Five brave souls decided to venture forth together into Destiny of Velious instances for the first time ever. We didn’t take a ‘proper’ group, we’re not properly geared, and we died more then any “regular” group would have put up with – but in the end none of that mattered, and we finished off Hold of Rime: The Ascent, as well as Hold of Rime: Forgotten Pools. The group consisted of myself (as Stargrace, my defiler), Ibeogur (our tank, a berserker), Hamal (assassin), Shamah (another assassin), and Razzelle (illusionist). The illusionist had JUST gotten to 90, and has slightly over 100 aa. The rest of us are wearing a mix of TSO/SF/DoV gear and I had never been to the zones before, so I knew it would be a great experience.
We found our groove pretty quickly, we’ve all been guild mates for a few years now and have all just wandered back to EQ2 individually after some time away. The best part is that no matter how many times we died (those plants, in Pools? We died. A lot. We had to repair) no one got mad or angry, we just revived and went off to try again. Eventually we took them down. Since we were one person short and slightly inexperienced it was slower then normal but I got a handful of upgrades, my shadowknight alt got some upgrades, and a few bits and pieces dropped for both hamal and ibeogur. Sadly the illusionist didn’t see any new gear even though he could have really used it, but that’s the way RNG (random number generator) works.
A few things about DoV – number one, I think it’s one of SOE’s better expansions despite the fact that it released 3 months later then usual and with only half the content expected. I’m enjoying it a lot more then TSO (The Shadow Odyssey) and SF (Sentinel’s Fate). The expansion really does have something for every type of gamer (as long as you’re max level – be it in crafting or adventuring). There’s solo game play (and LOTS of it), group game play, raiding, crafting, exploration, etc. Public quests work a lot better now and I don’t constantly freeze any more. In fact as long as I change my settings to the lowest possible I have 0 lag at all. If I leave them up where I typically play at (2nd highest settings available by default) I do experience some stutters. But on smaller raids I’ve managed just fine. The zones are pretty (although some are incredibly buggy) and while there are still a lot of issues with things I am able to look past them and experience the expansion for the portions that I enjoy.
In 5 more days I’ll be able to complete (ie: start) my prayer shawl. I’m slowly working up my Forgemaster faction, +1,500 faction a day. I need to get to 40,000. I’ve also been working my Ry’Gorr faction although that one is much more of a pain to work on. My one saving grace is that every day you can earn 4 faction tokens that turn in for 500 faction to an adventure faction of your choosing (by participating in public quests, they’re the cloudy gems you get) so I’m just a smidge away from 20,000 faction. I need a lot more in order to unlock the nicer items. I know it will come with time, but it’s a slow grind.
I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, no matter where you spent it! Happy gaming!
I agree that DoV is one of EQ2s better expansions. I was a bit disappointed that Ascent did not capture Velketor’s Labyrinth feel from EQLive but it has its own charms. Lord Bob is annoying. I try to avoid doing pools because of him. Then again, he isn’t as hard as he used to be.