servers.
– Restored some missing NPC spawns in Lavastorm on progression servers.
– Gnomes can now complete the quest for the Plague Raiser Mace on progression servers.
– Andara C’Luzz has been returned to her post on progression servers.
– Brunnel Kegstander is now available on progression servers.
– Wendel Deeppockets has returned to progression servers.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– Saltpeter is now available in the Lavastorm Mountains.
– Increased the size of the obsidian building blocks to match other building block sets.
– Added /kickplayers, a new command that allows expedition leaders to kick everybody from the dynamic zone and shared task leaders to kick everybody out of the shared task, which results in them also getting booted form the dynamic zone associated with the shared task.
– Usage:
– /kickplayers task — Removes all players from shared task and also removes them from the associated dynamic zone.
– /kickplayers exp — Removes all players from the expedition, including players not currently in the dynamic zone.
– Fixed problems with looting rights.
– Polls: Implemented the ability to teleport to winners of real estate polls.
– Fixed a crash bug when a PvP player’s infamy changes and becomes tied with more than 4 other players.
– Fixed a few boat bugs that caused players to drop into the water, drop on the boat and take falling damage, disconnects when zoning on a boat, and the “rubber band” effect when riding with other players on a boat.
– You will no longer need to completely exit out of the game when you get extra character slots.  They will be available to you the next time you enter character select.
– Added in Rotate Yard combobox to the Layouts tab of the Real Estate Items window.  This allows you to choose which direction you want a yard facing in when it is loaded.  Also updated the Layout help page with info on the Rotate Yard option.
– Fixed some minor memory leaks related to spells.

*** UI ***

– Long tool tips will now wrap to multiple lines.
– The item display window has been updated to display total skill mod information.
– In the real estate items window, if a full stack is moved it will remain selected, or the stack it is combined with will become selected.  However, if only part of the stack is moved, the remaining portion of the stack will remain selected.
– Fixed an issue that was not allowing the results of closed non-real estate polls to display.

– Added –
EQUI_NameChangeMercWnd.xml
EQUI_NameChangePetWnd.xml

– Changed –
EQUI.xml
EQUI_Animations.xml
EQUI_CharacterCreate.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

– The First Creation – The Creation should leave a corpse more reliably.
– The Mechamatic Guardian has a limiter on the number of steamworks it can command at once.  It will no longer process damage if this limit is exceeded.
– Reduced the spell resistances and the resistance to combat abilities on the Mechamatic Guardian.  It should also return to where it belongs if pulled or pushed away.
– Increased the number of adds that spawn during the 12th Anniversary Mechamatic Guardian event by 25 to 33 percent per wave.
– Fixed the bug with the “Stealing My Life Back” mission that prevented updates for killing an angry helibot.
– Removed NPCs and some quest rewards that were appearing too early on progression servers.
– The rare items required for the Hunt for Shards task have been made more common, and more shards will be up at once.

– The EverQuest Team

Nomadic Gamer