Nomadic Gamer

August 2011

Gaming

Rift Extends Their Half-Birthday Celebration #RiftGame

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Half Birthday Bonuses Extended!

UPDATE 8/30: We know many of you have been weathering out the storm on the east coast – so we’re keeping the subscriber bonuses turned on an extra week, you now have until September 6th to enjoy all the bonuses to XP, Guild XP, Favor, Prestige, Planarite, and dugeon & raid currencies. Have fun!

Another indication that you’ll never be able to satisfy everyone in any game, ever. There are a few posts on the birthday celebration thread complaining about the bonus that Trion has set out for players because experience (and rewards) are a bit too much for them. These players feel that the game is being made too easy, and I can see where they’re coming from as there’s no way to reduce your experience gain (a-la EQ2 for example, with the ability to turn off quest and leveling experience). On that same subject I really think it was nice of Trion to extend these bonuses for those who have been without power due to hurricane Irene these past few days, allowing them the chance to partake. Personally? I’m excited, I wanted to get my mage a few more levels (30 would be grand) and I’m having fun earning guild experience and doing rifts where the planarite is more then I’ve ever seen before. Does it diminish how difficult the game is? Not for me personally. It’s not making dungeons any easier, and while it is nice to be getting bonus plaques on a steady basis from raids (and dungeons) I can earn them with my guild bonus to begin with (which incidentally does not stack with the birthday celebrations) so I don’t personally feel that it’s too over powered. The only instance where I feel it MIGHT be a bit too much is in PvP – but then there’s a large patch coming to change PvP gear to be less relevant to PvE which I’m all for. I don’t think players should be able to grind to rank 8 in PvP and use that gear to raid in PvE (sorry guys).

I finished off a guild quest yesterday and it boosted us half way through level 10 which I was happy to see. Today quests re-set and I’m hoping we get an easy one (guild consists of three members) and I’m looking forward to doing my crafting weeklies as well as (queue the music) obtaining my dragon tear mount – today I should be able to level it to 50! Finally. Excited? Yes, yes I am.

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful week, no matter where you find yourself. Happy gaming!

Gaming

A Day of Dailies

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I’m not going to sugar coat it, yes, I’m avoiding EQ2 at the moment. The latest game update has me so incredibly discouraged that instead of logging in I’ve been finding other things to do – oh, except I can’t actually log in because my guild hall is one of many affected by a bug that prevents anyone from entering / loading the hall. I already petitioned once to free my characters and then was met by the bug a second time later on in the weekend. Even if I wanted to play, I wouldn’t be able to. I’m hoping that with today’s patch more things get fixed, and as my sadness with GU61 dies down I’ll find the desire to play. In the mean time – Rift!

Yesterday I took the day to meander around and work on little odds and ends that had been collecting in my quest journal. I finished off the major chain in IPP, and then farmed Rifts for dragon tears and guild quest updates (as well as planarite, I’m trying to save up 25k). I did my daily PvP quests, DRR, daily crafting quests, daily IPP quests, and daily dragon tear quests. I purchased the rest of my PvP gear (the stuff I can wear at least, I’m only rank 2 so far) and I’m sporting a little over 400 valor although that doesn’t seem to stop players from killing me almost instantly in some cases. I spent the majority of my evening helping out with PvP Rifts in IPP, which was a lot of fun (despite the deaths). I also saved up enough dragon tears to purchase Gil, a cute little frog-like creature. I’m working on leveling up my mount and have another 15 levels to go which is not so bad.

I’m sad to see the half birthday event come to a close, it’s been nice to get bonus plaques while doing dungeons and the extra favor and other rewards sure have been nice. I didn’t get my mage to 30, but 27 is still a nice comfortable level for an alt. I hope everyone else had a great weekend, no matter where you spent it.

Happy gaming!

