2011

My First “Real” Step into DoV #EQ2

stargrace June 27, 2011 1Comment

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!

Quest of the Week: Access to Crystalline Breaks #EQ2

stargrace June 24, 2011 0Comment

Crystalline Breaks is a solo instance in the Eastern Wastes (which has nothing to do with the screen shot of Toxulia posted above, I just thought it looked awesome) that players can farm once a day for four legendary chests and some treasured. The instance is pretty easy to gain access to, and you’ll probably want to do it at least once for the aa involved. I’ve been doing this zone once a day on every character I have simply for transmute parts, and the gear inside is a nice upgrade for my characters (and the many many alts I have).

To begin access you’ll first want to talk to Orolr Throatgrinder (-644, -339, 2498) in the Eastern Wastes. He’s right beside the landing pad of the Ry’Gorr encampment. If you haven’t worked on your Ry’Gorr faction yet the little camp will be aggressive to you, but that gets fixed very quickly with this quest.

• Search for Ulart Koshgak (-1015, -344, 2406)
• Kill 7 blizzard dervishes
• Kill 1 more blizzard dervish
• Speak with Orolr Throatgrinder

• Head to the Ry’Gorr encampment, and behind the building you’ll find Rongot Wyrmrippa (-751, -343, 2786)
• Kill 8 Frostpaw Direbears (-748, -350, 3187)
• Return to Rongot, and he’ll give you the quest that sends you into Crystalline Breaks (instance is located at -758, -327, 2619)

There are a few quests you can do within the zone as well. My advice is to invis past the rock mobs until you need them (you’ll need 12), nothing sees in the zone not even the named. Make sure you kill all of the bats, killing 7 of them spawns the final named. None of them do anything out of the ordinary, and any player should be able to easily solo this instance without too much difficulty. In fact I’m pretty sure that’s why it was added to game.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

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!