June 2011

Lets Hear it For the Crafters #EQ2

stargrace June 22, 2011 2Comments

I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – EQ2 caters to such a large scale of players, it’s astounding. It also happens to be one of the major reasons I keep returning to the game. It offers solo content, group content, raid content, player housing, and a dedicated craft system that caters to players who may not feel like adventuring. I spent most of my time in game yesterday working on the craft portion of things. There are numerous quests for players to do if they are pure crafters (or crafters combined with adventurers) and DoV introduced some awesome crafting chains including a heritage quest for a prayer shawl. The shawl requires faction work with the Forgemasters of Thurgadin which is a daily quest that players can do. I’ve been working on it slowly.

I have 6 out of the 9 crafters at level 90, each with the earring of the solstice completed but only one has competed the crafter weapon that came from the Sentinel’s Fate crafter chain. Eventually I’d like to get them all that item. I also (along with help from a guild mate) finished off the Clockwork Rescue craft instance yesterday – there is one such instance every day of the week, and there’s a weekly solo craft mission (all given out on the Isle of Mara).

Since I was a 90 crafter with the harvester cloak completed, I finally (after much procrastination) headed off to the Isle to visit with Qho, who wanted me to harvest for him – again. I left for Odus, and after much harvesting, and then dragging the little child around Velious, and then buying him a 6 plat souvenir (expensive!) I was the proud owner of my first pack horse. This horse works like a guild gatherer, you set it to collect supplies for a particular tier and two hours later you collect those supplies from it. I’m eager to begin tinkering on a few of my characters (what can I say, I’m a bit crazy) and I’ve got my pack horse out collecting supplies for T1 at the moment, since it’s always hard for me to find loam.

I didn’t kill a single thing, and it was a great way for me to earn achievements for quest completions, and I earned a lot of coin, some great house items, and a few recipe books. I got to explore the Fortress of Drunder which is impressive – and also picked up some heirloom recipe books while I was there. Thankfully the crafting instance dropped a Ry’Gorr pattern book for me, and I’m just missing one more.

The only other game I’ve played that matches EQ2 in their dedication to crafters (that was also an adventure game, not simple a crafting game like a Tale in the Desert)  is Vanguard, which has a complex crafting system and some amazing quests in game. I think that games that recognize the desire for these sort of things are wonderful, the homeshow channel (/join antonia_bayle.homeshow) is always bustling with people talking about their decorating endevours, the craft channel always full of questions, comments, and laughter. They remind me why I love these games so much.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Festival of Unity Day One #EQ2 #FoU

stargrace June 20, 2011 0Comment

There were 80+ players gathered in Antonica for the opening ceremonies of the Festival of Unity – 5th year running. The SOE staff had done an amazing job of decorating the festival sites (there are 6 total) and a huge thank you went out to Domino who showed up to watch, which was nice to see. I’ve always loved that sort of interaction. The ceremony was beautiful, the beginning was a dedication to Klumpp (may have spelled his name wrong, he was an ogre paladin who served Marr) who started with the idea of the festival of unity 5 years ago. There were thanks given to Tunare, and even those from Freeport, Neriak, and Gorowyn were in attendance. After the ceremony we moved to a joust event, and Wayfinder’s hosted drinks and seating for people to enjoy while watching the tournaments. This was followed by an amazing crafting fair at Windstalker village, as well as an Archery event in (you guessed it) Archer’s Woods. Afterward the Wishing Well event took place, which included a lot of awesome stories and songs told by various volunteers, while people sat in the stands and watched, attention rapt. Finally the night ended with an event called Over the Edge, which involved a lot of .. falling.

The festival runs all this week and finishes off Saturday June 25th late into the evening, there’s a schedule of all of the events posted on the festival’s guildportal site which you can find here. Tonight the festivities begin at 8pm EST with Whose Line? and on Wednesday is my favorite event – Feyiron Chef. All of the events take place in Antonica well away from any guards so if you’re evil aligned please don’t hesitate to check it out.

I had an amazing time, there were fantastic prizes and great friends to be seen everywhere. Even if you’ve never taken part of a roleplay event before, there’s no better ones in EQ2 (except maybe the counterpart to the Festival of Unity, which is the Festival of Discord and takes place in the fall). The amount of work that the organizers must have went through to insure that this event ran smoothly is one that I can’t even begin to imagine. Whether you’re a beginner roleplayer and just want to wander around drinking in the sights, or have been frantically screaming your characters history to anyone who would listen for years now – you’ll find something to enjoy.

Just keep in mind that there ARE some silent rules when it comes to roleplaying, especially on this grand of a scale. Keep in mind that this is the festival of UNITY, it’s not exactly the time to walk around slicing everyone around you with your sword drawn. Be respectful of other roleplayers, and don’t go God-mode (your character is invincible, the best at everything, etc). There are bound to be a few conflicts here and there, it happens with a crowd so large but for the most part everything I saw was pleasant and worked out well. Keep in mind that everyone has their own ‘style’ of roleplay, and just because someone doesn’t conform to yours is no need to get upset.