Gaming

Bringing Out the Alts #RiftGame

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I don’t have a lot of incentive to play alts in Rift because my cleric can quite literally ‘do it all’ when it comes to adventuring. The only reason I created one of each arch-type in the beginning was in order to have multiple crafters (although if I had it my way players would be able to choose as many crafting options as they want). With the 6 month birthday celebration in place there is also a 100% bonus to experience from kills, and so I’ve been playing my lower level characters to take advantage of it. My mage is now level 26, and is quite fun to play. She also happens to be a 300 apothecary, and has the ports to most of the major cities.

Thanks to a guild rally banner I also managed to find myself in Shimmersand at level 24, doing level 50 crafting rifts. I didn’t earn any plaques (blast it!) but I did get a nice selection of crafting materials. I purchased the recipe for black dye, and have been selling it on the broker for 7p a piece which is netting me some nice income on my lowbie mage. I think both my cleric and my mage have around 50p to their name now, which is no small amount for me. My rogue is still sitting at level 14 or so, I have no real desire to play that character and I’m not quite sure why. I did level her to a 300 outfitter, but I haven’t obtained the ports to the higher level cities yet, so I haven’t been doing her daily quests. Perhaps after a while I will.

I’ve been contemplating trying the guardian side of things, perhaps on another server. I haven’t made up my mind yet but Shadefallen and Faeblight both come to mind. I have characters there already, so we shall see I suppose.

I hope all my friends on the East Coast are keeping safe with the hurricane moving through. We’re getting wind and rain here in Ottawa but it’s more east then I am and will be hitting the Maritimes. As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!

Gaming

A Bit of a Rant Concerning GU61 #EQ2

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Like every gamer out there, every so often something really makes me frustrated, and what else is this blog for besides sharing my thoughts or at least getting them off of my chest. I apologize that this post won’t be my usual glorious ‘rah rah’ cheerleader version of whatever game I’m playing – but yesterday game update 61 went live and EQ2 and personally speaking it was by far the WORST update in EQ2 history, baring GU13 which was actually quite needed once the anger died down. That’s right, I said it.

To start things off the update was so bad that they have decided to re-unattune all gear (including banked gear this round) and pop off adornments (only on worn gear) and re-set aa specs once more (this time properly) today. That means the hours I spent fixing up my characters yesterday were for naught. In preparation at least I did manage to strip my main characters so that their adornments won’t pop off this time, causing me to search my bags in wonder exclaiming “where the heck did this one go!”

Those were not even some of the main issues. The itemization revamp that went live could have used a few more weeks (or months) of testing. To begin with, all Sentinel’s Fate gear is now better then DoV gear in terms of ‘extra’ stats. Players promptly ran off to one group Toxxulia because her gear was better then what they were wearing. That junky trash loot from Library (specifically a helm that constantly dropped from the first named) has better critical mitigation and ‘blue stats’ then my Ry’Gorr DoV gear. Trakanon loot was changed to legendary. The fabled charm from SF collections, legendary (from fabled), enervated and heritage quests were not revamped yet although they are probably actually used and worn as gear more then anything else that was revamped.

That’s not to say all was doom and gloom. The new crafted items added are quite nice, the new house ranking system works gloriously.

The new dungeons have already had their gear nerfed, and after I watched the discoveries going on last night it was no wonder. I have no idea what the general idea was during the creation of those items but they were better then x4 gear that people had been sporting. It’s gear I would expect to see during the next expansion, and not during the remainder of DoV.

There were other issues, too. Some leather crafted pants had a chain graphic and were worn on the hands. Roundshields (whether intentional or not) are no longer allowed by scouts, but are priest only which means the nice shield I had saved up for my ranger now sports wis and a +dps buff that she can no longer use. Forums were filled with bug reports and issues and I can’t help but feel sorry that this update ever went live. It required a LOT more testing.

