June 2011

Puzzles, Warfronts, and Rifts – Oh My! #Rift

stargrace June 6, 2011 1 Comment

Ah, how I love trying to figure out the puzzles in Rift. I have done a handful of them now, the one pictured above happens to be in Stillmoor – and I can’t actually open my reward from it until I hit 45, which I’m four bubbles away from. It was a fun puzzle, and I had even more fun plunging to my death before hand as I hunted the mountain side for cairns to loot. I stumbled into one and received another container that I can’t open until 45, along with a handful of goodies from a Rift I participated in.

The cleric is now level 44 (as I already mentioned) and although I thought leveling was going to slow down it hasn’t at all. I’m still averaging a level or two a day depending on how much I play, and I expect I’ll be 50 before the end of next weekend. I have also spent some time on my alts, although it has mostly been to craft. My level 14 rogue is a level 260 Outfitter, the 13 mage is a 250 Apothecary. I’ve been sending all of my cloth and leather to the Outfitter to make gear for my mage to runebreak, and got a few skill ups in that as well. I do also have a warrior sitting at level 2, and I’ll probably level her up to the same range as the other two alts before too long. It’s always nice to have a selection to play.

When I was bored of rifts and questing yesterday I decided to queue for some Warfronts. We won two instances of the snow-covered one (name escapes me at the moment) and lost The Black Garden (the one with the fang you have to capture). In fact I don’t think my cleric has ever won that Warfront. Guardians always seem much better then my defiant counter parts in these.

The guild hit level 6, and our goal for this week is to collect 150 artifacts. I think we’re up to 50 or so now, which isn’t too bad. Considering the guild only has a handful of active players, I’m quite pleased. One black mark on the weekend was that a guild mate had her account hacked, and the hacker decided to spend their time spamming open channels with web sites for gold selling. Honestly, how is that a good marketing ploy? Why would someone buy gold from you if you’re using hacked accounts to advertise? It just doesn’t make sense to me. Turns out that she was not the only one hacked, there were reports of numerous friends-of-friends being hacked over the weekend and also being used to advertise for this web site. Not good. Thankfully we were able to contact her by phone (my guild mates are mostly from my old EQ2 guild and are quite close) and her husband was able to kick the hacker off the account but Trion was also contacted and they locked the account until she could call and confirm it was hers on Monday. Fingers crossed that it will all work out.

I hope everyone else had an amazing weekend, no matter where you found yourself. Happy gaming!

Nice Try, Guardians of Stillmoor #Rift

stargrace June 4, 2011 No Comments

I thought my leveling would slow down in the 40’s but as of yet it hasn’t. My cleric is level 43, and I spent most of my evening yesterday following a level 50 (the other half of course) around Stillmoor while an invasion went on. It was nice to see players taking part in this again, as my lower level rifts have been sorely neglected while I’ve been leveling up. One very interesting thing happened throughout the evening though.

I play on a PvE server – however you can flag yourself for PvP four ways. Number one, manually do it. Number two, attack a PvP flagged guardian (their name will show as yellow to you, and once you yourself are flagged their name shows as red), number three attack a guardian NPC and number four, queue for a warfront (although you will not be flagged when you leave). The final boss of this invasion happened to be fairly close to a guardian outpost, and so the guardians thought it would be just swanky if they pulled the boss to the center of their outpost. While I did not attack any guards, I was using AoE heals (and I imagine that a lot of players were using AoE attacks in general, which hit NPC unintentionally) and using those AoE heals on PvP flagged players meant that before too long I was also flagged PvP. The second the invasion boss fell the guardians rushed forward to take down those who had been flagged and of course since I was only level 42 at the time I turned tail and ran like heck for my own nearest outpost. Then once I was in the safety of the guards I gated back to Meridian where I waited for the flag to expire while working on some dailies. Better luck next time!