I hope everyone who went had an amazing time – you may have to turn down your graphic settings if you’re to visit some of the more popular events. You can find me in game and at the festival as Sharatan, be sure to say hello!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

PUG Raid Heads to Bonemire #EQ2

stargrace June 19, 2011 3Comments

First of all, a big huge thank you to the individual who donated to me via the paypal link on the right hand side – it was very kind of you, and I really appreciate it. It’s actually the first time I’ve ever gotten a donation via that link, and after 6 years of running MmoQuests it just made me feel nice. I know I don’t typically write about cutting edge news, or controversial topics, but it made me smile to know that someone else out there appreciated the time I’ve taken to write about my experiences and opinions on the games that I play, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

The Antonia Bayle server was bustling this weekend which always leaves me in two different states of mind. Number one, it’s fantastic to see such a healthy population of players – but the public channels tend to bring out the worst of people. Zones were a little crowded, which also of course brings out the worst in people. Thankfully after my many years of gaming I’ve learned to tune most of these things out, and can ignore channels pretty easily. I still join them on Antonia Bayle because I’m always waiting to hear about a guild hosting an older raid – I love to participate in those.

When I heard a call go out for people to join in a Labs raid (a level 70+ raid zone in Bonemire) I eagerly volunteered the services of my swashbuckler. I had never been there with her before and even though none of the loot would have been of any use to me, I was confident that the aa from going would be worth it (and I was right). The raid was amusing. We had a group of level 10’s tagging along for the discovery in each room and for the aa of named (even though they were too low to get experience, aa is still given). Every single time an AoE went off that group would die. There was another group of level 90’s mentored down to 80, and a third group of mid 70’s who were there at a level appropriate range. Loot was NBG (need before greed), and the tank had never been there. These days you can brute force your way through just about every single older raid (there are some exceptions, like Djinn Master’s Prism) and that’s what we did in this instance, full force.

There were deaths, lots of them. I thought that was cute. It was more or less because we room pulled every single encounter, and things like to AoE. Living against that much damage is never a sure thing unless you’re well geared and mentored down (and have an exceptional healer). I think everyone had fun in the end, I didn’t see any complaints at least.

My swashbuckler managed to ding 86 and I’ve spent a few hours flying back and forth between the two public quests in order to obtain gear for 90. I’ve already managed to get myself the fabled bp so far, and 5 other pieces of armor. I believe all I’m missing is the forearms, but a few of my pieces are the lower tier of PQ gear, which I’d like the higher versions of. That, and the fabled weapon. I also managed to win an adornment which was nice. SG is a hit-and-miss type PQ where some times we do really well (last night was a fine example of this) and then other days it’s complete failure and the raid re-sets into a lower version of heroics instead of epics. At least I’ve still managed to win gear this way.

Moving forward I need to finish leveling to 90, and work on those aa. I’d like to finish off my mythical, I need to start (and finish) to speak as a dragon. The quest has changed so that you no longer need to run around Norrath hunting for tablets, but I will still need to visit Nagafen a few times, and I need to speak the language of the giants in order to interact with his body guard. I still love how much EQ2 offers me in terms of game play, there’s so much for me to do.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

A Quiet Evening Gaming #EQ2

stargrace June 18, 2011 0Comment

The little (not quite so little now) swashbuckler is coming along nicely. I had neglected her aa points (she only had 60 of them at level 81) leveling her up, with 18 hours played – but since picking the character back up I’ve switched her aa slider to a 50/50 method that seems to be working well. She’s now sitting at 155 or so, which is well above where I was at. I also managed to gain level 85 yesterday, and I’m inching my way towards 86 so that I can participate in public quests and earn a little gear. On that same note thanks to some helpful guild mates, I finished off the fabled portion of my epic.

My play time was spent going from dungeon to dungeon which I had missed leveling up – and it was a lot of fun. Unrest, Crypt of Valdoon, and instances in Cleft of Rujark all fell easily enough. Since I have 45 free days on my 2nd account I decided to activate it and boxed my 77 fury along for the ride, earning achievements in Sinking Sands and helping to level Ultann’s new illusionist. You may not like EQ2 very much, but in terms of “things to do” it still offers me more then any other game. Whether it’s adventuring, exploring, crafting, harvesting, housing, or something else of my own design (roleplay etc) there’s always a long list of items I want to work on. Next up? Probably those poor neglected Heritage Quests I’ve been putting off. Torrent Knights is about to hit guild level 55 and I’m very excited about that.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Why Be Rude? #EQ2

stargrace June 17, 2011 3Comments

I’m tired of rude obnoxious people, next time you reply to someone who is trying to help you out – don’t do like this person did. My tell at the top was the first comment I made to the person after replying twice in channels what they were looking for (the rare for level 32 crafted gear).