Time to get back to my regular cheery posts. In the mean time, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

 

Gaming

RIFT 1.4.1 – Half-Birthday Event! – 25/8/11 #RiftGame

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HAPPY HALF-BIRTHDAY, RIFT!
* Join us in celebrating 6 months of the Ascended in Telara! Everyone is welcome – bring your friends, bring your family, RIFT is open to all with a special trial for non-subscribers!
* SUBSCRIBER BONUSES: The following bonuses are in effect: Bonus XP, Favor, Prestige, Guild Experience, Marks of Ascension, Plaques of Achievement, and Planarite!
* Check out Meridian and Sanctum where rumors of delicious cake abound.
* All subscribers receive additional presents at the close of the event!
* See the website linked above for more specifics on the Half-Birthday Celebration.

GENERAL
* The crafted chest piece, Hauberk of the Keeper, now includes way more tank stats. Finally.
* Luminescent Conch Shell effect now persists through death.
* Water Saga: Meetings of Interest: Quest markers now appear properly for the Defiant version of this quest.
* Scarwood Reach: The Bloodsilk Broodmother ambush in Infested Range now has a cooldown between ambushes.
* Fixed a bug causing some item set bonuses to behave in certain circumstances as if more than one item in the set was equipped.
* Planar Essences purchased from vendors can no longer be Runebroken or Salvaged, in line with the general case of vendor purchased items not being able to be broken down.
* LFG Group leaders using raid frames can no longer move players outside of Group 1.
* Quickening Brews now work on their correct cooldown groups. Quickening Brews now have a duration of 5 seconds.
* Fixed an issue where going linkdead would cause players to have a PvP Invulnerability buff when reconnecting.
* Having recently transferred your character between shards will no longer lock out that character from being copied to the PTS.

SOULS
* Corrected the values on the Rasmolov’s Synergy Crystals for Riftblade and Paragon that were providing more damage enhancement than was intended.
* Closing Rifts should no longer de-stealth Rogue participants.

REAVER
* Fixed a bug causing Incite to trigger Subdue.

RIFTBLADE
* Elemental Touch: Fixed a recently introduced bug that caused this ability to be enhanced by other abilities that should not have been increasing its damage.

WARLORD
* Rallying Command: Fixed this being allowed to chain its effect in some circumstances. Characters with the post-Rallying-Command debuff will be blocked from receiving Rallying Command again until the debuff wears off.

HAMMERKNELL
* Slightly reduced the hit points of NPCs in upper Hammerknell.
* Players not on the ramparts when Inwar Darktide’s encounter begins will be teleported to the encounter.
* Murdantix: Toned down the frequency of Demonic Tar.
* Rune King Molinar:
– Increased casting time of Prince Dollin’s Consuming Essence.
– Reduced hit points of Rune King Molinar, Prince Dollin, and Incorporeal Revenant.
– Reduced the damage dealt by Forgotten Steward’s Honor’s Sting.
– Prince Dollin’s Cursed Flames now hits a smaller area.
* Estrode: Fixed an issue where Estrode would not use several abilities while under the effects of Scatter the Shadows.
* Inquisitor Garau: Glacial Shield no longer has a casting time.
* Inquisitor Garau: Arcane Porters are now immune to stun effects.
* Grugonim: Grugonim will no longer reset in the middle of a channeled ability if his target moves too far away.

RIVER OF SOULS
* Reduced the amount of general population pulls in the zone.
* Reduced hit points slightly on general population NPCs.
* Herald Gaurath minions: Voidbound Rage is now purgeable.
* Herald Gaurath minions: Reduced the damage of Impending Doom.

IRON TOMB
* Expert: Bonelord Fetlorn: Will now cast Bone Theft more than once per fight, as he should!

PVP
* Favor, Notoriety, and quest credit for PvP Rifts are only granted to players who are still in the PvP Rift’s zone at the time it is closed.
* The number of Charhounds required for Stillmoor PvP dailies has been reduced. Some Charhounds have moved from their previous spawn locations to new ones on the edges of Kingsgate.
* More mushrooms should be available at any given time for Stillmoor PvP dailies.
* Whitefall – Escalation: Fixed a bug where you would occasionally not get points for a stone at your base.

CLIENT
* Increased client stability and optimizations.
* RIFT’s taskbar icon will now flash when any message box – such as ready checks or Warfront queues – pops up.

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