On a semi related note, I was wandering around Iron Peak and I noticed a tear that I couldn’t open. I had no idea what that meant so after asking in guild and looking on my map I noticed I had stumbled into my first raid rift. Moving around the corner I noticed a raid force (two groups) of guardians were gathered at an expert Rift, another that I had never seen before. The mobs to this rift were level 52, far beyond anything that I could successfully hit – but I do have one proc that seemed to work when I was attacking. So I stood a very safe distance away and pinged an attack or two off on their raid encounter. When the rift was completed (nice job guys) I also received rewards for “participating” even though I doubt I barely did 500 damage total. It was a fun way to spend a few minutes, and I earned a handful of planarite to go along with my adventures. I admit now, the Guardians seem to best the Defiants (at least on my server, and Warfronts) at everything we do. Perhaps once I make level 50 I’ll see what the other side has to offer.

Before the invasion took place in Stillmoor I also had the chance to partake in my first crafting rift. These are spawned with a special lure that you can obtain once a week via a crafting quest. They’re not easy to make, but the crafting rifts are open just like regular rifts so all participation is noted. I hope to tag along on more of them. The rewards were really nice (it was a weaponsmith rift but I still got rewards based on my own craft). I also managed to win a minor catalyst (I believe that’s the name, I’m probably wrong. It’s one of those purple named yellow swirly bits for combines) and a whole lot of other goodies. I’m looking forward to making use of them as I continue leveling up. Right now I’ve got the ability to harvest in Stillmoor but my adventure level leaves much to be desired. It’s no fun harvesting in areas with level 50 mobs when I can’t actually attack them and do any damage.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself! I hope everyone has an amazing weekend.

Dungeons Galore #Rift

stargrace June 2, 2011 4 Comments

With yesterdays changes to the ‘looking for dungeon’ tool (upon completion players will now receive a chest with blue gear for their level inside) it was much easier to get into a dungeon. There are still a few things about the tool that I’m uncertain about – for example, some how I landed in Runic Descent with a level 50 in my group, even though they can’t queue for this dungeon (it ends at level 47 for queues). I wasn’t about to complain as having level 50 dps is always nice, but it was still odd. I did a few dungeons last night as the healer and it was actually a lot of fun so long as I ignored most of the group chat. I swear, I’ve never seen so many players want to wave their own e-peens around at one time. It’s a wonder they didn’t knock each other over. One player spent the entire dungeon bragging to the tank about his awesome alts gear, and then said that he had won “that exact shield” in a previous run – and then the tank received the server first message upon looting it. Woops. Foul Cascade and Runic Descent were two of the dungeons I ran, although Foul Cascade was well below my level and didn’t reward me with any experience, I did still get the blue chest at the end of the run.

I also went incredibly broke once I hit level 40 – I picked up my new 90% run speed mount. I love this mount so much. I doubt I’ll save up enough by level 50 to afford the final mount, but eventually I should be able to. I would have had a lot more money had it not been for the fact that I spent most of it on crafting recipes the day before. Crafting is an expensive prospect.

Now I’m on the last 10 levels to 50, and questing in Iron Peak. Last night I participated in a massive invasion that was going on – where giant swarms of mobs wiped out all of my quest hubs and most of the mobs I needed. Annoying. The most difficult part was that this zone is occupied by both Guardian and Defiant, so I spent half of my fights trying to heal whomever was beside me only to realize it was an unflagged Guardian that I couldn’t affect. I wish non-flagged Guardians had their names show up as a different colour then blue, so that I didn’t think they were on my team. In any case I received an ancient shard for participating, and then groaned when I realized just how many of those I’ll need in order to purchase anything from the rare planar goods merchant. I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. I absolutely love the look of this zone. The windswept snow covered areas are a nice change to the calm rolling hills and forest that I have spent most of my later 30’s surrounded by. I’ve been averaging two levels a day, but I imagine that will slow down now that I’ve hit the 40’s. I’m also really looking forward to finally being able to participate in some guild activities. Everyone has been at 50 for a little while now, and I want to play too. In the mean time, I’m deciding which alt to work up next. Tank maybe? We’ll see!

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.